Poll: *** 2010 General Election Result & Discussion ***

[Slam62]

Which is in turn another quote from a guardian article...

yes but it says observer

anyway don't shoot the messenger, take it as you like.

 

[RDM]

Well, still. It's the lesser of two evils.

We either prop-up Greece and prevent a further run on the markets and economical positive-feedback, or we can watch as other states slowly collapse around us, which doesn't take a genuis to understand the implications of.

Unfortunately it isn't an "either or" situation. We could do this bail out and Greece could still go belly up followed by Spain and Portugal. So once again we are in a situation where we have no reserve to deal with the crisis that would have happened anyway.

 

[Andy_82]

And that is the main issue. What if the bailout doesn't work at all? We spend billions and the euro still goes down the pan. That way we are in an even worse situation. Outside of that there is the whole idea of principle where it should be the eurozone countries that back up the euro.

I'm not saying we as in the UK should be involved any more than are IMF obligations. It should be a Euro area bailout not every EU member country.

Edit: This strongly shows the huge downsides of a currency used accross vastly different economies and the inability for member countries to use monetary policy. This shows exactly why we should NOT join the Euro

 

[Slam62]

And completely irrelevant. People always hate their leader - it's part of the hierarchy!

there's no smoke without fire.

I think it's a given that a lot of labour mps want Brown to resign. That's been obvious for some time.

 

[Dolph]

Are we reading the same newspaper? The Guardian openly supported the Lib Dems throughout this election.

from the same article.

The pragmatic caveat concerns the danger that, under the existing electoral system, switching to the Liberal Democrats in Labour-Conservative marginal constituencies might let in an anti-reform Tory party. So, voters who share this principled enthusiasm for securing the largest possible number of Liberal Democrat MPs next Thursday must, in many constituencies, weigh the tactical option of supporting Labour to prevent a Conservative win.

Hopefully, if this really is the last election under the old system, such dilemmas between head and heart will apply less in future. For now, however, the cause of reform is overwhelmingly more likely to be achieved by a Lib Dem partnership of principle with Labour than by a Lib Dem marriage of convenience with a Tory party which is explicitly hostile to the cause and which currently plans to redraw the political map for its own advantage. The momentum for change would be fatally undermined should the Conservatives win an overall majority. The Liberal Democrats and Labour should, of course, have explored much earlier and more explicitly how they might co-operate to reform the electoral system. During the campaign, and especially since the final leaders' debate, the appetite for co-operation has clearly increased and is increasing still. Mr Clegg's Guardian interview today underscores the potential for more productive engagement with Labour and is matched by fresh, untribal thinking from his potential partners.

They were after a lib/lab coalition, despite the fact that Labour is far further removed on civil liberties than the tories were, no better on electoral reform (AV is not PR) and so on.

 

[Dolph]

yes but it says observer

anyway don't shoot the messenger, take it as you like.

The Observer = The guardian on sunday.

 

[The Mad Rapper]

Does everyone wanting PR value a fairer electoral system over a strong, stable government ?

They aren't mutually exclusive and it's nonsense to suggest otherwise.

 

[zom247]

Without trawling through this thread, can anyone tell me in laymans terms exactly what PR is? Never really been into politics but this seems to be the No1 topic at the moment, although I do find it strange that no one seems to be mentioning the debt we are in or how to fix it.

 

[rypt]

Without trawling through this thread, can anyone tell me in laymans terms exactly what PR is? Never really been into politics but this seems to be the No1 topic at the moment, although I do find it strange that no one seems to be mentioning the debt we are in or how to fix it.

Take the national vote percentages for each party, and given them a seat for every (100/650)% of the national vote

 

[PermaBanned]

 

[atpbx]

I've just heard the most stupid thing from a labour politician, he said, "the people didnt vote for a tory government, If you put the labour and Lid dem votes together, you get over 50% of the vote, and thats what the majority of people want".

Err, no, by that reasoning, people want Tory/lib dem as their vote share together is 59.1% of the vote 17511725 votes, not labour/lib dem, as together they would only have 15432296 votes, or 52% of the vote.

Good to see labour still dont understand what the words "fair" and "majority" mean.

 

[avec]

I've just heard the most stupid thing from a labour politician, he said, "the people didnt vote for a tory government, If you put the labour and Lid dem votes together, you get over 50% of the vote, and thats what the majority of people want".

Err, no, by that reasoning, people want Tory/lib dem as their vote share together is 59.1% of the vote 17511725 votes, not labour/lib dem, as together they would only have 15432296 votes, or 52% of the vote.

Good to see labour still dont understand what the words "fair" and "majority" mean.

They've been spinning that line since election night and some posters in this very thread have gone along with it.

Some actually criticised Kay Burley for saying a similar thing yesterday with reference to a hung parliament despite the Labour spinsters saying similar things continuously since the election.

 

[scorza]

Without trawling through this thread, can anyone tell me in laymans terms exactly what PR is? Never really been into politics but this seems to be the No1 topic at the moment, although I do find it strange that no one seems to be mentioning the debt we are in or how to fix it.

There are 650 seats in parliament, if the Conservatives got 38% of then they get 650*0.38=247 MPs, Labour got 29% of the vote so they get 650*0.29-188 MPs, Lib Dems got 23% of the vote so they get 650*0.23=149 MPs and so on for the minor parties. The main disadvantage is that we would get no say about who represents up, i.e. the political parties will decide who the MPs are, we vote for the party.

The debt is being mentioned quite a lot

 

[JohnnyG]

I've just heard the most stupid thing from a labour politician, he said, "the people didnt vote for a tory government, If you put the labour and Lid dem votes together, you get over 50% of the vote, and thats what the majority of people want".

Err, no, by that reasoning, people want Tory/lib dem as their vote share together is 59.1% of the vote 17511725 votes, not labour/lib dem, as together they would only have 15432296 votes, or 52% of the vote.

Good to see labour still dont understand what the words "fair" and "majority" mean.

They interveiwed some tree hugger earlier who was complaining that he voted for LibDems policies and not the Conservatives so he didn't want the Tories to govern with the Libs help.
I've never voted Labour but had to put up with them for years now, some of these muppets really don't get it.

 

[scorza]

I've just heard the most stupid thing from a labour politician, he said, "the people didnt vote for a tory government, If you put the labour and Lid dem votes together, you get over 50% of the vote, and thats what the majority of people want".

Err, no, by that reasoning, people want Tory/lib dem as their vote share together is 59.1% of the vote 17511725 votes, not labour/lib dem, as together they would only have 15432296 votes, or 52% of the vote.

Good to see labour still dont understand what the words "fair" and "majority" mean.

I think he means that LibDem voters would prefer a LibLab coalition instead of a LibCon. I don't know what he bases that on tbh.

Ironically if Brown had not prevented the Labour party fulfilling its promise in 1997 and implementing the AV+ voting system then there might be some evidence to back up that claim, or not.

 

[atpbx]

They interveiwed some tree hugger earlier who was complaining that he voted for LibDems policies and not the Conservatives so he didn't want the Tories to govern with the Libs help.
I've never voted Labour but had to put up with them for years now, some of these muppets really don't get it.

This is the case, I didnt vote for labour either, and I've been able to vote since before they took power, I've always been a conservative voter so I have had to put up with being governed by someone I didnt want either.

 

[gambitt]

I've just heard the most stupid thing from a labour politician, he said, "the people didnt vote for a tory government, If you put the labour and Lid dem votes together, you get over 50% of the vote, and thats what the majority of people want".

Brilliant Labour logic. Anything to keep the "evil tories" out.

Imagine if the Tories got 46% of the vote, you can bet he would still be arguing that the people didn't vote for a tory government because Labour + Lib Dem + PC + SNP etc had over 50% of the vote!

 

[atpbx]

I think he means that LibDem voters would prefer a LibLab coalition instead of a LibCon. I don't know what he bases that on tbh.

Ironically if Brown had not prevented the Labour party fulfilling its promise in 1997 and implementing the AV+ voting system then there might be some evidence to back up that claim, or not.

Quite, I cant quite see what policies the lib dems have in tune with labour, being as they are for civil liberties (not a labour consideration) low tax for the poor (not a labour consideration, they would rather give with one hand, and take it all back with interest in the other) and anti state intervention.

I know there are the same amount, perhaps more differences between them and the tories, but not on so many fundamental ideological points.

 

[Captain_Slick]

Then why can't the IMF get involved? Or a global effort if not that? It would effect America as much as the UK I'm sure.

I fail to see why we should be bullied.


Yeah, I found a few more, as edited.

It doesn't really matter. Have you seen the state of the US' finances as of late? This is the start of the death throws of western capitalism and even China will be affected. Our politicians are pumping blood into a fresh corpse. There will be a double dip recession.

 

[avec]

Oh I can see it now, in a final act of their scorched earth policy, Labour pack off a massive amount of our money to bail out Greece, further deepening our own personal crisis and making the new government find things even more difficult.