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The Official UK Election Thread! 6th May it is!

Darat said:
Of course - they are all to make it look as if an independent Scotland would be better for folk.
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This is a strange assertion, Darat. Are you seriously arguing that every decision taken by the Scottish parliament is determined by the wish to further one issue? I think that is a bit patronising, to say the least.

There are different views about what is important and how resources should be allocated. Inevitably when power is devolved those different views will lead to different outcomes. That is the point of devolving power.

To suppose that such decisions are at odds with the wishes of the scottish electorate; and take no account of those wishes; but rather are a con perpetrated by the SNP is a truly astonishing claim.

Can you substantiate it in any way ?
 
Architect said:
So, any positive policy would only be part of a grand scheme to make an independent Scotland look attractive???
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Have you not read how Rolfe likes to spin the creation of the devolved parliament, how the SNP spun the release of al-Megrahi?

funk de fino said:
Certainly as much as ignorance can be a wonderful thing.
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I think you missed the "each"...
 
Fiona said:
This is a strange assertion, Darat. Are you seriously arguing that every decision taken by the Scottish parliament is determined by the wish to further one issue? I think that is a bit patronising, to say the least.

There are different views about what is important and how resources should be allocated. Inevitably when power is devolved those different views will lead to different outcomes. That is the point of devolving power.

To suppose that such decisions are at odds with the wishes of the scottish electorate; and take no account of those wishes; but rather are a con perpetrated by the SNP is a truly astonishing claim.

Can you substantiate it in any way ?
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You may find it patronising but all my dealings with SNP folk over the years leads me to consider that one thing and one thing is important to them and that is Scottish independence, at whatever the cost!

Now of course the above statement and my previous one was a bit of "hyperbolic" but fundamentally yes I do believe that the overriding principle that drives the likes of Salmond is the gaining of independence for Scotland and that colours everything (politically) that they do.
 
Well of course that it their overriding aim. And I presume they will do nothing that tends to work against that aim. But many things are neutral in that respect. The fact is that many powers are now devolved and all parties must have policies on those issues. They are the day to day business of government and whether the party in power in the Scottish assembly is Labour or SNP or a coalition or whatever, those things have to go on. That is what I think you are missing: perhaps in conversation with you independence is all that is discussed: and it is an important issue. But there is difference between what is happening and how you put it. The SNP, if it wishes to further the cause of Scottish independence, has to demonstrate that it is competent to deal with all the mundane parts: just like any other party. It cannot be a single issue entity because it is no longer marginal and that just won't do. It cannot only have principle: there have to be pragmatic decisions about all manner of things

If they meet the wishes of the Scottish electorate then they will become more popular and presumably that will tangentially increase the voters' acceptance of the idea of independence: but to say that is why they are doing what they are doing is unfair. Do you see the same with other parties on every issue they have policy on? Is Tory defence policy coloured by a drive to show that everything will be better in private hands? Is that why they underfund defence spending?
 
I presume the fact that I recieved my polling card for the council means I'm registered for the general right?
 
I would guess so, though I'm surprised they didn't come at the same time. I got mine (for the General) on Friday also.
 
I would think so. I got my local election polling card before the general election was announced, maybe a week before?
 
The Catholic Herald Interview with Cameron:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/articles/a0000790.shtml

Regarding the Children, Schools and Families Bill, which many Catholics feared would force schools to teach about contraception and abortion, Mr Cameron said faith schools would have the freedom to teach such issues “in line with their values”.
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It's worth pointing out here Cameron resents the 'state knows best' attitude he believes permeates in society.

Such is the problem of Conservatism, it cannot see bureaucracy unless it falls under the guise of Government.

Also:
One reader asked Mr Cameron if he believed in the Resurrection. “Yes,” he replied, “but I sometimes struggle with the big leaps.”
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A man returning from the death after being horrifically crucified isn't a big leap?
 
One reader asked Mr Cameron if he believed in the Resurrection. “Yes,” he replied, “but I sometimes struggle with the big leaps.”
A man returning from the death after being horrifically crucified isn't a big leap?
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He was talking about the Conservative Party.
 
Rat said:
I would guess so, though I'm surprised they didn't come at the same time. I got mine (for the General) on Friday also.
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I got my card for the local elections the same day that the date for the General Election was announced, so it would have been tricky. Haven't got my General Election card yet.
 
andyandy said:
The Green manifesto
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Interestingly, I took that "who should you vote for" test someone posted earlier, and apparently I support the Greens on everything except they're environmental policy. It's a shame, they've gone from being a single issue party focussed on the environment at a time when most other parties were ignoring it, to having fairly sensible policies on everything except the environment.

The problem seems to be that they're energy policy is based on wishful thinking, but ignores reality entirely. Renewable energy simply can't provide our energy needs in the foreseeable future. End of story. Wind power is a nice idea, but takes up too much space, is expensive to build anywhere it's actually useful, and is slow to build. For example, the Thames Estuary wind farm is the largest wind farm in the world. It's taken several years to plan and build, and still isn't finished, and consists of 341 turbines providing a maximum of 1GW. Of course, that's a totally inappropriate place to put wind turbines, and will actually only generate something like 1/5 of that on average. In order to provide the proposed 20% wind power by 2020, which falls far short of what the Green party would propose, we'd need to build over 20 times as many, within the next few years. Not going to happen.

Other renewables have has similar problems. Solar power is a dead loss for any kind of large scale generation in the UK. Wave power has promise, but is well off being commercially viable. Tidal power could be significant, but ironically it's the environmentalists who always shoot it down when it's considered. Hydroelectric is great, but pretty much tapped out already. And so on. There's also the problem that other than wave and tidal, none of them can ever be relied on for the base load. They all have their place, but simply aren't going to provide a significant proportion of our power in the near future.

Which leaves us with fossil fuels and nuclear. Obviously fossil fuels have big pollution issues, even if you ignore climate change entirely, and whatever the timescale you believe for when they'll run out, there can be no doubt it will happen eventually. Nuclear has its share of problems, although mostly nowhere near as bad as scaremongers like to make them out to be, but it really is pretty much the only option we have. Any energy policy that wants to get rid of fossil fuels, but refuses to even consider the only viable alternative we currently have should be immediately dismissed as outright stupidity. It doesn't matter what your ideals are, if you refuse to pay attention to reality you can't be allowed any power.

Architect said:
So, things like free prescriptions, free care for the elderly, no fees for students - they're all "single issue" things?
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Darat said:
Of course - they are all to make it look as if an independent Scotland would be better for folk.
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Except that they already have some of those same things in Wales, under a Labour assembly (it's a Labour/Plaid coalition now, but was just Labour when prescriptions and student fees were rejigged). And even most Plaid supporters don't want independence. These things do happen without having to be part of a plan to forward some other agenda.
 
Cuddles said:
Interestingly, I took that "who should you vote for" test someone posted earlier, and apparently I support the Greens on everything except they're environmental policy.
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I'm pretty much the same - i don't really agree with the environmental stuff, but the rest largely dovetails with my own opinions....
 
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