Interesting to hear the thoughts about voting Green. I’m thinking along similar lines having never been a floating voter ever before.

The mess we’ve made of carelessly using limited resources regardless of the long term consequences is an economic issue as much as environmental – it’s no longer a marginal/idealistic issue with a natural left-of-centre positioning.

e.g. I wonder how much the flooding in the last 10 years has cost individuals, business and insurance companies? How much is it going to cost to keep central London from being flooded? As an island nation with lots of opportunity to develop wind and tidal solutions, how can we develop new sources of revenue from the move to renewables by selling products and expertise to other countries?

Choosing between the two main parties at the moment is Like being asked if you want your huge shit sandwich on brown or white bread. Both will just mean more of the same.

I, like a lot of people I’d imagine, am no longer prepared to hold my nose and vote for the perceived least-worst option. And look what the lib dems have turned out to be. Just Tories, with added (somewhat belated) hand-wringing. They’re finished! And rightfully so!

It’s not difficult to see why the two party system is viewed with utter contempt by a big chunk of the population, myself included, who’ve had enough of the whole ‘is it our turn now’ pantomime.

There are going to be some big shocks in May. The main parties clearly, complacently think that when it actually comes to the crunch, we’ll all fall back in line, revert to tribal voting, and put our cross where it’s always gone. Well I’m not doing so this time. The Labour Party has done absolutely nothing to show me it’s worth my vote. I wouldn’t trust Ed Milliband to run a ****ing bath! Never mind a country. Ed balls running the economy? Seriously?

Between them the Greens, SNP, and (God help us) UKIP are going to decimate what was the previous ‘core vote’ that both parties have so shamelessly taken for granted for decades. Good! They both need a rocket up them!!

Christ knows what’s going to happen in May. But it’ll be interesting. An overall majority looks totally out of reach for both. There’s going to be some serious horse-trading going on! Who knows… The interests of the actual voters might even be taken into consideration?! Imagine that?!

So Binners, why do you think there is so little to choose between the main parties? What exactly do the fringe parties offer beyond (in many cases) fairy tales? The case of the LDs is interesting – in power (-ish) why did they behave differently? Why did they abandon their policies? None of this happens by accident.

The fact that SNP and UKIP are doing well is far scarier since their core arguments are a combination of fantasy and lies. Democracy fails more when people are suckered in by such obvious clap trap and deceit. That is a failure not a triumph for the system.

The man presently at the helm of the (totally undemocratic) European Comission was the prime minister of Luxembourg when it established itself as the worlds premier destination for Tax avoidance. So I think we can assume that’s he’s not exactly on the side of the workers.

Binners I think Junker did a decent job for the average worker in Luxembourg, he just did it at significant expense to everyone else. Also as I’ve posted before the two parties here have similar tax/spending policies because there is little room for manoeuvre.

THM – Nigel Farage and his band of half-witted closet racists stand as a towering, grinning, chortling monument to the total failure of the two main parties to engage with the actual concerns of the electorate. The fact that he’s where he is in the polls would, if they remotely lived in the real world, have both main parties soul-searching as how they’ve got it all so horribly wrong

It won’t happen of course. They’re far too arrogant, self-serving, and insulated from reality for that. But he is their true legacy! And it’s not pretty, is it?

No Binners, UKIP/SNP show that many are fooled by and will buy snake oil. There is nothing “real world” about lying about immigration, currencies, debt etc – yes, it may be what some want to hear, but it is just irresponsible nonsense. Protest parties rely on people falling for this time and again – a false panacea. It won’t happen. That is exactly what happened to the Lib Dems. When you are in power the easy options disappear and “real” choices have to be made.

There are no easy solutions to the situation we find ourselves in. That is the main reason why the large parties find it difficult to differentiate themselves. They do this at the fringe – so labour will lie about the NHS and the Tories about benefits/immigration – but on core issues there is nothing to differentiate themselves on. Look across Europe and you will see incumbents are unpopular whatever their politics. No surprise there, there is good reason. Tough choices tend to be less popular than false panaceas to swallow.

For these reason, I will vote for the candidate that represent local issues in my constituency best.

More of an Azathoth voter myself.

Without googling, which party leader do you reckon said this and how would you describe the comment

…to be poor in India wasn’t so bad as to be on benefits in Britain, XXXXXX suggested, “because at least everyone else there is poor too”.

?

The Scandies offer an interesting current example of mainstream parties coming together to isolate fringe/anti-immigration protest parties

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.”

Carol Quigley – Tragedy and Hope ….

Whislt once these were revelatory notions – I think this is now a common perception which has reached critical mass – the free market is non existant and a one party system would follow the collectivist trajectory and greae the skids for global governance – Hint NWO is no theory – it’s been an open conspiracy since before all of us were born ..

Without googling and including party leaders past, I’m going for IDS.
his life experience living on the dole in that hovel of a girlfriend’s cottage on her parents’ vast estate lends him a unique and realistic perspective on this, of course.

Having googled it, i am going to repeat to thm his own wisdom from threads passim, about the utterly critical importance of taking into account context and bias.

Without googling, which party leader do you reckon said this and how would you describe the comment

…to be poor in India wasn’t so bad as to be on benefits in Britain, XXXXXX suggested, “because at least everyone else there is poor too”.
?

The Scandies offer an interesting current example of mainstream parties coming together to isolate fringe/anti-immigration protest parties

A little bit of research and you’ll find a) comments under the original story are giving the journalist a hard time b) the politician in question is saying their words have not been properly represented by the journalist…

I think the point was that whilst poverty is lousy, being poor in a society which is largely richer than you, whatever your absolute standard of living, isn’t exactly a picnic in the park…. We are social creatures and we judge our wealth as much by relative terms as absolute

Well for someone who studied Asian studies, her misunderstanding of even relative poverty is quite staggering. Good job she won’t be in a position to put her lack of basic understanding into practice.

Bias? Ignorant westerners who don’t understand India. Imagine if a Tory or UKIP MP had said the same thing!!

May be she was just sloppy?!?

What exactly do the fringe parties offer beyond (in many cases) fairy tales?

What political party does not do this?
No one expects a party to deliver on what they say whether fringe or mainstream. I agree we dont expect a Lib Dem like pledge capitulation either but they all do this. Greenest govt ever, No top down NHS re organisation – various pledges on deficit etc remind you of anyone?

[THM] The fact that SNP and UKIP are doing well is far scarier since their core arguments are a combination of fantasy and lies……[Binners]Nigel Farage and his band of half-witted closet racists [thm]UKIP/SNP show that many are fooled by and will buy snake oil. There is nothing “real world” about lying about immigration, currencies, debt etc – yes, it may be what some want to hear, but it is just irresponsible nonsense. Protest parties

I have to say your constant desire to conflate the SNP and UKIP does your analysis no service not least when you are speaking about bias. It is also pretty hard [ its impossible I am just being polite] to consider the party in power in Scotland and ahead in the polls to be a “protest” party. Some may even find it disrespectful to a foreign country.

We all know you hate AS , really we do , but do we need to read it shoehorned into every political thread ?

It is also pretty hard [ its impossible I am just being polite] to consider the party in power in Scotland and ahead in the polls to be a “protest” party

I think he means protest as in ‘not mainstream’. They were a protest party until recently, and you could argue they still are given that they held a majority but did not win a referendum.on their main issue.

How many SNP voters only chose them because they did not want to vote tory or labour? Academic point really so don’t answer.

Anyway, our problem is not one of ideology, it’s one of competence.

Three issues dominated the referendum – the protest against Westminster, (lies about) the NHS and (lies about) the currency. So protest and lies sums it up pretty well. Given that most of the rest didn’t stack up to any scrutiny the role of protest was abundantly clear and also obvious in the nature of voting patterns. Those with less to protest about voted one way (no) and vv.

Competence and capability, mol. It’s wishful thinking to think that there is a simple and quick solution to the issues facing many developed nations. No government can magic an easy answer – hence temporary fixes dominate the developed world.

I think he means protest as in ‘not mainstream’

You cannot be the government and the majority party in a country and be the “protest “party as you are “not mainstream”.

Thanks for elaborating on your view of referendum THM. whilst it was,clearly, not the crux of what I was after at least it answers the will we have to read about the referendum on any political thread question.

You still cannot call the party in power a protest party nor compare them to UKIP. Neither is credible

You are correct that temporary fixes dominate but this is due to the need to get re elected. They wont win an election by fixing it over 20 years. The electorate want jam today not next decade so what can the politicians do ?

I think we need this election to hang and give us a chance of getting the idea of PR back on the table. The current system grinds down good ideas left right and centre so the parties can score points over each other. I don’t understand why it has to be so polar. Why can’t I have a green-right MP if I want – or an anti european socialist?

A lot of the issues faced by government are shoehorned into a left/right argument when there isn’t a shred of idealogical tradition.

The current system really does only work for the current Westminster incumbents.

The other option is to replace the house of Lords with randomly selected members of the public.