chrisp65

Given the option on May 7th, how do we think public sector workers would respond to the following question.....

hey, civil servant and local government chaps, lots of people in the private sector have taken a paycut. Well, here's your choice, cut the wage bill by cutting staff by 15% OR.... by cutting pay by an average of 15%, go and have a vote on it and get back to me on June 5th with your choice.

perhaps not worded in that fashion, I was surprised in my office when that question dished out to 30 staff came back with a unanimous vote for keeping everyone and accepting less money. I was warmed by the lack of people thinking they'd personally be safe and thus voting for redundancies.

I'm keeping my vote secret and I'm holding it back for a few days to give Plaid the appearance of a late surge....

NOW

“I know how to run the economy in good times and bad”

THEN

“No return to Boom and Bust”

Brown is the DOL of politics. Great when its going well, when it went goes bad, passes the buck.

to be fair, you couldn't call them an honest bunch of lads though

zoned out of the debate this time, seen it twice already and the answers were on loop......when I say answers, I obviously mean rehearsed mini speach regardless of actual content of question

Onto Lagos programme now - much more interesting

good reminder, over I go....

I'm guessing Gordon won't be using the cosy personal anecdotal style in this next debate...

'...only yesterday I was talking to a lady in Rochdale.....'

great comedy value, but let's please not let a private off the record remark about a mad northern granny deflect from which party will do the best for Britain. I happen to think some of you guys are mad t wats, I just wouldn't be dull enough to let that slip out

vaguely connected, got my tickets for the second T20 game England v Pakistan today

something to look forward to!

that's a heck of a long list of achievements

trouble is SPIN!

more police than ever before, yet I don't remember the last time I saw one walk down the street, if I phone 999 the operator now asks which town I'm calling from, if I call the local station at night (town population 46,500) I'm told there is nobody there except the guy that answers the phone to say there is no one home.

waiting times for operations?

try telling my mum that, 2 years waiting for a back op, yet strangely still ticking all the target boxes as the clock stops everytime you are told you have a consultancy appointment in 6 weeks time, that refers you for a scan, that results in a consultancy, that then requires a specialist assessment and on and on.

devolved power to Welsh Assembly?

powers such as....er,...no wait I remember, tweek the school curriculum and build a new welsh assembly building

other items are a genuine positive move, Surestart being the clear winner for me. If politicos are to believed I think all three main parties have pledged to keep this running. Writing off the debt of poor countries was also a very good and moral thing to do.

a mixed bag

A planet of Milners would have conquered the universe by now.

using pedal power spaceships

you have to agree the poll tax was utterly fair and equal to all, it's simply undeniable

in simple terms, any tax that takes 0.01% off the super rich and 10% off the poorest, well, what's unfair about that? Some people just can't see the wood for the trees.

You just presume some things are common sense and general knowledge.

why can't they just play one goal and someone else goes in

that's the rotation we use in 5 a side

• 24 Apr 34 28 29 Con +5
  24 Apr 34 26 30 Con +4
  24 Apr 35 27 28 Con +7
  23 Apr 35 26 31 Con +4
  23 Apr 36 30 23 Con +6
  23 Apr 34 26 29 Con +5
  23 Apr 34 29 29 Con +5
  22 Apr 34 29 28 Con +5
  21 Apr 33 27 31 Con +2
  20 Apr 35 25 27 Con +8
  20 Apr 32 23 33 LD +1
  20 Apr 32 28 31 Con +1
  20 Apr 31 26 34 LD +3
  19 Apr 31 26 30 Con +1
  19 Apr 32 28 32 Tie
  19 Apr 35 26 26 Con +9
  19 Apr 33 27 31 Con +2
  19 Apr 32 24 32 Tie
  19 Apr 32 26 29 Con +3
  18 Apr 33 28 30 Con +3
  18 Apr 32 28 28 Con +4
  18 Apr 32 26 33 LD +1
  17 Apr 33 30 29 Con +3
  17 Apr 31 28 32 LD +1
  17 Apr 31 27 29 Con +2
  

list runs CON l LAB l LIB (but I just can't get it all to show up)

anorakpollblog

just a snapshot of the polls over the last week. Whilst no polling is spot on because of the quirks of FPTP and frankly people giving duff answers it does show a trend over the week for the tory lead to be stretching out or becoming consistent over the 'poll of polls'. Still showing a hung parliament, still close enough for a change in any direction. However it's also close enough for one dodgy stunt to lose it for any one particular party. One Elvis joke that goes wrong, one public appearance by John Redwood, who knows.

What is interesting is young Gordon announcing he was going to get out and meet more people, I wouldn't have thought that was necessarily his best tactic.

Interesting tactic from Clegg today, a day off to spend with the wife and kids (but with plenty of cameras to capture the day off and get some soundbites). I'm sure that will have done him more good than another speech to 10 people in a baked beans factory.

I had another doorstep experience today, another party called at the door today, informed me they knew my dad and a couple of my mates (it didn't come over in a sinister way!) and then quickly asked if they could put up a banner in my garden. Nice try but no thanks. Not trusting or interested enough in any of them for that sort of gesture thanks. On being very politely refused there was no attempt to engage in conversation it was turn and jog away consulting a clipboard.

just on a little side piece, loved some of the right of centre chat a couple of pages ago, probably summed up as 'loony left spread unfair slurs and stereotypes, I demand a fair debate, if I don't get my way I'm taking my ball off to Belize'. Good to see the selfish right can enjoy a drink just as much as the beautiful left.

I'll probably pick up a copy tomorrow. Rarely by a 'paper anymore, but if I do it's the Indie.

Not necessarily my views throughout, but that's a good thing. I find individual contributions can have different opinions whereas with so many papers there is a wiff of towing a party line.

a little while back under the 30 year rule they released papers around the milk snatching ...

the revelations from previous governments can be fascinating (anorak alert!), I'm currently reading 'Downing Street Diary' by Bernard Donoughue. Briefly, he was part of Wilson's inner circle in 1974 / 1975 and suggests strongly in the book that Labour had soft peddaled that election campaign because they knew what a train wreck the economy was. Somehow the conservatives managed to pedal even softer and Labour won. I'll condense the first 93 pages down:

don't really want to win this, the place is a mess.....

it's looking closer than we thought.....

we've won!!!

bugger, now what?

...and now the press are printing stories about us doing dodgy land deals, avoiding tax and cosying up to those that make big donations to the party.

could be an interesting reflection on the current bunch

but at least they now know where to go to party when Thatcher finally dies.

sad really.. but I think it reflects more on the people that post this sort of thing though tbh ..not saying people have to be hypocrites and mourn her but they could at least have the dignity to say nothing

Difficult call. I've lived through quite a few PMs and experienced many reactions to them from family, friends and work colleagues. Reactions have ranged from the apathetic feelings towards Major to the "I really can't stand that man" feelings towards Blair. I've never, and hope I won't again, heard such hatred towards a PM, expressed by such as cross-section of people, as that shown to Margret Thatcher.

It wasn't meant to goad or upset anyone (believe it or not), I was simply trying in a flippant and evidently tasteless way to encapsulate my wife's views. She didn't post it up, I did. But I do believe it is a view held by a significant number of people around me. Not the majority, not millions, but a large number. This may be because I live in a relatively poor town that used to have a thriving dock reliant on coal and manufacturing export. It also had a significant chemical industries sector, a massive timber yard, flour mill, two hospitals etc etc.. By the end of the Thatcher era all these were closed, shrunk, disappearing and the redundant workers told they were worthless spongers. And she took the milk off my brother. I'm not saying she was personally responsible for the structural changes that had to be made, I'm just saying she didn't have to enjoy it.

It will be interesting to see if there are still people 30 years from now that utterly hate Gordon Brown or Tony Blair and would let it influence their voting in a year 2040 election. I personally would certainly find it nigh on impossible to consider voting Labour until they clearly said that following George Bush into Iraq without a plan was a bit of a **** up and they'd do it differently next time. I'm not sure people will have a 30 year hate for any of the current breed of politico.

got home from work to find out that earlier today we had received a house call from the tories

oh dear, they obviously didn't realise that my part time local government working aggressively left wing missus was home alone - but at least they now know where to go to party when Thatcher finally dies.

the debate looks to have been a pretty close affair, which is probably the best result Labour could have dreamed of for the last 12 months. Interesting that the tory threat of meltdown if there is a hung parliament doesn't appear to have caught the public imagination. Libs must be dead chuffed with appearing to be in with a shout of having some power. If they can get to be kingmakers and tie down a decent deal on changing the way our first past the post system is set up then they really could be about to change the left right red blue landscape. Doubtless every paper tomorrow will be claiming their boy won it (whichever one of the three they support).

Having previously helped out with local Labour campaigning in the 80's (in a very small and insignificant way) I still couldn't bring myself to vote Labour at present and probably not for a good long time into the future. Probably still Plaid for me (which will be a wasted vote here but hey ho, moral high ground and all that). Plaid's poster boy on Question Time at the moment, this could change me to a spoilt ballot!

I think the current anti politics state is also down to Labour to be honest, and not just the expenses issue, more to do with the promises made 13 years ago, the way the public were cynically treated durring the nulabour "project" and their reaction to that. The way labour raised hope only to destroy it stored up issues for the way in which politics works in this country and they have themselves to blame

I'm guessing from your belief that 13 years of Labour would leave people disillusioned that you are 13 and have never considered what went before, and before that, and before that. They are all self serving liars. You just have to decide whether you have a preference for any of the potential spin off from any particular bunch of self serving liars being in power.

yeah but are you ex-directory too?

Even better, I don't have a landline (I have a non-registered mobile 'phone).

early Villa goal

they, with nothing to lose, push forward

we get a result that puts to bed the Chelsea thing

MOTD2 worth watching for a change

No SNP option?

Are they UK wide? Even the greens have 300+ candidates.

The poll says "who gets your vote". SNP are a major player up here. Some Scottish Villans might vote that way. Same for the Welshies and the Ulstermen - they have viable alternatives as well.

Might be interesting to add them to the poll.

agree, it's a skewed poll. The UUP get put up as an option, yet they currently have 1 MP (I say 'currently' knowing that actually there are currently no MP's for anyone as parliament is dissolved). However, Sinn Fein, SNP and Plaid aren't up there as an option, yet have around 13 or 14 MP's between them and are not represented. With the current potential for a hung parliameent surely 14 broadly nationalist broadly left wing seats are a considerable block of influence? Certainly more so than BNP and UUP and Greens et al.

If I wasn't a lazy i.t. illiterate little oaf I'd do something about it!

mass male infertility brought on by wanking in close proximity to hot laptop batteries

The only certainty with this election is that once it’s over the winner is going to tell us they’ve had a chance to look more closely at the books and there’s sour news to suck up.

At present the various teams are only driven by a desire to achieve power. As such they need to say as little as possible about their own ideas whilst ridiculing the ideas of the others as being poorly thought out. The argument over whether we should increase vat and / or national insurance and / or income tax and / or dream up new taxes will be of little actual consequence to me personally. I’m that middle ground guy with a middling salary and a middling lifestyle. I’m about to get wacked by the winner of the 2010 general election. They just can’t bring themselves to properly tell me that yet.

My lifestyle is about to suffer because as we all know, the last thing this country needs is a reduction in its nuclear weapon capability, the scrapping of i.d. cards, banks paying a bit back, a reduction in the cost of the political classes and so on.

What I need to assess is how and why I believe the various parties will manage the rest of the economy and the people around me. Luckily, I have previous experience of how the Tory Party will deal with the situation. They will slash and burn anything that doesn’t turn a profit for business. John Redwood will re appear from the shadows and delight in cutting services with one hand whilst touching himself with the other. Tax relief will be announced that will help ‘over 2 million people’. What most people don’t understand is that this tax relief therefore doesn’t help 63 million people. As such there is very little chance it was a policy to help you. But don’t worry, if you already had a decent house, some flat rental income and a Range Rover, the holiday in Madeira is now safe. For the majority, the Tory’s will be genuinely wilfully nasty. But now with added airbrushing.

As for Labour, well hopefully in the unlikely event of being re elected they would show a little more restraint before jumping into any new illegal wars. You’d also hope that the very fact they’ve plainly run out of ideas after a decade or so in power would limit their ability to tinker and change schools and hospitals. Perhaps what our nationalised ‘services’ actually need is a breather, a rest from any more initiatives and revised targets. I fear I’m being a little naïve there. I do suspect we would get significantly more industrial action over the next few years if Labour manage to keep power.

Just remember, regardless of who wins, all governments are liars and murderers.

I do want to vote, I suspect this time around its a 'minority' party that hasn't proven itself deceitful as it hasn't yet had power to abuse, or, it's a scribbled 'none of the above' at the bottom of the ballot.

in terms of voting numbers, the tories scored higher in england than the other parties yet that is never reflected in the votes. Same as the number of LD votes should translate to about another 30-40 more seats iirc.

Which is why the present government have removed democracy from our society.

Scots, Welsh and N.Irish vote for their own government, and then vote for ours as well.

Out of curiosity, was that a genuine thought or a little bit of provocation or an alchohol induced over reaction by me

?

I think you are confusing England with the UK. I've got no issue at all with England having an Assembly or a Regional Government or whatever if you/they want one. Fill yer boots. What can upset some people is the confusion between Britain and England that sometimes accidentally creeps into our daily lives.

It would surely be equally 'fair' for someone to ask why, if they vote for a Welsh Assembly member and an MEP that its the parliament in England that decides how much tax is paid and whether I should be compelled to carry i.d..

possibly Plaid

save billions by cancelling the new trident

scrap i.d. cards

charge Bliar for going to war on made up evidence

put on balaclava's, pile into Cameron's office and kick seven shades of shit out of him

invest more in green technologies

be nice where possible

except Plaid aren't an option on the poll

they say being a full time mum is the hardest thing in the world

Yeah?

you try wanking with a laptop on your knees

ah we've all been there!

if I had 50p for every time I've nearly run off the road shaving around me nudger