General Election 2010

vote LCA

I sway between lib dem and green and don't see either as a waste. Labour have long since fucked up any chance of me voting them again and even though the new tory government is an unknown quantity I could never vote those guys in to power. I would love to see a lib dem government at some point in my lifetime but they would start acting like cunts too I guess. Ho-hum.

This is the first election I am eligible to vote in that I won't be voting in, it's all a pile of shit really.

How comes? You just became a UK citizen?

Animals weren't allowed to vote until the "Fluffy vs. Smith" ruling of 2009.

How comes? You just became a UK citizen?

You missed the point. Read it again.

How comes? You just became a UK citizen?

: )

That's a bit rich coming from you, any more of that kind of talk and I will shop you to immigration.

You missed the point. Read it again.

I think you have just witnessed LPG's subtle but fiendish humour.

Hmm, maybe.

Green! No such thing as a wasted vote, either. The only time your vote truly makes a difference is when someone wins by a margin on one - ie never, because that would trigger a recount. So you may as well vote for whoever best represents your views. And if enough people voted Green it would demonstrate to the mainstream parties that there are votes to be had from Green policies, which would be a good thing.
Incidentally, I have a theory that the Green Party doesn't do very well in this country (compared with mainland Europe) because the type of people who would vote green also tend to be the type of people who don't vote because they feel that voting doesn't change anything, whoever you vote for the government always wins and so on.

I apparently live in the most corrupt place in the British Isles as far as politics goes. It used to be a huge Labour safe seat, but since the last time it's a choice between the Respect party, who have proven with Galloway to be nothing but a machine for getting a prize cunt into parliament, or Labour, who I would not vote for in a million years, even though I quite liked Oona King. (If the Dispatches episode the other week is to be believed, both the Respect party and the local Labour party are effectively controlled by the Islamic Forum for Europe anyway, and the only thing they'll be fighting for with any conviction is a caliphate.)

I seriously cannot believe anyone would vote to say "Gordon, everything you've done has been great - keep doing it for another 5 years", no matter how much they may detest the Tories. It is necessary in a democracy to throw those in power out when they exercise it badly. I have this not-quite-fully-formed notion that the disgraceful way that Labour have behaved recently is not only because they have had an uninterrupted 13 year spell in power but because they followed a government that also had a similarly excessive stretch. Having seen what Thatcher's mob were able to get away with I reckon Labour are going just that little bit further. Maybe we should be like the Americans and ban leaders from serving more than 2 terms of office.

However I don't agree with tactical voting. If you hate Labour but hate Conservatives more, vote for someone you don't hate. You should vote for the party that best represents what you believe in - success by minor parties usually has an effect on the policies of those in power. When the Greens pushed the Lib-Dems into 4th place during Major's government we very quickly saw the emergence of environmental politics from the mainstream parties who saw the value in the green vote.

You'll all have guessed that I'll be voting Conservative but it's not just to get Labour out, but because I believe in smaller government, smaller less intrusive state, lower taxation, the free market economy, and more local devolution of powers, which are traditional Conservative values, and I really think that this country needs that approach right now if it is to sort out the mess Gordon Brown has got it into. I don't agree with all that the Tories stand for but they are the party that most represents my own convictions. Given what I have said above about where I live this will of course be a wasted vote and will not affect the outcome one jot. Respect or Labour will get in.

I'll vote for whoever is willing to paint my front door. Which will be more direct benefit to me in the entire 5 year term of the government ;)

I'm voting for them all. They're all so lovely I can't decide on just one.

I've never really got the whole 'Labour have just been really shit, haven't they' argument. It just seems that people have got really high expectations, and because they're not met, Labour must be shit. Growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s there were some things I didn't think would ever happen. Things like the minimum wage, devolution, reform of the house of lords and the human rights act would have been unthinkable under the Tories (in fact they want to scrap the HR act).

I've never really got the whole 'Labour have just been really shit, haven't they' argument. It just seems that people have got really high expectations, and because they're not met, Labour must be shit. Growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s there were some things I didn't think would ever happen. Things like the minimum wage, devolution, reform of the house of lords and the human rights act would have been unthinkable under the Tories (in fact they want to scrap the HR act).

And the Working Families Tax Credit - that's probably the single most significant government act I can think of in terms of making life better for the people I know who need it - single parents, families on low incomes etc.
And labour didn't have a mandate for anything really radical. They were voted in precisely because Tony Blair had said that they weren't going to do anything too left wing. It would have been undemocratic if they'd gone ahead with a full-on socialist agenda.

Yeah, but aside from minimum wage, devolution, reform of the house of lords, the human rights act, working families tax credit, increase in funding for the nhs, surestart, direct.gov, winter fuel allowances and reduced cancer mortality rates (by 18% since 1996 because of increased funding in cancer treatment specifically)... what have Labour ever done for us?

Don't forget all the exciting wars! There's nothing more socially liberal than badly-planned occupations of foreign countries for little or no reason.

(Abstention, since you ask. I would spoil my ballot paper, but I'd have to sort out a postal vote and it seems like a bit too much effort just to scribble childish abuse on it.)

Yeah, but aside from minimum wage, devolution, reform of the house of lords, the human rights act, working families tax credit, increase in funding for the nhs, surestart, direct.gov, winter fuel allowances and reduced cancer mortality rates (by 18% since 1996 because of increased funding in cancer treatment specifically)... what have Labour ever done for us?

Don't ruin this with facts!!! ;)

Regardless of its undemocratic make-up, the House of Lords used to be an effective second chamber. One could argue that during the last two Tory governments era it was often the only effective opposition.

It wasn't so much reformed under Blair as neutered, and then replaced with a bunch of Tony's mates and other yes-men. The result has been an explosion in bad legislation being passed unchecked. I would remove the bishops, peers and life-peers and replace it with directly elected (as in share of the vote, not seats) representatives. Then I would increase its powers so as to provide a proper check on the excesses of governmental power.

I do not find it easy to see the benefits of the Human Rights act. Our real and tangible rights are stamped on daily, as at the Earth Summit protests and replaced with pseudo-rights, many of which are to the detriment of this country's ability to do things like lock up (or deport) criminals, for example.

And as for the working tax credit, I agree with the concept of not hammering people with lower incomes with so much tax, and making work pay more than benefits, but the administrative mechanisms by which that has been achieved are so convoluted it must cost the country a fortune to run. What is wrong with just lowering the basic rate of tax, NI, or raising allowances? (I also know it's very easy to defraud. My girlfriend was hit with a demand for the repayment of thousands of pounds of tax credits despite the fact that we have never claimed them.)

NHS funding has been increased but so has the pressure on the NHS to meet government targets, implement initiatives and so forth.

Then there is the massive erosion of our civil liberties through the creation and subsequent misuse of very widely specified legislation, the illegal war in Iraq, the badly planned and resourced war in Afghanistan, after promising 'an end to boom and bust' completely destroying the economy. Or there's presiding over the loss of more manufacturing jobs than Thatcher.

*Right to Life (article 2)
*Protection from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (article 3)
*Protection from slavery and forced or compulsory labour (article 4)
*The right to liberty and security of person (article 5)
*The right to a fair trial (article 6)
*Protection from retrospective criminal offences (article 7)
*The protection of private and family life ()
*Freedom of thought, conscience and religion (article 9)
*Freedom of expression (article 10)
*Freedom of association and assembly (article 11)
*The right to marry and found a family (article 12)

• Freedom from discrimination (article 14)
  *The right to property (article 1 of the first protocol)
  *The right to education (article 2 of the first protocol)
  *The right to free and fair elections (article 3 of the first protocol)
  *The abolition of the death penalty in peacetime (articles 1 and 2 of the sixth protocol)
  *Right to effective remedy (article 13);
  Prohibition of abuse of rights(article 17);
  Limitation on use of rights (article 18).
  
  

Which of these do you have a problem with?

Well exactly, we were part and parcel of establishing the ECHR*, but the HRA puts it inside UK law. You no longer have to go to expensive European Courts, andn it's more clearly defined.

• not something that the nebulous 'Europe' did to us.
  
  

Oh and can I add Lord Ashcroft to BQ's list of "Tony's Mates", it was Hague who badgered for his appointment. What's your position on Non Doms?

Never really trust anyone who wants to be a politician, and actually makes it past councillor stage.

Selling our gold reserves was a good one.

Never really trust anyone who wants to be a politician, and actually makes it past councillor stage.

+1

Selling our gold reserves was a good one.

Haha indeed... Imagine the Downing Street facepalm.

*Right to Life (article 2)
*Protection from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (article 3)
*Protection from slavery and forced or compulsory labour (article 4)
*The right to liberty and security of person (article 5)
*The right to a fair trial (article 6)
*Protection from retrospective criminal offences (article 7)
*The protection of private and family life ()
*Freedom of thought, conscience and religion (article 9)
*Freedom of expression (article 10)
*Freedom of association and assembly (article 11)
*The right to marry and found a family (article 12)

• Freedom from discrimination (article 14)
  *The right to property (article 1 of the first protocol)
  *The right to education (article 2 of the first protocol)
  *The right to free and fair elections (article 3 of the first protocol)
  *The abolition of the death penalty in peacetime (articles 1 and 2 of the sixth protocol)
  *Right to effective remedy (article 13);
  Prohibition of abuse of rights(article 17);
  Limitation on use of rights (article 18).
  
  

Which of these do you have a problem with?

all this is rather nice, but this is also from the government that wanted to lock people up for 90 days without a trial, Has been rather suspicious in how it has reacted to reports of terror prisoners being sent to dodgy parts of the world to be tortured (extraordinary rendition), wanted to retain innocent people's DNA on the DNA database indefinitely and are just in my view extremely authoritarian in their outlook.

On top of this, the level of debt we are in which has paid for lots of nice things granted means that over the next 10 years the public finances will be hit which means that we will have lots less nice things regardless of which party gets in.

I know ...... I'm a c*nt