The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[SNova]

'kin hell. Hitchens is an absolute bel end.

Says things as it is. I don't like him in the sense of I'd like to go have a pint with him though.

 

[Walken]

Says things as it is. I don't like him in the sense of I'd like to go have a pint with him though.

he says things as he see's them, contrary to his own belief he isn't an encyclopedia

 

[Pienaar's gloves]

Why? Polls show the majority of the UK agrees with this. Especially to places such as India who have space programs.

I'm up for spending it better, but we are a rich country. We should share some of our wealth to help those less fortunate.

Also, Britain explored the world, used its resources, brought about the slave trade and then effed off.

Time we gave something back to the billions of people who live in the countries whose resources we used to ensure our relative wealth.

 

[roydo]

I'm up for spending it better, but we are a rich country. We should share some of our wealth to help those less fortunate.

Also, Britain explored the world, used its resources, brought about the slave trade and then effed off.

Time we gave something back to the billions of people who live in the countries whose resources we used to ensure our relative wealth.

We certainly have a responsibility to adhere to. Both as a huge economic power, relatively speaking, and as an ex imperial power. Glad we take both aspects seriously.

 

[bigbadjeff]

Galloway will always have my respect for his stance on Israel/Palestine alone. In previous years he was often on a one man crusade on QT whenever it came up for discussion.

Sorry, but with due respect to you, no time for that lizard of a man and his cranky politics

 

[SNova]

he says things as he see's them, contrary to his own belief he isn't an encyclopedia

Well yes but he isn't afraid to express his views on either of the two main parties.

 

[SNova]

I'm up for spending it better, but we are a rich country. We should share some of our wealth to help those less fortunate.

Also, Britain explored the world, used its resources, brought about the slave trade and then effed off.

Time we gave something back to the billions of people who live in the countries whose resources we used to ensure our relative wealth.

The slave trade was about well before britians empire, the Greeks etc had slaves. We did advance it though through ships and technology. We were the country to abolish it as well tbf. Not sure how it relates to foreign aid since the countries we got slaves from made money from it.

 

[davek]

People complaining about the possibility of the SNP having any say should remember that this has only come about because of the Establishment's refusal to reform the voting system.

From the Vice Article I linked to earlier.. (long but worth a read)

Things could have been different. In 2012 the Tories, and some Labour MPs, blocked moves to reform the House of Lords and move it to a predominantly elected system. Westminster first acknowledged the need to do so over a hundred years ago in the Parliament Act 1911. Unwilling to let go of their power to give their mates Peerages, and with outright contempt for democratic norms, the Tories killed the Bill. As a result the Lib Dems blocked Tory plans for reforming the constituency boundaries – vital in a system as warped as first-past-the-post. The remaining boundaries give Labour a big inbuilt advantage – they can get more seats even with fewer votes than the Conservatives. By refusing to allow even entirely orthodox, run of the mill democratic reforms – like an elected second chamber – and therefore causing a Lib Dem backlash, the Tories may have put the final nail in their own coffin.

In 2011, the Conservatives had ruled out a referendum on genuine voting reform – a system of proportional representation, as the Lib Dems and reformers wanted. Cameron allowed only a vote on AV – another majoritarian system that is only marginally better than FPTP. Seats and votes would still be wildly out of synch, tactical voting and safe seats would continue (Labour, it should be noted, were only too happy to assist the Tories in killing the reform for similarly self-interested reasons). Again, Cameron shut down a basic democratic request – that the seats a party gets are in proportion to its votes – in the interests of his party.

As the polls stand now, the Tories have 35 percent, UKIP 13 percent and the Lib Dems 9 percent, a combined share of the vote of 57 percent. In a proportional, democratic system, they would have around 57 percent of the seats – they'd have a majority, assuming Clegg could be persuaded to work with Farage. Given Clegg's history, it seems a fair shout that another sniff of power would happily make up for any personal queasiness, and he has made quite plain in interviews he would rather work with the Tories than Labour. Even were Clegg to stand firm, a straight Tory UKIP coalition is only a couple of percentage points away under a proportional vote.

Assuming either of the above, Cameron would have remained Prime Minister. What's interesting about the proposition is that in the AV referendum the Conservatives and the right-wing press, to the last, backed first-past-the-post. The press are staunch opponents of more democratic voting systems because the current mess gives them considerable leverage, and more representative government would likely be much tougher on corporate power – something their billionaire proprietors are naturally keen to avoid. Yet as things now stand, the old defence of first-past-the-post – that it provides "strong government" – has melted away. For the second time in five years the system will have delivered a hung parliament.

Early in the Coalition, Cameron changed the law to effectively lock himself in as Prime Minister for a full five years, fearing a breakdown in the Lib-Con coalition. Changing the rules in his Fixed Term Parliaments Act, he blocked an early election by ensuring governments have five year terms. To trigger an early election, a two-thirds majority in the Commons is now required, rather than a simple majority. A vote of no confidence could still be lost with a simple majority, triggering an early election, but this seems now the only plausible way to cut short a five year term. If Miliband gets in, the same rules will apply – he will be locked in too, and Conservatives will have to put up with him.

The Tories look set to be hoist by at least three of their own petards – failing to secure boundary reform, blocking a referendum on Proportional Representation and the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

Understandably, the right-wing press are now apoplectic. They have spent years hammering Miliband – he is a joke, a geek, he can't even eat a bacon sandwich. It is not possible for the public to elect him. But it looks they will. That he will be propped up by the SNP turns the unsightly into the obscene. They're not going to accept it.

Adam Ramsay wrote some weeks ago that the press would attempt a "coup" in such a result, and demand Cameron remain as leader of the party with "the most seats". But that's not how things work in Britain – the Prime Minister is the person who can command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons, even if that means making a coalition with another party or forming minority government. What the press are now trying to do, and have been doing for weeks, is lay the ground for stopping Miliband forming a minority government. First, they and the Tories led repeated demands that Miliband rule out a formal coalition with the SNP – a party that will have around 50 seats in the House of Commons, democratically elected. Miliband caved and ruled it out.

The next stage is convincing the public that Sturgeon and the SNP are nationalist sociopaths who want to destroy us all – even a Labour minority propped up by the SNP (as opposed to a formal coalition) is, in Cameron's terminology, "despicable". On the 10th of April, the Mail even ran a poll asking whether the SNP should be able to partner only with the party with most seats – testing the water for whether the public could be convinced that the Tories had a constitutional right to govern and an SNP-Lab alliance was illegitimate. A ridiculous notion, but they did the poll all the same. That's how desperate things are getting. And things are now starting to spiral.

In the Mail on Saturday, you could see the cogs painfully turning. Headlines included "STURGEON HOLDS BRITAIN TO RANSOM" and "Scotland has lost its marbles". In its editorial, it said, "a terrifyingly plausible vision is looming" – a Lab-SNP government, a "hideously undemocratic 'coalition of chaos'". The next page, Robert Hardman writes of Sturgeon that despite securing "just 4 percent of the national vote, she could... be king maker". UKIP, he continues, will get three times more votes than the SNP, but ten times less seats – "a democratic deficit to make the blood boil". In Platell's column she writes that it would be "the greatest democratic injustice to befall our entire nation". Just to recap: both the Mail and the Conservatives worked very hard to retain the undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system that is now causing these big mismatches between votes won and seats won. It's just that this time they're getting butt-hurt because the system is working against them.

On Sunday, the "coup" stepped up a gear. In a fascinating piece in the Sunday Times, we learn that the Queen – who technically has the power to choose who forms the government – has had to make clear she will not get involved in propping up a government that does not have the support of the majority of MPs. It stresses that we don't know whether it's Miliband or Cameron who asked the question, but there is one revealing quote from a Palace source: "Cameron remains Prime Minister but he can't borrow the Queen for support".

There's good reason for believing the real story here is that it is the Conservatives who have approached the Palace about shoring up a potential Tory minority government that cannot command a majority.

People should be in no doubt how far the Tories, the City and the right-wing press will go to get their man in. Nick Clegg is already describing the SNP's participation in government as "illegitimate" – essentially saying a democratically elected party shouldn't be allowed in government because he doesn't like them. Should a Labour-SNP majority be the outcome of the election, we can expect to hear a lot more of that, as the Conservatives try and undermine the British electorate's decision – voiced through a crooked system that they tried so hard to save – so that they stay in power.

If Buckingham Palace can be convinced – through the creation of an atmosphere where a Labour-SNP coalition is considered unthinkable – to retain Cameron above a Labour leader that can command a majority in the House, that really would be a power grab that would raise eyebrows in a banana republic. It would make a total mockery of the British "constitution". The fact that the Palace have even had to brief against the idea – that it's even a possibility to the Conservatives that the Palace would overrule the electorate – is astonishing. Yet it seems likely that is exactly what the Tories have been sounding out.

Short of some major reversals in the polls, one way or another we are about to enter the realm of serious constitutional breakdown.

Thanks mate. Thought provoking read.

It's ironic that Labour were on the Establishment team (heading it in fact) when the Scots looked like they might break away and the forces of business, the military, the Westminster political elite and their civil service, the churches, the monarchy, and, of course, the media were brought to bear in a massive crushing show of force.

Now it's the LP on the receiving end and I dont blame the SNP for enjoying their discomfort, tbh.

The scenario painted in that article of a constitutional crisis: bring it on. That's what we want. Pull the veil down to expose the ugly visage beneath and let the people of this country see what a stitch up it all is, as the Scots were shown last September.

 

[The Mighty Quint]

Galloway will always have my respect for his stance on Israel/Palestine alone. In previous years he was often on a one man crusade on QT whenever it came up for discussion.

He's one of the best debaters there is from what I've seen of him.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...rrows-as-he-is-hit-by-stress-ball-814047.html

I was in the office when that stress ball was flung. About as close to a Lee Harvey Oswald moment I'll ever get I suspect.

 

[Julius Geezer]

Galloway will always have my respect for his stance on Israel/Palestine alone. In previous years he was often on a one man crusade on QT whenever it came up for discussion.

I don't know with Galloway , reminds me of a political Robbie Keane , started off representing the working class in Glasgow , then onto the Bangladeshi community in East London and now he's onto the Pakistani community in Bradford.

 

[Seanjd]

For those of you that watch Question Time, who is your favourite guest(s). I quite like Peter Hitchens.

I'm a big fan of Owen Jones.

 

[peteblue]

I'm a big fan of Owen Jones.

I shop there every now and again.........

 

[peteblue]

We certainly have a responsibility to adhere to. Both as a huge economic power, relatively speaking, and as an ex imperial power. Glad we take both aspects seriously.

No problems about being a great power, but it's time to ditch this ex imperial crap. The empire went away a long time ago, the billions of people today were not even alive then, our kids do not deserve to be saddled with this. We give away far more per capita than any other country on the planet. It's time we spent a few bob at home...........

 

[Clint Planet]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...erty-next-five-years-heres-how-stop-happening

Rising inequality will see 1.2 million children fall into poverty between 2015 and 2030, unless dramatic action is taken after the General Election. A new Fabian Society report Inequality 2030 projects that, in all, an extra 3.6 million people will be living in poverty by 2030, with the number of children in poverty set to rise by almost a half.

Other groups to suffer huge increases in poverty include disabled adults below pension age (with 1.3 million more falling into poverty) and lone parents (the number in poverty will double to over one million).