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UK - Election 2015

Craig B said:
Nonsense. I clearly mean; as long as they don't seek to determine our constitutional arrangements because of their lots of money they're welcome.
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You do know your comments have nothing to do with the actual anecdote I posted?
 
Rum said:
..not helped by the two main parties keeping their cards so close to their chests. Nobody has any real or detailed idea where the savings/cuts are going to come to try to reduce the deficit.
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Oh I am sure some people know the details.
 
Darat said:
How is that calculated?
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It isn't. It's merely asserted. This is politicians we're talking about.

Darat said:
The true deregulation of the financial sector started with Thatcher and progressed through all subsequent governments. And none of it was done in secret and there was support for it from nearly all the political parties. Labour policies are no more specifically to blame than were the Tories.
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Indeed, as I later alluded.
 
Craig B said:
Here is how wiki presents it. This was massive, and the incoming Labour government was not deterred by the debt, vastly greater than it is today, compared to GDP.
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The problem with that WP page is that it doesn't give the context of the pre-First World War system that already existed under the 1911 National Insurance Act. Under that, workers (on less than £160 per year) paid 4d per week, with employers contributing 3d, and the state 3d. This covered "free" medical benefits - including prescriptions and matyernity benefits for both female workers and male workers' wives - and sick pay, as well as what we would now term unemployment benefit. This is what I mean by saying that the NHS and welfare state didn't start from scratch - they merely built on and expanded from existing provisions.
 
The Don said:
BTW, this is the site Mrs Don took the quiz on

https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

From the profile of respondents, they seem to be left leaning in the main so it is possible that the site is hopelessly biased on only skivers and students found time to complete the quiz :D.
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Out of curiosity I decided to do this quiz. Faked being Scottish and resident at Royal Edinburgh Hospital for the postcode (yours are way more complex than ours btw). I got Scottish Greens for Crime, Economy, Foreign Policy/Defence, Immigration and Health/NHS, SNP for Democracy, Europe and Welfare, LibDems for Education and Labour for Environment.
 
MikeG said:
Darat said:
The true deregulation of the financial sector started with Thatcher and progressed through all subsequent governments. And none of it was done in secret and there was support for it from nearly all the political parties. Labour policies are no more specifically to blame than were the Tories.
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Indeed, as I later alluded.
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This is the thing. New Labour had followed Tory economic doctrine on the financial markets, albeit with a heavier touch than Osbourne was recommending. Tory policies would have made the problem (slightly) worse.

The current economic upturn is partly driven by support for house prices, which is still ultimately unsustainable. Personally, I am not much affected by the UK economy, as my employer manufactures in several continents and the markets are mainly Europe, Asia and the US. The global economy has a big influence.

People had been warning about the credit problem for a long time. (Ann Pettifor, for example) By mid 2007 I had even got round to alluding to the potential problem in a thread here.
 
MikeG said:
It isn't. It's merely asserted. This is politicians we're talking about.



Indeed, as I later alluded.
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You expect me to read everything before I kneejerk a response? How little you understand the world of teh interwebs ;)
 
The Don said:
FTFY ;)

Seriously though, I think that there is a significant minority for whom the UKIP's message is appealing. UKIP will make significant progress in areas where either there is a large and very conservative electorate (Conservative defectors) and in areas where there is a large and disaffected working (or non-working) class vote and a perceived immigrant problem. These supporters are impervious to UKIP candidate gaffes and view them as merely a side effect of UKIP's straightforwardness and un-PC approach to politics.

IMO UKIP will be an unpleasant thorn in the side of UK politics for some time to come :(.
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I hope there'll be a significant vote for the UKIP. For one, it'll rob the Tories of chances of forming a majority, and for two, you fully deserve the same kind of shenanigans in Parliament was we have with Wilders. In particular, I hope that Nigel Farage will be elected, then he'll have to vacate his seat in the European Parliament.
 
MikeG said:
Is this so? It's the first I've heard of it.
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Thanks to Rum for the link.

Yes, I knew because we had some hubbub about it last year. Wilders, who was already a Dutch MP, was also elected as a MEP and then claimed his seat. (he was on the list for the EP as a "lijstduwer", last on the list mainly to attract votes, but got so many preference votes that he was voted in).

He even went to court over it, lost, and then abandoned his claim. Coincidentally, the candidate who took "his" seat, arabist and professional islamophobe Hans Janssen, died yesterday.

ETA: And I guess it's the first time you've heard of it, because it's almost never an issue. Reasonable people don't even consider combining those jobs, as they're both full-time jobs. And also because the Council's decision came into force in general for the 2004 European Elections, but for the UK and Ireland only for the 2009 elections.
 
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ddt said:
Thanks to Rum for the link.

Yes, I knew because we had some hubbub about it last year. Wilders, who was already a Dutch MP, was also elected as a MEP and then claimed his seat. (he was on the list for the EP as a "lijstduwer", last on the list mainly to attract votes, but got so many preference votes that he was voted in).

He even went to court over it, lost, and then abandoned his claim. Coincidentally, the candidate who took "his" seat, arabist and professional islamophobe Hans Janssen, died yesterday.

ETA: And I guess it's the first time you've heard of it, because it's almost never an issue. Reasonable people don't even consider combining those jobs, as they're both full-time jobs. And also because the Council's decision came into force in general for the 2004 European Elections, but for the UK and Ireland only for the 2009 elections.
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I had thought that Ian Paisley had been an MEP and MP...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Paisley

Someone who had a pernicious influence on UK life for most of his carrer.
 
Agatha said:
anglolawyer said:
I have decided to cast my vote for the Lib Dems this time...
Also, Nick seems a decent chap. I urge you all to do the same before retiring to your living rooms to prepare for government.
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He is a decent chap*, though I think somewhat disillusioned by the way he and his party were manipulated by the Tories in the coalition. Perhaps he should have realised that Cameron wouldn't play fair.

I have always voted LibDem (well, since they formed a party, I voted Lib or SDLP before that) and will probably do so on Thursday. But there is just that tiny bit of doubt about what will be a wasted vote in this constituency.

* I have met him a couple of times as my three sons went to school in his constituency and he visited the school more than once to talk to the Politics students, plus I met him at a recording of Any Questions. Ed Balls was also at that recording, and a more arrogant person you'd be pushed to find.
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I see no reason why tom pride would mind this being linked to:

As far as the "decent enough chap" comment

lib-dem-vetoes.png

from

https://tompride.wordpress.com/2015...er-trust-the-public-theyre-deeply-unreliable/
 
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