How you gonna vote

TBH I cant see Blair lasting the term, I think he's looking battle-weary already and thats before his back-benchers have a go over iraq. 2 years max is my estimation.

 

Yeah - of course - how could anyone under the age of 60 possibly want a smaller government and lower taxes

Matt.

 

Of course they can but they need a change of leader - step forward Dr Fox - and they need to re-establish what they stand for - small, non interfering government, lower tax but enough money direct to the front line public servants (who are left alone to get on with delivering a good service instead of being hampered by government targets).

As it stands they seem to be promising to match Labours' public spending which is daft for two reasons - 1. it goes against what they represent and 2. Nobody believes them anyway.

They also need to remember who the party and the leader need to appeal to i.e. the floating 1 million or so voters who decide the government. There's no need to appeal hugely to the Tory faithfull or to try to win true Labourites as neither of these will change the way they vote.

Matt.

Matt.

 

and less spending on education, healthcare, pensions, etc.
i'm reminded of that simpsons episode where all the parents are screaming for better facilities but balk at the extra 5c tax necessary.
as i've said before i'd willingly pay more tax if the countries facilities got the money instead of fat arse politicos and their swiss bank accounts. this is one reason i voted l/d they at least were honest enough to say they'd have to increase taxes to improve things rather than labours 'stealth tax' policy and the tories 'virtual nhs / education' policys.
so... where's the uk's 'appology picture' site then? or is blair too much of a wrist warmer for bush to warrant one?
cheers


julian.

 

a majority of 60 is a good result. it means fewer Blairites, and that might been less Blairism and may then mean no Blair. Then we will learn what Brown will make of the top job ...

 

Yeah coz he'd bring his own jingles and everythin, he could even host MP idol, a reality show in which people audition to be candidates..........I'll get my coat.

 

'traditionally'!!

just how long is that tradition?

now its generally the case that age had one moving to the right. if you start off 'traditionally a tory', then you could end up somewhere nasty ...

unless you wish to be a traditional 'one nation' tory!

 

Whatever happened to youthful idealism eh. When I was a lad you were nigh on a facist if you were a Kinnockite. These really are sad days.

AT what do you imagine the Tories will improve for you and how?

 

Well at least Boris is back

 

Tories have gained my constituency (Ludlow) from LibDems, more's the pity.
At least it's one of the few.
Perhaps next election we may even see a fairer system, where percentage of votes actually counts rather than our first past the post "democtratic" dictatorship.
Labour managed 66odd seat majority with 39% of the vote! How's that fair?
And Maggie (see The Exploited's paen to the Milk Snatcher!) managed about 170 majority with 43%..

 

Well, let me tackle this in two parts:

PR - I'm very happy with our preferential voting system. We use the Hare-Clark system IIRC and FWIW. When voting for the lower house (= Commons), we place candidates in preferred order. This allows people to vote for the smaller parties in they desire, whilst still placing the major parties (lower down the order) in relatively preference, which in most cases will be the votes that actually determine seat by seat victory; for example that is, you could vote 1) Green, 2) Democrat, 3) Labour & 4) Liberal 5) Racist Scum, 6) Single Issue Waster. As primary votes are tallied, candidates with the lowest count are dropped and second preferences tallied and so on 'till someone has a majority [there is of course a bit more to it than that, but in essence...].

The practical outcome of this is that no one need feel as though there is no point in voting for their preferred candidate/party as it would likely tactically advantage a party they really don't like! Ignoring the fact the voting here is compulsory, there is IMHO much less disincentive to vote - or something like that!

Coalition - Whilst the current government is a coalition between the (not very) Liberal Party and National (nee Country) party, it ought not be looked at like some of the coalitions we see form and dissolve in the life of a parliament that can be seen in some countries (eg. Italy). This is an old, perhaps traditional, alliance, with the Nationals appearing to be more of a regional extension to the Liberals than a party in their own right at times. The two parties very rarely stand candidates in the same seat.

If the Democrats hadn't dissolved into disarray over the past few years, we may have had a possibility in the last election of a Labour/Democrat coalition. Not saying this was a strong possibility, just an interesting potential...

Now for the third part of my two part answer! Putting aside electoral system differences and looking purely at politics, what's it been like with the coalition in power for so long?

Disappointing. Dispiriting.

The current government have shown a singular lack of vision of what our society is and could be. There are self-serving, economic-rationalist, small minded wankers only too happy to run down sections of our society for short term economic gain. If you in the UK think the GWB has one hand firmly thrust up Tony Blair's rectum, then it is fair to say that his other hand equally well and similarly inserted in John Howard.

That's not to say that it's been all bad under the current government. The broad economic indicators have remained relatively healthy. We are building better relations with our Asian neighbours (which didn't look at all likely when they came to power). The tax system has been reformed ('though not enough), etcetera.

Just that the Liberals are no longer liberal – they have morphed into conservatives under Howard's leadership. In so doing, many of the prominent 'small l' liberals have been moved aside and there appears to be little chance of a return to their previous principles (any principles?).

Still, could be worse. On the bright side, the leadership tensions between Howard and Peter Costello (Treasurer and anointed successor) are again mounting with Howard recently suggesting he may stay on for yet another election. May be fun – especially if they outdo the Hawke/Keating leadership fun of the early 90's!

Stuart.

 

Is it not 36%? The difference with thatchers government is that they polled a much higher number of votes due to the high turn-out. TB has gained just 22% of those eligable to vote, their second worse post-war performance after 1983. In a perfect world, PR would be great but I just cant see it working in practice.

 

Why not? What do you see as the downside?

Regards,

Stuart.

 

In a bit of a mad rush but I will try and reply to some of the stuff directed at me.

Lord - I think that it might be easier to get on the housing ladder with the tories, I also think it could be easier to run a business as there would be less red tape involving employees.

I could not vote for current tory government as I feel it would make life harder for the higher earning working classes/lower earning middle classes. I certainly would be in less debt under the labour government than the tory as they want to charge commerical interest on student loans and scrap fees, my parents don't earn that much money so I currently don't pay any fees.

I dislike labours black and white attitude to politics though, there have been occasions where you live in this postcode therefore you're rich and don't qualify for such a scheme, it dosnt matter that my parents bought the house in 1980.

I think Labour will do somthing to mess up this term, maybe Gorden Brown being the PM would be very unpopular. Certainly labours share of the votes will be reduced in 2009.

The tories need to sort them selves out, all the other MPs near me live in the area or at least in the borders, the tory one living 180-200 miles away is a joke, how does she know what the people of the Withington ward need?

I know this common (e.g Blair) but I think it is just wrong. As another person said here politics is just a game of sleaze.

Also I don't agree with Maggie fully either, Cluase 28 was a complete joke and I don't agree with the way she privatised public transport, things have improved but it has still caused problems due to the legacy of it all.

I think John Major was a good PM, although he was a bit boring. I am too young to really know much of the issues back then though. All I know is I am sick of the lies labour has told since 1997.

Certainly in the Withington ward (a very mixed area in terms of demographics, some of the countries richest and poorest people live here) it seems they are sick of it as well.

The thought of the Lib Dem's winning in 2001 would have been a joke.

I am now going to see if the lib dems can perform any better in my local area.

One thing I have learn't from yesterday's results is that your vote does count, and just because a party had a huge majority last time it dosn't mean it will the next.

 

Firstly I just dont think it will happen, neither Labour or the Tories will benefit from a PR system and despite what the Lib Dems say its still a two party government.

Despite all the negatives the current system does usually throw up a winner, a one party government that has campaigned on a set manifesto. For PR to work we would still need an overall majority system to govern or else it wouldnt be PR and you'd never get that so we're down to coalitions. Id be worried that the smaller parties will be handed an out of proportion power in parliment.

I shall resume later.

 

You might be amazed Jules but I do agree with you on some of that - I wouldn't mind paying this extra tax if I thought it was being spent wisely at the sharp end - I just don't believe it is though.

As for pensions, no-one in history has done more damage to pensions schemes as Brown has with his annual £6bn raid!

Matt.

 

I find the thought of him carrying out his tax raising measures with no-one to reel him back in rather frightening.

However, if he decides to raise National Insurance again I'll be lowering my salary to counteract it

Matt.

 

Hmmmm... Interesting point. I'm naturally inclined to vote one way in the lower house and another other way in the upper house. The intention with this is to provide some moderation to the government's (formed in the lower house) ability to push through whatever legislation they want. Prior to the last election, the Democrats held the balance of power in the upper house. This meant that If the Government put legislation throught the lower house, and the main opposition (Labour) didn't like it and voted against it, the government needed the votes of the Democrats to get their legislation passed. This allowed the Democrats to either block it, negotiate changes to it or fully support it.

Something of a check on rampant governmental sillyness.

Of course, this situation wasn't so good when an extreamly conservative independant gentleman effectively held the balance of power in the Senate for a time... Unfortunately, my fellow citizens put common sense behind them last election and voted for a government majority in both houses... This gave rise to an interesting theory that the Government, now freed of this upper house check, would legislate itself into unelectability by the end of their three year term! We shall see.

Stuart.

 

See, the whole Upper/Lower house system doesnt sit easy with me, I know we have the house of lords but their power (thankfully) has largely been removed. My other problem with the system is that I would only vote for one party, I couldnt split a vote over two parties and I would imagine many people would be the same, this would still lead to the same result. It appears that you have more parties sharing the votes who are able to find common ground, politics here is much more black and white (or Blue and Red) hence the small grey area in the middle would be in a strong position. We do have coalitions, espec at local level, these usually consist of Lib/Lab forming a coalition to simple keep the tories out. Time and time again these have proved to be very unsuccessful and costly. Personally, Id like to see stronger boundary reforms, 635 seats is a stupid amount to have for a country of this size, merging a number of seats in 'safe' areas would lead to a much more balanced democracy.

 

Actually, after a quick re-think I suppose their could be something in a two tier system. I suppose you could vote a main party who you'd want overall control in the commons and one of the fringe parties i.e Greens in a lower tier who has areas of particular interest. For example, no way would I want the Green party in power, the country would collapse fast but I would like much more green awareness, non of the main parties even mentioned the environment this time so you have to look elsewhere. If that makes sense.