2015 General Election

[Tom]

Debt is ultimately a bad thing and in decades or centuries to come, unless we eliminate money completely - people are going to want to be repaid. The world might seem relatively civilised now, but when fossil fuels are gone and countries are broke, they're going to come knocking on doors with guns at the ready.

 

[Harv]

All the stuff on public spending is interesting and without a doubt, I don't think Labour were behaving completely recklessly, especially after seeing some of those stats and reading a few of those articles, I was perhaps a little off in my estimations.

But Labour were in charge of the country before the recession and they did not make any adequate precautions to protect jobs and livelihoods. Even though I was very young at the time, I remember Vince Cable predicting how the recession was inevitable and we had to start taking measures to lessen its impact. The Conservatives didn't listen, they wanted to continue Labour's spending plan, that much is true - but at the end of the day, it wasn't the Conservatives who were in government, it was Labour, and they didn't listen either.

Can we not allow ourselves loans from providers? The terms on which to pay Marshall Aid back weren't exactly favourable. It was a loan as much as any other loan that the government borrows now, just a larger sum. Furthermore, I reiterate my point about not having billions of dollars; we could do if we look into the taxation levels that were in place in 1945. Time and time again they have proved to be better for raising money than austerity.

I too favour much higher taxation for the wealthy and the multinationals. But not at the cost of them upping sticks and leaving people out of work. Like it or not, the big boys are important to our economy. If they cross the channel to European tax havens and take their employment opportunities with them, it leaves us in a stark place. That's why I feel we have to tread carefully with this next election. The Conservatives are jammy and elitists but keeping the multinationals here and contributing (yes, not enough, but at least a little through taxation and employment) is vital. It's not a nice situation, but I fear the situation would be a lot uglier if they left altogether.

We still do live in a social democracy, because we still do have a welfare state and an NHS etc etc.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't too clear; I was referring to how the railways have gone, Royal Mail has gone etc. and meant we need to push our social democracy back to where it was and beyond rather than 'reintroduce' it.

Good to hear you're choosing a good degree. Where are you off to?

Thanks, I'm doing History/Politics joint honours at York, if I meet the requirements! Just Politics & IR if not, but still at York. Where are you at?

 

[GaryH]

Cringworthy to hear the Green Party Natalie Bennett on Jeremy Vine's show today once again unable to answer questions and having no idea how much money they would need, or where it would come from. What a disaster, they need to get a decent leader and a decent speaker if they are to even have the slightest remote chance of getting people to vote for them.

 

[Tom]

They need Caroline Lucas back.

 

[GaryH]

They had a speaker on Five Live this morning talking about the Trident system and she was equally as bad. Do the Green's not have any good public speakers. I lost count of the number of times she said the word "umm" every time she was asked a question or trying to put her point across.

 

[Tom]

Apart from Caroline, who always reminded me of an angry headmistress telling Nigel Farage off on Question Time - no, I don't think so.

 

[Martin]

That song they've done is so awfully bad. People don't take them seriously as it is and they come out with that.

Shame how a party comes along offering something genuinely different but fills itself with people absolutely unvotable.

 

[Sam]

That song they've done is so awfully bad. People don't take them seriously as it is and they come out with that.

Shame how a party comes along offering something genuinely different but fills itself with people absolutely unvotable.

You need to lighten up a bit. It's a party political broadcast - not the Reith Lectures. They're meant to be amusing and engaging.

The Green Party of course, can't win. They do something like this and it makes them "unvotable". But if they did the opposite and just had a senior mandarin explaining their policies, ten times as many people would howl that they're the party of boring, straight-jacketed sour-faced environmentalist lesbians.

While Labour apologists refuse to accept that their party has abandoned any remnant of socialist principles, the Greens will continue to be attacked baselessly whatever they do by those still forcing themselves to believe the fantasy.

 

[Martin]

I can't engage with that amount of cringe. If I can't then I doubt people who wouldn't have previously considered them will be engaged.

Bringing up Labour when someone disagrees with a party is what Tories do, I'd never vote for Labour and make that clear constantly so not sure why you bring them up. I'm not attacking the Greens baselessly, I'm attacking them for making me cringe. My plan has always been to spoil the ballot but if I was going to vote for anyone, it'd have probably been the Greens.

The Greens are seen by most as the party for guilt-panged white middle class part-time hippies. And it's funny that they have less ethnic diversity than even UKIP, because they actually are mostly made up of middle class white people. Again, I think that's a shame. I'd love to vote Green, they just seem to do everything they can to put me off them.

 

[Sam]

Bringing up Labour when someone disagrees with a party is what Tories do, I'd never vote for Labour and make that clear constantly so not sure why you bring them up. I'm not attacking the Greens baselessly, I'm attacking them for making me cringe. My plan has always been to spoil the ballot but if I was going to vote for anyone, it'd have probably been the Greens.

If you'd change your vote away from a political party because of a tongue-in-cheek election video, not because of any of their actual policies, then you clearly don't take the whole thing particularly seriously anyway.

 

[Tom]

There is a tendency for the rich to vote for left-leaning parties as it gives rich people a sense of good feeling - look after the poor people as it were.

 

[Martin]

I wasn't planning on voting, it's up to the Greens to convince me to vote for them. While I like most of their policies I don't much like the party, and as we can't just vote for policies it's not good enough to just have good policies. They have to show they're a serious party who would put the policies in to practice and run the country well. I love Caroline Lucas but the rest of the party just seem to do nothing but put me off them. That's a shame..

 

[GaryH]

I've never been remotely interested in anything the Greens have had to say until this year and the live debate. Some of their ideas are good, some ludicrous, but its how poor they come across when interviewed and their inability to answer direct questions without falling apart would prevent me voting for them. I've not seen their election video yet.

I still really dont know who to vote for this year, there is not one party which I feel offers the people what is needed, and all are liars like each other. Watching them parade around meeting school children, going into hospitals etc just makes me want to puke. Mind you, seeing Millibands sneery grin on the live debate had the same effect everytime he turned to talk directly at the camera.

 

[delta79]

After years of being a lib dem voter i am now a floating voter.

 

[Tom]

I still think that of the mainstream politicians, the Liberal Democrats come across as the most sincere and least squabbling.

 

[delta79]

There deal with the torys hurt long term LD voters. Everything the LD did to soften torys hurt on the lower paid is now being used by the torys to sell themselves as the best party

 

[DiogoJ42]

After years of being a lib dem voter i am now a floating voter.

Same here. I honestly don't know anymore.

... Although aparently UKIP want to scrap VAT on ladies' sanitary products. Hell, that's the first sensible thing I've heard any party say so far.

 

[Tom]

The Conservatives have backstabbed the Lib Dems terribly and as you say, have claimed credit for the tax threshold increase etc - soemthing which the Conservatives were opposed to. What I always ask people to consider is how bad would this government have been without Lib Dem influence. If you Google "what have the Lib Dems blocked" then the picture becomes a little clearer.

Ultimately they have only made up 20% of the government, I think they have tempered them just about the best they can really. I hope that they can hang onto at least half of their seats, they don't deserve a wipeout in my opinion.

The choice for me is in a seat between only Labour and Conservative, do I vote tactically for the former or - as I have recently been encouraged to do, vote with my heart and hope that there's a serious debate about a more proportional system after the election. Ironically I hope UKIP get a large percentage of the vote but only 3-4 seats, which may then spur the demand for something more proportional.

 

[GaryH]

UKIP have said a lot of things that have made sense.......... unfortunately, they have also said a lot of stupid stuff which puts people off (me included) voting for them.

 

[Martin]

The Lib Dems bragged when they made the gagging bill ever so slightly less worse. Not blocking it. Making it slightly less bad. Liberals for you.

Also the Lib Dems, who got to power promising no tuition fees, say if they entered into a coalition with Labour they'd block Labour decreasing fees. They're a farce of a party and I can't wait for them to be destroyed next month.