One week to go, who are you planning on voting for?

[yaruar]

You think that's the SOLE reason? Really?

It's definitely the catalyst, it's not as if the papers every actually say anything about the Lib Dems, whereas the debate has thrust them into the forefront of politics, which is definitely a good thing. I was actually quite surprised as i've been a supporter for a long time and was shocked that Clegg actually came across that well, however he has the biggest advantage in the election what with him being not Brown combined with being not Dave, which should be a winner in anyones books.

 

[Wij]

Putting the percentages from the poll into this gives a Tory majority of 114

BBC News - Election seat calculator

 

[Scouse]

No but its got the Xfactor generation to vote for them solely by TV performances. I bet hardy any of the new Lib Dem Voters have actually read their manifesto or understood any of their proposals.

Do you think Tory or Labour voters have actually read their manifesto or understood any of their proposals?

Of course not. Tory and Labour voters aren't some magic fucking geniuses and Lib Dem voters just some random bunch of TV loving plebs.

The reason Lib Dem's are doing well is that, because of the TV debate, people have actually heard some of their manifesto promises - and they like them better than Conservative or Labour's.


Pretty simple really

 

[rynnor]

The reason Lib Dem's are doing well is that, because of the TV debate, people have actually heard some of their manifesto promises - and they like them better than Conservative or Labour's.

I dont agree.

I think Clegg cleverly played the 'something different' card - ie dont vote for the 'old' parties vote for us because we are all new and shiney.

It did work for a while at the first debate but after a couple more weeks campaigning he just comes accross as another politician and the Lib Dems faded off.

Most of the country vote for the same party automatically so theres a limit to whats achievable.

 

[Scouse]

The Lib Dem's haven't "faded off", according to the polls they're up there with the Torys.

Yes, they used the "something different" card. They'd have been fools not to. It's really funny, as that was the core of the Tory campaign until they had it skanked out from under them.

However, do you honestly believe that promises like splitting the banks, killing trident and creating a fairer tax system by closing loopholes for the rich haven't been instrumental in getting them popular support?

"We're different" grabbed people's attention, however policy substance presented in the debates is what's sealed the deal with the voters.

 

[Furr]

Cleggs a nice enough guy, pitty about his party and their policies.

 

[DocWolfe]

Let me guess... Tory? Heard so many tories with that dismissive response, it's hilarious. They can't back themselves so they have to rely on utterly ludicrous claims like people are only voting LibDem because of a TV debate. Utter farce and nonsense, you should open your eyes a bit more.

I'm actually one of the 3 in the poll voting UKIP, all their policies appeal to me.

 

[rynnor]

The Lib Dem's haven't "faded off", according to the polls they're up there with the Torys.

They have faded off in the Polls - take a look.

BBC News - Poll tracker: Interactive guide to the opinion polls

 

[Wazzerphuk]

I'm actually one of the 3 in the poll voting UKIP, all their policies appeal to me.

Bigot.

 

[DocWolfe]

Bigot.

Please explain why this makes me a bigot?

 

[Scouse]

Cleggs a nice enough guy, pitty about his party and their policies.

Which policies in particular furr?

 

[Ch3tan]

Please explain why this makes me a bigot?

I'm fairly sure it was a joke. Given the whole Bigotgate scandal.

 

[Furr]

Which policies in particular furr?

1. Trident replacement with some obscure "cruise missile" based system

2. Unwavering ambition to join the Euro

3. If there was another EU treaty they would not offer a referendum on the treaty but on membership of the EU! (Toys out of pram)

4. Abolishing of tuition fee's that would crash the quality and punching above our weight of British uni's unless a massive increase of state funding

5. They are worried about climate change but oppose nuclear power

6. A 50% capital gains tax, not only would this mean anyone who sets up a company and sells it would be taxed 50%, also investors, so if you set up a company and have a few mates invest any gains they make on their investment will now be taxed at 50%! pretty much makes the risk of investment too much and uneconomical.

7. Removal of higher rate relief on pensions

8. Confused Immigration policy along with the amnesty idea

plus others

 

[old.user4556]

They should scrap trident but not tell anyone they have scraped trident. Lets just pretend we have a nuclear arsenal and then pump the £100 bil into schools and hospitals.

Does that seem too obvious or something....?

 

[Scouse]

1. Trident replacement with some obscure "cruise missile" based system

Personally, do we need a nuclear deterrent? Isn't the fact that we're mates with the nuclear superpower US, France, Germany et. al, enough to deter would-be attackers from bombing us? Or do you think France is going to invade?

Having mates with nuclear weapons, whilst having none ourselves would A) save us a shitload of money and B) make us less of a target - 'cause who's going to advance their popular cause by bombing a target without nuclear weapons?

We should take financial advantage of the fact that we're surrounded by nuclear allies.

2. Unwavering ambition to join the Euro

After a referendum. The referendum that Labour didn't give us before signing away all our rights and the referendum that the Conservatives wouldn't have given us either. I don't want to join the euro, but I think it's a non-issue - as has been said by Clegg himself - you don't have to have the euro and it's a non-issue for this parliament.

3. If there was another EU treaty they would not offer a referendum on the treaty but on membership of the EU! (Toys out of pram)

There's not going to be a new treaty for at least ten years. What's this got to do with this election? And as for a referendum on EU membership - fair enough. It's a more interesting referendum, but not a problem for this parliament anyway.

4. Abolishing of tuition fee's that would crash the quality and punching above our weight of British uni's unless a massive increase of state funding

It used to be that only the top 5% of people were intelligent enough to get degrees. Now that 40% of people have 'em they've had to dumb them down enough so they're practically worthless. Poly's (which had a really important place) are now called Universities and they're basically chav shagging grounds nowadays.

Having a degree no longer distinguishes you from everyone else. So I fail to see how abolishing 3 grand a year fees is going to "crash" the already crashed quality of British "Uni's"

5. They are worried about climate change but oppose nuclear power

I'm worried about climate change and oppose nuclear power. There have been 3 reviews about nuclear since the second world war and all of them have said "no new nuclear - it's retarded". Of course, until Labour got in and then produced the review they wanted (which has been found to have been illegal by British courts).

My worthless degree is in Environmental Management and Technology. My dumb-ass brain knows that distributed energy production involving a wide mix of different energy production technologies coupled with wide ranging energy saving initiatives is the only sensible way to fix our own countries emissions.

Either way, it's fucking bollocks anyway, with the Chineese bringing online two coal-fired power stations a week. Whatever we do is worthless.

The head of (iirc) the UN's Environment Division (committee?, can't remember exactly) came out after the US announced their ten trillion dollar financial aid package to "save" them from the financial collaps and said that he could fix global warming, today, with existing technologies, for half that cost.

He found it depressing that we can spunk cash like this on the markets but we won't do the same for the environment.

6. A 50% capital gains tax, not only would this mean anyone who sets up a company and sells it would be taxed 50%, also investors, so if you set up a company and have a few mates invest any gains they make on their investment will now be taxed at 50%! pretty much makes the risk of investment too much and uneconomical.

I've never paid more than 19% tax on my whole income in my entire life.

In weak moments I've even done what nearly every other reasonably well off people do - laughed at the poor for being so fucking dumb.

This tax, whilst it would hit the already rich in the pockets is fair. I've no problem with it, and it's about damn time. In fact, I'd go further and whack a higher tax on dividends too (corporation tax, to shareholders) - so you can't keep reaping massive reward at practically fuck all tax because daddy was rich and invested wisely.

7. Removal of higher rate relief on pensions

Don't know much about it. Don't have a pension. Never needed one - pensions are for people who get taxed so much they can't afford to pay their houses off, like me. If they changed capital gains tax maybe I'd have to take my future more seriously, but until then eh?

8. Confused Immigration policy along with the
amnesty idea

If you've got a million people here working illegally, I'd much rather have them paying tax. They're never going to leave anyway.

Plus, we've got all these immigrants here because of the Tories and Labour - why do you think these two parties are going to do a better job? It's their fault after all...

 

[Chilly]

amnesty coupled with caps on immigration (from anywhere, not just extra-eu) would be a good system. you use the money raised by the amnesty to fund better border control and reduce the need for something similar in the future.

Oh and you put some nasty conditions into the amnesty too, but you only tell them once they've told us where they live, so we can kick them out if they misbehave!

 

[Furr]

Well this is all academic the current polls unbelievably show that Labour would still be largest party.... What a farce.

 

[ECA]

Well this is all academic the current polls unbelievably show that Labour would still be largest party.... What a farce.

Which polls?

 

[Furr]

UK Polling Report

politicalbetting.com

 

[ECA]

UK Polling Report

politicalbetting.com

Uh none of those sites seem to show that.

 

[Furr]

Yeh I was just putting the latest polls in to the universal swing calculators and you get,

C34 / L29 / LD28 = L 283 / C 255 / LD 83

C33 / L28 / LD28 = L 282/ C 251 / LD 88


Of course universal swing can be off due to local factors, but if the Tory vote doesn't improve much and Labour does suffer as much as expected then Labour will be largest.

I also think the debates were done at the wrong time, they should be done at least a month in advance of the election so we don't get these "X-factor" style bounces and give party policies proper scrutinisation instead of 3 hours of TV debates causing all sorts of wildness.

 

[Ch3tan]

If you've got a million people here working illegally, I'd much rather have them paying tax. They're never going to leave anyway.

Plus, we've got all these immigrants here because of the Tories and Labour - why do you think these two parties are going to do a better job? It's their fault after all...

This is the only policy of theirs that makes sense.

 

[Chilly]

overall majority betfair market

people voting with their wallets are calling a hung parliament, which equates to brown staying in power and trying to swing a coalition.

 

[ECA]

I think cons will fall just short of a majority or just squeek it.
Seems to be inline with intrade/betfair opinion.

Lib dems won't commit political suicide by making a coalition with labour, I think the most likely outcome of a hung parliament is a minority conservative government or a con/+x coalition.

 

[MrHorus]

Lib dems won't commit political suicide by making a coalition with labour

They have already formed a coalition government with Labour in Scotland and it hasn't seemed to have harmed them.


[/quote]I think the most likely outcome of a hung parliament is a minority conservative government or a con/+x coalition.[/QUOTE]

It's constitutional convention that the Queen invites the leader of the largest party in the Commons to form a government. If Labour end up with the most seats but lacking in an overall majority then they can reasonably claim a mandate to form a government.

Whether they will be able to govern without a majority or some sort of coalition agreement is a different matter entirely, but I wouldn't say we have seen the back of Brown yet.

 

[rynnor]

I think cons will fall just short of a majority or just squeek it.

My thoughts too - I think the momentum is now swinging to the Conservatives so they will end up with the largest number of seats - maybe even a tiny majority of around 20 seats.

It wont make a huge difference tho because with that small a majority they will still need support from others to get anything through the commons.

 

[Chilly]

id be happier if the cons took over, they are far more likely to curb the vast benefits bill we currently have.

 

[MrHorus]

My thoughts too - I think the momentum is now swinging to the Conservatives so they will end up with the largest number of seats - maybe even a tiny majority of around 20 seats.

It wont make a huge difference tho because with that small a majority they will still need support from others to get anything through the commons.

A majority is still a majority though.

I agree that they will probably need cross-party support to drive contentious legislation through, but they are in a much stronger position to bully the other parties when they can claim a clear mandate vis-a-vis a Commons majority.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Please explain why this makes me a bigot?

Chuckle.

 

[Furr]

If Labour are the largest party then Brown will not go, he's been able to put down rebellion after rebellion and the Unions have slotted shed loads of Union yes men in safe Labour seats to shore up support, all this talk of Milliband or any other Blairite regaining control of the party is fantasy.

Voting Lib Dem in a Con-Lab marginal just means we get stuck with 5 more years of Labour with Lib Dems making up the bulk. It'll also mean we have an out assault on the banks, middle class aspiration and self determination and further neglect of non urban areas. Labour will be desperate to get back the vote of their core support and that means the rest of us are going to miss out and get raped for cash. They won't risk attacking the unions and so we won't get the desperately needs slashing of the public sector, immigration policy will be much the same as it has been for 13 years and like hell they'll decentralise power, so we'll still have wonks in London setting targets and micro managing everything.

Thankfully I've been saving the last couple years to do a postgraduate at UCL, as a high skilled worker I don't fancy the outlook for my standard of life in the UK compared to other people in the field in other countries, I'm further educating myself at great expense to learn more about a field I enjoy and spending a lot of money in anticipation of greater long term return, if things aren't sorted soon at least I want to make it easier for me to emigrate before the shite hits the fan.

On a plus note, if Labour do survive it means Boris will retain power of London in the 2012 London election, although he won't get the Mayoral super powers that the Tories plan to devolve to all the cities.