I live near Brighton. I would suggest that anyone thinks of voting for the Greens should look at the Green Brighton council. Attempting to agree extreme council tax rises to fund un-necessary infrastructure products, 20 MPH speed limits, legal drug taking meeting rooms all at the expense of much needed welfare projects. I can assure you that the Greens will not get back into Brighton with residents wishing good riddance. Sadly however they will likely be replaced by Labour.
Cruyff, you say politics is about pragmatism, yet write off voting green as voting Tory. But it's a Tory vote that sends another message. A vote for a major party is a vote for the status quo, a system dominated by two (three) parties, with fairly similar priorities. Voting elsewhere throws a spotlight on the priorities of the smaller party. Take UKIP, as soon as they began to grow the major parties suddenly started pushing their policies for cracking down on immigration. Whether UKIP get a significant number of seats or not, the votes they get mean migration reform is on every manifesto. If the Greens start to get votes, a similar thing will start to happen with things like sustainable energy. If the Greens can start to pick up votes, mainstream parties suddenly need to have
Any ex-pats living abroad, you can vote in the May election providing you register in time! please log in to view this image Dear David , I'm e-mailing you because around 3 million British people who live abroad have just regained their right to vote in this country. Election law has just changed so anyone who has been living abroad for less than 15 years is legally entitled to vote but, with only 2 months to go before the General Election on May 7th, virtually none of them know about it. And that's where you come in... What I am asking is, if you can think of three Britons you know who live abroad, that you forward this message to them by email or on Facebook. All they have to do is click on www.gov.uk/register-to-vote and complete the form to order a postal vote online. It takes about 3 minutes, and all they need is their passport and National Insurance number for identification. The deadline is April 20th. So please encourage them to register. It’s easy, and it matters. British people died within the last 100 years to win the vote, and they’re still being killed in other countries where people want to stop them getting it today. It’s fashionable to be cynical about democracy but, if you’ve paid your taxes, you’ve got a right to have a say in who spends them, and how. Or, as my grandma used to say, ‘if I don’t vote, I’ll get the politicians I deserve’! Yours Sincerely, please log in to view this image
i must admit for the first time since i voted in 1979 i do not know which way to vote. i have mostly voted labour over the years,but i could not vote for miliband and the current crop of wannabees......i would not trust them to run a whelk stall,little alone with the econamy of the uk. i am just unsure about the tories,i think they have done as well as anybody could with the econamy.but trust them less on other issues,like the nhs. one thing i know is i will not be voting ukip. they are a potiental ice burg for this country and god save us from them. i think i will vote tory(for the first time) with reservations. i just do not feel represented by any one party now,and feel i am not alone
You don't vote for the Prime Minister you want - but your local representative at Government. My home MP is Norman Lamb - and regardless of your politics he is a damn fine constituency MP. Meanwhile my MP in London is completely anonymous. Never hear a squeak. I would love it if there were more independently minded - truly dedicated candidates to vote for. That way we could get away from this pseudo presidential stuff that the media love, turning elections into some kind of game show.
I have done rather more than read their policies. I was a District Councillor for fourteen years and know an elected Green representative quite well. Nice chap,total fruitcake.
Fair point about Syria, but Bush & Blair have caused a lot of mess in the Middle East, what did invading Iraq achieved? Sadly dictators word in some parts of the world, it's not so black and white when religious and tribal lines are concerned. Under Labour I had four years of pay freezes 2003-2007, I had to move jobs in order to live properly, even after that then we had to endure the recession.
That wasn't really anything to do with Labour then was it? As business in the private sector was relatively thriving in those years it must have been a result of either bad management by your employers or you were in a sector that was subject to it's own problems. The Motor Trade is currently in the doldrums,yes they are selling lots of cars but with little or no profit. The hike to 20% in VAT was the last straw for me,I sold up and retired. If Dave gets back VAT will be 25% within months,
IF Millipede gets in all the good work done by this government getting our economy back on track will be undone. The typical 'buy now pay later' policies of the Labour party will rear their ugly head once more and no doubt plunge us back into recession. Just like a credit card, debt doesn't simply go away debt has to be repaid, either that or you are declared bankrupt. Makes me smile how blinkered Labour voters are sometimes, saying that when the economy gets ****ed up (as it always does under a Labour government), it has **** all to do with them and that it's a world problem, yet when the Tories get the economy back on track it's down to the world economy and it has **** all to do with Conservative policies. I'm from a working class background proud of it and still consider myself to be so, but I have never voted Labour as I couldn't afford to. My parents were never wealthy so everything I have (which isn't a great deal), I've WORKED bloody hard for and I've always been a lot better off under a Conservative government. Too many people in this country have no self respect and are happy to sit on their backsides expecting everything to be handed to them on a plate. How the hell we got to where we are now God only knows and it makes my blood boil.
Love how Liberal Democrats haven't been mentioned - most irrelevant party ever. How Paddy Ashdown must be upset at the lows they are under now. Agree re passive votes - if you have no interest in mainline politics why not give green a vote? Not that I would - their leader doesn't even know what she's on about. She's almost as embarrassing as Ed Milliband. Like the Tories or hate them, Cameron was a good appointment for that party. Milliband clearly is a disaster. He sounds more like a tory than Cameron!!! " Friends!!! " he's just hilarious. That episode of " thumbs up friend " from the Inbetweeners I will always associate Edward Milliband with. Like or hate UKIP, Farage is a clever appointment. I thought Nick Clegg was a good appointment at the time - and he was destroying the other two with the public debate last time! The university tuition fees major rise will always go against that party though. Be an interesting election - looking like a marginal Tory victory at the minute. Certainly don't feel they'll have enough for a majority - could end up the same coalition I would assume. Countdown begins now..... I thought it was quite a clever political budget also. Certainly a vote puller.
Well, looking in on this from the outside, I´d have to say that England, quite literally, has gone to the dogs, It certainly doesn´t retain the same levels of recognition, or stature, amongst the other European countries, as say, it did 30 or 40 years ago, one look at the currency rate will tell you that. When we first came here, it was 14 kroner to the £, now it´s 8, ** and has been for the last 15 years anyway, great for Christmas shopping, but that´s about it. Politics in my opinion, is the worst sort of sales propaganda there is, where the whole object is to telll people what they want to hear, then when you´re voted in, do the opposite, and as far as I can see, it doesn´t matter whether the government is red, blue, or black or white, they´re all exactly the same, and all very adept at it. When has honesty ever been high on the list of necessary qualifications to become an MP, after all No, as far as England and English politics are concerned, you´re welcome to ´em. ** I beg its pardon, just noticed it´s leapt up to 10 - still doesn´t change my opinion of politics though
It´s been 25% here for as long as I can remember, which works perfectly well, as long as wages etc. also get a hike up.
Clearly voting Green will make absolutely no difference in this election. However if enough people voted Green then I guess the main parties (who are only slightly less loonie) would probably adjust their policies to be slightly more Green in order to attract some of the less loonie Green voters to their party. Also I guess that the more votes the Green party get the more press scrutiny they would come under from the press, which would expose their loonier policies. Similar to the way the press have reacted to the apparent increase in the UKIP.
Spot on. And that is the point of democracy - we should not follow one party with blind faith and accept the dictats from its manifesto as if they are a Papal proclamation. Anyone who is tribal with their support simply helps to prevent politicians from being held to account IMO.
Apart from the fact we have First Past the Post as an electoral system and that means a party could poll 30% and still not win a single seat. That is what has happened with UKIP. A By Election in a Tory seat and lots of Labour voters go UKIP to kick the Tory, then when one comes in a Labour seat Tory voters do the same. UKIP could come second in every seat and get nothing. As for The Tories fixing the economy,pull the other one. They rule for the benefit of the richest 5% and nobody else. The jobs they have created are Mcjobs. Zero hours contracts,minimum wage drudgery and in thrall to people such as the bankers and the supermarkets.
Every politicians should be held to account and politics should be as transparent and open to the common man as it is to people with the very highest statue. Politicians shout like children in the houses of parliament then connive like criminals in the back rooms and ball rooms, just looking to earn the most dough. And those under handed tactics are the basis of pretty much the entire world economy. We're just all expected to either shut up and shuffle along or try and fight the tide.
