Poll: 2nd Leaders debate - Live tonight at 8pm on BBC news and SKY news

Who will you vote for?

  • Labour

    Votes: 50 9.0%

  • Conservatives

    Votes: 245 43.9%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 227 40.7%

  • Other

    Votes: 36 6.5%
  • Total voters
    558
  • Poll closed .
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stockhausen said:
However, it does appear that the Liberal Democrats will ONLY enter into a coalition in exchange for electoral reform to overcome the manifest unfairness of the exiting outdated system which has no place in a modern democracy.
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As has been discussed many times, PR is no better - it's just fairer on the little guys - not the country.
 
stockhausen said:
Nick Clegg seems to be suggesting that he might be more willing to enter a coalition with the Tories than with New Labour - in the event that New Labour gains fewest votes but most seats.

However, it does appear that the Liberal Democrats will ONLY enter into a coalition in exchange for electoral reform to overcome the manifest unfairness of the exiting outdated system which has no place in a modern democracy.
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Is our outdated system exiting?

Or is your command of the English language not all it's cracked up to be. :p
 
naffa said:
Cameron has said he's not going to rule out voting reform, not that he's going to support a proportional voting system.

And besides, surely we should be able to draft in articles from the last few years as they are indeed, still relevant. If Cameron has said something that contradicts something he's saying now (that's not the case with this particular piece), then it's very relevant.
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Of course, but presenting them as if they are current (as Rich_L did, although whether it was deliberate or not I'm not sure) is not right.

As for the voting reform issue, even what has been said is a change in position. Just because Cameron wouldn't personally support reform, it doesn't follow that he wouldn't support putting it to a free vote in parliament, or putting it to a referendum.

I'm wondering if we could introduce some version of PR where you voted both for and against canidates, sort of mixed member with a slap system :)
 
meghatronic said:
As has been discussed many times, PR is no better - it's just fairer on the little guys - not the country.
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You are entitled to your opinion which appears to be the maintenance of the current unrepresentative status quo.

I suspect that the vast number of people whose votes end up being ignored because they aren't in the 30% or so who voted for the winner in a first past the post system may not share your opinion.

The Liberal Democrats simply want to see the number of MPs be representative of the way the country actually voted - seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable ambition - good on them.
 
stockhausen said:
The Liberal Democrats simply want to see the number of MPs be representative of the way the country actually voted - seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable ambition - good on them.
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No, the LibDems (rightly so for them) want a system that gives them an advantage*. It is beyond naïve to suggest they're doing it for the good of the country ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Same reasons LabCon want the opposite :D

* be that equal footing or otherwise.
 
stockhausen said:
Actually, I think that the Liberal Democrats want a system that will be best for the 60% to 70% of voters whose wishes tend to be ignored.
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We'll disagree here. LibDems, like every politician in the world, are doing it for their own best interests.

From the fb group:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/25/nick-clegg-coalition-conservatives

If anyone has the time please write a short complaint to the political editor of the Guardian, as the premise of this article is so disgracefully warped that it practically descends into the Tory-esque gutter press.

The Guardian should be more balanced than this, cos people believe what they read
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Ah the hypocrisy!
 
stockhausen said:
Actually, I think that the Liberal Democrats want a system that will be best for the 60% to 70% of voters whose wishes tend to be ignored.
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Best is an entirely subjective term though... While I agree with the idea, there are positives and negatives to both FPTP and the various forms of PR, whether to those who vote for the winner or those who do not.

It is entirely possible that PR will actually result in far less power to the people to decide the government than we have now, which is why although I support it, I only support it in line with constitutional reforms to restrict the impact of government.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/25/what-about-the-financial-crisis

The first televised prime ministerial debate was great fun, the second was interesting, but the third will be the most important event of the election campaign. That's because this debate will show whether or not the candidates can summon up the courage to say something real about the most important issue facing the country in the next five years.

That issue is spending cuts. At the moment, out of every four pounds the government spends, one is borrowed. In those circumstances the most powerful forces in the world of UK domestic policy are not our politicians, but the international bond markets. That's because the bond markets are the people who are lending us afloat. The situation is, in principle, no different from what happens when a small business gets into difficulties and has to go to the bank. The bank manager can tell the business to lay off staff, cut overheads, cancel holidays and anything else, and even if these are bad ideas, the business has no choice about whether or not to execute them. In the same way, a country that has gone into debt as quickly as we have has in effect lost some of its sovereignty.
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Very true, the sooner the 3 main parties start talking about exactly where the cuts are going to fall, in the amount that they need to cut, the better able the population will be to make a decision. Unfortunately, the current mudslinging around cuts means any party that really starts it is committing electoral suicide...
 
Yep, yep, yep.

The Guardian said:
This isn't being talked about by the party leaders – which, incidentally, doesn't bother the bond markets at all. Nine of the 10 fund managers surveyed by the Financial Times said that they didn't mind which of the two main parties won the election, because the spending cuts would happen anyway. You can hear similar noises emanating from the monetarist right. Fraser Nelson of the Spectator was on the radio recently, calmly saying that he wasn't worried about the absence of cuts in the election discourse because they were certain to take place, whatever the outcome of the election.
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I would (probably) move to support any leader that speaks about the cuts that are inevitable during the next few years. All this talk about honest politics, new politics, not treating the public like mugs, etc, is just a big joke given the large pink elephant standing in the room.
 
naffa said:
Yep, yep, yep.



I would (probably) move to support any leader that speaks about the cuts that are inevitable during the next few years. All this talk about honest politics, new politics, not treating the public like mugs, etc, is just a big joke given the large pink elephant standing in the room.
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So would I, but the problem is the general public are idiots, and Labour have already been going for the negative campaigning approach with regards to cuts (as have some posters in this thread).

We need an honest discussion about how we are going to bring public spending under control, and the only way to do that is to reduce spending. The questions that should be looked at are where the cuts should fall.
 
Strife212 said:
Tories have been blatantly saying they'll be making big cuts the entire time
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But there has been no detail. There has been no detail from any of them (the Lib Dems only detailed about 1/3rd of the cuts needed).

Furthermore, every time someone has tried to pin down where they would cut, the other parties have jumped all over them with negativity.
 
naffa said:
A conspiracy? The claim the Saddam was a threat to us was scaremongering by the respective governments of the UK and the US to try and get us to support the intervention. I'm sorry to hear that you think that's the only reason that one could cite in support.
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Irrelevant, self defence is the only legitimate reason to go to war and the only one given by the UK government.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8640576.stm

Looks like even people within Cameron's own party are against his education plans:

Paul Carter, leader of Kent County Council, said funding parents to start their own "free schools" would threaten the budgets of other local schools.

David Kirk - responsible for schools in Hampshire - said local authorities were better placed to improve schools.

He said councils could provide "intelligent, sensible interventions".
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To me it seems like this "big society" plan is merely a plan to privatise the education system by the back door. Let's make state run education a thing of the past by making it so bad that parents will have no choice but to ask private companies to come in and start up new schools.
 
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