Poll: General election voting intentions poll

[mid_gen]

Thankfully Labour and the Cons are both on the same page when it comes to Trident, and we won't be caving in to the hippies and giving up the main thing preventing large scale global conflict.

 

[Quartz]

Especially as Scottish Tories will tactically vote SNP to help finish Labour off North of the boarder.

Quite the reverse IMO: they'll be voting Labour and Lib Dem to fight off the SNP and save the Union.

 

[ubersonic]

New low Tory smear campaign against Ed, accusing him of preparing to stab Britain in the back like he did his brother (really)

Actually he really did do that, on stage in front of the entire party (and on TV too).

 

[scorza]

Actually he really did do that, on stage in front of the entire party (and on TV too).

How?

 

[estebanrey]

Actually he really did do that, on stage in front of the entire party (and on TV too).

How did he stab his brother in the back, are you supporting the notion of primogeniture when it comes to job applications?

 

[joeyjojo]

Found a good blog from an Oxford economics prof with a macroeconomic/political theme that some of you might be interested in:

http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/

An excerpt from the latest post (bold face added by me):

The difficulty here is that ‘Labour crashed the economy’ is not complete fiction. If the accusation was that Labour crashed the economy through fiscal profligacy (which it sometimes is), that is a straightforward falsehood, and it is easy to show it is a lie. The economy crashed because of the global financial crisis. But if fiscal profligacy is not mentioned, the claim cannot be dismissed as completely wrong. This is because the Labour government, like their Conservative predecessors, brought about or tolerated a regulation regime and a financial sector that allowed the global financial crisis to have a particularly damaging effect on the UK economy.

...

Why is it important that Labour combat this charge effectively? Because it seems to me, being as impartial as I can be, that when it comes to a contest of macroeconomic competence between the last Labour government and the current coalition, Labour wins hands down. That is not so much because Labour were so good (although they got some important things right, like not joining the Eurozone, setting up the Monetary Policy Committee, and fiscal stimulus in 2009), or because the coalition has been all bad (setting up the OBR was clearly a positive move). It is because the coalition made such a bad mistake with austerity, a mistake that very many warned them about. Losing the equivalent of at least £4,000 per household is a big deal, with no obvious equivalent in my professional lifetime. Even if we were prepared to forgive this as a genuine mistake, to plan to make exactly the same mistake again either suggests a complete inability to learn, complete incompetence, or a duplicitous pursuit of ideology over social welfare.

I'd assume the latter. A slightly older one on the same theme:

I have often written that I thought austerity was only supported by a small minority of UK macroeconomists, but my evidence for this has been much thinner than I would like. Today CFM published their latest survey which asked: “Do you agree that the austerity policies of the coalition government have had a positive effect on aggregate economic activity (employment and GDP) in the UK?”

The response was clear: 15% agreed, 18% neither agreed nor disagreed, and 66% disagreed. As CFM reported: “Ignoring those who sat on the fence, 19% agree and 81% disagree with the proposition. This ratio is unaffected by confidence weighting.”

 

[ubersonic]

How?

It was his first speech as leader so basically nobody could stop him, and he used that to stamp his mark.

How did he stab his brother in the back

He said Labour were wrong to invade Iraq and that it should never have happened. Basically declaring to the whole party and anyone watching on TV that his brother made a colossal mistake and calling him out on it.

Surprised you didn't know about it, was a big news thing at the time.

It was such a surprise at the time that his brother (who is normally very calm/contorlled) was unable to hide his surprise/disgust and just sat there giving him a "you *******" stare

 

[robgmun]

Labour never crashed the global economy, it's a line that Labour supporters try to use as a stick to beat Tory supporters with saying that they say that. Then go on to prove that they didn't.

No one in there right mind would say that. But what they did do was go on a reckless spending spree until that last moment that wasn't even spent well. Most of that money was terribly wasted and we would have been a much better position and recovered quicker if they didn't

 

[platypus]

They also carried on a program of deregulation (following on from the Conservatives so not shifting blame to one side here) that helped foment the global crisis.

 

[mid_gen]

Labour never crashed the global economy, it's a line that Labour supporters try to use as a stick to beat Tory supporters with saying that they say that. Then go on to prove that they didn't.

No one in there right mind would say that. But what they did do was go on a reckless spending spree until that last moment that wasn't even spent well. Most of that money was terribly wasted and we would have been a much better position and recovered quicker if they didn't

New Labour was all about the 100%+ mortgage revolution, lining people's pockets with debt money, making people feel affluent through not controlling the property market. I.e. precisely what brought about the financial crisis.

Tories are no better in that regard mind.

 

[robgmun]

You don't see 100% mortgages now do you? So no Tories are better in that regard

 

[Mr Jack]

If Britain loses Trident, we lose our seat at the Big Boy's Table (UN Security Council) and get relegated to Geopolitical Division 1 from the Nuke Owner's Premiership.

No we won't. There's no requirement to have nukes to be on the security council and no sensible reason to think we'd be ejected.

 

[Mr Jack]

He said Labour were wrong to invade Iraq and that it should never have happened. Basically declaring to the whole party and anyone watching on TV that his brother made a colossal mistake and calling him out on it.

How is that stabbing him in the back? Ed disagrees with David; that's not back-stabbing.

 

[Schlong&Stable]

Bottom of the article said the SNP would veto the vote to renew trident. There's a "red line".

So they probably wouldn't demand it going into coalition but it would rear its head soon enough.

There won't be a Labour/SNP coalition, full stop. It would defy all logic for Labour to form a coalition with the party who is going to wipe it out north of the border. More likely there would be a confidence and supply pact, where the SNP would support Labour on anti-austerity policies. But even that is still going to damage Labour in the long run.

If I was the Conservative leader, I'd sooner offer Labour my backing for 12 months than seen them form a pact with the SNP.

 

[scorza]

He said Labour were wrong to invade Iraq and that it should never have happened. Basically declaring to the whole party and anyone watching on TV that his brother made a colossal mistake and calling him out on it.

Surprised you didn't know about it, was a big news thing at the time.

It was such a surprise at the time that his brother (who is normally very calm/contorlled) was unable to hide his surprise/disgust and just sat there giving him a "you *******" stare

Do you think Labour were right to invade Iraq? Disagreeing with someone isn't the same as stabbing them in the back, normally when the Torybois accuse Ed of backstabbing it's because he had the audacity to run for the Labour leadership instead of deferring to his elder brother.

 

[elmarko]

On the subject of nuclear weapons I think our arsenal is actually quite modest, we have 170.est compared to say the 4,804 the US possesses.

Based on most recent estimates even 100 small 15kt weapons detonated over cities (80-100kt is our yield for trident) is enough to cause a global famine & possibly the destruction of the species.

We could essentially half our existing arsenal & retain just as deadly deterrent.

 

[Judgeneo]

On the subject of nuclear weapons I think our arsenal is actually quite modest, we have 170.est compared to say the 4,804 the US possesses.

Based on most recent estimates even 100 small 15kt weapons detonated over cities (80-100kt is our yield for trident) is enough to cause a global famine & possibly the destruction of the species.

We could essentially half our existing arsenal & retain just as deadly deterrent.

Trident is all about being able to target anywhere in the world at once. Sure we could probably drop the payload on the warheads without reducing the threat, but thats not where the cost of the system is.

 

[scorza]

On the subject of nuclear weapons I think our arsenal is actually quite modest, we have 170.est compared to say the 4,804 the US possesses.

Based on most recent estimates even 100 small 15kt weapons detonated over cities (80-100kt is our yield for trident) is enough to cause a global famine & possibly the destruction of the species.

We could essentially half our existing arsenal & retain just as deadly deterrent.

Realistically though, it's not like the PM pushes the button and all our missiles get launched. We're only keeping one sub permanently at sea so in the event of needing to retalite quickly, we can only rely on a much smaller arsenal being available.

 

[ElliorR]

So who would we nuke if a terrorist organisation detonated a nuke in the UK? That's where it's most likely to come from if it ever happened.

 

[Sliver]

So who would we nuke if a terrorist organisation detonated a nuke in the UK? That's where it's most likely to come from if it ever happened.

Clearly Scotland. They hate us English because we're better than them.