after using the 3rd party debate to get the Ghurka issue to the fore hes starting to look like a credible leader?

Vince cable is held up as a wise old sage of economic wisdom

surely people see these 2 a viable alternative to slimy nu torry cameron and osborne
or are they too far off the radar with your average sun/daily mail/star/mirror/times reader

do they stand a chance at the next election?, maybe a hung parliament? or will the torries take their seats with all the labour ones theyll claim?

They will be flattened. A lot of tory gains will be at the expense of the LibDems.

Excellent cause though it is, the Ghurka issue is peripheral.

I’ll be voting for them. Well, it’s either that or spoiling my ballot paper…

Not a chance – Clegg is anonymous beyond belief for a start

very credible but the first past the post system wil not help them. Where I live is either labour or Tory with them a poor third so whilst I would vote for them it would not count so I have to vote for the ones most likely to beat the Tories … one of the [many]poor things about our so democracy.
dont think it will be a hung parliament but would be under PR

Sadly, not a chance at the election

Clegg needs to up his profile a bit as he does not come over as charismatic as some of the previous lib dem leaders

Anyway why do you care? Are you only going to vote for them if you think they will win? Where are your principles?

First past the post elections mean they will end up with very little representation I am afraid.

Are you only going to vote for them if you think they will win?

no only if it would actually make a difference /count

regardless i think ill vote lib dem

labour are stuffed anyway and i cant bring myself to vote for the torries as its pretty much the same party as far as i can tell

Clegg is my MP (Sheffield Hallam), I’ll be voting for him.

I’m hoping for a hung parliament and a bit of a realignment of UK politics, but it’s more likely that we’ll just get the normal pattern – current lot have been in years and run out of ideas, everything’s going bad and people want a change, ‘the other lot’ don’t look as useless or scary as they did a few years ago, so they’ll get in. And repeat…

See… I always vote with who I would like to win, not who I think will actually win. I don’t see it as some kind of competition where you have to have voted for the winning party.

If people actually read/listened to manifestos and voted towards the one they liked, rather than either who they thought would win/who their parents voted for/what the paper told them to do then politics may actually change.

Alas that is deeply unlikely.

Either Libs or Greens for me I suspect.

Nick Clegg becoming leader of the LibDems represented the biggest political disaster since New Labour came to power imo.

Under his leadership the LibDems have come as late arrivals to the ‘market always knows best’ party, just when everyone else appears to be leaving.

Considering that New Labour’s mantra ‘no return to boom and bust’ and, New Labour itself is utterly discredited. Considering that political lightweights Cameron and Osborne are unable to give any sort of credible alternative and belong to a party which laid the foundations for the present crises. Considering that even in the US, people have turned away from raw capitalism and began to embrace the social democratic values of a mixed economy.

Considering all that, then a party untainted by the failed neoconservative experiment and able to offer a social democratic alternative should be expected to be raking in disaffected voters. The LibDems should be riding high in the polls at the 30 plus percent as they cash in from the failures of both the Tories and New Labour. Never since the Liberals were last in power, has a better opportunity presented itself to a third party.

Alas not so under Nick Clegg’s leadership – he is completely incapable of presenting and fighting for, a social democratic alternative. He appears to be more interested in applying the formula which Tony Blair used in 1997, ie removing the distinctive left-wing character of his party, and blurring policies so that they merge indistinguishably with that of the Tories. And thereby robbing the electorate of any reason for voting for a small third party. I’m not really sure why – perhaps real power just scares him. Although I am sure Charles Kennedy would have done better.

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* I canvassed for the LibDems in the 1997 general election helping them to win a safe Tory seat.
And the MP (Paul Burstow) has proved to be an excellent MP.

I vote tactically anyway. We also have various PR Elections here. I have voted Labour, Green, SSP and Lib Dem in recent years. ( the only labour guy I voted for was Malclm Chisholm – MSP – the only person to resign a cabinet seat over Iraq, an Ex doctor and a all round good egg)

Vote for the candidate most likely to stop the candidate you hate most.

I destest them all but must admit to destesting Cable a lot less than most others.

Generally agree with his logic, mind you, he’s not been corrupted by power yet. Cameron should be sweeping to victory but ……..

Why would anyone with half a brain vote for a party who would tax you to death ?

roddersrambler – Member

Why would anyone with half a brain vote for a party who would tax you to death ?

You need to ask that question to people who voted Tory in the 1980s.

Because according to Adam Smith Institute (that darling of the Tory Party) the highest tax burden Britain has ever experienced, was under Thatcher in the 1980s.

From the Adam Smith Institute :

Well this could be repeated in the next 10 years…when you constantly take over the country from Labour governments that continue to bankrupt the country,debts have to be paid back.

How does that chart interact with salary ????

ie tax freedom day for someone on 20k, and 35k and 50 and 100k

Good point,the tax freedom day was about christmas eve during the envy levels of 90% tax for higher earners under previous Labour regimes.

How does that chart interact with salary ????

Well high earners pay less tax as a percentage of their income than those on lower income.

Because the tax on a packet of fags or litre of petrol or road tax etc represents a larger percent of the income of a low earner, they will have to work more hours to pay for those taxes than a high wage earner would have to. HTH

“A lot of tory gains will be at the expense of the LibDems. “

But the LibDems will pick up some urban Labour seats I think/hope.

“tax freedom day was about christmas eve during the envy levels of 90% tax for higher earners under previous Labour regimes”

Complete cack.

konabunny – Member

Complete cack.

I know you like to be brutally honest konabunny, but give the guy a break – we can’t all be ‘Albert Einsteins’ ffs. Obviously he’s having trouble getting his head round the concept of tax as a percentage of earnings.

But to be fair, he did manage to answer his own question about people ‘with half a brain’ ie, the reason he thinks the Tories gave us the highest tax burden in history was because they felt that it was necessary to do so. And apparently he thinks that the Tories might push up taxes again.

I’m not sure whether that means he won’t be voting Tory though 😕

“I know you like to be brutally honest konabunny, but give the guy a break – we can’t all be ‘Albert Einsteins’ ffs. Obviously he’s having trouble getting his head round the concept of tax as a percentage of earnings”
I know that if you tax high earners high enough you actually reduce your returns.They just move it off shore or lay people off to cut costs.Great!
No wonder we have diminishing private enterprise in this country.

“the reason he thinks the Tories gave us the highest tax burden in history was because they felt that it was necessary to do so”
So you don’t think it’s a good idea to reduce the biggest debt this country has ever seen since WW2 ? Every time Labour have been in power they have left the country bankrupt.

Or the other way of looking at it is that labour have had to increase spending to stop essential services falling apart after Tory cuts?

Every time the Tories have been in power the NHS, education, social service have been left totally struggling with demoralised and underpaid staff with outdated equipment and buildings.

The tories last time around had the benefit of peak oil revenues – without those they would have been totally bankrupt – as it was they had to increase tax anyway to pay for the unemployment they deliberately created as an element of class war. Talk about pissing money up against the wall

There are many ways to look at every question.

“Or the other way of looking at it is that labour have had to increase spending to stop essential services falling apart after Tory cuts?”

If your up to your eyeballs in debt what do you do ? Cut spending.It’s only this government that tries to spend it’s way out of debt,like the gambler trying bet his way into profit.

As for the NHS,my mother has retired early from nursing after 30 years due to being totally demotivated due to the way this government have run the NHS.Red tape and bureaucracy are king under Labour.MRSA and other such hospital diseases used to be only common place in 3rd world countries..but not under Labour !

“as it was they had to increase tax anyway to pay for the unemployment they deliberately created as an element of class war.”

Are you serious ??

There is none so blind as those who cannot see.

MRSA and other associated hospital infection can be laid directly at the door of the tories Contracting out of cleaning services – compulsory use of the lowest tender with long tied in contracts.

Of course the deliberate creation of millions of unemployed was a deliberate act of class war – the intention was to subdue the unions by creating a large group of people desperate for work thus creating downward pressure on wages and destruction of the power of organised labour.

It all depends on your viewpoint.

“compulsory use of the lowest tender with long tied in contracts”

Never known a contract lasting 12 years !

I know that if you tax high earners high enough you actually reduce your returns.They just move it off shore or lay people off to cut costs

I do know that high earners contribute very little (contrary to what they often claim)….. the bulk of the revenue which the government collects in taxes comes from ordinary people.

If a few want to bugger off and try their luck somewhere else I have no problem with that. Again contrary to what some claim, they are not indispensable – if there is a market for their economic activities, then others will take their place. Obviously you have a low opinion of these people believing that their only concern is to themselves and not to Britain. Well in that case, let’s give opportunities to more worthy causes.

I have to confess that I have never thought that they might “lay people off to cut costs”. I have always been under the impression that people employed others to create a profit for themselves. You believe that these people employ others unnecessarily ? As a form of benevolence or for philanthropical reasons ? 😯

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So you don’t think it’s a good idea to reduce the biggest debt this country has ever seen since WW2 ? Every time Labour have been in power they have left the country bankrupt.

I haven’t been complaining about the level of taxation in this country – I thought that you might have been though ? ? ?

And does your comment on this thread about ‘Labour leaving the country bankrupt’ mean that you will be voting for Nick Clegg and the LibDems ? 😕

BTW, what is your definition of ‘bankruptcy’ ? Because as I understand it, it means businesses failing, leading to redunancies, and hence unemployment. When the Tories came to power in 1979 there was massive failure in businesses, leading to massive redunancies, and within 2 or 3 years they had DOUBLED unemployment.

And then, even though the Tories remained in power for a further 15 years, they NEVER managed to get unemployment down to the level which it had been under Labour.

‘Bankruptcy’ is a word which I associate with the Tories 😕

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand”I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first

A quote from Thatchers interveiw with Womans Own. Loosely it can be interpreted as “Sod you Jack I’m alright”. Probably the most honest statement she ever made. For those who support where she was coming from what she was actually talking about is a total free market where all controls were off. You are now experiencing the impact of one element of it. Yep thats right the big bang and so called freeing up of the Banking system which was today described rather well by the chair of the parliamentry committee looking into it as “Bankers have made an astonishing mess of the financial system!”
Another is the crap kids have been fed at school, i.e. one mans tax cut is another mans child eating Turkey Twizzlers, Chips and being fast trcked toward obesity. It goes on and on and on. Another example: There has been a lot of talk of the poor equipment our armed forces have had to deal with. When the Falklands kicked off we had to get one aircraft carrier back from scrap and the other from the Australian Navy who we’d sold it off to. One mans Tax Cuts is anothers son fighting without the tools to do the job. All of these things take generations to resolve, and have been hugely worked on by the present government at significant cost.
I for one am grateful for that.

On the other hand you’ve got Labour with over regulation and all their dogmatic issues which have been well thrashed out and don’t really warrant repeating here.

The truth is that neither side is wholly right or wholly wrong, and that is the fact that Nick Clegg etc should be capitalising on and frankly wiping the floor with the other two over. However, successive Liberal leaders have been weak, naieve and spinless, (not to mention having closets that have been embaressingly unclean). Personally rather than vote for them I’m likely to give my local Liberals a real piece of my mind over their continuing failure to offer me the viable alternative that I desperately want.

Bah! Politics, don’t get me started!!!