Tory lead continues to shrink

MarkCorrigan said:
Quite honestly I'm no fan of the current Labour party,
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Is anyone? I've been on the verge of cutting up my membership card a few times, but honestly weighing the possibilities of governance in this country, Labour comes out on top.

I suppose one could argue that the concept of New Labour will be effectively destroyed if they lose, and some soul-searching commences before they return to the party of Attlee or Smith, but I think that is as likely to happen in Government as it would out of Government.
 
Arcade22 said:
And what issues do find to be the most important?
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A reversal of the ever creeping privatisation of the health sector

Liberal drugs policy

Ending PFI

Massive scaling down of defence spending including no new trident

Increasing overseas aid budget to 1% of GDP

Abolishment of league tables and SATs

Those are all policies that mark out a difference between the greens and the tories/labour.
 
andyandy said:
A reversal of the ever creeping privatisation of the health sector

Liberal drugs policy

Ending PFI

Massive scaling down of defence spending including no new trident

Increasing overseas aid budget to 1% of GDP

Abolishment of league tables and SATs

Those are all policies that mark out a difference between the greens and the tories/labour.
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You forgot the part that, on the whole, they are completely irrelevant.
 
funk de fino said:
You forgot the part that, on the whole, they are completely irrelevant.
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what are irrelevant? The Greens or the policies?

I'll admit the Green's won't ever win, is that a reason not to vote for them?

re policies, they'd all go someway to making the country a better place - i'm not sure that's an irrelevance....
 
andyandy said:
10 years of a lassaiz faire "market knows best" race to the bottom with [ . . . ] Leaving the country with an unimaginably severe debt burden that will constrain all social provision for years if not decades.
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How do you reconcile those two? The size of the state has grown hugely since 1997, which is one reason why there's an Athenian-sized budget deficit; hardly laissez faire.
 
Francesca R said:
How do you reconcile those two? The size of the state has grown hugely since 1997, which is one reason why there's an Athenian-sized budget deficit; hardly laissez faire.
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Laissez faire with regards to the City - our regulatory system failed on a monumental scale. The ballooning public sector spending (plenty of it on off-balance sheet PFIs) certainly contributes to our pretty dismal financial outlook - but relative to the banking bailout it's a drop in the ocean....
 
Not really. The public guarantees offered to the financial sector were indeed massive but they're not public spending. The bailouts that are include Northern Rock (don't remember how much), RBS and Lloyds (about 1.5% GDP combined I think). Plus they are capital investments not consumption (which is what a lot of public spending is), so pigs might fly they could make money.

Spending on the public payroll and the NHS in particular have led the rise in government outlays. Of course people like the NHS, but they bloody well ought to given the money spent on it (which can't be sustained). The trick here is that even if the Tories promise not to cut money to the NHS, just stopping it from increasing 6% per year will feel like a cut, so Labour stand to benefit from that (if they are in opposition)
 
I'm quite puzzled as to why the Tories lead has fallen in the polls, given the drubbing the government has been getting, the not great economic situation and so on I'd have thought they'd have maintained, if not increased, their lead.


(And my prediction is still for a Tory government with a workable majority - actual majority not stated to give me some wriggle room with claiming "I got it right" after the election.)
 
Darat said:
I'm quite puzzled as to why the Tories lead has fallen in the polls, given the drubbing the government has been getting, the not great economic situation and so on I'd have thought they'd have maintained, if not increased, their lead.


(And my prediction is still for a Tory government with a workable majority - actual majority not stated to give me some wriggle room with claiming "I got it right" after the election.)
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It may be due to the realisation that its getting to the putting your money where your is mouth stage and some people starting to look at it more realistically. Some of them may be looking back and thinking that maybe Labour are not quite that bad after all.

I'm still waiting for the Cameron morphing into Thatcher gifs.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Do they keep a constituency link?
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Its a mix of FPTP and PR. Gives you list Mp's and has invariably given us a Parliament where the parties have to work together.

It has the weird effect of seeing the SNP working with the Tories to get stuff done. It does lead however to the fact the the Tories, Labour and the Libs can stop the SNP putting a referendum to the Scottish people on independence.
 
Darat said:
I'm quite puzzled as to why the Tories lead has fallen in the polls, given the drubbing the government has been getting, the not great economic situation and so on I'd have thought they'd have maintained, if not increased, their lead.
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Perhaps the memory of the electorate isn't as short as the Conservatives would wish, and the election's getting closer. As crunch point comes nearer, people who like to complain at the current government might tend to look back and ask themselves whether they really want the alternative.

Dave
 
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