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

Mojo said:
Speaking of which, just in case anyone needed reminding what the Tories and their fellow-travellers are really like, here's a nice tirade of ad-hominems from a former editor: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/c...-mr-clegg-what-about-dr-death/comment-page-1/
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The strange thing is, I tend to agree with the headline. I've found the LibDems (the party I mean - several of my good friends are keen supporters) to be very hypocritical, saying one thing at one moment then the absolute opposite the next, depending on the audience and the point they want to make.

However, if there's anything would persuade me to vote LibDem, it would be Evan Harris. The man is a thoroughly good thing, and I just wish we had a few more like him.

Did you see this comment? I thought it was priceless.

Thanks for the heads up, Cristina! Now I know to cheer for the LibDems. I want to know that if I end up in a vegetative state, I’m given a peaceful death rather than my own Telegraph column.
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Rolfe.
 
Personally I think the LibDems are probably thanking their lucky stars they junked some of their more ambitious polices - they might now find themselves in the position where they have to deliver on them!
 
Rolfe said:
The strange thing is, I tend to agree with the headline. I've found the LibDems (the party I mean - several of my good friends are keen supporters) to be very hypocritical, saying one thing at one moment then the absolute opposite the next, depending on the audience and the point they want to make.
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Do you have any examples of this?
 
The one that most springs to mind is their attitude to the PR system for the Scottish parliament. They're very keen on PR and they were very keen on the system used at that election. This is a mix of directly elected constituency MSPs, on a first-past-the-post system, and MSPs from regional lists to make up the proportionality.

Then, after the election, where it so happened that nearly all their MSPs (and Labour's) were constituency-elected, while most of the Conservative and SNP's were list-elected, they started denigrating the list MSPs in the most vitriolic terms, calling them second-class and "not real MSPs" and things like that.

I had quite a few more examples at one time, but I've managed to put them out of my mind.

Rolfe.
 
Is that what they're really intending though? I can't find the article now, but I read that their actual manifesto statement didn't boil down to much saving at all.

Oh, and whenever the SNP make that commitment, they get slated for causing job losses at Faslane, so goose and gander sauce and all that.

Rolfe.
 
Lothian said:
£97,000,000,000.00 on Trident's replacement divided by 40,000,000 people of working age = ~ £2425 per taxpayer
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:)

One that report is from Greenpeace and is at quite a variance with the actual reported figures, plus of course that amount is not all spent at once in the same year so scrapping it would only save (to use your figures) some £2425 over a what 10 years or so?
 
Just gone back to their manifesto and they state this about Trident:

Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons
system. At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime it is unaffordable, and
Britain’s security would be better served by alternatives. We support
multilateral nuclear disarmament and will ensure that the UK plays a
proactive role in the arms reduction talks starting later this year.
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But I don't think they've counted on savings from that in their table at the back.. can't see it the only defence cut commitment is "Scrap Eurofighter tranche 3B" and that doesn't save anything until 2012/13.
 
If you put Trident's replacement at the more conservative (With a small 'c') figures of around 20 Billion, that works out to about £500 per taxpayer. Over 10 years that gives them about 50 quid a year.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Do the Lib Dems support the NI increase?
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No - but they won't not implement it... :D

...snip... While it will be impossible to remove the Government’s tax rises while the deficit is so huge, the increase in National Insurance Contributions is a damaging tax on jobs and an unfair tax on employees, so when resources allow we would seek to reverse it.
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I don't really see how an extra £15 for hiring an employee can be a jobs killer. The cost to M&S would be only about 10Mil, wheras the M&S executive's salary is 15Mil!
 
I was surprised to see the Lib Dems hopping with the Tories on Council Tax freeze. Is that across the board, or just for those in a lower band? Strikes me as an excellent fair tax, as those with larger properties rely on more state protection for their property than those in lower bands.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
If you put Trident's replacement at the more conservative (With a small 'c') figures of around 20 Billion, that works out to about £500 per taxpayer. Over 10 years that gives them about 50 quid a year.
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The first rule of army procurement, take their estimated figure and treble it. Take their estimated finish date and double it... :)
 
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