The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[Seanjd]

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ent-tories-anti-scottish-coalition-homophobic

 

[The Equaliser]

I hope the Greens win so that there is an Aussie PM.

Sniff that.

 

[The Esk]

Gordon Brown Watch:

“They wake up in the morning thinking of how to make Scotland independent. We wake up in the morning thinking of how to advance social justice” - Gordon Brown today on the SNP

 

[peteblue]

Gordon Brown Watch:

“They wake up in the morning thinking of how to make Scotland independent. We wake up in the morning thinking of how to advance social justice” - Gordon Brown today on the SNP

The rest of us wake up thinking of how we will make ends meet...........

 

[The Esk]

The rest of us wake up thinking of how we will make ends meet...........

Simple - vote Labour

 

[daylightrobber]

Do you simply deny anything remotely positive the Tory's have done whilst making no comment about the many failures laid at Labours door?

I'm afraid I'm old enough and ugly enough to form my own, balanced political opinion and decide that neither Labour, nor the Tory's are worthy of my vote.

Do you know where Labour will make their public spending cuts and how much they will be? If you dont't, make I ask how you can vote for Labour?

There are few positives the tories have done in the last 5 years for anyone who is poor and their promises for the future look even bleaker. Some people vote on specific issues such as the NHS or immigration. At a national level the issue that concerns me most is social inequality. In my mind, if we can't work to rectify that then, as a nation, we are letting a significant number of people down.

But, I will say it again. I will not be voting for a party. I will be voting for a member of parliament to represent myself and my community at Westminster. The issues that most concern me locally are affordable/social housing, education, and the nuclear industry. (To name a few)

Again though, why should I criticise Labour and praise the tories? This is an election campaign and I'm a Labour supporter. I know in my mind where the Labour party have gone wrong historically. I have spoken at length with my current mp about it and am satisfied with the way he will represent my views moving forwards. I shall be voting for him again. This is not to say I haven't listened to what the other candidates have had to say. I've been to hustings and I've invited candidates of 4 parties into my home.

My judgement is balanced. My support doesn't need to be.

 

[The Cowboy]

Simple - vote Labour

Honest question: whether Labour or Conservative got in in 2010, things were going to have to change, financially. Things were going to have to be tougher, surely? So what exactly have the Tories done that is fundamentally worse than what Labour would have planned (or been forced) to do?

 

[daylightrobber]

Less rare than you might think. I came out of school not so long ago - 2010 - in one of the more affluent parts of Merseyside.

I still knew lads who didn't get breakfast because it wasn't there, yet went on foreign holidays. The adults at home made that more of a priority.

My flatmates Mum has always gone out on the town yet couldn't afford to keep a roof over her head when she was a kid.

My girlfriend went through most of her teenage years hungry yet her parents had income that they donated to their place of worship. In the end, my Mum started feeding her.

I know this is all anecdotal but I've certainly witnessed young people experiencing it.

I certainly wasn't suggesting that it didn't happen, but for a picture to be painted that it happens on a huge scale and that neglect is only symptomatic of the poor is a myth.

 

[Clint Planet]

I thought I explained that at the time, but in case I didn't. The state has a huge deficit, which is a tax on the young and is currently to the tune of about what we spend on schools each and every year (and getting larger).

We could try soaking the rich, the bankers and all of that. They tried that in France and they're in a much worse place than we are. As tempting as it no doubt sounds, it would appear that it isn't really all that effective. Maybe we'd be different? Who knows. We may get to find out in a few months time.

We could try spreading the pain evenly across government departments, but that didn't happen because certain areas were ring fenced. You can argue the rights or wrongs of that, but it is what it is.

That leaves the remaining departments having to bare a disproportionate brunt of getting the states finances back into order.

That's all very well and interesting and thanks for explaining again but what many of us are wondering is why should the poorest people have become poorer over the last five years whilst the richest have become much, much richer.

I'll ask you directly: Do you think it's right that, in the course of a nation recovering from a massive economic downturn, the richest should become richer and the poor poorer?

 

[The Esk]

Honest question: whether Labour or Conservative got in in 2010, things were going to have to change, financially. Things were going to have to be tougher, surely? So what exactly have the Tories done that is fundamentally worse than what Labour would have planned (or been forced) to do?

Quite simply Austerity.

Despite the claims of the Tories there has never been a debt crisis in the UK. Yes, we have debt and we operate an annual deficit, but not once has there been a suggestion from the investment community that debt levels presented a problem. Look at interest rates and in particular the Government Bond yields - they've never suggested once that investors were concerned with our ability to service the debt.

Look at the performance of our economy over the last five years. Growth only appeared when the Conservatives scaled back their austerity programme in 2012/13.

The fear looking forward is that the scale of future cuts will kill off the limited economic recovery we have seen to date, with those reliant upon Government services most heavily hit.

 

[The Cowboy]

Quite simply Austerity.

Despite the claims of the Tories there has never been a debt crisis in the UK. Yes, we have debt and we operate an annual deficit, but not once has there been a suggestion from the investment community that debt levels presented a problem. Look at interest rates and in particular the Government Bond yields - they've never suggested once that investors were concerned with our ability to service the debt.

Look at the performance of our economy over the last five years. Growth only appeared when the Conservatives scaled back their austerity programme in 2012/13.

The fear looking forward is that the scale of future cuts will kill off the limited economic recovery we have seen to date, with those reliant upon Government services most heavily hit.

So you don't think Labour would've implemented similar austerity measures? Surely even to show they were getting the house in order they'd have made cuts.

 

[The Esk]

So you don't think Labour would've implemented similar austerity measures? Surely even to show they were getting the house in order they'd have made cuts.

It was unlikely in the extreme - the 2010 Labour manifesto certainly did not promise similar cuts to Osborne.

 

[Seanjd]

So you don't think Labour would've implemented similar austerity measures? Surely even to show they were getting the house in order they'd have made cuts.

How many times have you heard the line, "clean up the mess left by a Labour"? Say it enough and people believe it. Look, it suited the Tory party down to the ground that the global financial crisis came when it did. It suited them because they could directly blame the Labour Party for any financial uncertainty. Not only that, but it also meant that they could then begin to feed the nation the notion that there was only one viable alternative; austerity. It was a sequence of positives for the Tories and the only reason they managed to scrap into government even without an outright majority.

Ultimately, their cuts have been purely ideological and often devastating. To anyone who buys the Tory line of Labour crashing the economy, do some a bit of research and think; perhaps the Tory party are telling lies. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

 

[daylightrobber]

So you don't think Labour would've implemented similar austerity measures? Surely even to show they were getting the house in order they'd have made cuts.

The thing is though was that they were getting their house in order. They were dealing with the crisis in exactly the right way.

Here's a good article on the situation from 2013

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-borrowing-got-us-into-this-mess-8601390.html

 

[Mrk]

Don't understand why everything has to be so black and white in this thread.

Did Labour cause the financial crash? No, it was global.

Did Labour mess up by allowing the structural deficit to become out of control during the "good years" meaning when the inevitable crash did happen, we were a bit f*****d? Yes.

If Labour say one thing and the Tories say the opposite, 99.99% of the time, it is safe to assume the truth lies somewhere in-between.