General Election 2010

BQ earlier.

I appreciate that you think I'm the younger :-)

Well the elder was a 'commoner' after all... but I'm not sure you'd stand with the Younger's tax regime.

Oh and thanks for the chuckle about Labour's relaxing of city regulation...

It seems rather sad that we would appear to be choosing our next government based on "could they be any worse, and if so by how much?"

Gordon Brown and the rest of his goons are idiots, Cameron does, as Horatio alludes, seem to be the Trojan horse full of demons, which leaves Clegg- god help us all.

There is another choice. In this election we have the luxury of opting for candidates other than labour or tory which will change things. Not necessarily policy wise, but by simply ensuring a hung parliament therefore a potentially fertile ground for actual change.

Still tactical voting, but in a less cynical and more optimistic way i think. Perhaps too optimistic, but who knows until it happens

People should see Gordon's Brown's speech yesterday before making up their minds. Also illuminating to compare him to Cameron and Clegg. Cameron, in particular, delivers his speech like the paper thin, insubstantial, PR sap that he is.

YouTube- Gordon Brown Speech Citizens UK General Election Assembly
[URL="http://www.citizensukblog.org/gordon-browns-citizens-uk-assembly-speech/"][/URL]

I got some of it off Wikipedia: Black Wednesday, that source of infallible knowledge:

I'm not sure of how smart it is to quote an editable source just prior to an election... unless wikipedia have locked all of those pages I'd say it's best to only quote first sources and verifiable figures. If you can't do this then state that this is just your opinion, as quoting wikipedia does not give your arguments any gravitas... not that it matters because...

Wikipedia doesn't account for this bit:

In 2010 the recession caused by Labour's stripping away of city regulation, and being in complete thrall to the city is solved by a return to governmental control - printing money, nationalising banks, tax and spend.

And my point was, do you literally believe that? Do you really truly believe that were it not for a Labour government (or 2, or 3) the entire global recession and the knock-on effect would not have occurred and that Britain would not have had a recession anyway? This isn't "Do you think it would have been as bad?", it's taking what you're asserting (that Labour caused the recession, nothing else) and holding that up to the light.

I think you credit Britain in general with too powerful a position in the world if this is the case. Hence my response that you have lived through a different history than I as the one in which you live has Britain actually placed as being important on the world stage. Really, we're really not. We're not that important even in Europe thanks to our general lack of commitment towards to it... we're just a cocktease, never putting out or offering commitment but never just leaving others to get on with it.

I don't really care for a lot of the debate as I've already cast my vote, but I do care for sensible and reasoned debate over unsubstantiated claims and FUD.

Oh, and I do feel I can substantiate my claim that Britain is a cocktease.

My original point about John Major's government being the best because it didn't do anything was a beer-induced joke, by the way.

Shall we just save time and assume that about everything you say?

1991 to 1995 is only 4 years. No party in this election is talking about getting Britain's current deficit under control before 2016, and we're already a year or two into it.
You're comparing a recession with a budget deficit. They are two very different things.

Aren't we currently in a recession? Which has, to some extent, been fuelled (and has contributed to) the current deficits?

bigot :-)

This is the type of thing I was talking about. It's the type of thing the Conservatives will pretend does not exist in their party, and will do all they can to shut up, but could, with a majority election, show itself once they're in power.

This is ridiculous scare mongering of the highest order, this woman is obviously an idiot with insane ideas, but she is no more unhinged than the last leader of New Labour who enjoyed himself whilst on holiday by reading ancient religious texts believing the supernatural claims made in them were real, a recent Labour education secretary (and member of Opus Dei) and all the Muslim and Christian Labour MPs. In particular - if it is superstition based animosity towards homosexuality is the issue - numerous New Labour Muslim MPs.

To say that this is somehow the secret face of Conservatism is just silly, this kind of superstition is rife in humanity, it is a non-partisan issue.

people should ask themselves would they vote for them if Michael Howard was still leader

Indeed.

More here and here on the wholly unsurprising links between the Tories and the Evangelical Christian movement.

The Torys are cunts on their own merit, there is no need to try and fashion or highlight links with Christian movements, as I say above the last leader of NewLabour was a devout Christian, a man who encouraged and promoted and legislated for sectarian schools in the UK, who promoted the free access to young minds for religious groups, who encouraged the indoctrination of superstition in children.

To try and make this a secret agenda of the Conservatives is ridiculous.

Shall we just save time and assume that about everything you say?

You would be surprised just how appropriate that response would me to most of my posts :-)
especially when I preface them with an enormous clue such as "I have decided now upon a beer induced whim"

The Torys are cunts on their own merit

why thank you good sir!

This is ridiculous scare mongering of the highest order, this woman is obviously an idiot with insane ideas, but she is no more unhinged than the last leader of New Labour who enjoyed himself whilst on holiday by reading ancient religious texts believing the supernatural claims made in them were real, a recent Labour education secretary (and member of Opus Dei) and all the Muslim and Christian Labour MPs. In particular - if it is superstition based animosity towards homosexuality is the issue - numerous New Labour Muslim MPs.

To say that this is somehow the secret face of Conservatism is just silly, this kind of superstition is rife in humanity, it is a non-partisan issue.

Never said it was a secret (I don't think I did?), just an aspect of Conservative values that you're not going to read in the policy book but is inherently an aspect of what being a Conservative is. That is, it is a face of Conservatism, and is not silly (in the slightest). Other people in other parties may have similar views, but they are not inherently an aspect of what it means to be Labour (does it mean anything to be Labour) or a liberal-democrat.

That is, there are a certain set of values a Conservative has. By electing them, you are allowing them (and should expect them) to govern by those values.

I will say it is underhanded though - these are views of party members, but in an attempt to come off as electable, the more extreme aspects are silenced from within the party.

And my point was, do you literally believe that? Do you really truly believe that were it not for a Labour government (or 2, or 3) the entire global recession and the knock-on effect would not have occurred and that Britain would not have had a recession anyway? This isn't "Do you think it would have been as bad?", it's taking what you're asserting (that Labour caused the recession, nothing else) and holding that up to the light.

No I didn't mean there would not be a global recession just not the mess we in Britain are in now. We're only voting for a British government after all. It look New Labour, and Brown in particular to leave Britain in a worse economic state than any other industrialised country, having mismanaged the economy to such an extent that while everyone else was saving money during the good times in order to have something to spend during the recession Brown was spending and wasting it left right and centre and instead leaving us with a trillion pound budget deficit about as great in GDP terms as that of Greece.

Snowy: In between Thatcher deregulating the City and Blair becoming PM the city institutions were regulated by a number of bodies. There is a list of them here: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Information/rule_books.shtml. These were all of which were abolished and replaced with the FSA. Which didn't spot or didn't care about the problem and didn't prevent it, possibly because it was a monolithic beast in the wilds of Canary Wharf, rather than a group of small bodies in the City. Quite possibly some of the older individual regulators may well have been as useless, but it's fair to assume that not all of them would have been, so someone somewhere would have raised the alarm.

I'm bored, and for that reason I'm out.

but..! No one called anyone else a nazi yet? wtf!? rip off.

but..! No one called anyone else a nazi yet? wtf!? rip off.

Shut up you Nazi!

Never said it was a secret (I don't think I did?), just an aspect of Conservative values that you're not going to read in the policy book but is inherently an aspect of what being a Conservative is. That is, it is a face of Conservatism, and is not silly (in the slightest). Other people in other parties may have similar views, but they are not inherently an aspect of what it means to be Labour (does it mean anything to be Labour) or a liberal-democrat. That is, there are a certain set of values a Conservative has. By electing them, you are allowing them (and should expect them) to govern by those values.

Superstition and religion is no more a face of Conservatism, than it is a face of New Labour.

With New Labour actively and keenly promoting and legislating for a massive expansion in the handing over of young minds to the religious, devoutly religious cabinet members all the way up to a PM (who it is commonly felt sought divine guidance on starting a war) it seems silly to pluck out yet another nutter from the Conservatives and claim it proof of their particular bent towards religion.

On the subject of (my inferred) 'secrecy', you say it is not in the 'policy book', my suspicion is that it is because it is not a major part of their ideology, why do you think it is not in the 'policy book' ?

BQ, thanks for the potted history, my dad was an FSA ombudsman, I'm sure he'll chuckle when I regale him of your interpretation of that...

And don't tell me the deregulation was a socialist action, it's pure NL / Cons mini state. Are you honestly suggesting that Osbourne will put in more regulation?

The Torys are cunts on their own merit

why thank you good sir!

. . . . but certainly no more than New Labour.

Superstition and religion is no more a face of Conservatism, than it is a face of New Labour.

With New Labour actively and keenly promoting and legislating for a massive expansion in the handing over of young minds to the religious, devoutly religious cabinet members all the way up to a PM (who it is commonly felt sought divine guidance on starting a war) it seems silly to pluck out yet another nutter from the Conservatives and claim it proof of their particular bent towards religion.

On the subject of (my inferred) 'secrecy', you say it is not in the 'policy book', my suspicion is that it is because it is not a major part of their ideology, why do you think it is not in the 'policy book' ?

Because they want to be elected.

We are going to have to agree to disagree here, I suspect. Although we're sympathetic to one another's views of religion, I do believe being a "Conservative" does in fact mean something to a large portion of the membership (as a set of values, not just a party name). You believe Labour is just as bad, but I (in my opinion) have no doubt that were both parties to have their way, you would see a more extreme social conservatism in the enacted policies of a Conservative majority than we have seen in Labour (which has been fairly socially conservative at times, especially in regard to drug regulation).

Again, a labour member (or number of labour members) who has a conservative edge to them does neither proves that Labour is just as bad as the Conservatives, nor that the Conservative party is not conservative. It just shows Labour is fucked.