On balance, would we be better off if the current Labour party were in power?

Well?

I reckon we’d be in more or less the same situation we’re in with the tories, only with a leader who looks a bit like a wallace and gromit character.

I think we’d be better off in the short term

however the long term effects of the additional debt that was run up in the process of bailing us out of a hole in the short term, and the lng term effects of not dealing with problems that have needed dealing with for a long time, but that sucessive governments have avoided dealing with for reasons of short tern electoral expediency, would be detrimental for generations to come.

we ‘d certainly owe more money and be paying more to borrow it. how that affects joe publics day to day is less clear.

and how we and the labour party put up with that poor excuse as a leader of the opposition is unbelivable.. a viable PM your having a laff..

A picture paints a thousand words.

There must be an alternative to that bullying victim^

I reckon we’d be in more or less the same situation we’re in with the tories, only with a leader who looks a bit like a wallace and gromit character.

Except we wouldn’t. Brown would still be the PM, and I think it was pretty clear he wasn’t up to the job before. Only reason Gromit is in charge is that Brown had to go after an election defeat (wouldn’t have been so easy to dislodge him if he’d won), and to paraphrase he’s called Miliband but not David, and Ed but not Balls.

Also, speaking of that odious man Balls and his patronising, condescending wife, if Brown was still PM, they’d be in positions of actual power.

Not saying we’d be any worse off though.

Andy

No, that would mean Gordon Brown would have won, not the man above. All parties in power for a long duration need a good kicking by the electorate to bring back some reality/humility. GB had become too out of touch to be a viable leader as the “bigoted woman” foot in mouth incident illustrated.
What we have now is not as bad as if the Tories won outright. Things would have been a lot worse.

I want to say “We’d still be in s**t street but also be stuck with ID cards” but can’t because if I do it would be saying that we’re better off with the Tories. And that’s clearly tantamount to liking Thatcher.

Oh dear. Can we have another question, please?!

Depends who you mean by “We” surely…..

I doubt labour would be humping eductaion/NHS like the tories, tho they’d probably have gotten pretty complacent by now…

Firstly democracy doesn’t work, we are doing what the markets demand not the electorate, so whoever is in charge doesn’t really matter.

If Labour was in Power we would now have id cards, and be bailing out the tories, if the tories were in power, i think the spending cuts would be harder and faster, ie why bother with any social security system.

I want to say “We’d still be in s**t street but also be stuck with ID cards” but can’t because if I do it would be saying that we’re better off with the Tories. And that’s clearly tantamount to liking Thatcher.

Oh dear. Can we have another question, please?!

This plus complicity in torture. Can we have a different political system please.

No. We’d still be human.

Marginally – though it’s like having to choose between which particular bucket of shit you want poured over your head. All the main parties are essentially Thatcherite/neo-liberal.

At least Labour wouldn’t be deliberately ruining the NHS having just promised not to mess with it.

Of course we would – with Labour in power we wouldn’t have been afflicted with May, Lansley, Osborne, Cameron and the pick of the bunch, Gove.

crankboy – Member

This plus complicity in torture. Can we have a different political system please.

we were asked if we want to try something else, but it turns out we don’t.

Firstly democracy doesn’t work, we are doing what the markets demand not the electorate, so whoever is in charge doesn’t really matter.

+1.

If Labour was in Power we would now have id cards, and be bailing out the tories, if the tories were in power, i think the spending cuts would be harder and faster, ie why bother with any social security system.

So which is the lesser of two evils? All entirely based upon your perceived standing in “society” of course.

we were asked if we want to try something else, but it turns out we don’t.

No, we were asked if we prefered one other system to the system we currently have. This is not the same.

Can open, worms everywhere!!!

IMHO – different political dogma, equally destined to cause ruination. They did seem a bit bereft of any opposing policies on Question Time last week when challenged to provide their solution to certain issues of the day.

Think we should look long and hard at what Germany is doing and how we can emulate their system. First past the post elections should be the first casualty.

I would be better off because they would have a 50 p tax rate and I would therefore avoid that tax by clever means and be personally better off
Unfortunately the scheming Tories have reduced it to 45 p so now [ for reasons which remain unclear] I will avoid less and pay more tax…the bastards

scuzz – Member

No, we were asked if we prefered one other system to the system we currently have. This is not the same.

i’ll concede that you’re half right, but you’ve got to be very, very, very, very sceptical to suggest that AV would have been the last stop on the journey of electoral reform.

we didn’t even get on the bus, we’ll never know where it would have taken us.

Opposition is good for labour at this point in time – Brown needed to go and the party needs to re-group. This renewal process is easier (IMHO) for them being an active opposition to a weak government, rather than if they had gotten hammered in the last election. Their being led by a man who can never be PM is not necessarily an overwhelming problem at this stage.

If Brown had won I doubt he would have survived long. He could only ever have won a narrow victory; tough times plus his unpopularity with the party, electorate, media – everyone basically, would have folded him up sooner rather than later.

i’ll concede that you’re half right, but surely you’ve got to be very, very, very, very, sceptical to suggest that AV would have been the last stop on the ‘electoral reform’ journey.

we didn’t even get on the bus, we’ll never know where it would have taken us.

While I agree with you, I feel most people simply made the vote that was in front of them. However, ‘No to AV’ votes have been taken to mean ‘No to election reform’, which is madness.
(apologies for my post-coffee edit)

The problem is Garry, Labour being in such a shambles is bad for UK politics. They are not currently regarded as vote worthy by many and last minute stuff is a bit risky.
They can start by begging David to go back and sacking Balls (I love that term).

On balance, would we be better off if the current Labour party were in power?

On balance, we’d be better off if Beavis and Butthead were in power.

We might be now… but what about your kids life in the future ?

How much debt are you happy to saddle future generations with?

Yes

@junkyard – the top rate of tax is 50% (actually 52% including employee NI) and does not change until tax year starting April 2013.

How much debt are you happy to saddle future generations with?

A sustainable amount, like we all always lived with.

wrecker – Member

The problem is Garry, Labour being in such a shambles is bad for UK politics. They are not currently regarded as vote worthy by many and last minute stuff is a bit risky.
They can start by begging David to go back and sacking Balls (I love that term).
A shambles is standard, though, for a party at the start of a new cycle and I wouldn’t even call them that tbh. Nothing like the tories after John Major, say, where the party was just ideologically bankrupt and needed deep re-shaping.
I’m trying to think about something positive to say about Ed M and not really coming up with anything, tbh, but having a stuffed shirt in charge whilst long term opposition policy is being worked out is not the end of the world.

yes; I mean no. No wait I mean yes I think. Maybe I do mean no.

i doubt things would be much different tbh

edit: actually thats not true ive just been thinking about michael gove and quite frankly the man scares the carp out of me he seems incapable of original thought- yet has been given the job of ‘reforming’ education, the kind of long term damage he is wreaking is incredible.

I don’t think we’d see the same reveling in their own inhumanity as we are with the present lot. Like the delightful Mr Pickles and his lovely reforms to Disability benefits.

The better half sees this all the time as she works with the disabled. The ‘reforms’ are ideologically driven right wing insanity, dressed up as cost-saving. They deliberately target the disadvantaged, those least equipped to fight them, and are in lots of cases just downright cruel. In true Tory fashion though, a private firm is making a tidy profit from it, so its all ok

Heres a laymans example.

Burt Smith at number 3 has two credit cards with maxed-limits.

He then simply signs up for another two cards and carries on living the same life style.

Thats what Labour would be like. Nothings changed, just denial.

How could Labour work, they have left the country bankrupt so they have no more money left to buy votes from the select band of voters that are not prepared to contribute to society but are more than happy to hold out their large hands to take, take and take.

All for helping out the needy but those who are prepared to make a career out of it, **** off.

“Socialism ends when the money runs out”

The problem is Garry, Labour being in such a shambles is bad for UK politics. They are not currently regarded as vote worthy by many and last minute stuff is a bit risky.

They don’t need to do anything at the moment, particularly with this PM.

Thats what Labour would be like. Nothings changed, just denial.

Yet the tories are borrowing even more money than was first forecast. Like you say, nothings changed.

More money is being spent due to huge levels of unemployment, and subsequent benefits. These vast sums of money would be far better spent on some kind of promotion of economic growth. Unfortunately Gideon doesn’t believe in any of that nonsense

The philosophy is exactly the same as Thatchers. Mass unemployment is a ‘price worth paying’. Despite the enormous costs to our society, both financial and social. It makes eff all sense, as its just pouring money away to no effect. But they’re shackled to their free-market ideology, even when its results completely defy logic

In fact, lets take it a stage further and blame the unemployed themselves, and demonise them for the governments own tragic failures

More money is being spent due to huge levels of unemployment and subsequent benefits

Claimant count January 2010 – 1.61 million
Claimant count May 2012 – 1.61 Million

Zulu-Eleven – Member

Claimant count January 2010 – 1.61 million
Claimant count May 2012 – 1.61 Million

unemployment claims are not the entire story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117

So are you saying 1.6 million claimants is an acceptable level to maintain indefinitely?