All the other parties standing in the Election are peddling lies of various sorts but we are far too smart to do that. We will not be entering into any coalitions with any of the other scumbags because we will get a massive majority. Our leader will not be quitting after two or three terms and will be seen knocking back real ale while watching the football in the pub every Sunday. As a non-smoker, he is leaving the e-cigarettes to the teenagers. As our leader thinks that he is personally toxic to the Party’s chances, our election broadcasts will be fronted by this actress. Defence Policy We are committed to spending two per cent of our GDP on our defence forces, as per our NATO commitment. We will not be taking part in any foreign wars unless we are a party to a United Nations mandate so our defence forces will be organised purely for the defence of the United Kingdom and its sovereign territories plus NATO activities. If Putin wants to fly around these islands he had best come in a stealth plane. We will be renewing our Trident nuclear deterrent. We will take advice on how many submarines we actually need. Education Policy All school leavers will be expected to go into (1) an apprenticeship that leads to a suitable qualification to enhance their career prospects; (2) a higher education establishment to study towards a recognised qualification such as a degree or HND; or (3) a job. Controls will be introduced to stop higher education establishments from offering courses in worthless subjects such as Media Studies that leave participants with large debts and few real career options. Foreign Aid Our commitment to investment in foreign aid will be completely revised. We will stop giving money to regimes that we believe to be corrupt or wasteful and will instead concentrate on investing in specific projects to improve the social fabric and health of the recipients, preferably ones that are run by charitable organisations that we are able to audit to ensure that funds are not being squandered. European Policy We will present an ultimatum to the European Union. We can either repeal all changes made to our relationship since 1993 and thus return to the ‘common market’ that we originally joined or we can quit altogether. If we quit we will then enter into a trade agreement that will allow our businesses to continue to trade bilaterally. Scaremongering about leaving the E.U. threatening three million jobs and inward investment is complete nonsense. In either event we will gain absolute control over our immigration policy and will be able to control the influx of immigrants using a points-based system to whatever levels we deem necessary for our economic prosperity. Law and Order Historically, parliament has seen over representation of the legal profession, which has resulted in far too many laws being enacted that always benefit lawyers. We intend to start cutting down on frivolous legislation that benefits nobody but the legal profession and those that know how to play the system. We will be bringing forward a law that makes ‘whiplash’ (a medical condition that cannot be medically proven) from being a claimable injury on motor vehicle insurance. This should cut the insurance premiums of millions of vehicle owners whilst only depriving rich lawyers, rich insurance claims companies and fraudulent claimants of income. We also believe that local Police Commissioners have been a waste of public money and have not increased democratic accountability; therefore, we will be looking to dispense with them. Health and Welfare The National Health Service cannot survive if it continues in its present format with successive governments committed to nothing more than throwing more money into the bottomless pit without committing to essential reforms. We will end the GP Contract agreement introduced by Labour that allows GPs to work Monday to Friday 9-5 hours and compel all practitioners to participate in a rota system that provides out-of-hours cover and weekend cover so that people are able to get local appointments rather than clogging up the overworked A&E departments of hospitals. Illness does not keep office hours; neither should well-paid doctors. We will introduce a penalty charge system for patients failing to keep or cancel their appointments to stop unnecessary wastage. With the aging population, the requirement for care of the elderly will continue to increase and drain resources. This requires reform of the NHS and the social care system. We will remove control of social care from local government control and it will be funded centrally to ensure uniform provision of services. Control of social care will be given to the local NHS Trusts. This will alleviate the increasing problems of ‘bed blocking’ by elderly patients who cannot presently be removed from hospitals. We will continue to allow the private sector to provide services for the NHS in circumstances where they can do so at least as cost effectively as the public sector and still make a fair profit; but this will remain free at the point of use to the patients. This is not privatisation but commonsense. Economic Policy We will not be striving to create an economy based on the French model advocated by Francois Hollande or one based on the Greek model of voluntary payment by the rich. Austerity will continue until the deficit is cleared. There will be considerable changes to the MPs’ expenses system. MPs will not be able to claim for pets, duck ponds, tennis courts, second property mortgages, first class travel or for daily meals (everyone eats but nobody else can claim for it). MPs get a salary that is significantly better than the average working voter, so why should they be subsidised? There will be no change in the rate of Value Added Tax AND we will not be introducing it on anything new. We are not proposing to create two million jobs in the next parliament because there are not enough UK unemployed people to fill those jobs and we do not wish to cause immigration to fill them until we have addressed the housing issues. Our long term economic plan will allow the private sector to create the jobs that it requires and only use immigrants where there is a skills shortage. The number of three-to-a-job unionised slackers in the public sector will shrink further. We need to take steps to increase productivity and reduce the number of ‘zero hours’ contracts. There is no doubt that the ‘baby boom’ generation have had the best of fortunes economically, having benefitted from the increase in property values caused by the failure to build new properties at sufficient rates whilst selling state property at below market values. We propose to suspend the Right To Buy and we will scrap schemes that use government debt to subsidise first time buyers. Our housing plan will force house builders with unused land to commence building work with the objective being to build 250,000 houses a year. Initially this target will not be met whilst young people are trained in the necessary building skills. House builders will not be allowed to hold land and build slowly in order to sustain high prices, so house prices will fall, ending the housing bubble. The only losers from this will be older people whose asset values will fall; however, most will not be net losers. We will change the tax thresholds so that those at the lower end of the middle income bracket will be removed from the forty per cent rate of tax. We will continue to allow employers to hire the under 21s without having to pay National Insurance contributions for them as this will not prevent them from completing their required thirty years of contributions to be eligible for the State pension. All corporations operating within the United Kingdom will be required to pay Corporation Tax on their activities irrespective of where they have previously domiciled their corporation for tax purposes. Frothy coffee, books and advertising sold here will be taxed here. We will stop the current policy of using government debt to subsidise inflation-busting fixed interest bonds for pensioners as this policy only benefits wealthy pensioners at the expense of the taxpayer, especially the poorest.
Good morning QM. The General Election is the topic of much debate at the moment, so much so that it probably deserves its own thread. Are you OK for us to make this the official Not606 UK General Election thread?
The debate tonight will certainly be entertaining. Nigel Farage is good in this format, and I'd expect him to really show up a few of the others. Cameron and Miliband will likely be his top targets. I remember how well he got under Nick Cleggs skin in a similar debate. Should be fun to watch
Our chief policymaker and spin doctor burned the midnight oil scribbling our manifesto commitments on the back of a beer mat until the early hours so that we could make sure that we published our promises on All Fools Day and trump all the other comedians. We are delighted to see that we have already managed to catch one swing voter – he obviously saw our cracking Election broadcast totty and realised that it was the right thing to do. We would be delighted to share this Election platform with the other comedians as they must all be running scared now that our Party have put forward the winning formula.
Looks a bit 'kipperish to me QM. Are you a fan of that man of the people Mr Farage? Not sure whether I could be swayed or not as I'm not sure what is I would be swayed from. Like the proposed spokes lady apart from the part shaved head option.
What time do the debates kick off folks? Going to enjoy this one tonight, despite the usual political non-answers.
We do advocate a “Get Out Of The E.S.S.R.” policy and our leader likes a pint, so there are similarities. If Call Me Dave wants a Conservative majority, he needs to go on the debate and admit that he cannot do anything about immigration whilst staying in the socialist super state so he will give us a referendum and tell us to get out. That way he will shoot Farage’s fox and have the right wing vote to himself. We decided that we should have a stunning gorgeous female spokesperson in our election broadcasts after we saw the Labour had used an actor in their broadcast rather than have Ed Miliband do it and risk everyone switching off. We were not aware that she had gone with the part shaved head look as we know her best as Anne Boleyn in The Tudors. If American TV had made that, they would have changed history so that Henry VIII did not get rid of her.
I'm undecided as to how I will vote on May 7th, but of this one thing I am sure; that I would never tire of kicking Nigel Farage in the face.
We at the ‘None Of The Above’ Party did not get invited to the ITV Leaders’ Debate, so instead we will be occupying our time usefully watching the Hull Derby Super League game on Sky Sports. What we expect to happen is that in the ‘debate’ part where the seven wise monkeys get to shout each other down, Mr Farage will pick on Mr Cameron about immigration (especially the notion that he is somehow going to be able to renegotiate E.U. open border policy and get the other 27 to agree to it); and Ms Sturgeon (who is not even standing for election) will be picking on Mr Miliband about pretty much anything to do with austerity. The best bits will be on YouTube by five past ten in two minutes of soundbites. We had a good laugh this morning with the news that Labour had managed to find some business friends to write a letter supporting them in the Garuniad. This was particularly uncomfortable for Tristram Hunt on the Daily Politics when he was asked about how many of those businesses use zero hours contracts, to which the Party leader is opposed.
When Sid Vicious said "I've met the man in the street and he's a £&%$" would like to think he had the likes of Mr Farage in mind.
I may vote UKIP as they are the only mainstream party that will do something about the immigration problem. The only thing that is stopping me, is voting for them could leave the door open for Labour, which would make the problem even worse
I don't get involved in politics or political discussions. I don't have the knowledge nor the time to acquire the knowledge required to run a country efficiently whilst ensuring longer term stability for future generations. It is unhealthy to run a country on short termism just as it is a company; and that's what happens if you don't have a long term plan and the time, resources, ability and dedication to see it through. Swapping governments every few years is no way to achieve that. So for me it's down to trust. I wouldn't trust Farage full stop. I wouldn't trust Miiliband full stop. Clegg, I could just about but he isn't strong enough Cameron is the only one I could trust to do what is right overall and be strong enough to carry it through. The others wouldn't have a clue. This government has got us out of recession and on the way to economic growth. I couldn't trust the others not to cock it up A no brainer for me but I don't have a vote
We did not bother with the ITV Leaders’ Debate and from the analysis on the news afterwards, it looks like Hull KR thrashing Hull FC was the better option. We hope that our lifelong Hull FC fan friend has not topped himself as we are supposed to be spilling a few beers on Good Friday. According to Douglas Alexander on Newsnight, “Britain can be better than this”. He is right – vote ‘None Of The Above’. A member of the public selected to watch the debate for Newsnight described Ed Miliband as a car salesman. Would you buy a car off Wallace? Hell yeah. Apparently Nicola Sturgeon won the ‘poll of polls’ so punters who backed her collected. Favourite backers are searching the pubs of Salford for their man. On Question Time, Andy Burnham won the award for not answering the question when he was asked about setting up an apolitical select committee to run the NHS and instead rattled out Labour’s election rhetoric. Michael Gove was not far behind. Peter Hitchens made more sense than the politicians on the panel. We liked Andrew Neil’s opening to This Week when he said it was the debate where nothing changed. According to Miranda Green, Plaid Cymru are still fourth choice in Wales! The ‘None Of The Above’ Party can buy every voter a pint and our long term economic plan will still look more credible than the Green Party, so they are irrelevant unless you are a Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate. If you do not live in Wales, Plaid Cymru are irrelevant unless you are a Labour candidate. If you do not live in Scotland, the Scottish National Party are irrelevant unless you are a Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate. Just why did Conservative PM David Cameron want all of these parties in the debate?
Because his strategist told him it would be the easiest way to hide without suffering the complete embarrassment of not being present at all. I watched it and have to say some of the post match analysis makes Robbie Savage look half decent. One of the exchanges that clearly demonstrated to me the political mess that we are in was the 2 nationalists having a go at Nasty Nige for his lack of compassion for folk with HIV. He said that 60% of the 7000 treated by the cash strapped NHS last year were foreign nationals, at a cost of around £25k each. Not one other panelist questioned the statement but the anti-austerity folk laid him to him. So that's just north of an extra billion quid the UK taxpayer has to shell out in these financially difficult times. It's been well publicised that there is a massive NHS black hole fast approaching. I'm no fan of UKIP but it strikes me that this island has a lot more to fear if the these anti-austerity clowns gain an influence in government. Chalk me down for another vote for your none of the above party QM.
I think you're missing the point. Farage just grabbed his numbers out of thin air. Surely no sane person believes that the NHS spent over a billion £ on HIV treatment for foreign nationals last year? He made the numbers up.
To be successful financially you need to be ruthless, look at any successful business person for proof of this. Being nice to people doesn't work. This is the problem with Britain, we are to nice, and are obsessed with doing the so called right thing. It's about time we became more selfish as a country, and this will help us pay off our debts a lot faster. This is why I like Nigel Farage as he has that ruthless streak that Britain needs. What he said about HIV was a perfectly fair comment, and the 2 women who tried to take the moral high ground are completely out of touch with reality. We can't just give away free health care to none nationals, or we as a country ourselves will end up struggling to help our own people, if we just keep throwing away money. As far as Cameron is concerned I agree it made sense for him to allow some of the smaller parties in the debate, and it worked out well for him. The Welsh and the SNP representatives where always more likely to target Miliband, as both Wales and Scotland are to poor to vote conservative. So they're not really competing with Cameron for seats. This showed in the debate as Nicola Sturgeon really tore into Miliband throughout. Had it just been Cameron, Miliband, Clegg and Farage. Cameron would of been in big trouble. You could see even with 7 that there was a tactical alliance between Farage and Miliband, and even Clegg had a real go at Cameron, so the 3 women from the other parties getting involved stopped Cameron from taking a hammering
Have you any proof he made that up, or are you just doing what you've accused him of doing and making things up? If he did make those figures up, which I highly doubt. Then surely someone would of proved that by now, when you consider there where 10 million people watching. If your going to make up untrue facts, you're not going to do it with half the country watching, are you?
