Bollitics: VT General Election Poll #6 - Leaders Debate 3

[Richard]

I find it interesting that the people now slagging off the current electoral system were more than happy to use it in the last 13 years but now there is a sniff of a Labour defeat they want it changed.

Maybe you're new here, but quite a few people on here have been going on about revamping the whole system for quite a while now.

Was my comment limited to just posters on this website?

[Malachite]

They had someone on Radio WM this morning who thinks that unless Labour get an overall majority at the Polls Mr Brown will be a dead man walking.

So if we end up with a hung parliament as it looks likely who will step to the fore on the Labour side of the equation.

Think Ed Balls is already making his play.

[Gringo]

I find it interesting that the people now slagging off the current electoral system were more than happy to use it in the last 13 years but now there is a sniff of a Labour defeat they want it changed.

Maybe you're new here, but quite a few people on here have been going on about revamping the whole system for quite a while now.

Was my comment limited to just posters on this website?

There's nothing like a politician being clear and concise, and that was nothing like a politician being clear and concise.

[Malachite]

For me the disappointing thing about this election now is the fact that it started to look interesting a few weeks back and slowly slowly we are seeing the old format fall coseley back into place, Labour v Tory, that's what a lot of people are saying to me and thus they are getting none interested again.

I actually think this will not be as a close as people think it will be, IMO there will be a substantial shift in the last hours, i think that because a lot of people seem to be of the attitude, i really can't be arsed, but i suppose i must go and make the effort, on that they will make there choice, that's when you will see the swing.IMO.

[Richard]

Well typically there is a drift to the party in power at the last stages.

As there are many undecideds this time it could be interesting and will someone please make some

more posts to get it off this page that Tony has fecked!

[Malachite]

They had someone on Radio WM this morning who thinks that unless Labour get an overall majority at the Polls Mr Brown will be a dead man walking.

So if we end up with a hung parliament as it looks likely who will step to the fore on the Labour side of the equation.

Think Ed Balls is already making his play.

By the way that's not a rude or sarcastic comment, i mean Ed Balls making the kind of statements he made yesterday regarding tactical voting and his advise to voters says to me the guy seems to think of himself as a kind of leading role player, particularly as others in the party have immediately come out and dismissed his comments.

[Richard]

Well the pertinent point would be if Labour did ditch Gordy after Thursday but retained the largest number of seats we would have yet another Labour PM that the Country had not elected. The country would have voted for a party not knowing who the leader was ? Would they have voted Labour if it had been Balls, Millband or Harman? Would they have given them a majority and not just a minority government?

If Labour ditched Gordy but remained the largest party we would have to have another election.

[avfc89]

Vote Labour guys, don't be duped by Dave.

[Jez]

Vote Labour guys, don't be duped by Dave.

Yeah they've done a bang up job last 13 years, some good stuff along with the illegal war, spending our money before they got it of us, resulting in a harsher recession than other countries.

None of the parties are any good, all bloody naff!

No one party should be in countrol for so long though, Labour again and its almost 20 years in power! :shock:

[avfc89]

What would the Tories have done different? In the last 13 years a lot of things have improved to be fair.

[Gringo]

Would they have voted Labour if it had been Balls, Millband or Harman?

One problem labour face after the election is that there is no viable leader to replace gordon - balls, the mille brothers, harman - can't see any on them winning votes - johnson, cruddas - can't see them holding the party. Serious lack of figures with gravitas - the tories could at least call on hague or clarke, but they too are very shallow in terms of their talent pool - gove for instance - you wouldn't want him doing a leaders debate.

[Jon]

If Labour ditched Gordy but remained the largest party we would have to have another election.

I do not believe that to be true, Trickie.

A coalition govt does not have to have the leader of the largest party in the H of C, as PM.

[Awol]

What would the Tories have done different?

I suspect they would not have wasted billions of pounds and borrowed more even when times were good or created 100,000's of public sector none jobs. Oh, and they wouldn't have run a policy of unrestricted immigration to try and change the cultural make up of our country for no reason other than left wing student ideology.

It's the same old Labour, ending in economic disaster everytime they are in Government.

Socialism, it's great until they run out of everyone elses money.

[drat01]

and here is a view of the Tory regime that some are saying is so good

Hammersmith and Fulham council

David Cameron cites Hammersmith and Fulham council as a 'model' of compassionate conservatism. So what can the actions of Tory councillors here tell us about how the party would behave in government?

This is a dispatch from David Cameron's Britain, the country that could be waiting for us at the other end of the polling booths and the soundbites and the spin. I didn't have to take a time machine to get there; I just had to take the District Line. In 2006, a group of rebranded "compassionate Conservatives" beat Labour for control of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, a long stretch of west London. George Osborne says the work they have done since then will be a "model" for a new Conservative government, while Cameron has singled them out as a council he is especially "proud" of. So squeezed between the brownish dapple of the Thames and the smoggy chug of the Westway, you can find the Ghost of Cameron Future. What is it whispering to us?

Hammersmith and Fulham is a sprawling concrete sandwich of London's rich and London's poor. It starts at the million-pound apartments on the marina at Chelsea Harbour – white and glistening and perfect – and runs past giant brownish housing estates and Victorian mansions, until it staggers to a stop on Shepherd's Bush Green, where homeless people sit on the yellow-green grass drinking and watching the SUVs hurtle past. Here, high incomes squat next to high-rises in one big urban screech of noise. In such a mixed area, the Conservatives had to run for power as a reconstructed party "at home with modern Britain". They promised to move beyond Thatcherism and make the poor better off. They were the first to hum the tune that David Cameron has been singing a capella in this election.

People who took this at face value were startled by the first act of the Conservatives on assuming power – a crackdown on the homeless. They immediately sold off 12 homeless shelters, handing them to large property developers. The horrified charity Crisis was offered premises by the BBC to house the abandoned in a shelter over the Christmas period at least. The council refused permission. They said the homeless were a "law and order issue", and a shelter would attract undesirables to the area. With this in mind, they changed the rules so that the homeless had to "prove" to a sceptical bureaucracy that they had nowhere else to go – and if they failed, they were turned away.

....... with loads more on this in the article

Why would they do this? The Conservative administration was determined to shrink the size of the state and cut taxes as an end in itself. Rather than pay for it by taking more from the people in the borough with the most money, they slashed services for the broke and the broken first. After the homeless, they turned to help for the disabled. In their 2006 manifesto, the local Conservatives had given a cast-iron guarantee: "A Conservative council will not reintroduce home-care charging". It was a totemic symbol of leaving behind Thatcherism: they wouldn't charge the disabled, the mentally ill or the elderly for the care they needed just to survive.

Within three months, the promise was broken. Debbie Domb, 51, is a teacher who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. She had to give up work, and now she needs 24/7 care. After being lifted up by a large metal harness and placed in her wheelchair so she can talk to me, she explains: "This was always such a great place to live if you were disabled. You were really treated well. Then this new council was elected and it's been so frightening... The first thing that happened when they came in was that they announced any disabled person they assessed as having 'lower moderate' needs was totally cut off. So people who needed help having a shower, or getting dressed, had that lifeline taken away completely. Then they started sending the rest of us bills."

It's frightening to think that these people are being talked about as the ones that will make a "change" - yes a change but a change for the worse.

[Richard]

If Labour ditched Gordy but remained the largest party we would have to have another election.

I do not believe that to be true, Trickie.

A coalition govt does not have to have the leader of the largest party in the H of C, as PM.

I know you believe that Jon but I feel differently

For example if Labour had 262 seats and the Lib dems 110, could you see the Parliamentary (or national NEC for that matter) Labour Party accepting the smaller seated leader as PM? Not a chance in hell and not a chance he could keep them all together.

If you are looking for a coalition to give you Clegg as leader I'm afraid it just aint gonna happen.

[Jon]

If Labour ditched Gordy but remained the largest party we would have to have another election.

I do not believe that to be true, Trickie.

A coalition govt does not have to have the leader of the largest party in the H of C, as PM.

I know you believe that Jon but I feel differently

For example if Labour had 262 seats and the Lib dems 110, could you see the Parliamentary (or national NEC for that matter) Labour Party accepting the smaller seated leader as PM? Not a chance in hell and not a chance he could keep them all together.

If you are looking for a coalition to give you Clegg as leader I'm afraid it just aint gonna happen.

Well, I wouldn't argue with you there Richard.

All i'm saying is that consitutionally, there is nothing there that means he has to be PM in such circumstances.

In practice, I think we'd be in murky waters indeed, if Labour have more votes and seats than the libs, and GB wants to stay on.

I think short term, Brown would be staying on as PM, in the event of a lib/lab coalition, in those circumstances.

I think interesting times are ahead.

[avfc89]

What would the Tories have done different?

I suspect they would not have wasted billions of pounds and borrowed more even when times were good or created 100,000's of public sector none jobs. Oh, and they would have run a policy of unrestricted immigration to try and change the cultural make up of our country for no reason other than ideology.

It's the same old Labour, ending in economic disaster everytime they are in Government.

Socialism, it's great until they run out of everyone elses money.

What rubbish, they had created a fairer society which allows people to prosper from deprived backgrounds such as me; it has give me the opportunity and others around me a chance to go to University and have a better standard of life. He has stabilised the banks and given us a good footing to build on, a fairer footing for everyone not just for the wealthy. It's not a economic disaster, so be real please.

Immigration is not a major issue for me, I live in a segregated area (Oldham) I have no problems with different races or cultures, I embrace different cultures. It really isn't a problem for me, only for those with ill-informed minds and hate provokers. Why is it an big issue for you?

[Awol]

I think interesting times are ahead.

Indeed, of the Chinese curse variety.

[PauloBarnesi]

What would the Tories have done different? In the last 13 years a lot of things have improved to be fair.

Yes alot of things have got better, it would be silly to say they haven’t. But somethings have got worse, some of the things in 97 we heard were going to better haven’t at all. It would have helped if the two of them hadn’t fallen out so badly, and Gordon become obsessed with becoming the leader.

But more worrying is that some of the things that have got better relied on getting paid by borrowing. We simply can’t carry on borrowing and borrowing. So some of the improvements are ‘mirages’. Every party will have to make cuts.

I guess the question is where the cuts (and tax increases) are going to come.

[Clarry]

Oh, and they wouldn't have run a policy of unrestricted immigration to try and change the cultural make up of our country for no reason other than left wing student ideology.

I thought you were off abroad to be an immigrant yourself?