So - who would you vote for? Personally I think there are pros and cons to each party (although the Tories have more cons than most).
Labour
Pros:
- Stabilised the economy and generally made it safer to run businesses.
- made schools generally better (although this is debatable).
- have strengthened ties with the EU.
- have run the country pretty well for about 8 years.
Cons:
- The Iraq War.
- hospitals are said to be worse (especially with the MRSA scares).
- tuition and top-up fees at university.
- time for a change?
Conservative
Pros:
- putting a limit on immigration (a good thing or a bad thing?).
- tax cuts (debatable).
- promises to increase spending through cutting waste.
Cons:
- figures don't add up.
- Michael Howard is untrustworthy.
- last Tory government was badly run.
- privatised many state-run services, including railways and hospital cleaning.
- appealing the misinformed voter.
- was in favour of the Iraq War.
Lib Dems
Pros:
- Ending tuition fees.
- Against the Iraq War.
- Full integration with Europe
- Catching up to the Tories.
Cons:
- Still seen as a wasted vote.
- Never proven in running the country.
- too ready to jump into Europe?
So, make your own minds up on who you want to win the election.
"Say you're hanging from a huge cliff at the top of mt. everest and a guy comes along and says he'll save you, and proceeds to throw religious pamphlets at you while simultaniously giving a sermon." - Dustin G
" in a democracy you're not supposed to tell who you're going to or already have voted for!"
Rubbish!!!
"Get ready for another 4 years of Tony Blair. I don't think the country is ready for an idiot and a ginger idiot."
What about a lying, grinning idiot?
I'm probably gonna vote lib dem.
Reasons being:
There are many labour policies I strongly disagree with.
The main ones being the prevention of terrorism bill, ID cards, and of cause the iraq war.
I find it amaising how the goverment can take the country to war on false pretences, and yet the only people to have lost their jobs are the ones who opposed the war.
I have a deep distrust of the conservatives. Michel howard come across as someone who is certainly not telling the public everything. Howard flight pritty much confirmed it. And most of their policies are very alarmist, such as imagration and gypsies.
I also refuse to vote for someone who runs such a negitive campain. A party should tell you what they CAN do, rather than what their opponent carnt.
They also got rid of their greatest asset when borris johnson was removed from the shadow cabinet.
I like the sound of alot of the libdems proposals. And im all for greater intergration with europe. Rather europe than america. They are also the only real alternative to the other two main partys who a refuse to vote for.
Though one of their proposals worries me a bit. a 50% income tax for people earning over £100,000 a year.
But it matters not. I live in a very safe labour seat. Theirs no way my MP wont get re-elected. My vote will be more of a protest vote.
I can never bring myself to vote, it's not worth the (admittedly minor) effort when no politician can seem to keep their promises anyway. In other words, it'll be the same crap no matter who gets elected.
My opinions are slightly swayed towards Lib Dem, and if I do end up bothering to vote, it'll probably be for them.
Also, I agree with what Zane said, Labour and Conservative seem to spend their campiagns pointing out the shortcomings of each other.
I do agree with the Conservative policies concerning immigration etc, it's rediculous how lenient we are regarding letting people live in and mooch off our country. I doubt I will be voting for anyone, though.
(Also, I'd say listing the Iraq War as a 'con' is a matter of opinion.)
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
13th April, 2005 at 17:04:12 -
Labour are doing a good job (for the most part). I don't want the Conservatives (lead by Michael "I'm not going to hurt you... yet" Howard, of all people) in to ruin it all. Their election campaign is quite frankly ridiculous, too. Their little question that gets up my nose the most is the one that goes; "I mean, how hard is it to keep a hospital clean?". Gee I don't know, but I'd imagine it's bloody hard, and MRSA is said to spread not through unclean hospitals but overprescription of antibiotics. I don't trust Howard at all and I shudder at the thought of him leading the country. The only Conservative policy I agree with is the gypsy one (see my website) but I'm not going to give my vote away on a single issue - not to mention that it's a stupid issue to bring up in a campaign anyway.
I'll be voting Lib Dem. I don't mind the Lib Dem's but they seem a bit woolly in some areas, and I too am wary of their eagerness to plunge into Europe and reform the constitution (proportional representation, no thanks). I'm voting Lib Dem as Labour have no chance in my constituency but the LD's only have a 300 vote lead over the Conservatives. I don't particularly want the Conservatives to gain any more seats. So I'm voting tactically. A vote for the Lib Dems is far from a wasted vote.
Broomie's right, anyway, the UK needs to prep itself for another 4 years of Blair and Brown even if they don't want it.
I couldn't vote for the Conservatives. Their policies scream hypocricy - cleaner hospitals, when they introduced contract workers and cut funding. Immigration, when it was a Tory government that left the door wide open several decades ago! 'We can cut £240m of waste!' If it was that easy, why hadn't anyone done that before? Unless they define 'waste' as 'public services'. It's a good thing there isn't much left to privatise
Lib Dem have some good policies, but they don't seem cohesive. If they manage to become the Opposition then that would be sorted out (or they wouldn't have that capital O for long), but they don't convince me.
Lots of people complain about Labour, but they haven't done a bad job of running this country. The economy's about as stable as you can expect, things are pretty good on the world stage... the Iraq war was a necessary evil. I think it would've been a lot worse if we didn't go, mainly because ties with America ARE important and it would've put paid to any suggestion of nuclear weapons (something which hadn't been ruled out before our involvement!). It's not the perfect choice but the alternatives are far from good.
Tories for me. labour suck my parents dry and a labour MP ran over my dog Tiny when i was 5 without even saying sorry. lib dems dont have a chance... again! its gonna be a toss up between Labour and Tories. the way i see it Tories have good policies and are aiming in the right areas
-they plan to stop the dreaded top-up fee's, winning over the student population
-stopping immigrants makes all the racists happy
-im not sure exactly but they're doing something for old people.
Blair and Brown falling out? boo hoo. little kids.
Im voting conservative, Labour sucks, Tony blairs a smily, weird, fool, a chimpanzee with piles would do a better job at running the country. Being a Uni student im already having problems with my finances.
" Michael Howard is untrustworthy"
So is Tony Blair and his wide-mouthed wife that cashes in on his fame.
"Labour are doing a good job (for the most part). I don't want the Conservatives (lead by Michael "I'm not going to hurt you... yet" Howard, of all people) in to ruin it all."
Jay! Don't vote for the Tories! Vote for the Lib Dems if you don't want Labour. As far as I'm concerned they are the lesser of the three evils, or as my Dad so eloquently put it "The best of a bad bunch". My constituency (Rochdale) used to be a safe Lib Dem seat, but Labour have won it twice in a row now. This year I think it'll change, mostly due to the Metrolink fiasco, where Labour said they wouldn't build the link to Oldham and Rochdale, but had already paid have the money for admin and planning. I think the Lib Dems will win, with Labour coming a close second and Tories a distant third. As ar as the country goes, the election has already been decided.
"Labour are doing a good job (for the most part). I don't want the Conservatives (lead by Michael "I'm not going to hurt you... yet" Howard, of all people) in to ruin it all."
Too late, it was ruined ages ago.
BRING BACK MAGGY THATCHER!!!
I would laugh if I could be certain that was ironic
It'll be the tories for me too. Being one of the few here who can actually remember the eighties onwards (I can remember about 88-89 onwards) the eighties was great in comparison to today even with the troubles we had.
No cars being set on fire about 10 yards from my house (seriously! it happened last new years eve), no little shits attacked my granddads car and if you believe the economy is stable i suggest you look out of the window (or take a drive out of the country and into a proper city) as about 80% of my mates have been made redundant in the last 2 weeks (rover and some big networking company).
A vote for the lib dems is a wasted vote in my view. The lib dems will never get enough votes in this election and you are just helping labour remain in power. Anything has got be better than the last 8 years of government we have had.
Hagar: The rot set in long before 1997. I don't see how you think a government can somehow turn around an already ailing company with a bleak future (even at that time) in two years when BMW made plans to cannabilize the best bits and sell the rest for £10. At least it managed to survive the 80's unlike most of the UK's manufacturing industry.
Obviously things like the poll tax, miners' strike, privatisation and interest rates didn't affect your family in any way. 88-89 was the best part(!) of the 80's - I'm sure if you were older and remembered the rest of the decade you might think otherwise. (I didn't, but then I have first hand accounts.)
The lib dems are really trying to please everyone (im a student, but i dont mind tuition fees - Student loans, so what? they take like £20 out of my wage each month once i get a job...boo hoo)
I really dont trust the conservatives, theres something that just dosent feel right about them (they seem to be appealing to the older crowd and the people who respond to minor issues with major knee-jerck backlashes). Esp million plus unemployment.
The economy is rock solid, thats a +1 for labour. Immigrants are very friendly round here (odd yes, but who else is gonna serve me up pizza and kebabs ) and work hard im all for that if theyre sponging, kick them out. (Also kick out the natives who sponge and are just too lazy to work)
Hell i have first hand accounts too , one of my moms relatives was a miner so dont talk to me about mining.
The whole coal situation was created by the previous labour government (callahan) signing up to the european agreement of making power cleaner (i.e. getting red of coal powered power stations) any government that got in after them would have had to close the pits , but the labour never tell you that little gem .
CB i suggest you ask a family member about labour in the 70's, power shortages, strikes, and fuel shortages (there was fuel rationing) and more .
Seems like a good time to bump this topic, with the election being tomorrow.
Has everyone decided on their votes? I've thought over the past few weeks and decided to vote afterall and go for Lib Dems. They're the lesser of three evils, they seem like they have a good chance this year, their campaign relies on their merits rather than slagging the other parties off (like Labour and Tories do) and I think it's time for a new government, but one that isn't Tory.
I don't know a thing about the UK's politics, but I know that Blair sucks. But then again, it doesn't look like you guys have much of a choice. Guess the Blair-Bush tag team's going for another round of warfare
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Bloody hell, can't believe President Blairs got voted back in. Well I can actually, the majority of people are retards. It's like the US voting Bush back in, people will never learn.
Well looks as if everyone is going to get top up fees. I cant belive they got back in. They are aslo talking about a journey tax of 50p a car trip allegedly.
Mr Branch i dont particlary like any party but the Conservatives seem the best out of a pile of preverbial to me. Also are you a Labour party member . I used to play snooker in a local labour club, i have no trouble with real labour people (i.e. old labour) its just the current labour government is'nt labor.
Mr Branch most people dont want the conservatives? I suggest you look at the bbc map of seats, most of the country in area is blue, conservative. They actually reckon that more people over the whole country voted conservative than labour, but due to the boundaries and number of them in ceratin areas, labour won. If the vote was a vote rather than this seat based thing, the tories would have got in easy .
Being from a working class family and living in one of the most deprived areas in the whole of england (according to the local paper) i have not seen any improvement in the last 8 years only deteriation.
What really annoys me is some of my wealthy freinds, which are all labour voters. They all seem fine with many issues and taxes because they have wealthy parents to pay for it and have the attitude of "It doesnt affect me" and "the working class should also pay the same amount for such things".
Anyhow i seen the Monster Raving Looney Party candidate on the telly he had some good ideas such as making hospital waiting lists smaller by using smaller writing. I was told that the monster raving looney party originally started with the policies of making it comnpulsary to drink 13 pints of free beer a week, and removing petrol tax (petrol would be about 20p a litre!). Sounds good to me .
Hagartech: "I suggest you look at the bbc map of seats, most of the country in area is blue, conservative. They actually reckon that more people over the whole country voted conservative than labour, but due to the boundaries and number of them in ceratin areas, labour won. If the vote was a vote rather than this seat based thing, the tories would have got in easy"
Constituencies are broken up in terms of population, not area, that's why there are some massively bigger than others. The average constituency has around 70,000 eligible voters. And in the urban areas, Labour has the vote, whilst in the countryside areas, Conservatives are most popular. Also, I checked out the actual voting figures for the share of the total vote (not the number of seats):
Lab: 35.2%
Con: 32.3%
LD: 22%
Others: 10.5%
So there you go - more people voted Labour than Tory.
Thanks noodle, i hoped somebody would fall for my red herring .
Labour got 356 seats the tories got 197 seats, thats straight of the BBC.
Now on a pure percenatage if the boundaries are fair, the tories should have:
645 * 0.323 = 208.335
say 208.
Variance: -5.288%
and labour should have
645 * 0.352 = 227.04
say 227
Variance: +56.82%
So there is discrpeancies in the boundaries in favour of the labour party by a large percent, almost 62 percent. Proving your spiel about boundaries based on population to be a untrue .
I would not trust the bbc anyway, the paper said the tories had over 100,000 more votes than the labour.
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Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
8th May, 2005 at 11:26:44 -
"The paper"
Hahah, which one, the Mail or the Express maybe? You can argue about the electoral system till the cows come home but it won't get any fairer. If we had proportional representation, we'd get a hung parliament, and nothing at all would get done.
Unless Labour & the Libs form a coalition, that is... (tbh I don't know if that would still apply under PR)
I would trust the BBC more than any paper as they have to be apolitical. It's quite obvious that all papers have some degree of bias. Incidentally, what's your constituency?
"Labour got 356 seats the tories got 197 seats, thats straight of the BBC.
Now on a pure percenatage if the boundaries are fair, the tories should have:
645 * 0.323 = 208.335
say 208.
Variance: -5.288%
and labour should have
645 * 0.352 = 227.04
say 227
Variance: +56.82%
So there is discrpeancies in the boundaries in favour of the labour party by a large percent, almost 62 percent. Proving your spiel about boundaries based on population to be a untrue."
The boundaries are based on population. All those above figures mean is that is Labour seats there tended to be a close runner-up from the Tory party, that's why they got lots of votes. In Tory seats the Tory tended to have a large majority over the Labour guy. In effect, Labour's won seats were close, yet the Tory won seats won easily.
Labour still had a bigger percentage of the vote anyway. Face it Hagar, your party lost. Fair and square.
Edit: I found the actual numbers of votes - Labour got 9,556,183. Conservatives got 8,772,598. Lib Dems got 5,982,045.
Noodle: Say what you want, but a ~60% differnece from a pure % based on seats shows problems to me . And many seats labour only won by majorities of a 100. Well i hope you enjoy top up tuition fees and other such joys.
CB: Lets just say i'm in the west midlands somewhere and its been labour since year dot. Anyhow i think i'm going to form my own party whith such policies as free cheesey biscuits and tuition fees for students.
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Edited by the Author.
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Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
8th May, 2005 at 18:09:32 -
Everyone makes a fuss about tuition fees and top up fees. Seriously, it's not a big deal. If you're unable to pay the government will sub you, easy as that. We're on "low income" because my parents are divorced and I live with my mum. When I apply for uni they do an income assessment based on my mum's wages. If they're not deemed to be earning enough (30k is the threshold, which is a lot) the government pay the tuition fees. The student loan has a low baseline interest rate and you don't have to pay it back until you're earning a certain amount, over 16K or something. I even get a cash grant to boot. It's not like tuition fees have any reason at all to put you off going to uni, and they're not damaging in the long term.
I can't understand the fuss either, one issue does not a manifesto make...
The tuition fee issue is a little confusing because it changes after this year (Pete gets the old system, I would get the new one - as far as I can tell.) Universities will have a maximum fee of £3,000 per year (up from £1,200), so the system has been bumped up somewhat to compensate for this.
You get a full maintenance grant if your income is below 15k - £2,700 per year, plus at least £300 from the uni if your fees are the maximum £3,000 - and partial grants up to 33k.
The loans for fees are linked to inflation so you pay roughly what the course was originally worth, and you only start paying back at 9% of your income once you earn 15k. (And if you really don't want to pay it, they'll write off your debt after 25 years, or if you declare yourself bankrupt, though they're trying to close that loophole!)
I find it quite amusing that if you're as working class as you say you are, then tuition fees would matter very little whichever party was in power.
Very working class, no brand new ford ka or peugot from mommy and daddy. The insurance is cheap and its tax exempt. They even joke about Marina's in Only Fools and Horses, but i guess many people wouldnt get the joke now . And no lets get mommy and daddy to pay for it to go into a garage when something breaks, me and my dad have just changed the water pump, and i have lost the skin off one of my knuckles.
It annoys me that most of the cabinet got degrees on grants they never had to pay back, and are trying charge evryone even more for it. Your probably right tho CB, nothing would change .
Anyhow thats a good point phizzy. Mandatory Mullets is another policy!. I would also ban LCD digital watches, but allow LED ones from the 1970's/1980's. Education would also feature listening to The Who, The Stones, T Rex and the alike. The health scheme would involve mandatory fry ups with baked beans to make them healthy.
thankfully i got into university before the top-up fee's thing, so im safe. but i know a few people who are just going in september, those unlucky buggers. (up to) an extra £3,000 every year in debt... woo! who wouldnt want that
Labour are crap, forgive me for being blunt but they just hand out benefits like theres no tomorrow. theres a guy on my course who can work perfectly, hes completely normal but because hes just slightly deaf (i think theres a loss of about 10dB) he gets a huge paycheck from mr.blair every month, as well as his student loan and his job at macdonalds. which he spends all on getting pissed. and then has the cheek to ask his course mates for money...
this is the same PM who stopped building the Metrolink in Manchester because it was costing too much.
why cant people just be normal, stop taking drugs and work? oooh im so conservative.
lib dems might have been alright, but unless the conservative were voted in the council tax and other tax's are going to sting me for the next 4 years.
-Forbid Phizzy from posting his man whore pics.
-Make Flensostpizza the official snack of TDC.
-Bring back Circy's famous mug shot.
-Retract Eternal Daughter's Game of the Week reward and give it to Time Cogs Apotheosis instead.
-Every female klikker must post topless pics upon request. (haha, like there are any)
- Ok, you must admit that was the most creative cussing this site have ever seen -
:| omg
But I like Etarnal Daughter
:| Every female klikker should be honored a bit (they are very, VERY rare indeed) instead of being used for a sex toy.
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
10th May, 2005 at 09:27:48 -
Jay, I hope you're not being naive enough to be holding Blair personally responsible for someone who is "cheating" the benefits system. And you won't be an extra £3000 a year in debt unless your parents are rich, then they can afford it anyway, so who cares. What is it the Conservatives want to do? Charge the poor as much as the rich?
It's only fair, if we didn't want to be poorer we should have worked harder.
Also note that the Conservatives want a higher interest rate on your student loans, so you'd pay more for your maintenance. But if your parents are rich, why get a student loan? No problems there, then.
(I don't think benefits come on a cheque from 'Mr Blair', it's more like the DWP (formerly DSS))
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, one of my moms relatives was a miner so dont talk to me about mining.
.
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. And no lets get mommy and daddy to pay for it to go into a garage when something breaks, me and my dad have just changed the water pump, and i have lost the skin off one of my knuckles.
really 
