UK General Election on 5th May - voting intentions?

[geni]

The current economic prosperity is brought about by policies instituted under the Major government and by the independence of the bank of England NOT by Gordon Brown's miraculous economic prescience.

I tend to fell that those first couple of years when labour stuck to tory spending plans (which the conservatives have since admited they would not) helped somewhat. The country doesn't need another Thacher at the moment. On the other hand I have no intention whatsoever of voting for any party that has as many difficulties with civil libities as labour does.

 

[geni]

Why don't you admit that you will vote for Sinn Feinn and let this thread die?

In so far as they have any conventional political policies they are well to the left of old labour

 

[Darat]

...snip... On the other hand I have no intention whatsoever of voting for any party that has as many difficulties with civil libities as labour does.

Oh labour has no problems with civil liberties, it just doesn’t think we should have any.

That is the major reason why I am the nearest I have ever been to not voting for Labour (even being thrown out of the Labour party didn't bring me this close to deciding to vote for someone else). However I have no reason to suppose the Tories wouldn’t be at least as stupid. And considering the like of Fox and his views on abortion and homosexuality, single mothers and so on I actually suspect they would be even more controlling, just in a different direction.

 

[CapelDodger]

Jesus Christ!!!!!!!!
Labour????Are you going to vote for the man who runs after George W Bush???

Not me. Nor Plaid. You're shocked, aren't you?

Alun Michael MP. A man that makes Ian Duncan Smith look charismatic. Robin Cook I'd vote for, but not ... what's his name again? Not that it makes any difference; they don't count the Labour votes around here, they weigh them. I'll vote Lib Dem because I like Charlie Kennedy and they're the only party treating the asteroid threat seriously. I have nothing but contempt for Blair.

 

[Cleopatra]

I believe that it's almost impossible for a non-British to understand the British politics just because they way the evolved doesn't have a parallel!!
In the Continent political parties were the products of severe conflicts that they were characterized by blood sheds and in those conflicts large part of the population was involved so maybe this is the reason why european perceive political differences in terms of "conflict" and principles. For me, for example is a matter of principles never to vote for the Socialists even if the party I choose has disappointed me, I will cast a blank vote but voting for Socialists it's absolutely out of the question because I disagree with the essence of socialism and its principles.

The truth is that there is a huge gap between the Socialists and the Christian-democrats in Europe and it's not only a political gap, it extends to a whole philosophy and lifestyle.

UK is very far away from that and I have to declare that this is the reason why I admire Britain that much although I don't quite understand how is it possible for a society not to be defined by "the struggle of political ideas!!"

Capel Dodger, we all know that the true reason you despise Blair is because he is a lawyer.

 

[Thumbo]

By the way, that bunch of Yogic Flying twits aren't going to stand again, are they?

Nah - it's impossible to stand at the same time as bouncing up and down on your bum.

 

[shuize]

I'm taking part in a program I heard about on Fox News.

I'll be writing concerned letters to undecided British voters to try to help them decide which choice would be best.

Aerocontrols beat me to it. But I was going to suggest everyone in Ohio start a letter writing campaign as well.

 

[Matabiri]

Really? Honestly? The Conservatives are the party which had MPs selling questions in the house for cash in brown paper bags for goodness sake! This is the party that had MPs (well ex) and ex Chairmans going to jail for lying and committing perjury!

Watch the first encounter here.

Ian Hislop vs. Mary Archer

"The Prime Minister's first response, on being accused of sleaze, is to point and say, 'Look at them, they're all in jail,' and your husband's responsible for that..."

 

[chocolatepossum]

Michael Howard

Scares the bejeesus out of me. Luckily where I live I get to vote against Labour without having to worry about letting the Tories in by mistake: it's a straight Lib Dem Conservative battle.

Seriously though, Michael Howard

 

[richardm]

Re: Michael Howard

Seriously though, Michael Howard

Aye, the man who thought the Poll Tax was a good idea. When he was Employment Secretary the number of unemployed went from 1.6 million to over 2.6 million. When he was Home Secretary, he cut over 1000 police officers from the force, even as he was pledging to raise the numbers.

And people are willing to make him Prime Minister just to "Teach Tony Blair a Lesson". Well, great. That'll wipe the smile off his face, no doubt. But what about the rest of us?

 

[chocolatepossum]

Crime

The thing that really gets my goat about this election campaign is the Tories going on about "rising crime". Crile isn't rising! How do they get away with this, and why does no-one ever pull them up on this issue?

I reckon it's due to Tony Blair not wanting to appear "soft" on crime or look like he's ignoring a problem, but it just frustrates me to see politicians debating a non-existent crime wave.

When the last British Crime Survey came out I suspected it would show that whilst crime is falling, fear of crime is rising. I was surprised to read, however, that fear of crime was not high. The people questioned accepted that the situation in their area was stable or improving, but thought that the rest of the country was getting worse. In other words, the endless stream of sensationalist scare-mongering headlines from the likes of the Daily M**l and the S*n are doing their job, never mind the facts.

 

[Darat]

Re: Re: Michael Howard

Looking at the last time the Conservatives held power. After 8 years of being in office the bank interest rate reached 10.5% (peaked at 15 just two years later still under a Conservative government). After eight years of Labour of being in power the bank interest rate is 4.75%.

Yep, sounds sensible to let the Conservatives get their hands back on the economy.

And in case anyone wonders what the Conservative opinion of the economy was back in "those good old days".

From the 1987 election:

NIGEL LAWSON:
This improvement in Britain's fortunes is no fluke, no happy accident. It is the result of deliberate Conservative policy. By giving people economic freedom we have given the country economic prosperity. Without the one you cannot have the other. The key is simply this: to give to the people what is rightly theirs.

I mean they must have been happy with it and thought a 10.5% interest rate was a good interest rate - otherwise we’d have to conclude that the Conservatives lied to us!

Has Michael Howard said that 10.5% is an interest rate that he would be happy to have again under his Conservative government? I presume it is since he hasn’t said it was a “bad” interest rate back then and he and the other Conservatives lied then when they told us it was a good rate? I also presume that he would again be happy with the unemployment rates we had back then?

 

[Darat]

Re: Crime

The thing that really gets my goat about this election campaign is the Tories going on about "rising crime". Crile isn't rising! How do they get away with this, and why does no-one ever pull them up on this issue?

I reckon it's due to Tony Blair not wanting to appear "soft" on crime or look like he's ignoring a problem, but it just frustrates me to see politicians debating a non-existent crime wave.

When the last British Crime Survey came out I suspected it would show that whilst crime is falling, fear of crime is rising. I was surprised to read, however, that fear of crime was not high. The people questioned accepted that the situation in their area was stable or improving, but thought that the rest of the country was getting worse. In other words, the endless stream of sensationalist scare-mongering headlines from the likes of the Daily M**l and the S*n are doing their job, never mind the facts.

For these “stories” the blame is totally with the media, they want to sell newspapers and will just blatantly make things up, whether that is vaccination scares, photographs of soldiers abusing prisoners. Whatever they think will sell one more issue they will print, with no regard for the consequences for both individuals and society.

It's like the completely media fabricated nonsense about not being able to defend yourself in your home - no substance to it, no facts, no nothing but suddenly the government publishes a leaflet to tell people what has always been the case! Because newspapers wanted to sell more copies.

Another example is the so called immigration and asylum "problem"? What problem? Or rather what "problem" is there that we haven’t always had since we decided that if someone has had their toenails torn off because they disagree with their government we'd offer them refuge? As for immigration, well I’d like to see metropolitan London function without all that “sea of immigrants”.

If politicians are scum I don’t know how to describe today’s media outlets and not get banned here.

 

[Matabiri]

Re: Re: Crime

If politicians are scum I don’t know how to describe today’s media outlets and not get banned here.

I think it was Alistair Campbell who said that many people expect politicians to be unlikeable, but are pleasantly surprised when they meet them, and the opposite is true of journalists.

 

[Darat]

Re: Re: Re: Crime

I think it was Alistair Campbell who said that many people expect politicians to be unlikeable, but are pleasantly surprised when they meet them, and the opposite is true of journalists.

Most of the politicians I have met and that includes up to the Prime Minister are very personable, but that isn't surprising considering the field they have been successful in. The only exceptions so far have been two MPs I met, one was at the time my local constituency MP (Labour) and one was the constituency MP where I worked (Conservative)- they were both thoroughly unpleasantly self satisfied and pompous gits.

However every journalist I've met or had dealings with - well as I said I can only express my feelings by saying I’d be banned here if I put them into words! I’ve been misquoted, had words taken out of context and lies said about me by a few.


(Edited for words.)

 

[chocolatepossum]

"If politicians are scum I don’t know how to describe today’s media outlets and not get banned here."

And what I really don't understand is how people can talk about a "Liberal Elite" controlling our media! Err, two biggest selling Tabloids? The Sun and the Mail. Biggest selling Broadsheet? The Torygraph. Sky News anyone? ITV? The BBC is the only major media outlet that does not have a right wing bias.

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Crime

I’ve been misquoted, had words taken out of context and lies said about me by a few.

What did you expect when you became admin?

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Re: Re: Re: Michael Howard

Looking at the last time the Conservatives held power. After 8 years of being in office the bank interest rate reached 10.5% (peaked at 15 just two years later still under a Conservative government). After eight years of Labour of being in power the bank interest rate is 4.75%.

Yep, sounds sensible to let the Conservatives get their hands back on the economy.

And in case anyone wonders what the Conservative opinion of the economy was back in "those good old days".

From the 1987 election:

NIGEL LAWSON:
This improvement in Britain's fortunes is no fluke, no happy accident. It is the result of deliberate Conservative policy. By giving people economic freedom we have given the country economic prosperity. Without the one you cannot have the other. The key is simply this: to give to the people what is rightly theirs.

I mean they must have been happy with it and thought a 10.5% interest rate was a good interest rate - otherwise we’d have to conclude that the Conservatives lied to us!

Has Michael Howard said that 10.5% is an interest rate that he would be happy to have again under his Conservative government? I presume it is since he hasn’t said it was a “bad” interest rate back then and he and the other Conservatives lied then when they told us it was a good rate? I also presume that he would again be happy with the unemployment rates we had back then?

For this comparison to make any sort of sense, you need to assume that either:

1) the economy was in a similar state when the Tories took it over in 1979 as it was when Labour took it over in 1997, so that any differences after 8 years would be down to the way it had been run over that period; OR

2) that the state of the economy at any point is completely unrelated to the state it was in 8 years previously.

If neither of these is true, then the comparison is meaningless.

1) is clearly utterly false. For example in 1979 inflation was on an upward trend and was at 13.4%. In 1997, it was 3.1%. Source:
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-020.pdf

on 2), I am not an economist, but it seems highly unlikely this is true.

Now don't get me wrong, I am no friend of the Tory party, but it is at best overly simplistic and at worst dishonest to compare one statistic in 1987 and 2005 and draw conclusions from that about the management of the economy over an 8 year period.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Partly but it is also part of my policy of scaring the bejesus out of people so they don't allow back in though apathy that dishonest bunch of lying, cheating scumbags, filthy, vote-stealing gits that is the Conservative party.

Remember the Conservatives? The party that gave us people dying in corridors, people waiting 18 hours for emergency treatment, highest unemployment ever, highest interest rates and highest inflation rates in decades, parents copying pages from their kids books on the office photocopier because the schools couldn’t afford books?

Vote-stealing is about the one thing I think the Tories never got caught doing.

Unlike Labour:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...05.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/04/05/ixnewstop.html

Highest inflation rates in decades? Must have had some extremely short decades in the old days then!

Highest in the 18 years of Tory rule was 18% in 1980. Highest under the previous Labour government was 24.2% in 1975.

Average over the 18 years of Tory rule (79-96) was 6.5%. Average under the 5 years of the previous Labour government (74-78) was 16.4%.

There is plenty in the Tories record, and in their plans, to attack. Making inaccurate, incorrect, easily disproved claims is not helpful.

 

[Darat]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Michael Howard

...snip...

Now don't get me wrong, I am no friend of the Tory party, but it is at best overly simplistic and at worst dishonest to compare one statistic in 1987 and 2005 and draw conclusions from that about the management of the economy over an 8 year period.

I’m practising my "man in the pub said" responses!

Of course you are totally correct in pointing out my post was overly simplistic and I don't believe much (apart from the figures) that I posted is a balanced and fair representation of the issues I touched on.

However I do think amongst the hyperbole I made a significant point and I need to use more similes for my "soapbox proclamations".