Poll: Which party will get your vote in the General Election?

[RDM]

You're the one who started moanin' on about hyperbole, I just literally answered exactly what you asked me to. If I hadn't, you'd be moaning on about how I didn't answer the question. If we weren't having this conversation, you'd be moanin' on about something else to someone else. Stop moanin' ! It'll age you!

I wasn't moaning I just find your hypocrisy amusing. Especially as you seem to be completely blind to it yourself. I don't however find it amusing enough to waste more than a few moments at a time replying to a forum post, hence not really interested in the sort of banal points scoring you seem so keen on.

 

[Odhran]

There must be a party that best represents their views .

Unfortunately there isn't one for me. I suppose I'm one of 'the great ignored' to coin a recent phrase ... doesn't mean that the proposer of that phrase in any way represents what I value in a society or from a government.

 

[britboy4321]

I wasn't moaning I just find your hypocrisy amusing. Especially as you seem to be completely blind to it yourself. I don't however find it amusing enough to waste more than a few moments at a time replying to a forum post, hence not really interested in the sort of banal points scoring you seem so keen on.

Yea the bottom line is no-one really knows which party will be better for Britain in the future so it's all just gut-feel.

Hatter says we should vote on Labours track record, but not think about the conservative's track record. Seems a little wierd.

In reality we should vote on who will be the best for Britain moving forwards, not 'let's teach Labour a lesson by voting against them' as that's moronic. That's cutting off your nose to spite your face. Yet that seems to be the only reason people are voting for conservatives, as the conservatives this election arn't actually saying what they are going to do when they get in power :/ it's just bizarre :/ certainly during my life until now I can never remember an opposition party refusing to say what they'll do if they take power, relying effectively solely on the 'revenge cos Labour have made mistakes' vote. Very strange times :/

 

[Hatter The Mad]

The conversation was specifically about your 'factoid' that every single massive NHS project had been badly specced.

No - I said every single massive project gets specification problems due to a lack of expertise.

I guess by massive I mean national scale projects.

 

[britboy4321]

The NHS is run as seperate trusts though. There are virtually zero national projects.

Of course as soon as you get down to trust level (about the highest level the NHS goes) you're immediately into 'on-time on budget' projects (something you assure us has NEVER, EVER HAPPENED - oops?).

http://www.bjhcim.co.uk/news/2008/n801011.htm


Can you please name me 10 national NHS projects? not 'trust' level projects?

No? But if not - that means your chosen definition of the word 'Massive' really was misinformative. (hint - we all know it was from about 2 pages ago! Give it up!)

 

[Dolph]

The public sector must be the only area of business anywhere where automation and IT appears to result in an increase in employment levels... Doesn't that suggest that somewhere along the line, something is being done wrong?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Why can't this country modernise with IT without wasting money and never actually achieving anything?

Not while the government and public sector product managers are not competent enough to deliver large scale IT projects. Once those problems are addressed, then yes - we should press on.


Let's quote from the Public Accounts Committee chair into government's abysmal and disgraceful mismanagement of almost every medium to large sized IT project:



http://futurefairforall.org/post/486957014/public-accounts-committee-time-and-again-departments

All I did was use the NHS IT project as an example of where you have to cut your losses and eventually start again.

To answer your question, here are 10 from the top of my head - all of which have overrun on time and money. Some of them have been so overrun they are yet to officially start being implemented, yet have managed to blackhole money.

N3 network
GP2GP
NHS Care Records Service
Choose and Book
Electronic Prescription Service
NHS Contact
PACS (picture archiving and network)
The Spine
The Quality Management and Analysis System
NHSmail

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Btw - if you want to talk about 'regional' projects, the NAO working with the British Computer Society found that 40% of those the health authorities allowed the BCS to monitor (i.e. what were supposed to be the best ones):

Out of the 40 per cent of projects which failed it was found that:

* 42 per cent failed due to design and definitions failure;
* 39 per cent failed due to decision making failure;
* 7 per cent failed due to project discipline failure;
* 7 per cent failed due to supplier management failure;
* 4 per cent failed due to failure of the project to meet the requirement.

http://www.intosaiitaudit.org/intoit_articles/14p20top22.pdf

 

[britboy4321]

Btw - if you want to talk about 'regional' projects, the NAO working with the British Computer Society found that 40% of those the health authorities allowed the BCS to monitor (i.e. what were supposed to be the best ones):

http://www.intosaiitaudit.org/intoit_articles/14p20top22.pdf

Sorry to be pedantic, but again the definition of the word 'fail' comes into play especially if the publication is after a story.


If they introduce the national ID scheme, and for 59,999,999 residents it works perfectly, and for 1 resident he gets charged £6000 rather then £60 .. is it a 'fail'. You could claim 'Yup - project failed'

Sorry

 

[Dolph]

Sorry to be pedantic, but again the definition of the word 'fail' comes into play especially if the publication is after a story.


If they introduce the national ID scheme, and for 59,999,999 residents it works perfectly, and for 1 resident he gets charged £6000 rather then £60 .. is it a 'fail'. You could claim 'Yup - project failed'

Sorry

You could also look at the original specifications and see if it's met them, on time and within budget?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

You could also look at the original specifications and see if it's met them, on time and within budget?

Yeah.. much is what the NAO and BCS did.

 

[britboy4321]

You could also look at the original specifications and see if it's met them, on time and within budget?

I honestly don't know where to get the information from

I tried googling to be honest and couldn't find the info. about 'were the specs right first time'.

If we're opening the question up away from the NHS, I'd bet that at least some national military projects have been delivered on time and to budget .. at least my gut feel is I'd be able to find examples of it .. the military pride themselves on such things ..

 

[gettothechopper]

^^nope DII/F was years late and £182m overbudget

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/systems-management/2009/01/16/mod-it-project-late-over-budget-failing-to-impress-39593268/

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/mod+system+unmitigated+disaster/1054057

nats was pretty darn late and over budget by a long way too

 

[Dolph]

I honestly don't know where to get the information from

I tried googling to be honest and couldn't find the info. about 'were the specs right first time'.

If we're opening the question up away from the NHS, I'd bet that at least some national military projects have been delivered on time and to budget .. at least my gut feel is I'd be able to find examples of it .. the military pride themselves on such things ..

http://www.parliament.uk/post/pr200.pdf

This has much of the problem, and cites the study by the BCA as one of it's sources where it acknowledges that poor specification/requirements are one of the most common causes of failure (page 5)

 

[taz488]

one things for sure, i wont be voting conservative.

 

[Naffa]

Sorry, David – I introduced the London living wage, not Boris

The Tories obstructed my policy of a higher minimum wage for Londoners. Now David Cameron is trying to take credit for it

Ken Livingstone
guardian.co.uk, Friday 9 April 2010 14.59 BST

David Cameron wants us to believe that his party is progressive. Pull the other one. So much does he want this that he's told Guardian readers that it's his party, not Labour, that's radical on low pay.

There's one problem – exhibit A in his case for the prosecution is not what he claims it is. Cameron writes:

"The one progressive new idea we hear will be in Labour's manifesto – the living wage – is actually a Conservative policy: Boris Johnson has already introduced it in London. But Gordon Brown has signally failed to speak out on fair pay, whether in the public or private sector, and it falls to a radical Conservative party to take a lead."

Except that Boris Johnson didn't introduce it. The London living wage was introduced by my administration five years ago, after I gave a commitment to do so during the 2004 mayoral campaign. If Cameron wants to fight Labour by showing that he's forward-looking he will need a better example than a policy Labour introduced five years ago. With this error he actually demonstrates the exact opposite of his case – he shows that once again the Tories are way behind the curve at best, and outright fakers a lot more of the time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/09/london-living-wage-boris-cameron

And people still think Cameron's Conservatives are anything more than a giant PR exercise... Unbelievable.

 

[Dolph]

Oooh, random attacks on politicians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/apr/09/reality-check-conservatives-dna-bowman

Brown is being misleading in suggesting that the killer of Sally Anne Bowman would not have been caught using DNA under the Conservative proposals.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Sorry, David – I introduced the London living wage, not Boris

The Tories obstructed my policy of a higher minimum wage for Londoners. Now David Cameron is trying to take credit for it

Ken Livingstone
guardian.co.uk, Friday 9 April 2010 14.59 BST



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/09/london-living-wage-boris-cameron

And people still think Cameron's Conservatives are anything more than a giant PR exercise... Unbelievable.

Haaaaang on a minute.

Livingstone did not introduce the London Weighted Wage. The idea was that of the London Citizen's Group in 2001. Then, in 2005, Livingstone set up a Mayoral department to calculate what the LWW should be.

Boris was the one who signed up London, TfL, the Mayor's Office (etc) to the scheme, guaranteeing the minimum LWW would be paid.

naffa - you need to think more critically and not believe everything you read. I mean, for goodness' sake - the article was written by a politician with a score to settle. Yet you take it all from the horse's mouth?

The Living Wage Campaign was launched by community alliance London Citizens in 2001. Since then it has lifted over 5,000 families out of working poverty and encourages over 100 organisations to become Living Wage Employers.

http://www.livingwageemployer.org/

 

[meghatronic]

And people still think Cameron's Conservatives are anything more than a giant PR exercise... Unbelievable.

Gordon... is that you?

 

[Naffa]

Haaaaang on a minute.

Livingstone did not introduce the London Weighted Wage. The idea was that of the London Citizen's Group in 2001. Then, in 2005, Livingstone set up a Mayoral department to calculate what the LWW should be.

Boris was the one who signed up London, TfL, the Mayor's Office (etc) to the scheme, guaranteeing the minimum LWW would be paid.

naffa - you need to think more critically and not believe everything you read. I mean, for goodness' sake - the article was written by a politician with a score to settle. Yet you take it all from the horse's mouth?

Wow, I'm astonished you have such a low opinion of my intelligence. Do you really think my post was based just on the content of that article, written, like you said, by the former Mayor of London?

I first got a wiff of what, I believe to be, the truth after following a link in the article to this:

http://www.londoncitizens.org.uk/livingwage/index.html

From which I can quote:

HOW SUCCESFUL HAS THE CAMPAIGN BEEN SO FAR?

Since its launch back in 2001, the campaign has put an estimated £24 million back in the pockets of low-waged workers.

Another link took me to an article demonstrating Conservative members of the London Assembly voting against key parts of the legislation. Also, given the fact that Labour introduced the National minimum wage (in the face of fierce Tory opposition, saying it would bankrupt the country), I didn't think it too far fetched for such a policy to be introduced by a Labour Mayor, whilst being opposed by the Conservative opposition.

But as per usual, I invite you to prove me wrong.

Gordon... is that you?

Oh yeah.. Damn! I forgot everyone that isn't voting Tory is Gordon Brown...