Guess what Nigel Farage is forcing me to do?

[Filippo Lippi]

wrong thread, sorry

 

[jimbob]

True, though

 

[Darat]

Very interesting, of course it's all perfectly fine and of course a slight overlap could easily be 7 years.....

 

[jimbob]

Continuing the derail - he demanded compensation, which doesn't look good to me. I don't know what the legality would be. It is a pity it didn't go to trial.

 

[Craig B]

Wasn't Salmond quite "chummy" with RBS?

He was. And seems to be regretting it.

First Minister Alex Salmond has told BBC Scotland he regretted his previous support for the former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin.
Mr Salmond wrote to him when he was the bank's chief executive offering the Scottish government's assistance in the takeover of Dutch bank ABN-Amro.
That takeover contributed to the bank's massive losses and the need to bail it out with £45bn in taxpayers' money.
Mr Salmond was speaking after Mr Goodwin was stripped of his knighthood.
The SNP leader said that with hindsight he would have done things differently.

Nevertheless, I don't think Scottish independence is at the top of the bankers' wish list.

 

[Stee]

I really struggle to understand what on earth is going on in the government myself. I am 27 living in Kent U.K and intend to go and use my vote again this May. The question is who the hell do I vote for?

I mean frankly all I see when I look at all these MP's is a load of people who I percieve as being pretty much only interested in furthering their own interests and have little concern for me and my lot in life.

I don't feel I ever get any real information as to what my vote will achieve, when I go reading around it seems like all I get is this:

Labour: Will drop us back into a recession...remember what happened last time!?

Tories: Haven't helped the economy at all and they used to protect peados in parliament back in Maggies days so if you vote for them you have a lack of moral fibre!

UKIP: Racists and have absolutely no idea how to run the country anyway.

Green: Economy plans have holes and does not add up.

Lib Dem: Will get in bed with anyone to get some power and then just go back on previous promises.

Is it possible to actually understand what a vote for one of these parties would actually mean to the average man?

 

[MikeG]

That's a terrifyingly naiive view of British politics, Stee. It really is a whole lot more important than that, and you aren't the only person fooled by the "snouts in the trough" meme with which politicians have been tarnished for years. The funny thing is, when you ask people about politicians, there is a tendency for them to say "self-interested thieves, the lot of them. Except my local MP. He/ she is really good, hard working, done a lot for this constituency".

 

[Stee]

That's a terrifyingly naiive view of British politics, Stee. It really is a whole lot more important than that, and you aren't the only person fooled by the "snouts in the trough" meme with which politicians have been tarnished for years. The funny thing is, when you ask people about politicians, there is a tendency for them to say "self-interested thieves, the lot of them. Except my local MP. He/ she is really good, hard working, done a lot for this constituency".

With regards to the parties I didn't say it was my view just what you can end up reading! The trouble for me is that although I obviously don't think that is how it is, where does you go to understand what is really going on? How do I cut through the media view and the radicals?

The local MP thing is one I hear a lot as well yes!

 

[Francesca R]

I don't feel I ever get any real information as to what my vote will achieve, when I go reading around it seems like all I get is this:

Try reading what parties say about other parties, that's worse.

 

[Darat]

I really struggle to understand what on earth is going on in the government myself. I am 27 living in Kent U.K and intend to go and use my vote again this May. The question is who the hell do I vote for?

I mean frankly all I see when I look at all these MP's is a load of people who I percieve as being pretty much only interested in furthering their own interests and have little concern for me and my lot in life.

I don't feel I ever get any real information as to what my vote will achieve, when I go reading around it seems like all I get is this:

Labour: Will drop us back into a recession...remember what happened last time!?

Tories: Haven't helped the economy at all and they used to protect peados in parliament back in Maggies days so if you vote for them you have a lack of moral fibre!

UKIP: Racists and have absolutely no idea how to run the country anyway.

Green: Economy plans have holes and does not add up.

Lib Dem: Will get in bed with anyone to get some power and then just go back on previous promises.

Is it possible to actually understand what a vote for one of these parties would actually mean to the average man?

Don't read the headlines, go and seek the full text of speeches and actual policy documents. These are quite accessible and will often be very different to the reporting. Unfortunately today "political reporting" has been replaced with "media reporting on the media's reaction to a politician".

The various parties' manifestos will soon be released, you really need to read these to understand the policies they are advocating. Often people simply ignore these and then seem rather surprised when in power they follow through on the policies! For instance a lot of the things that people have complained about the LibDem "caving in" on to grab power were actually policies in their last manifesto.

 

[Information Analyst]

Labour: Will drop us back into a recession...remember what happened last time!?

What, you mean when the banks ********** us all over? The recession is international, and not limited to the UK. How could Labour have caused it?

Tories: Haven't helped the economy at all and they used to protect peados in parliament back in Maggies days so if you vote for them you have a lack of moral fibre!

There is little concrete evidence that they did anything of the sort. People claiming decades later that "stuff happened" isn't proof.

UKIP: Racists and have absolutely no idea how to run the country anyway.

At least you got that one right.

 

[dudalb]

That's a terrifyingly naiive view of British politics, Stee. It really is a whole lot more important than that, and you aren't the only person fooled by the "snouts in the trough" meme with which politicians have been tarnished for years. The funny thing is, when you ask people about politicians, there is a tendency for them to say "self-interested thieves, the lot of them. Except my local MP. He/ she is really good, hard working, done a lot for this constituency".

Exactly the same in the US. Congress has approval rating in the teens....and generally the low teens.....but people keep relecting the same people to congress. And it exactly the same routine:"They are all a bunch of crook in Congress..except for my representive.he' s doing a good job".

 

[jimbob]

Don't read the headlines, go and seek the full text of speeches and actual policy documents. These are quite accessible and will often be very different to the reporting. Unfortunately today "political reporting" has been replaced with "media reporting on the media's reaction to a politician".

The various parties' manifestos will soon be released, you really need to read these to understand the policies they are advocating. Often people simply ignore these and then seem rather surprised when in power they follow through on the policies! For instance a lot of the things that people have complained about the LibDem "caving in" on to grab power were actually policies in their last manifesto.

The tuition fees thing wasn't.

I voted on civil liberties grounds, and given that my then MP was a Blairite drone who was useless as a constituency MP* and the Tory is actually pretty good as a constituency MP, I can't be sad that he lost. The replacement Labour candidate does seem pretty good (from her work as a local councillor). Unless something changes drastically, I will be voting for her.

*Due to a break-lining works in the constituency, there are a fair number of Mesothelioma cases - one wrote to the local paper because a (deceased) Stockport (Lib Dem) MP had accidentally been sent one of his letters and she took up his case far more effectively than Tom Levitt - he also had one of the highest expenses claims in the previous parliament.

 

[jeremyp]

The Lib Dems credibility is shot. Breaking campaign promises is one thing but breaking their 'pledge' on student fees coupled with their admission that they'll climb into bed with anyone that gets them somewhere close to Downing Street has cost them a lot of votes, I think.

I honestly don't get that attitude. Yes, they "broke" a lot of manifesto promises but they can argue that the fact that they didn't get many seats and only a small percentage of the popular votes shows that the country rejected their manifesto. Why should they keep to promises about which the country does not care?

I think they actually did a pretty good job in the circumstances, i.e. they curbed the probable worst excesses of policy that we would have been subjected to by a majority Tory government.

 

[Francesca R]

Out of power, alternative and populist parties likely attract overly transformative expectations which gives them higher popularity than they should have. In power that disappears.

To read the views of many, they would have preferred the Lib Dems to not join any coalition and remain forever removed from influence. Then they could promise popular policies and nobody would feel betrayed.

 

[anduin]

Recovery? Not that I've noticed.

Paul Krugman the Nobel winning economist says austerity is a false analogy imposed for ideological reasons because European "leaders" want to appear to be responsible when in fact they are abdicating responsibility, and that it is a mistake which has delayed and reduced the economic recovery which America has achieved through stimulus, even though it was not enough stimulus thanks to obstruction from the opposition to Obama.

And what got us into this mess was repeal of regulations and controls on banking which allowed criminals to create bad deals which they sold fraudulently, and brought the entire world to its knees as all that unfolded. The false narrative that we somehow spent too much is just Tory propaganda that Labour have sucked up to because they think the entire electorate are the tabloid press. Cowards they are.

The whole show is barking up the wrong tree, and revisionist history to blame the booming economy we had, and could still have today, for the criminality of the banks, is why we feel our entire political class are a canker on our culture.

This!

 

[Tolls]

Out of power, alternative and populist parties likely attract overly transformative expectations which gives them higher popularity than they should have. In power that disappears.

To read the views of many, they would have preferred the Lib Dems to not join any coalition and remain forever removed from influence. Then they could promise popular policies and nobody would feel betrayed.

Considering the LibDems have always been a party about compromise (how can you not be when one of your major platforms has been PR), it astounds me that people were surprised that they would compromise when they were minor party in government.

Of course they had picked up a lot of "not Labour nor Tory" people, all with their own view of what the Lib Dems were...but come on...how can you square that with the push for PR?

 

[MikeG]

As I have probably said before, but probably in different terms, only the idiotic could expect a coalition government in which there are 6 or 7 times as many of one party as the other to deliver the entire manifesto of the smaller party. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

As I have probably said before, but probably in different terms, only the idiotic could expect a coalition government in which there are 6 or 7 times as many of one party as the other to deliver the entire manifesto of the smaller party. I don't know why this concept is so difficult for some people.

True, but on the other hand you'd also expect the minor party to have the balls to use their (very effective) veto in at least one or two areas they say they are so passionate about.

The Lib Dems have never done this.

 

[MikeG]

......you'd also expect the minor party to have the balls to use their (very effective) veto in at least one or two areas they say they are so passionate about.

The Lib Dems have never done this.

Any evidence for this?

I mean, got any more than last time I asked for some and received nothing? Just repeating the same assertion, despite the evidence to the contrary, falls a little short in the critical-thinking department. See posts #74 & 75......then see if you can actually provide any support for this claim this time. Or are we destined to reprise the exact same conversation every couple of pages until the election?