To disguise the fact that he is a pan-dimensional space-lizard.

Could be – I here Gideon is common in reptilian circles

The sad fact is that I don't think anyone really wants Cameron to be PM, they are just sick of Labour and Cameron is 'a good communicator'.

I'm not sure anyone ever wins an election do they? (not in this country anyway) People just get sick of who's is in power and vote them out. The other party wins by default.

CaptainFlashheart – Member

"and the economy will be run by Osborne, a man who has never had a proper job."

Remind me again, what "proper job" did the Historian, Gordon Brown hold before he became Chancellor and then PM?

Well he certainly had more jobs than Osborne, that's for sure.

But what is your point Flashheart ……….. that the Tories are just as crap as New Labour ?

Thought so ………. see, you and me can agree on so much 8)

The difference is the Tories seem to be at least honest in their intentions to slash public spending and carry on being best mates with big business, whilst Labour will continue to lie and make out such 'principles' are only held by that toff and his Eaton buddies.

Deaad man walking. Lets hope so.

The man is a national embarrassment.

Nothing different from this Labour government as previous Labour efforts. Still, we haven't quite got to the point of going to the IMF with cupped hands this time round.

There is only so much mileage in blaming the previous government for all of the countries woes before people start asking "hold on, you've been in power now for 10 years, surely you must take the blame now". Happened to the Tories, now happening to NuLabour. No doubt there will be a couple of years for the incoming Tory government.

As sooty said, at least the Tories went out and said there'd be cuts. Labour tried to pretend otherwise ( remember "0% increase") before admitting it after realising they weren't fooling anyone.

Not sure I like the Conservatives any more than Labour but sometimes a change is needed just get things in focus again.

I think the most depressing legacy will be the fundamental shift of power from the individual to the state. This horrendous authoritarianism and constant interference in peoples lives.

But does anyone know one single policy that Cameron has committed too?

Scrapping the ID "card" scheme? I don't care about the card it's all the data held on me by the lowest bidder in a dodgy PFI input by un-vetted minimum wage workers. Oh, and if its wrong its my fault and £2k please. The type of data required can be changed at any point with out a vote by the Home Sec.

Scary stuff and nothing like the "library card" types of ID they have in Europe (which is carefully stored and not shared!)

SSP

SSP. Exactly. I was using the ID card as an example of this creeping intrusive authoritarianism and a surveillance state.

Cameron says he will scrap it. And maybe he will. But once in power they're all the same. They just can't resist the temptation to continually amass increasing amounts of information on us. It seems ingrained in the mindset of government at the moment.

I think this steady march towards totalitarianism to continue no matter who wins the election. Civil rights in this country seem to be something we apparently have to earn, and certainly don't seem to be an entitlement. And the liberals are the only ones mentioning it

The liberals…

How many of us would actually consider voting for them if we didn't think it was a vote wasted? I do think they say more things that make sense and are not afraid of being honest. But maybe that is because they know that realistically they will never be in a position of power where the things they claim can actually be tested?…

This will be another of those arguments where people with their own views will not be swayed by others viewpoints… 🙂

FWIW I think Brown has been the biggest disaster of a chancellor this country has ever had. History I suspect will show it at some point. Ultimately as Chancellor he inherited the improving economy in 1997 and the economic policies and management of the outgoing Tories. And then claimed the credit for it. As has been mentioned before he managed to then take a well balanced economy (one where we had managed to settle a significant number of our debts) and plunge it back into debt. But this time the debt is on a scale we have never seen before and has the audacity to call it prudent and decisive action. The man is deluded.

On Tory plans for the future, I would expect them to be quite vague and un focussed at the moment as there is nothing at stake right now. Why give detailed plans for what you are going to do when that gives Gordy time to assimilate them and call them his own. It will be a dreadful day if Labour win the next election as I can only see us heading for further economic misery. The other issue the Tories (and other parties for that matter) face is that they have no clear idea of the actual state of our economy – and won't do until they become the government. How can you make promises or plans when you don't know exactly what's in the bank?

Can't see the LibDems making much progress either – certainly not with plans that they have announced such as the really smart and fair idea to tax people who happen to live in big houses. Smacks of a jealousy tax and going for the easy target.

Oh well…..

I probably agree with more Lib Dem policies than the other two parties. But can I bring myself to vote for a clone of a clone of Blair?

Having said that, I think the election will be closer than current opinion polls suggest – the Lib Dems could yet hold the balance of power.

in the past i've always voted labour but i now think they just hammer the middle classes to give to the poor(lazy) so i'm looking for another party this year! any suggestions anyone…….

I know the conservatives are likely to 'slash' public spending (and we all know it has to be reduced), but will we actually notice any difference? Labour have poured billions into 'services', personally I haven't seen much back TBH, still got to wait for NHS treatment, still a bit of a lottery about how good the care is, can't get an NHS dentist, the local sink schools are still the local sink schools, roads are still full of holes, it's still dangerous to cycle on roads, my bins still get emptied weekly (alright recycling one week etc.), congestion on the roads is worse, still only 2 buses a day through our village, I could go on.

To be fair we do have a lot of new school and hospital buildings in the North West, but most of them were well overdue and replaced buildings that had been poorly maintained for years, and most of those were built using PFI so wasn't paid for by the increased spending (that's just debt for the future).

Anyone got any ideas how slashing public funding is actually going to make life worse for the majority of us who actually pay for the services?

Anyone got any ideas how slashing public funding is actually going to make life worse for the majority of us who actually pay for the services?

Yes. You may think that Labour haven't had an adequate return on the investment (and I would agree with you) but there's no doubt in my mind that services have improved. Look at the reduction in NHS waiting lists. School infrastructure is much better.

ransos – really?

What the Lib Dems need to do if they ever want to be in a position to form a government is to go into a pact with Labour
Now there's been one or two of these in years gone by & even tales of a recent one being discussed

The Lib Dems will need to move to become the 2nd party & the way to do that is to stop the vote being split between them & Labour in as many seats as possible.
What they need to do is agree not to stand against each other where there is a likelihood of letting the Tories in by the vote being split & to actively endorse & campaign for each other.

It's been mooted before & may one day happen & knock the Tories down to the 3rd party

There is no way that the Lib Dems will 'do a deal' with Labour now. Labour are damaged goods and the Lib Dems want to be taken seriously as 'the other option'. By doing a deal many if the British electorate will see it as a party desperate to stay in power teaming up with a party desperate to be noticed. In this respect it'd be a deal that would do a lot more for Labour than the Lib Dems. There is also the fact that the Lib Dems are now trying to sell themselves as an alternative to Labour (especially since Labour turned a bit 'blue'), joining forces with Labour will confuse the electorate as to what the Lib Dems actually stand for. It'd be far better for the Lib Dems to distance themselves far from Labour, take second place in a general election behind the Tories, then build upon their raised profile with their leader as leader of the opposition rather than that bloke along the bench and target swing voters in the next general election.

take second place in a general election behind the Tories

oh come on – when the Devil skates to work, maybe

I can hear the war cry now "go back to your constituencies & prepare to govern"

Oh hang on, I think they've used that one before

Paddington Bear hard stare! Love the studio presenter's expression when they cut back to her.

I actually quite like the Libs Dems (or at least until Clegg, another Blair/Cameron composite turned up). Generally seem to have coherent policies and are prepared to say things that they believe even if the they are unpopular. Shame they tend to be generally left of centre and I'm not. If there was an equivilant party on the right of centre they'd get my vote like a shot.

can ernie and SFB get stuck into this thread soon? its making too much sense right now

its making too much sense right now

Well you've just come on………..so that should level things out a bit.

ransos – really?

I really do think so, yes. I've no desire to mount a staunch defence of Labour, but I think they've been better for public services than the conservatives would have been. I guess we're all going to find out for sure soon, anyway.

It's a source of real frustration to lefties like me that the good things labour have done (such as NHS investment and working family tax credits) have been completely overshadowed by their foreign misadventures and increasingly authoritarian nature.

(such as NHS investment and working family tax credits)

Yes a lot of money has been chucked at the NHS, is it significantly better, from personal experience, no. As I said before lots of new buildings but they are all PFI (underneath the new paint it's still the same old NHS, some absolutely brilliant people and a huge number of jobsworth, unfit dross, and I'm not just talking about the managers). Tax credits – why have we got yet another layer of complication and administration, surely something simpler and cheaper could have been done through income tax alolowances, child benefit, existing benefits etc. we didn't need another vote grabbing headline, just improvement of what we already had.

Nursery voucher scheme, bike to work scheme, great ideas incredibly badly implemented. Labour have just shoved all the work onto the private sector resulting in a lottery, if your employer signs up great, if not you're stuffed, not exactly fair is it.

Sorry nearly everything Labour has done is either a good idea butchered through laziness or short term, short sighted vote grabbing stupidity. I'm not left wing but I do respect the Lib Dems, they have policies, Labour (like the Conservatives) just live in some fantastical politcal world where it's all about selling the party / PM and getting votes based on the marketing campaign rather than being judged on actual tangible results. Labour were spouting a couple of days ago about how well GB handled the recession and I quote 'no right thinking person would disagree that GB has steered us through the hard times well', no right thinking person, in which universe do these people live, GB was massively responsible for the depth of recession in this country and when the time came was constantly tinkering too late, always looking for scapegoats and others to blame. In his head he single handidly sorted out the whole world (his words if you remember his little slip).

Minimum wage?

Also…

In his head he single handidly sorted out the whole world (his words if you remember his little slip).

Gordon Brown was today named World Statesman of the Year by a US foundation dedicated to promoting peace, human rights and understanding between religious faiths.

The award, from the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, recognised the prime minister's role in leading the international community towards a solution to the global economic crisis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/03/brown-world-statesman

I'm still in two minds as to whether or not minimum wage was really a good idea, while i can't fault the philospohy of making sure people have to be paid a living wage, i suspect it may actually be a driver of inflation (or at least used as an excuse to raise prices)

Yes a lot of money has been chucked at the NHS, is it significantly better, from personal experience, no

It is significantly better in my personal experience. So lets accept that two individuals' experience is not all that useful!

As for tax credits – my mum is a CAB advisor and is convinced that tax credits have been very effective in improving the lives of many of her clients. Again, personal experience but based on thousands of clients seen over the last 15 years.

Turning to the recession, whilst labour are guilty of light regulation, they didn't *make* the banks take ridiculous risks, did they? And I think their/ the Bank of England's response has been the right one. Letting banks fail (as the tories proposed) would have led to meltdown.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I'm hugely disappointed with labour, but I think a tory government would have been, and will be worse. Not much of a reason to vote labour, but certainly a reason to not vote tory instead.

I won't be voting for any of them as I think they're all a worthless bunch of chancers offering narrow, short-term solutions to long-term problems.

Let's all NOT VOTE and then see what happens…

grumm

minimum wage – fair point, that is one thing I think they did do right, although I think anyone working 40hrs per week on the minimum wage should be significantly better off than a single person on benefits and it's taken them long enough to sort out the tipping scandal.

Don't accept the view of a US foundation I've never heard of no doubt with their own politcal agenda. If it was that big a deal I think the UK media would have made more of it.

ransos

It is significantly better (NHS) in my personal experience. So lets accept that two individuals' experience is not all that useful!

what else can I base my comments, we can't trust what the politicians say and i don't have access to any impartial constructive studies.

As for tax credits – my mum is a CAB advisor and is convinced that tax credits have been very effective

I'm not denying the money will have made peoples lives better, what I take issue with is that they had to create yet another administrative mountain which didn't work properly (all those people who had to pay it back?). All done so they could trumpet about how they were making fundamental changes when the goals could have been achieved through manipulation of the existing income tax personal allowances framework for a fraction of the cost. It just wouldn't have been a huge policy initiative, which I suppose is is my main point, they are more interrested in shouting about what they have done than actually making things genuinely better. That's the problem with tabloid, celebrity based politics.

they didn't *make* the banks take ridiculous risks, did they?

no but they let them and in my tiny little world that makes them culpable. As I see it the best way to run a society is market based, that's what generally motivates people to contribute to society when they get rewarded with a comensurate return. Where the government is supposed to fit in is to curb the excesses of the market and protect society as a whole and individuals from corporate bullying. Therefore GB and friends should have put a regulation framework in place that either prevented the banks from lending recklessly or made it blinding obvious that if they took the risks the fallout would squarely land on the institutions and more appropriately the individuals who took and sanctionned the risks. Instead GB just laid back and enjoyed the never ending growth and tax revenues, reckless incompetance, until the bubble burst, which is obvious it would.

Don't get me wrong I'm under no illusions, in the current political climate the Tories would have done exactly the same things with a slightly more right wing bias. Basically our political system is bust.

they didn't *make* the banks take ridiculous risks, did they?

There is a strong argument that GBs raid on pensions took a lot of the profits out of investments and therefore forced the banks to enter into riskier transactions to get a decent return for the poor people mugged of their (rightful?) pension pots.

The thing about the Tory promise to scrap ID cards is that it (presumably) doesn't require doing anything, so will be an easy promise to keep. Surely promises that require action are less likely to be carried out than those that simply require inaction?

And the ID card issue should be enough to get anyone with a grain of sense out there to vote. I can't think of a single issue that scares me more than this one – not the idea of an ID card itself, but the likelyhood of the data being inaccurate and insecure: how many CDs with confidential data have been lost, how many laptops left on the train / stolen etc?

Don't get me wrong I'm under no illusions, in the current political climate the Tories would have done exactly the same things with a slightly more right wing bias. Basically our political system is bust.

I certainly wouldn't disagree with that.

"Remind me again, what "proper job" did the Historian, Gordon Brown hold before he became Chancellor and then PM?"

Is journalist a proper job? He did that for 3 years.