Elections in the UK

[TheKwas]

For most intents and purposes, the Bloc steals votes primarily from the Liberals (I suppose the NDP in a way, but the NDP barely exist in Quebec so it doesn't really count). The conservatives are generally disliked throughout most of the province and simply don't compete for many seats, especially after Mulroney, and what seats they do hold they didn't win off traditional Bloc voters.

[Hillary]

Don't the majority of european countries use a different electoral system to ours? I don't have the know-how to back this up but I beleive our system favours a larger majority "control" of the body politic which does not match voting numbers throughout the country.

I think there's changes afoot with our approach, at least Labour/Lib Dems have tried to put forward changes on this. Not sure what the tory opinion on these were.

The Tories and most of the Labour Party are against it as they both benefit from the current set up (Labour more than the Tories, interestingly). Brown only really floated the idea to convey the impression he was trying to reform Parliament after the expenses scandal.

PR would certainly increase the vote count. I, along with most people, live in a constituency that is solidly behind one of the parties (in my case Labour), so the incentive to vote is not massive, even if you support the majority party in the seat.

Both parties, after initial forays into selling their leaders, seem to have come to the conclusion that the best way to win the election is to make a bogeyman of their opposite number. If the Tories had a halfway likeable leader (say, Ken Clark) they'd win by a mile. However, Cameron is Blair with worse hair and worse delivery.

The most depressing aspect of this election is that the focus will be on right-wing bedrocks. Taxes, smaller government and immigration, with a bit of justice (i.e. harsher prison sentences) thrown in for good measure. Much as in the US, wealth redistribution is deemed to be a dirty phrase, even by those who would benefit from better social policies.

I guess when the entire media (apart from the buttock-clenchingly impartial BBC) is owned by multi-millionaires, you'd expect little else.

[Zac Naloen]

Don't tell the Tories the BBC are impartial Hillary!

[Hillary]

Don't tell the Tories the BBC are impartial Hillary!

All political parties whinge about the supposed partiality of the BBC towards their rivals.

It's exacty the same as all football fans thinking the media hates their club.

[Crazedwraith]

As to hung Parliaments; does anyone else find Nick Clegg's blithering on the subject of what he will do in that eventuality incredibly annoying. I get that he's trying to emphasis the whole 'will of the people' thing but he just comes off as indecisive to me.

[Teebs]

As to hung Parliaments; does anyone else find Nick Clegg's blithering on the subject of what he will do in that eventuality incredibly annoying. I get that he's trying to emphasis the whole 'will of the people' thing but he just comes off as indecisive to me.

I don't know, I'm torn. I've found it a bit irritating the way that he seems to come out with different things on the subject on different days, but I can understand where the problems are coming from, when the election result is so unsure you really can't commit to who you'd work with.

That being said, I would stick to a statement that I would work with whoever won the popular vote (assuming I formed a coalition with anyone) and that whether I formed such a coalition would depend on what concessions I could get for my own party's voters. I suppose the media wouldn't accept that though, what with the need for soundbites and the apparent belief that the Lib Dems' only role is to facilitate one or the other of Labour and Conservatives' rise to power. Even if you preferred going for one or the other, actually commiting to that would then alientate all of the voters from the other side who saw you as a tolerable alternative.

[Mr. Tickle]

That being said, I would stick to a statement that I would work with whoever won the popular vote (assuming I formed a coalition with anyone) and that whether I formed such a coalition would depend on what concessions I could get for my own party's voters. I suppose the media wouldn't accept that though, what with the need for soundbites and the apparent belief that the Lib Dems' only role is to facilitate one or the other of Labour and Conservatives' rise to power. Even if you preferred going for one or the other, actually commiting to that would then alientate all of the voters from the other side who saw you as a tolerable alternative.

Well, it's a pretty new situation to be in for british politics. Out of the available options I personnally think he's taking the best approach, the Lib Dems would be slated by the others if they came out and picked a side so early and before the election happened, it would also potentially alienate voters who might of been undecided. I mean, if I was a voter perhaps leaning towards Lib Dem and they declared an interest so early to form a coalition with Labour I could decide to go with an independant or another smaller minority group, the Green party for example. The bigger overall share the Lib Dems get the more power they'll eventually get in any coalition government, so really this is the best approach for them.

So now we've had the 2 big manifestos, no huge surprises really. Labour are sticking with the raft of minor policy ideas and focusing on the "recovery" but without any specifics on it(a good plus imo since the recession has generally gone from OMG WE ARE GONNA ALL DIE in the media to a general mumble about the size of the budget deficiet which is more of an economic matter which doesn't really come over well in tabloids). The Tories have gone with a few popularist ideas, scholarships for children of injured soliders, no NI increase and some very vague overarching ideas about the "people" being able to take a stake in public services and run them ourselves. From the Lib Dems no doubt we'll have something more in the middle of these 2 with some more bold ideas since they can afford to be a bit more brave with their plans.

Still doesn't seem to have set anything off in the wider world really, as much media coverage we are getting on it there's nothing really happening which is much different what happens before. Rolling news coverage of a interview or a speech with nothing really being said, just feels like a normal week of news with just more flashy graphics and reporters doing more 12 second interviews with "real people", I feel like it just washes over me now.

Edit : Correction to some wording

[Plekhanov]

As to hung Parliaments; does anyone else find Nick Clegg's blithering on the subject of what he will do in that eventuality incredibly annoying. I get that he's trying to emphasis the whole 'will of the people' thing but he just comes off as indecisive to me.

What do you expect him to say? To come out in favour of or decisively reject either the Tories or Labour at this point would be political suicide in many winnable seats where the Liberals are fighting it out with Labour or the Tories. All Nick can sensibly do is fend off such questions whilst trying to put off as few people as possible.

[Zac Naloen]

I want to talk about the Tories marriage tax breaks, which frankly scares the crap out of me as far as being the pinnacle of government interference.

I don't really understand how the tories, a party all about people being responsible for themselves can then turn around and offer tax breaks to married people in the name of promoting family values and stopping marriages from breaking down. Does Cameron honestly think that the best thing to do with a damaged marriage is to bribe them with money and hope the divorce statistics continue to go down? (Amusingly the Divorce statistics being as low as they've been since the late 70's seems to question the idea that tory ideals promote good marriages)

The only thing I can see happening here is that you end up with more marriages happening, more young people getting married when they aren't ready and as a result more divorces in that age range. The complete opposite to what Cameron wants.

Surely a much more sensible solution would be to offer councilling services to those planning to get married and recently married so that they can at least go into the marriage with some idea of the difficulties they will face/some outlet to deal with the issues they are facing. Offering tax breaks just smacks of a lazy ill-thought out policy, that unsurprisingly the Tory faithful are lapping up.

[Zac Naloen]

And in other News Gordon Brown makes commits a political cardinal sin, admits he was wrong...



http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010 ... regulation

In an ITV interview due to be broadcast tonight, Brown admits he had been influenced by bankers' lobbying.

"In the 1990s, the banks, they all came to us and said, 'Look, we don't want to be regulated, we want to be free of regulation.' ... And all the complaints I was getting from people was, 'Look you're regulating them too much.'

"The truth is that globally and nationally we should have been regulating them more. So I've learnt from that."

[Starglider]

Does Cameron honestly think that the best thing to do with a damaged marriage is to bribe them with money and hope the divorce statistics continue to go down?

Living together for years without bothering with getting married is very popular with younger people. Certainly my peer group is replete with examples. My guess is that older Tory voters don't like this and want to discourage it.

That said, in a lot of cases marriages are salvagable and a mild extra push might keep people together long enough to work things out. Also, when children are involved frankly I don't care if the parents have to endure some hardship putting up with each other; things have to be pretty bad before this is worse for the kids than single parenting.

[Zac Naloen]

Just to ask Starglider, do you hold that opinion having come from a broken home?

[Hillary]

I want to talk about the Tories marriage tax breaks, which frankly scares the crap out of me as far as being the pinnacle of government interference.

The pinnacle? It's a daft idea, to be sure, but it hardly registers on any scale of government interference in society.

The economy, climate change, the energy gap and the growing disparancy between rich and poor, which exacerbates the societal problems in the country. These are the important issues - a small married couples allowance is pretty small beer.

[Zac Naloen]

Poorly worded, I meant pinnacle in terms of it's the government poking their nose into private lives (should be the last place they interfer) and using cash bribes to enforce their way of life on couples. It just really puts me on edge. It's far too prying and considering who it's coming from excessively socialist.. which leaves me with an expression very similar to this smiley


It's the same again with their current power to the people pledge... have the Tory party suffered communist coup d'etat we've missed?

Decisions on schools, health care etc should be left to the experts everyday people are neither qualified nor able to think rationally enough about such subjects beyond very broad terms

[Crazedwraith]

Wasn't there also suggestion that everyone should be involved in volunteering somehow. Which kinda misses the point of the term 'volunteering'.

What do you expect him to say? To come out in favour of or decisively reject either the Tories or Labour at this point would be political suicide in many winnable seats where the Liberals are fighting it out with Labour or the Tories. All Nick can sensibly do is fend off such questions whilst trying to put off as few people as possible.

I expect him to have a decently polished and coherent answer instead of blithering to Paxman for a full minute without saying what he means. He doesn't have to declare one way or the other. Just say something along the lines of 'I hope to be able to work with any government that the people chooses to elect, so long as I can remain consistent to the core values my party exposes.'

[Dartzap]

This first debate is basically a lengthened PMQ's but without the joy of 400 MP's shouting at each other. I know, I know, Punch and Judy politics = bad, but at least it keeps my attention...

[Zac Naloen]

If the Lib Dems don't get a boost in the polls as a result of this then I this will have been pointless, Clegg is winning on pretty much every point.

[Dartzap]

If the Lib Dems don't get a boost in the polls as a result of this then I this will have been pointless, Clegg is winning on pretty much every point.

Clegg has certainly been answering the questions with specific answers, rather than the vague ones that Cameron has been throwing around.

[UnderAGreySky]

Cameron is terrible, just comes across as.... devoid of knowledge. Brown sounds underconfident... I counted three occasions where he could have been decisive and finished those particular points but didn't. Clegg is the only one who doesn't sound bad. Which is not saying much.

[TithonusSyndrome]

What's with Cameron's hardon for attack copters? Does he honestly think that a handful more Tigers would've... well, what does he thing they would have done, anyways? I've never seen a leader's debate where a candidate was this insistent on a particular piece of military hardware.

[Zac Naloen]

What's with Cameron's hardon for attack copters? Does he honestly think that a handful more Tigers would've... well, what does he thing they would have done, anyways? I've never seen a leader's debate where a candidate was this insistent on a particular piece of military hardware.

He thinks we are stupid.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If the Soviets storm the Fulda Gap, those Tigers will be useful. For dealing with insurgents, not so much.

I had a better thing to do with my ninety minutes: sleep. But I do hear Clegg did well, Brown was underconfident and Cameron a bumbling idiot. How unexpected.

If I catch an online recording, I'll try and make a drinking game of it. A sip whenever Gordon mumbles something incoherent. A gulp when Clegg uses logic. A whole shot if Cameron utters that fucking word "change".

[Dartzap]

For me this was something of an pointless case of copying the yanks for no apparent reason: its a pointless exercise to have them debating each other - they do it every flipping week of the Parlimentry session with hundreds of people bellowing at them from all side- why bother giving them a challange they can do with both hands tied behind their backs? Between that and the fact we don't vote for the bloody PM it just comes across as a fantastic reason to make ITV ad free for once in a blue moon.

[Crazedwraith]

I may have watched Welcome To The Jungle, instead of the debate. I hear Clegg 'won' though. Which is pretty snazzy because I lean towards lib dem anyway.

Did they actually say anything of interest or did they spend most of the time poo-pooing each other?

[Teebs]

As a paid up Lib Dem member, all I have to say is that it's nice to be leading in the polls for once