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Forums - Politics Discussion - UK General Election 2015

kowenicki said:

They both did.

The public sector, welfare and borrowing under Labour grew ridiculously.

Pinning it on Labour only is redundent. The reason borrowing was so high especially at the end was because the way to fix the banks was to basically buy them out with loans from governments. Billions of it they didn't have, in the knowledge that at some point they'd sell that back to private sector hopefully for profit just like Northern Rock...wait, government sold that at a loss, oh well.

No party at the moment is any better than the other, which is why their policies are pretty much the same, this labour is unlikely to be the same as that labour. They are all within the 'safe' area of policies, especially ones involving benefits and national debt. Except with UKIP, I disagree on their main stance so they are the worse of a bad bunch.

Sadly gone are the days of Clinton US when everyone was richer. 



Hmm, pie.

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kowenicki said:

I didnt. 

But not blaming any of it on Labour is just as bad.  You seemed to be absolving them of any responsibility.

Brown, Balls and Millband were a disaster.  Balls is a very scary individual.  He is a spend spend spend kind of guy who thinks it was funny to leave a note in the treasury files saying "the UK is broke" ready for the next government on his last day.

Borrowing was at record highs BEFORE the collapse and subsequent borrowing.  The public sector had grown to ridculous levels and yet spending on health had barely changed and education hadnt increased at all.  Lets not get onto the actual privatisation of parts of the NHS under Labour that is the epicly stupid PFI.

Sorry, that was directed at/in reference to the post I was quoting before not you. No one likes Balls.

True, being in a war we couldn't afford didn't help. I disagree with any essential national services and I think NHS is one of them. Yet, Tories are the ones who want to privatise everything which is why any privatisation by Labour is odd, end of the last Tory government we lost our rail system, now we've lost out mail system. ...

 

... I think I should move. Korea looks nice.



Hmm, pie.

The Fury said:

Sorry, that was directed at/in reference to the post I was quoting before not you. No one likes Balls.

True, being in a war we couldn't afford didn't help. I disagree with any essential national services and I think NHS is one of them. Yet, Tories are the ones who want to privatise everything which is why any privatisation by Labour is odd, end of the last Tory government we lost our rail system, now we've lost out mail system. ...


We lost it long before it was privatised.

However, privatisation in itself isn't evil. However there is a better solution than both nationalisation and privatisation for essential services, and that is the not for profit route that countries like Germany use.

It's how they're run that is the most important aspect, rather than who is actually running them though at the end of the day.



RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.

I voted Conservative in 2010 but I will be voting Labour this time.

I think an incredibly weak Labour/Liberal/SNP coalition or confidence deal would be perfect. That way no one could pass anything.



MikeRox said:
DanRybacki said:

The economy has improved on paper, but I've yet to encounter a single person who's better off. Most ordinary people have actually lost money under the Tories in one way or another. Also bear in mind what they've done to improve the figures on paper - bedroom tax, taking benefits from the disabled, etc. Don't just go on what you read on the Tory website.

How are the lib dems in "some kind of peaceful utopia?" Lib Dem councils and MPs do some great work. It's annoying how they sold themselves out to the tories but they saved us from a full tory government! 

Also you mention that you don't like how Labour no longer stands up for the workers, why are you voting tory? The only people I see them standing up for are the millionnaire bosses. 

 

But each to their own.


If you have to ask that, it would suggest you aren't particularly aware of how the real world works yourself.

I'm better off than I was in 2010.

Yes the bedroom tax was a mistake. It's a good idea in principal, but no good when you have a woeful supply of housing stock.

"taking benefits from the disabled?"  Not really sure what you mean by that. Sounds like you're the one buying into what you read on the Labour website.

Lib Dems had a 2010 manifesto of utopian nonsense because they never believed they'd ever have to try and go through with any of it. Then the stark reality sinks in (even more so than normal after how spectacularly messed up Labour left the books "I'm sorry, there's no more money"). This is why they are being punished for it now. Free tuition fees was never a viable policy. The other aspect is their plan to pull all the spending from our defence to pay for nice giveaways when we're actually in the most dangerous times since the cold war. So yes, peaceful utopia.

That's not to say some of their MPs and councillors don't do a stellar job for their constituents, but their national policies are a joke.

He's right about Labour, on paper they are exactly the sort of party I would naturally be inclined to vote for. But nobody who genuinely cares about their country could ever vote for such a shambles. I would never have considered myself a Tory, especially living in Yorkshire. However the sad sorry state of the matter is, they're the ONLY option for any sane person in this upcoming election.

How can anyone bring themselves to vote for the party that not only created the perfect storm that left our economy the worst affected in the crash (you can point to Thatcher starting the deregulation of the Financial sector, however I'm sorry, but in the 13 years of labour, it was even less regulated still). But has spoken out against every single measure taken to try and right our economy, but then not proposed a single alternative way forwards?

Even now, their biggest policy is a £3000 cut in tuition fees. That will save the richest in this country £9000 on their education. The rest? They'll never pay the loans anyway so it's just a give away for the millionaires cynically directed at bribing the younger vote because most don't actually understand how the loan system works and think they'll actually be better off from the decision.

Freezing energy prices, lolz. Great idea, now less reductions will be passed on because companies know how to mitigate against such decision. So yeah, you bill will be frozen, but it won't be as low as the market would have allowed had they not idiotically commited to this.

This is without going into the PFI schemes (Particularly Halifax General Hospital) which have crippled my local health authority whether spending was increased on the NHS or not. It is a stored up problem which they knew full well wouldn't come home to roost until someone else was in power and they could saddle the blame on them instead. Incidentally, this is how Labour manage to produce those lovely graphs showing how their spending was in control. It is instead straining finances of Hospitals and Schools etc now. Stuck in overpriced rental agreements for quarter of a century with ludicrous service contracts (£25 call out fee to change a light bulb in one of our hospitals, part of the contract of the PFI).

Gordon's Gold? Genius to announce you're going to flood the market with gold. It was almost like he was trying to lower the value before selling it.

A lot of the spending cutes were a necessity, we actually need a lot more than we currently have. A lot of people suggest borrowing more to invest, however they fail to understand that such choices will inevitibly lead to interest rate rises (which we only narrowly avoided before) and our debt is so high that even a slight shock in interest rates on our debt would completely sink us.

But obviously I'm just buying into Conservative propaganda from their websi... oh wait no, it's all from real life experience. Sadly too many people casting the votes have too short a memories. I'd even rather public sector spending crashed to 1930s levels again than Labour drag us back to 1970s standards with rolling blackouts, continous strikes and IMF bailouts because yet again, there's no more money.

I'm not a Tory fan, but I think this pretty much sums up how I feel.

I guess, best of a bad bunch?



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DanRybacki said:
beeje13 said:
I plan to vote conservative because:

-They've done a pretty good job sorting out the economy so far, high employment. Yes it's been tough but blame the clowns in the red party who ran up hundreds of billions of debt BEFORE the financial crisis even happened. 

-They promise a referendum on EU membership. IMO the negatives of being in the EU far outweigh the positives.

-Continue the policy of increasing the income tax threshold. It makes quite a difference to me.


I'm not voting Labour, as they still aren't changed enough, and are not the party they used to be that stood up for the workers.

Not voting Lib Dem because they are generally clueless, they have naive policies that would only work in some kind of peaceful utopia.

-Not voting UKIP because they don't have enough popularity to form a government.

The economy has improved on paper, but I've yet to encounter a single person who's better off. Most ordinary people have actually lost money under the Tories in one way or another. Also bear in mind what they've done to improve the figures on paper - bedroom tax, taking benefits from the disabled, etc. Don't just go on what you read on the Tory website.

How are the lib dems in "some kind of peaceful utopia?" Lib Dem councils and MPs do some great work. It's annoying how they sold themselves out to the tories but they saved us from a full tory government! 

Also you mention that you don't like how Labour no longer stands up for the workers, why are you voting tory? The only people I see them standing up for are the millionnaire bosses. 

 

But each to their own.

1. I have never been on the tory website AFAIK.

2. I never said I was better off, the higher income tax threshold has helped however (I do know that this was originally a lib dem idea). But higher VAT offsets some of this. 

3. If we had a full tory government, as you put it, we would have decreased the defecit more. I acknowledge more cuts would have happened.

No party is really amazing, but I can see past a little personal hardship to support the long term recovery. As soon as we are running a surplus, we will pay off the trillion plus debt faster than you think due to the spiral effect of lower interest payments. With a surplus we will also have a greater ability to make large capital investments in important areas like cleaner and renewable energy.



PS, PS2, Gameboy Advance, PS3, PSP, PS4, Xbox One

Debate is live now on channel 4 between Cameron and Milliband. Paxman seems biased as fuck



It's not really a debate is it? More simultaneous interviews (as in,in one show) but yeah, tearing Cameron to shreds. Will be interesting to see if he does the same to Milliband. Paxman being Paxman, I suspect he will.



RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.

MikeRox said:
It's not really a debate is it? More simultaneous interviews (as in,in one show) but yeah, tearing Cameron to shreds. Will be interesting to see if he does the same to Milliband. Paxman being Paxman, I suspect he will.


I think (hope) there'll be a head-to-head part between Cameron and Milliband after they get the interviews and questions for both out of the way



man-bear-pig said:
MikeRox said:
It's not really a debate is it? More simultaneous interviews (as in,in one show) but yeah, tearing Cameron to shreds. Will be interesting to see if he does the same to Milliband. Paxman being Paxman, I suspect he will.


I think (hope) there'll be a head-to-head part between Cameron and Milliband after they get the interviews and questions for both out of the way


There is no head to head section. It's basically Paxman then audience for Cameron. Then it'll switch to Milliband. 



RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.