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

[Nzyme]

What if I Can't get commercial funding? Why won't the Government pay for me? It is still education.

My point is, where do you draw the line?

Personally i think after A-Levels.

At that point education does not become necessary to get a top job only helpful (i.e. you can become a top accountant with only A-levels but it might help to have a business/economic degree)

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Personally i think after A-Levels.

At that point education does not become necessary to get a top job only helpful (i.e. you can become a top accountant with only A-levels but it might help to have a business/economic degree)

I agree

 

[Luseac]

I value the defence of the realm, but I'm not sure whether having stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons is the best way to do this.

I would respectfully disagree but don't wish this to turn into a nuke thread so will simply pose the following questions: If you value defence of the Realm do you not think we should always have at least 1 aircraft carrier at sea? Do you not also think we need to arm the RAF with the best planes? There is no way I can see the Libdems wanting to keep both QE's (possibly even sell both), so that leaves the navy without a carrier whilst the other is in refit. Vince Cable has also made reference to drawing a line on the Eurofighters.

Whilst they're not exactly as careless as the Greens when it comes to defence, the Lib Dems aren't exactly defence friendly, you must agree?

 

[Hatter The Mad]

What? I'm not saying don't pay anything back... I'm actually saying that people should be paying more than the cost of their degree... I just don't think it should be up front fees.

If people pay off their student loans after graduating (unless through a work scheme) then they are idiots...



Lol, did you not read my post, then?

Sorry, I misunderstood. By 'pay back after graduating', I also meant by PAYE.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Gordon Brown tinkers with length of paper economic cycles to make it look like he’d meet his own ‘golden rule’

The Golden Rule is a guideline for the operation of fiscal policy. The Golden Rule states that over the economic cycle, the Government will borrow only to invest and not to fund current spending (Wikipedia).

The core of the ‘golden rule’ framework is that, as a general rule, policy should be designed to maintain a stable allocation of public sector resources over the course of the business cycle.

In the UK, the Golden Rule was officially adopted by Gordon Brown in 1997.
In the UK on Tuesday, UK chancellor Gordon Brown told the Treasury select committee that the current economic cycle began in 1997, not in 1999 as the Treasury had previously assumed.

By changing the length of the cycle, Mr. Brown makes it more likely that his goal on balancing the budget will be met.

Finance Markets

In 2005, for example, it looked like the government would miss the target. By coincidence, at that time, it added two extra years on at the start of the cycle, moving the beginning from 1999 to 1997. The government happened to run a surplus in those two years. So hey presto, the books were balanced again.

Brown may be meeting his own increasingly vague fiscal rules. But that doesn’t tell you much about rising debt - which is arguably much more significant.

Channel Four’s FactCheck

He’s gone back to 1997, he’s taken two years of fiscal surplus which are my surplus, achieved by sticking to my figures, in order to say he’s still abiding by the blessed golden rule which was a useless rule in any event.

Ken Clark, former Chancellor, speaking to the BBC

It was also always understood that that cycle (whenever it began) would end in 2009, but it became apparent in 2008 that while the change in start date meant that the “golden rule” was being met at that time it would still be breached by the end of the cycle in 2009. So, Brown simply changed the dates again, saying that the cycle had ended in 2006 and that we were now in a new one.

http://futurefairforall.org/post/513433023/gordon-brown-tinkers-with-length-of-paper-economic

 

[britboy4321]

In the UK on Tuesday, UK chancellor Gordon Brown told the Treasury select committee that the current economic cycle began in 1997, not in 1999 as the Treasury had previously assumed.

Bwahahaa .. assumed.

Makes a mockery of the whole article. Assumption indeed The mother of all screw ups.


If I assumed David Cameron was a 16 legged Octopus, but he turned out not to be, for 10 points, who went wrong? Me or Cameron? hohoho

'Assumption' is a kind of humerous word round professional circles, if anyone in a professional organisation starts a sentence 'but I presumed' you will see eyes roll! I can tell this article is a kind of joke as any professional would know the treasury would never run on assumptions. Anyone who has been in business more than 15 seconds doesn't run on assumption. Amateur writers :\ Probably intended for amateur readers :\

 

[Hatter The Mad]

lol, you've completely misunderstood the entire thing.

You're right, though, that the word "assumed" is wrong - the economic cycle should have and did start in 1999; until Brown changed it when he got to the end of it and realised he had borrowed way too much

Great Chancellor.

 

[starfighter]

Maybe Lib Dems, but I agree scrapping Trident is a step too far unless there is another replacement.

If a nutter in a 3rd world country can get one then we need one. It's too late, they have ben invented, it's not like we have to go around nuking people.

 

[Hatter The Mad]

Aren't Lib Dems also against building nuclear power stations?

 

[meghatronic]

Maybe Lib Dems, but I agree scrapping Trident is a step too far unless there is another replacement.

The point is, they want no like-for-like replacement. An analogy would be they want to replace your roof with a sheet of tin foil. It will keep out the weather, but not well.

Aren't Lib Dems also against building nuclear power stations?

Indeed. As I keep saying, they're loonies: http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/no2nuclear

 

[meghatronic]

No, the weather has changed, so a different roof might be suitable... we need to assess the change in climate with a strategic defence review .

Similar things, sir, were said in 1910 and 1935.

 

[James J]

Aren't Lib Dems also against building nuclear power stations?

They are against them but favour the more "greener" options which are fully renewable. The forestry comission has sites across the UK to grow fast growing ferns for wood chip production for the latest line of "green" powerstations.

I'd rather have renewable energy then nuclear power anyday

 

[aslco]

ahh im not a fan of that anti nuclear policiy by lib dem. (power wise) but i totally support investing less in our defense and putting it more into education. I think withdraw the troops, eep security high for a while, then take it away gradually as time passes and the threat hopefully lessens....yes we'd still have a good defense, just not such a stupidly overpowered money wasting one

Lib Dems under my leadsership would be such a good party though...damnnn we'd own

 

[GreatAuk]

ahh im not a fan of that anti nuclear policiy by lib dem.

Having read some BBC thing about the parties, I had a look at the green party website, and tbh I love a lot of what they say! Problems for me though are that they don't support nuclear power or weapons, and I'd be worried they would cut defence spending as well... but apart from that, a green-run UK sounds great! shame it's not going to happen unless all the major parties MP's mysteriously get shot in the head...

 

[Jonny ///M]

How do I find out who is running in this constituency? I've never voted before but I would like to this time.

If I believed everything I hear around here labour is cool and tories are for rich people :S

I see lots of new schools and hospitals which is good but I'm told some are actually rented off private companies and they aren't run very well.

I'm thinking going conservative.

Managed to find some stats on this area.

Labour 44.29%
Scottish National Party 28.56%
Conservative 12.62%

Safe to say me voting Conservative won't help much!

 

[Dolph]

The massive irony of the Lib Dems wanting to cut the defence budget is that defence spending is one of the few wealth creating forms of state spending (ie the good sort). Most of them waste wealth (through costs and low overall benefit) rather than create wealth... Cutting wealth creating spending is silly.

The idea that we can generate all our energy needs from renewable energy is also fatally flawed, there is no good renewable in the UK for providing base load power that has fully understood environmental consequences.

 

[.Kencs]

I need help in deciding...I've never voted before and I don't know which 1 to go for, my wife is voting for Labour, but the way I see it is why should I HAVE to vote because I have no idea which party does what so therefore my vote will be a random 1...Can someone give me a run down between Labour and Conservatives please and what each of them are responsible for? Otherwise Im gonna be throwing my vote at anyone...

 

[Nzyme]

I'd rather have renewable energy then nuclear power anyday

It will not be possible to meet the energy requirements of the UK through purely renewable means for a long time. In that time the best option is clearly new generation nuclear reactors.

I see lots of new schools and hospitals which is good but I'm told some are actually rented off private companies and they aren't run very well.

PFI schemes? Potentially quite a good way of improving the countries infrastructure if handled correctly.

The idea that we can generate all our energy needs from renewable energy is also fatally flawed, there is no good renewable in the UK for providing base load power that has fully understood environmental consequences.

He's right you know, Nuclear power is the best option to meet base-load electrical demand across the country. You can only truely think about using renewables after meeting this demand.

 

[Dolph]

I need help in deciding...I've never voted before and I don't know which 1 to go for, my wife is voting for Labour, but the way I see it is why should I HAVE to vote because I have no idea which party does what so therefore my vote will be a random 1...Can someone give me a run down between Labour and Conservatives please and what each of them are responsible for? Otherwise Im gonna be throwing my vote at anyone...

The parties are releasing their manifestos this week, that would be a good place to start. It's very difficult to give unbiased advice unfortunately on politics.

 

[Nzyme]

They are against them but favour the more "greener" options which are fully renewable. The forestry comission has sites across the UK to grow fast growing ferns for wood chip production for the latest line of "green" powerstations.

Biofuels and particularly biomass currently lack any industry standards on how "renewable" or "green" feedstocks actually are, its difficult therefore to claim using them particularly within large scale plants would be a good thing for this country in the long run except for energy diversity and decreasing reliance on foreign fuel sources.