All I can say is anybody with a little bit of a brain who is not a multi-millionaire, who has witnessed these past five years, if they then vote Tory, they will deserve all the problems that will bring! I don't know who to vote for, but I can promise you it will never, ever be the Tory party, bunch of cheating liars that they are!
I don't think the effects of this governments policy on GP's, Teachers, Police officers, social workers and local services etc has been realised yet by the middle class and the public in general. It's not just the cuts to pay and conditions but the continual negative press that's put out to jusitify their actions. Yet despite this the popularity of these professions continues to be far above that of MP's. The full effects of austerity will not be seen by the public for a few years yet, by which time it will be too late for these professions & services. After all many middle class people are just starting to appreciate the effects of the Conservative policy in relation to manufacturing & transport, for example, from the actions taken by previous Conservative governments. Not that everything this coalition and previous Conservative governments have done has been bad, in the same way as everthing New Labour did was not bad. For example raising the rate at which people start being paid and the introduction of the minimum wage. I think we were very lucky that we did not get a majority conservative government last election and really hope we don't get one this time. I'd always thought that a coalition government would be a bad thing, but now I'm not so sure, maybe its the only way to get a government where the hatred of certain parts of society by both of the main parties is nulified. I think if the Conservatives don't get any outright majority then there will either be a change of leadership within the Conservatives or more likely a bit of an exodus to UKIP, which will weaken the Conservatives and only make UKIP stronger. I think UKIP are in a similar stage of development that the SNP were 10 to 15 years ago. Although I don't particularly like Miliband I find the continual negative and sometimes abusive treatment of Miliband has only highlighted in my mind the nastiness of the current leadership of the Conservative party. I really don't know who to vote for this time, but like Canary-Dave it won't be the Conservatives and I doubt I would ever vote for them with their current leadership (particularly Cameron, Osborne & May).
I won't be voting Labour or Conservative, but the above is yet another stupid rhetoric. My Father has run a small relatively successful business for many years and beyond any shadow of a doubt has prospered more under Tory rule than Labour. Labour are the public sector and scrongers friend as well as their own rich vested buddies. They are often the enemy of business and the private sector as a whole. I'm not saying the conservatives are good or even adequate, they just aren't the clusterf#ck disaster that Labour are and I'm sure that any one with even a miniscule ammount of grey matter would realise this! Oh no, what a silly beggar, I've just joined in the purile mud slinging that you all profess to hate from the Tories. My Dad voted for the Tories and their policies have not caused him too much harm in 5 years, business has improved, so why would this preclude my father from having a little bit of brain when voting for them again? (He is far from a multi-millionaire!) I'm with CC in so much as I believe the last government having been a coalition was a good thing. But I think they are all horribly corrupt ConLab and probably the rest, they just have slightly differing agendas and pay masters who need their advantages. God help us if Labour and the SNP form any part of the next government! It's almost a bad enough prospect to make me vote Conservative! Bah!
Did anyone see Clegg on the box yesterday? I thought he spoke very well and certainely seemed less of a abhorant individual than Cameron or Milliband. And that's from someone who has never even thought about voting LibDem before! Bah!
Speaks just as well as he did 5 years ago, doesn't he? However, that won't be enough to stop the rot for the LibDems this time around.
Shame in my opinion. Probably the best leader going. I hold by my un-provable statement that if he had of refused a coalition with the Cons in 2010 his support would have sky rocketed. Students wouldn't have been turned off. Those who felt the Libs were weak would have had to reevaluate. He actually seems to care about the ideologies that his party represents. Now he's just an easy target for Ian Hislop on HIGNFY!
Very true, but can he and his party hold on to enough to help form a viable coalition? For me anything involving the SNP or an outright majority for Labour in particular or the Tories would be a pretty bad out come. Bah!
I genuinely think a coalition of Labour, Libs and Green would be fantastic. I feel the Libs could ground Labour a bit more, same as they have tried to do with the Tories and the Greens are just needed because there is a distinct lack of environmental action in this country.
Like I said earlier (and Munky tried to tempt me into betting on it!), I reckon it'll be a Lab/LibDem/SNP coalition. Whether that is necessarily a good or a bad thing, I'm not entirely sure.
The words of David Orr (Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation), regarding the Tory housing policy: "... there is the small matter of principle. The Conservative Party wants to sell assets that don't belong to them, or to the nation. They belong to housing associations which are legally constituted as 'Community Benefit Organisations'. They exist to provide benefit to the community and they hold their assets in trust for the community. They do this by providing affordable homes for rent. To dispose of these assets to individuals is contrary to their legal objectives. To force housing associations to do so would require new law. That would be a law where the government tells a private social enterprise what it can and can't do with the assets it owns. Try putting Barnardos or Oxfam, or Hotel Chocolat or even Tesco into that sentence to see how ridiculous that is. Is this the party that wants to nationalise housing associations? Housing associations are a huge force for good. They are the most effective public/private partnerships in the history of the nation. They contribute, on average, £6 of their own funds to every £1 from government. They build homes for rent and sale, both market and social and they invest huge sums in the communities and neighbourhoods where they work. All this is put at risk. This is plain bad policy."
Great find! This spells out pretty much exactly how the Tories will do anything for a few pennies extra, and screw the social consequences! They are NOT interested in helping the country, they are interested in helping extremely wealthy people and by extension, themselves!
I'm sure Dave Shameron won't want to mention any of that, he only like trotting out independent advice from the likes of the IFS or ONS etc when he can skew their words so they sound like they agree with him
Where as Labour are only interested in helping Benefits Scroungers, immigrants and their pals in the Unions.
Yeah, what bastards, wanting to help some of the most vulnerable members of society, not just domestically, but globally too
