If there was a general election tomorrow...

[snowychap]

In a General Election we vote in constituencies - i.e. you vote for a MP to represent your area. So therefore me living in the Peak District I do NOT vote for a MP in Walsall for example.

Yes, I am aware of that believe it or not. My point was the principle as summarised by Gringo of one man one vote. If you are citizen you should be able to register your preference somewhere, ie, wherever you are registered on the electoral role. Simples.

Perhaps it makes sense to allocate a constituency or two or whatever for expats...

If one is intent on having an ex-pat electorate, then I think that's the most sensible suggestion.

Hence, I agree.

[leviramsey]

Bit sad holding a grudge with an ol' lady though, mind.

Well when she attends a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6PtS6IXyXI...

[leviramsey]

This was from the BBC re the abnormal weather we are having. What really pisses me off is the Mystic Meg's of the Tory party trying to make political headway out of what is a extremely rare act of nature and the abnormal weather.

How much hay did the Democrats make out of the farce of Katrina...

[drat01]

In a General Election we vote in constituencies - i.e. you vote for a MP to represent your area. So therefore me living in the Peak District I do NOT vote for a MP in Walsall for example.

Yes, I am aware of that believe it or not. My point was the principle as summarised by Gringo of one man one vote. If you are citizen you should be able to register your preference somewhere, ie, wherever you are registered on the electoral role. Simples.

Perhaps it makes sense to allocate a constituency or two or whatever for expats...

If one is intent on having an ex-pat electorate, then I think that's the most sensible suggestion.

Hence, I agree.

Seconded - what a good idea Levi

[Awol]

In a General Election we vote in constituencies - i.e. you vote for a MP to represent your area. So therefore me living in the Peak District I do NOT vote for a MP in Walsall for example.

Yes, I am aware of that believe it or not. My point was the principle as summarised by Gringo of one man one vote. If you are citizen you should be able to register your preference somewhere, ie, wherever you are registered on the electoral role. Simples.

Perhaps it makes sense to allocate a constituency or two or whatever for expats...

If one is intent on having an ex-pat electorate, then I think that's the most sensible suggestion.

Hence, I agree.

Seconded - what a good idea Levi

"Dunny-on-the-Wold is a tuppenny-ha'penny place. Half an acre of sodden marshland in the Suffolk Fens with an empty town hall on it. Population: three rather mangy cows, a dachshund named `Colin', and a small hen in its late forties."

[tonyh29]

Stealing quotes from slackbladder , shame on you

:-)

[snowychap]

In the months leading up to a general election, it is important that the parties present a united front.

Two incompetent clowns who should never have been allowed in the party, never mind represent it in parliament call for brown to go even though they're both standing down at the election, the pair of money grabbing f'tards

Some pics about 'the coup' attempt from Liberal Conspiracy:

[drat01]

It seems that more dodgy dealings happening with the Tory party and donations

The Conservative Party has admitted making mistakes in registering the true source of a number of donations, totalling nearly £40,000.

The Electoral Commission was told the money had come from a company called Unicorn Administration.

But the company was acting of behalf of a number of people including Zac Goldsmith, the party's candidate for Richmond Park, the Sunday Times says.

A Tory party spokesman said it was due to an administrative error.

The other donors of a series of cash gifts between 2005 and 2008 were said to be Mr Goldsmith's brother Ben and property developers the Reuben brothers.

While the Tories were apparently informed of the sources of the cash, five different donations totalling £38,950, they were not registered as such with the Electoral Commission.

'Back door gifts'

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "It appears that there may have been an administrative error in registering these donations.

"Now that it has been drawn to our attention, we are taking immediate steps to investigate it and rectify the declarations as necessary.

"Clearly, there was no motive of concealment since all those on whose behalf Unicorn was acting have already been declared as donating to the party."

Party sources insisted that there had been no attempt to cover up the donations and that all of the donors were individually listed elsewhere on the Electoral Commission's register.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said he would be asking the Electoral Commission to conduct an inquiry.

"Back-door gifts through front companies blatantly break the spirit of the law on cleaning up Britain's moneybags politics," he said.

"If the Conservative Party have nothing to hide, why not declare straight out their thousands instead of using the cover of Unicorn Administration? It is hard to see how these can be simple errors."

Funded by who and how and why?

[Awol]

Former Labour General Secretary spills the beans on Brown:

Brown's election shambles: Man who ran Labour Party reveals chaos at No 10

I'ts grim reading but here a few gems worth repeating:

On Brown’s election u-turn in 2007: “The fleet of limousines ordered at Number 10’s behest was circling Parliament Square. They had come…to collect Ministers and whisk them off on the campaign trail. They were sent away on a pretext, to spare us the humiliation of anyone spotting them lined up outside our offices. We had already spent £1.2 million. Somewhere in a mail depot were hundreds of sacks of personalised letters to voters in marginal seats – 1.5 million envelopes waiting to go.”

Brown has denied this over and over again.

Mr Watt claims International Aid Minister Douglas Alexander, a close ally of Mr Brown, told him one reason for wanting an early poll: “The truth is, Peter, we have spent ten years working with this guy, and we don’t actually like him. We have always thought the longer the British public had to get to know him, the less they would like him as well.”

Can't argue with that.

“Downing Street was a shambles. There was no vision, no strategy, no co-ordination. It was completely dysfunctional. Gordon had been so desperate to become Prime Minister that we all assumed he knew what he was going to do when he got there.”

The evidence of the last two years certainly supports that view.

Mr Watt also highlights Mr Brown’s “weird” behaviour, recalling a moment the Prime Minister threw a tantrum at a dinner party for American Democrat politicians after guests sat down without his permission. Mr Watt said: “For the rest of the meal he was monosyllabic, sulking because he had lost control of the seating plan. The plates had not even been cleared when quite suddenly, without saying anything, he just got up and left.”

Precious tit. This is the man leading our country? God help us.

Mr Watt also reveals for the first time the inside story of the ‘Donorgate’ scandal which led to his resignation when The Mail on Sunday exposed how tycoon David Abrahams had secretly given £600,000 to Labour in other people’s names, in breach of electoral laws.

Mr Watt claims the scandal was not his fault and alleges Mr Brown ‘stabbed him in the back’ by pledging to stand by him, hours before branding him a criminal in public.

Dodgy donations, anyone? Nice to have friends like that, I'm sure.

Summary of an article in today's Sunday Times:

Shafting the army while they at war

Leaked ministerial letters reveal how, as chancellor, Brown repeatedly prevented Hoon from ordering life-saving battlefield equipment for Afghanistan and Iraq.

The leaked letters show Brown personally overturned earlier Treasury assurances that the Ministry of Defence would be free to spend extra cash on troop-carrying helicopters for Iraq and Afghanistan.

In one letter sent in 2004, Hoon warned that, if Brown refused to back down, “We would have to scale back on major equipment programmes.” He went on to claim that the helicopter programme in particular would suffer.

Last night, Hoon refused to comment on the letters, passed to The Sunday Times by Royal Air Force sources.

The leaked letters show how Brown’s actions during the crucial period of 2002 to 2004 meant that military chiefs were unable to buy new helicopters which could now be in service in Afghanistan.

The lack of air support has forced British troops to take dangerous journeys by road, exposing them to deadly Taliban bombs.

Military chiefs have long complained that the Treasury under Brown starved them of resources. Only now, however, can Brown’s personal involvement in the battles with the MoD be disclosed.

The origins of the funding row began before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On July 10, 2002, during negotiations over the three-year spending review, the MoD received a Treasury letter appearing to give the go-ahead to spend up to £800m on new frontline equipment.

However, months later the Treasury changed its mind. The dispute quickly escalated to cabinet level. It is understood that in late 2002 and 2003, Hoon wrote several times urging the then prime minister Tony Blair to intervene.

On September 26, 2003, the chancellor wrote to Blair and Hoon to say: “I must disallow immediately any flexibility for the Ministry of Defence to move resources between cash and non-cash.” This meant the MoD’s plans to order new helicopters had to be put on hold, and in 2004 the MoD was forced to accept defeat.

How many times has Brown denied this? The man is incapable of telling the truth and quite clearly has the blood of British soldiers on his hands.

This cowardly, treacherous, dishonest and spiteful idiot wants you to give him another five years as Prime Minister.

I won't be voting for them but Tories have got it right:

"We can't go on like this"

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Was going to post this in the Youtube thread but it deserves it's place here

David Cameron sings Common People

Apologies if its been done before!

[Gringo]

Mark Steel: Just who do you vote for given this appalling choice?

......The only thing stopping their original promise, they say, is the economic conditions. I'm the same with my commitment to buy France. At the moment it could add to my debt burden and prove economically unsound, but it remains an aspiration and that's the main thing. There must be many people realising he doesn't seem to stand for anything, except outrage for reasons he can't decide.

A typical Cameron speech goes "Like you, I am fed up of all those things this government keeps doing. Ooo. I mean, have you seen him, that whatsisname. You know what they should have done? Well there's all sorts on the economy just for a start. And you can call me old-fashioned but that, quite frankly, is common sense. And as a Conservative, that is something I am committed to aspiring to put right."

His main problem must be that they've agreed with all Labour's most disastrous ideas, from the war in Iraq, to handing the economy over to the bankers. And whereas Labour had to confront their history to act like this, Cameron and his party went along with it automatically. But while cutting tax and attacking public spending is popular with long term Conservatives, most people don't approve of it, so he trumps normal politicians by making promises, then breaking them before the election's even started.

In the past a vote for Labour would at least have been a protest against such greed, even if the party didn't do much about it. But 15 years of grovelling to Hindujas and Murdochs and assorted bankers and being "intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich" have punctured that slightly, and now if you mentioned to someone under the age of 30 that Labour's origins were in fighting for the poor against the wealthy, they'd look at you as if you'd said something truly surreal, such as "Did you know the Church of England started out as an aquarium?"

But for the odd moment you might resign yourself to voting Labour, then up pops the unregretful Blair or you recall Mandelson on the yacht and you realise that's impossible. And there must be millions of people doing this, thinking "Well I can't vote for them so I'll opt for the others", until they remember the others and think the same back again, like if you were captured by a sadistic tribe that gave you the choice of being mauled by a leopard or buggered by a yak.

The nearest I come to this dilemma normally is when someone asks who I'd like to win when Chelsea are playing Manchester United, and for a moment I try to figure a way they could both lose, and then change the subject.

[mjmooney]

Thanks Gringo, that Mark Steel piece sums up my views exactly.

[tonyh29]

Thanks Gringo, that Mark Steel piece sums up my views exactly.

but with no credible third choice , would that influence the way you might vote ? there can't be any sane person on this planet who wants another term of Labour especially with Brown at the helm .. so do you waste your vote on the lib dems or do you bite the bullet and support Chelsea for 1 game only in the knowledge that their victory see man U win **** all

Without saying we need to vote this government out , but with many voters appearing to be like yourself / Mark Steel we could end up with a hung parliament which wont do the country any good ....

[Gringo]

Without saying we need to vote this government out , but with many voters appearing to be like yourself / Mark Steel we could end up with a hung parliament which wont do the country any good ....

Why would a hung parliament be bad. Some will no doubt point to the weakness of italian coalitions, but of course we have the alternative example of the very stable german coalitions.

So it's not coalitions that are the problem, it's just whether the british politicians are mature enough to work together. As mentioned previously in this thread, the most natural coalition at the moment would be labour-tory, same policies, same friends, just different PR firms

[tonyh29]

Why would a hung parliament be bad.

look at the huge bribes Labour did with the DUP and SDLP party to get their 42 day bill through ... can you imagine a whole parliament based around deals not in the interest of the people .. actually scrub that , that is pretty much what we currently have !!!

Ashdown reckoned a merger between Labour and the Abstain party was inevitable at some point , indeed it almost happened under Blair and according to Ashdown was a done deal until Prescott threatened to walk if it happened taking a few big names with him ....

[Gringo]

Why would a hung parliament be bad.

look at the huge bribes Labour did with the DUP and SDLP party to get their 42 day bill through ... can you imagine a whole parliament based around deals not in the interest of the people .. actually scrub that , that is pretty much what we currently have !!!

Aye..

So it's not coalitions that are the problem, it's just whether the british politicians are mature enough to work together.

The deals mentioned above are a very good example of a govt with a strong majority bringing in divisive policies with the only aim of scoring points off the other side. If they can be mature and present policies that are needed, that are for the good of the country - it might just work. Unlikely with this shower of flowerpot men though isn't it.

[wiganvillain]

so do you waste your vote on the lib dems

Trotting out the standard 2 party line eh

You can only really vote Labour or Tory then, does anyone believe regardless to their lack of experience in office (just how much does thr Tory front bench have) that they'd do a worse job then the deluded Brown or the undecided call me Dave

[SavoMissalot]

Especially with the 'Property Boom' and the millions coming in from Stamp Duty Tax, Brown should have made sure that some of that income be put away for the feckin mess we are in now. The Austrailan Government did this and thats why they are not in the debt we are.

Some forward planning there Mr Brown, but i still wouldn't want a Conservative Government, as unlike Robin Hood and his merry men, the poor would still be taxed to hell to fund the rich.

[mjmooney]

I will almost certainly waste my vote on the Lib Dems. Although there is still a slim chance that I may decide that Labour could still win and vote for them as the lesser of two evils.

Hell will freeze over before I vote Tory.

[Awol]

If the choices are voting for:

1)Gordon the liar

2)Dave the snake

3)Nick the student biff

..then I'm glad to be buggering off for a while frankly. The thought of anyone who is not dependent on the state voting for five more years of Jonah Brown without a gun to their head is almost incomprehensible to me.