i think labour may do better than expected

7 May 2010

Quote by Max777
LibDem seem to have done unexpectedly badly according to the BBC exit poll.

people have been encouraged to use the postal vote system to save money,many will have voted before the debates, affecting the outcome.
the real story of the night is the number of people disenfranchised,tory councils have cut back on polling staff and stations, and look at the result?
Just had a google at Sheffield and Lewisham councils. One is Lib Dem and the other is Labour.
Are you sure they are Tory councils that have cut back that has caused this problem or are you guessing? Have to get to work so can't google anymore councils but the main areas were Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, and these are not Tory heartland areas so I doubt they are Tory run councils
Dave_Notts
There were problems in Newcastle too and the council is LibDem, not Tory.
Why let the facts get in the way of a story?

7 May 2010

Breaking news that Nick Clegg says that he sticks by his view that the party with most votes and seats should seek to form a government, would seem to suggest that its bye bye Brown!

7 May 2010

And when its all done and dusted not one of us will have made a difference and life will go on as it has since time began, with the same people moaning and whining about the current government (the same ones who moaned about the past government) the politicians doing what is best for them and still robbing us blind, the immigrants will keep coming, the dole dossers will keep dossing, the rich and powerful will get more rich and powerful and the poor will get shit on from a great height and continue to work 3 jobs and 70 hours a week and hopefully Leeds United will have been promoted and Chelsea will have stopped the scum from winning the premiership.
Life is for living and doing what is best for you and the ones you care about,with what you have to work with, do any of you seriously think Cameron,Brown or Clegg give a flying fuck about what anyone of us thinks or wants....... dream on!!

7 May 2010

Is David Cameron well hung then.. or is it Nick Clegg? Which one is it, I need to know! :rascal: They've been talking about it all morning on the tele....
wink

7 May 2010

Quite interesting to see..that when push comes to shove...we as a nation still prefer the two party system. Seems for all the good value he had in the TV debates....geberally getting good news coverage....we as a nation..still prefer the old labour V's Tory scenerio. Was good to see the greens get a seat in the parliment, as shows that as a nation we do have a cencern for environmental issues.
For what its worth, I don't think the tory's and the libdems can honestly work together. there are way to many fundemental policy issues. I think we will have a tory minority government. We will be haveing another election with 18 monthes !!!

7 May 2010

Quote by Dave__Notts
LibDem seem to have done unexpectedly badly according to the BBC exit poll.

people have been encouraged to use the postal vote system to save money,many will have voted before the debates, affecting the outcome.
the real story of the night is the number of people disenfranchised,tory councils have cut back on polling staff and stations, and look at the result?
Just had a google at Sheffield and Lewisham councils. One is Lib Dem and the other is Labour.
Are you sure they are Tory councils that have cut back that has caused this problem or are you guessing? Have to get to work so can't google anymore councils but the main areas were Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham, and these are not Tory heartland areas so I doubt they are Tory run councils
Dave_Notts
SSHHHHHHHHH!! we try to pretend we're still the labour heartland ffs!

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev
I promised myself I wasn't going to wade into the political stuff today. Dammit, I can't help myself....
My views, for what they're worth, are as follows:
- a coalition, any coalition, will be more stable than people believe. See Germany for example. The media and party scaremongering has been simply manic. It's fear of the unknown as much as anything. And fear of things being a bit complicated. Time to wake up and stop being politically lazy. It's good that people will have to reflect on the nature of democracy and parties will learn to work harder if they want to win elections. For parties this means garnering sufficient respect and having policies that appeal widely enough to get a majority. No party has done that this time. Who are you going to blame? The public? The media? like that stroppy lady whose concession speech just basically said the media are liars and are on notice. No one likes a sore loser. And that sort of negativity will never win you an election. Never.
- politicians will have to work harder (oh, poor them) to agree on policies that, rather than pandering to a party political ideological agenda or serving specific interests, are more likely to be aligned with the public interest.
- the policies of all the main parties are all mostly centrist / centre-right and are actually fundamentally not entirely dissimilar.
- the main parties all agree on the principal problems facing Britain. Where their approach to solving those problems diverge, they will be forced to listen to analysts and experts within the bureaucracy and the private sector. This is a good thing. In fact, a very good thing. Once again, the political agenda is much more likely to be subjugated in favour of public interest. Not the "public interest" that the Daily Mail would have you believe (execute and deport all climate change gay gypsy lesbian endangered whales etc etc) or the "man on the street" conceives (I shouldn't ever have to pay tax, I should be reserved a gold seat on public transport, free blozzas for the over-18s etc etc), but what is genuinely in the wider public interest. A very good thing.
I'm a lot more optimistic about it than some other people. And, we must remember, that the people invariably get the government they deserve, i.e. the one they voted for. And if that's a dysfunctional coalition, then that is the will of the people.

i am kind of hoping you are right,i can see many reasons to believe a hung parliament would stop more extreme measure by any party being passed into law.
The power it gives to small parties especially means that some policies are going to have to dropped.
Re my conspiracy quote posted very late when i thought the tories were going to win a i thought conspiracies didnt need evidence lol

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev
LibDem seem to have done unexpectedly badly according to the BBC exit poll.

people have been encouraged to use the postal vote system to save money,many will have voted before the debates, affecting the outcome.
the real story of the night is the number of people disenfranchised,tory councils have cut back on polling staff and stations, and look at the result?
From the results it is clear that the voters have rejected the minority partys including the Lib Dem 'Push'.
So we have a hung parliament which may result in another GE within a year.
or in other words, a 'Rollover' election.
If that happens it will be a 2 party fight.
Left V Right.
IMO, The debacle of people being turned away from Polling stations is not acceptable and a secure way of voting online should be instituted to replace the Postal vote.
This would ensure a higher 'Turn out' percentage of the legitimate voting public for future UK 'E-lections'.

7 May 2010

Quote by brucie
I promised myself I wasn't going to wade into the political stuff today. Dammit, I can't help myself....
My views, for what they're worth, are as follows:
- a coalition, any coalition, will be more stable than people believe. See Germany for example. The media and party scaremongering has been simply manic. It's fear of the unknown as much as anything. And fear of things being a bit complicated. Time to wake up and stop being politically lazy. It's good that people will have to reflect on the nature of democracy and parties will learn to work harder if they want to win elections. For parties this means garnering sufficient respect and having policies that appeal widely enough to get a majority. No party has done that this time. Who are you going to blame? The public? The media? like that stroppy lady whose concession speech just basically said the media are liars and are on notice. No one likes a sore loser. And that sort of negativity will never win you an election. Never.
- politicians will have to work harder (oh, poor them) to agree on policies that, rather than pandering to a party political ideological agenda or serving specific interests, are more likely to be aligned with the public interest.
- the policies of all the main parties are all mostly centrist / centre-right and are actually fundamentally not entirely dissimilar.
- the main parties all agree on the principal problems facing Britain. Where their approach to solving those problems diverge, they will be forced to listen to analysts and experts within the bureaucracy and the private sector. This is a good thing. In fact, a very good thing. Once again, the political agenda is much more likely to be subjugated in favour of public interest. Not the "public interest" that the Daily Mail would have you believe (execute and deport all climate change gay gypsy lesbian endangered whales etc etc) or the "man on the street" conceives (I shouldn't ever have to pay tax, I should be reserved a gold seat on public transport, free blozzas for the over-18s etc etc), but what is genuinely in the wider public interest. A very good thing.
I'm a lot more optimistic about it than some other people. And, we must remember, that the people invariably get the government they deserve, i.e. the one they voted for. And if that's a dysfunctional coalition, then that is the will of the people.

The longest any minority government has lasted (no formal coalition)since the turn of the last century is 27 months......the shortest 3 days.....prepare for another election

7 May 2010

The comments below just about sum-up my thoughts on the subject:

You may have noticed that there hasn't been a lot of comment on Grumpy Old Sod about the 2010 parliamentary election. This is mainly because we are well aware that other people are writing about it with far more depth and perception than we could manage, so there doesn't seem much point.
Of course we have written many times in the past about the fact that our current electoral system is absurd and means there is no way we can describe ourselves as living in a democracy. We don't. Quite the opposite, in fact – we live in a country where the will of the people is the last thing any politician needs to worry about.
Look at the figures ...
1945 Labour (Attlee) won with 47.7% of the vote
1950 Labour (Attlee) won with 46.1% of the vote
1951 Conservatives (Churchill) won with 48% of the vote
1955 Conservatives (Eden) won with 49.6% of the vote
1959 Conservatives (Macmillan) won with 49.4% of the vote
1964 Labour (Wilson) won with 44.1% of the vote
1966 Labour (Wilson) won with 47.9% of the vote
1970 Conservatives (Heath) won with 46.4% of the vote
February 1974 Labour (Wilson) won with 37.2% of the vote
October 1974 Labour (Wilson) won with 39.3% of the vote
1979 Conservatives (Thatcher) won with 43.9% of the vote
1983 Conservatives (Thatcher) won with 42.4% of the vote
1987 Conservatives (Thatcher) won with 42.2% of the vote
1992 Conservatives (Major) won with 41.9% of the vote
1997 Labour (Blair) won with 43.2% of the vote
2001 Labour (Blair) won with 40.7% of the vote
2005 Labour (Blair) won with 35.3% of the vote
(In 1951 the Conservatives under Churchill won with 48% despite the fact that Labour won 48.8% of the vote but had 26 fewer seats. In February 1974 Labour under Wilson won with 37.2% of the vote against 37.8% for the Conservatives who nevertheless had 4 fewer seats).
In other words, in every single election since WW2 the majority of the electorate voted against the party that actually won. In what way is this democratic?
But this isn't what worries us.
What worries us is that there has been more public interest in this 2010 election than we can ever remember. Already politicians from all parties are voicing the idea that our electoral system needs overhauling, and it seems entirely possible that the LibDems' call for proportional representation might actually come to fruition some time soon. In itself this would be no bad thing, of course. But the idea that political parties might begin to take notice of public opinion is highly dangerous, because it will mean that they'll start to do stuff, and that's the last thing we need.
We have just experienced thirteen years of a government that really believed it was entitled to enact legislation to force people to live their lives in the way the government thought they should – social engineering, it has been called. In an unprecedented plethora of new laws, politicians have genuinely believed that it was their right to make us recycle, to cut our “carbon” emissions, to drive our cars in the way they wanted us to, to adopt or abandon the marriage customs they thought would be good for us. They appear to have deliberately manipulated immigration to their own ends. They have given away our rights as a nation to bureaucrats in Brussels.
They have interfered in our family lives, told us how to discipline our children, relieved us of the right to defend ourselves against attack and theft, placed limits on the free expression of personal opinion, tinkered with our attitudes to religion, restricted what we can take with us when we fly on holiday, interfered with our humour, lectured us through the captive media to make us believe in global warming, indoctrinated our children about homosexuality, race and the environment, and created specially favoured minority groups with rights to grab land and receive benefits that are not enjoyed by the bulk of the population.
In order to carry out their agenda of creating their own vision of a neo-socialist utopia they have spied on us in the streets and on the internet, tagged and labelled us in national databases like a herd of cows, taken our fingerprints and DNA just in case we might ever decide to commit a crime in future, and photographed and recorded our movements on the roads. All for our own good, of course. They tell us that if we have done nothing wrong then we have nothing to fear, when in fact they've got us all looking fearfully over our shoulders precisely because we've done nothing wrong.
This is what happens when you have a government that believes it has the right to shape society. This is what happens when public servants forget that their job is to serve the public. This is what happens when “belief” enters politics. “Belief” is our enemy. “Belief” will destroy us.
And that's what worries us about all this sudden public interest in politics. It's not our fault – as more and more parliamentary abuses have come to light it was inevitable that we would perk up and start taking notice. But heaven forfend that our new government, whatever colour or complexion it may be, should decide that it's actually got to do things.
We've been there. It's damaged our society more than we know. What we need is a government that will keep quiet and do as little as possible. A few parliamentary expenses are a small price to pay, just so long as they LEAVE US ALONE.

7 May 2010

I am slightly more worried about the international economic crisis that is looming at the moment than about a hung parliament. Keeping an eye on that is so important. All I know is that in the next 12 months the cuts in jobs will have a devasting effect on all of us in one way or another and I just hope that we can come through it okay.

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev
You do realise that is what the House of Lords is there for?
To stop any party with a huge majority from just raliroading policies through?

The Parliament acts of 1911 and 49, just saying
This was how the fox hunting ban was forced through against the House of Lords rejection

7 May 2010

Quote by corrie
I am slightly more worried about the international economic crisis that is looming at the moment than about a hung parliament. Keeping an eye on that is so important. All I know is that in the next 12 months the cuts in jobs will have a devasting effect on all of us in one way or another and I just hope that we can come through it okay.

Good point, I think actually, the two together could make matters even worse, if the markets do not have confidence in the government we could be in for a very bumpy ride indeed!

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev

You do realise that is what the House of Lords is there for?
To stop any party with a huge majority from just raliroading policies through?

The Parliament acts of 1911 and 49, just saying
This was how the fox hunting ban was forced through against the House of Lords rejection
yes, basically the Upper house is a chamber for ammendment and checking,its powers are non existant in terms of blocking the other side of politics there was much opposition to the poll tax in the lords,again inneffective since the govenment of the day was determined to see it in course the lords sowed the roots of their own powerlesnes in their late 19 th century opposition to reform of the vote and Ireland.
It has always struck me as another absurdity of the British system that we have a supposed bicameral system but one without teeth.i have always thought an upper house with teeth,where people recieved 10 year terms would i realise most people would not like to have to vote for another group of people.
I would

7 May 2010

Yes it was a high turn out, in comparison, but really its not that high is it?

7 May 2010

Quote by kentswingers777
I promised myself I wasn't going to wade into the political stuff today. Dammit, I can't help myself....
My views, for what they're worth, are as follows:
- a coalition, any coalition, will be more stable than people believe. See Germany for example. The media and party scaremongering has been simply manic. It's fear of the unknown as much as anything. And fear of things being a bit complicated. Time to wake up and stop being politically lazy. It's good that people will have to reflect on the nature of democracy and parties will learn to work harder if they want to win elections. For parties this means garnering sufficient respect and having policies that appeal widely enough to get a majority. No party has done that this time. Who are you going to blame? The public? The media? like that stroppy lady whose concession speech just basically said the media are liars and are on notice. No one likes a sore loser. And that sort of negativity will never win you an election. Never.
- politicians will have to work harder (oh, poor them) to agree on policies that, rather than pandering to a party political ideological agenda or serving specific interests, are more likely to be aligned with the public interest.
- the policies of all the main parties are all mostly centrist / centre-right and are actually fundamentally not entirely dissimilar.
- the main parties all agree on the principal problems facing Britain. Where their approach to solving those problems diverge, they will be forced to listen to analysts and experts within the bureaucracy and the private sector. This is a good thing. In fact, a very good thing. Once again, the political agenda is much more likely to be subjugated in favour of public interest. Not the "public interest" that the Daily Mail would have you believe (execute and deport all climate change gay gypsy lesbian endangered whales etc etc) or the "man on the street" conceives (I shouldn't ever have to pay tax, I should be reserved a gold seat on public transport, free blozzas for the over-18s etc etc), but what is genuinely in the wider public interest. A very good thing.
I'm a lot more optimistic about it than some other people. And, we must remember, that the people invariably get the government they deserve, i.e. the one they voted for. And if that's a dysfunctional coalition, then that is the will of the people.

i am currently musing on what would happen if Sien Fien took their seats,wow this gets more interesting by the minute.
You do realise that is what the House of Lords is there for?
To stop any party with a huge majority from just raliroading policies through?
i thought the house of lords was were the tory toffs, hereditary peers and stinking rich politicians sit... what do they know about what would benefit us pawpers... wonder when the last time they had to decide whether to get new tyres or brakes you desperately need, just before pay day... hardest decision they have is red, white or champagne with their meal!

7 May 2010

The hardest decision they have to make is which executive directors posts to take to avoid hardship.
And which companies cash they take to end/hold-up/abolish various laws...etc...

7 May 2010

Quote by JTS
The hardest decision they have to make is which executive directors posts to take to avoid hardship.
And which companies cash they take to end/hold-up/abolish various laws...etc...

ooooh forgot about that one.... oh and which of their old Eton chums to get into politics next... Aparently Cameron now has 17 Eton chums in the party now... 18 Etonites if you count him...

7 May 2010

Quote by two-4-more
The hardest decision they have to make is which executive directors posts to take to avoid hardship.
And which companies cash they take to end/hold-up/abolish various laws...etc...

ooooh forgot about that one.... oh and which of their old Eton chums to get into politics next... Aparently Cameron now has 17 Eton chums in the party now... 18 Etonites if you count him...
Take it your Labour then? lol

Anyway is that not discrimination against toffs?
Get the lawyers.........quick. :lol:

7 May 2010

Quote by kentswingers777
The hardest decision they have to make is which executive directors posts to take to avoid hardship.
And which companies cash they take to end/hold-up/abolish various laws...etc...

Anyway is that not discrimination against toffs?
Get the lawyers.........quick. :lol:
nope just anyone other then the Torrie's lol
just like i want Chelsea to win the league because they fall into the category of "if its not my team i want anyone other then Manchester united to win it"

7 May 2010

Quote by two-4-more
The hardest decision they have to make is which executive directors posts to take to avoid hardship.
And which companies cash they take to end/hold-up/abolish various laws...etc...

Anyway is that not discrimination against toffs?
Get the lawyers.........quick. :lol:
nope just anyone other then the Torrie's lol
just like i want Chelsea to win the league because they fall into the category of "if its not my team i want anyone other then Manchester united to win it"
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

7 May 2010

So ,We get Cleggy boy as the king maker..PR gets brought in and they have another because we have this wonderful PR we have to give everyone who gets a percentage of the vote some MP` decides who they are.....................
And an even more worrying thing that occurs to me is how many MP`s do the BNP get with their 4% of the vote.........................
Answers on a postcard please...............................

7 May 2010

Quote by croydoncouple38
So ,We get Cleggy boy as the king maker..PR gets brought in and they have another because we have this wonderful PR we have to give everyone who gets a percentage of the vote some MP` decides who they are.....................
And an even more worrying thing that occurs to me is how many MP`s do the BNP get with their 4% of the vote.........................
Answers on a postcard please...............................

If the Conservatives and Lib/Dem strike a deal that gives them the majority required, there will be no need for anyone to approach the likes of BNP.

7 May 2010

Quote by croydoncouple38
So ,We get Cleggy boy as the king maker..PR gets brought in and they have another because we have this wonderful PR we have to give everyone who gets a percentage of the vote some MP` decides who they are.....................
And an even more worrying thing that occurs to me is how many MP`s do the BNP get with their 4% of the vote.........................
Answers on a postcard please...............................

Depends on the system.
AV+ based on regional lists or AMS using FPTP would mean BNP might get list MPs in the southeast, just as they have for the London Assembly - it's a clear example.

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev
So ,We get Cleggy boy as the king maker..PR gets brought in and they have another because we have this wonderful PR we have to give everyone who gets a percentage of the vote some MP` decides who they are.....................
And an even more worrying thing that occurs to me is how many MP`s do the BNP get with their 4% of the vote.........................
Answers on a postcard please...............................

Depends on the system.
AV+ based on regional lists or AMS using FPTP would mean BNP might get list MPs in the southeast, just as they have for the London Assembly - it's a clear example.
i was reading a discussion on Angry mob about this which has changed my views should mean every ones view matters,yes the bnp would get in,but so would socialists,greens,libertarians ect.
i am not sure how i feel,but it did make me think,are we willing to take the chance of parties we dont like winning seats because it means parties we support will also?
did you mean LIBERTINES.... now your talking my language lol

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev
So ,We get Cleggy boy as the king maker..PR gets brought in and they have another because we have this wonderful PR we have to give everyone who gets a percentage of the vote some MP` decides who they are.....................
And an even more worrying thing that occurs to me is how many MP`s do the BNP get with their 4% of the vote.........................
Answers on a postcard please...............................

Depends on the system.
AV+ based on regional lists or AMS using FPTP would mean BNP might get list MPs in the southeast, just as they have for the London Assembly - it's a clear example.
i was reading a discussion on Angry mob about this which has changed my views should mean every ones view matters,yes the bnp would get in,but so would socialists,greens,libertarians ect.
i am not sure how i feel,but it did make me think,are we willing to take the chance of parties we dont like winning seats because it means parties we support will also?
The thing is Kaz they're wrong pr would be a nightmare of hung parliaments and half arsed government by 'consensus'

7 May 2010

Quote by Kaznkev
i was reading a discussion on Angry mob about this which has changed my views should mean every ones view matters,yes the bnp would get in,but so would socialists,greens,libertarians ect.
i am not sure how i feel,but it did make me think,are we willing to take the chance of parties we dont like winning seats because it means parties we support will also?

If you want a fair democratic system, then yes.

8 May 2010

With all this bitching going on now about "hung" parliaments we had all better get used to it if you you want proportional representation.
The biggest scandal of recent governments has been the changing of boundries to make a labour (and to a degree conservative) majority more and more likely with even reduced majority votes. The swing this time was huge but Labour managed to hang on to seats where boundries had previously been managed. The Liberal Democrats need change cos with present boundries they would have to get about 50% of the vote and both other parties equally placed behind and a majority of at least 20% whereas Labour and Tories only needed 8%-10% to get an overall majority.
As for the Eton slur earlier in thread - clearly you don't have to live in Rochdale to be bigotted. Eton has supplied the highest % of the good, the great and the super achievers than probably any other scholarly institute in British history not to mention the high percentage of military officers who go on to serve illustriously and make the ultimate sacrifice in campaigns whenever and wherever the country has been in conflict. Eton charge a great deal of money to educate children but its reputation around the world is second to none and for very good reason.
(By the way I had a secondary education in a northern town and was taught long ago that envy is a humiliating emotion which is best stifled internally and ignored in others).

8 May 2010

not really one for news papers but this did make me laff when i see it on bbc news this morning

8 May 2010

i know its an old one but never more funnier

or sadly this one