Notice what?

You're a strangely aggressive person.

I agree that a lot of people are pretty clueless as to what's going on, but completely disagree that the parties are doing little to communicate their policies. They aren't difficult to find, and over the next few weeks they'll be all over the media.

Almost every news website now has a 'politics for f'kin idiots' section which gives an easy outline of each party's pledges and policies. Politics in general and now the election are all over any decent news outlet. Unfortunately for British society, huge swathes of our population care more about their facebook feed, or which TOWIE 'star' is in a bikini this week, or what's happening in Corrie...etc...and there lies the core of the issue. Politics and politicians aren't, and never will be, 'cool'.

Too many people are too feckless and too lazy to educate themselves. There's no excuse for that but they can't then complain if they don't get the government they wanted, but the one they deserve.

Vote Green and get...a hyper version of Blair's outrageous open-door immigration/asylum seeker policy? Christ, even the most blinkered tree-hugger can see immigration needs to be controlled.

I genuinely cannot see why anyone with a brain would vote Green. They might be 'closest' to your beliefs, but you may as well vote Tory. Your Green vote is a dead vote.

That said, and even though it's indicative of their barmpot policies, a 35-hour working week does sound nice.

A question for the 'anyone but the Tories' mob: Why? What is it about the 2010-2015 government and prospective 2015 onward government you find so repulsive? Are you the legacy of family loyalty, do you think they've done a bad job, or are you simply hung up on the past and the Thatcher years - in which case I'd say grow up.

They took on a shattered economy and seem to have done as well, if not better, than most. There are issues of course, such as zero-hours, etc, but things are certainly turning around. My line of work depends in part on a positive corporate outlook and I know from my meetings with a number of huge multinationals all the way down to local SMEs that things are looking up, reflected in their spend and projections.

So, why do you hate the Tories, today, in 2015? Anyone banging on about Cameron being an Etonian will get the contempt they deserve.

p.s. I'm not particularly Tory. Neither am I Labour or anyone else right now (though I'm certainly not Green

). I'll make my mind up in due course. There are parts of at least 4 policies I agree with, but none stand out.

I would never vote Tory at General Election (unless they drastically changed their policies obviously) but I have done at local council elections.

I've also voted Lib Dem at both general and local elections in the past, so whilst I am, in general a Labour voter I'm not rabidly so and have reservations over them at both local and national level.

Taking 2010-2015 in isolation, the reason I won't vote Tory and would back "anyone but Tories" is the fact I don't think they've handled the economy that well. It's been a very slow recovery and, importantly for me, the poor and vulnerable have been unfairly targeted by the Tory government. Ontop of that I'm very, very unhappy with the creeping privatisation of services from the NHS to police to prisons to justice to welfare etc. I know that some privatisation went on under Labour last time and I was unhappy about that too. It's not because it's more efficient or run better, it's just a way of absolving responsibility and reducing the quality of the service without actually admitting it.

All I can see happening if the Tories get back in again is more of that.

Where do I start? I suppose the first port of call is this bit of nonsense on your part. "They took on a shattered economy and seem to have done as well".

No they didn't. They took an economy growing at 2% when they took office and drove it into recession and the recovery, such as it is, has been nothing like it should have been as economies that tank typically rebound with strong growth and ours has been the worst ever recovery. Only today the productivity figures are the worst since world war 2 and that matters a great deal.

Low productivity = low wages as we are uncompetitive = lower standard of living = low tax receipts = longer to pay down the deficit.

They have missed every economic target they set. They have borrowed more in the last five years than Labour did in the previous 13, lost the AAA rating and have not rebalanced the economy as promised (another housing boom..).

How on earth do you conclude "they have done as well"?

However that is not why I will never vote for them. Economically illiterate they may be but the reason I won't vote for them is they are driven by an extreme right wing ideology which manifests itself in numerous ways.

The bedroom tax is one way. Workfare is another. Free labour for employers which drives wages down (which affects productivity...).

They also lie. "No increase in V.A.T" they said in 2010. They increased it. "No top down reorganisation of the NHS". They did just that. Yet here we are in 2015 with Cameron and Osborne saying "No increase in V.A.T". You believe them because????

One of THE biggest issues though is TTIP. If you don't know what that is Google it. As the Tories have it now if it is passed (its an EU wide free trade agreement with the USA) companies (USA companies) will be able to sue the government if they think government policy prevents them from making a profit (e.g. plain packaging for cigs). It will also lead to the inevitable full privatisation of the NHS.

Other countries in the EU have excluded their healthcare from it explicitly e.g. France. The Tories will not. I even wrote to my MP about this and he is a Tory so you can see I am not basing this on supposition but what he actually said. I got a long technical reply which said it was fantastic for trade and they weren't going to exclude the NHS. TTIP is NHS privatisation by the back door.

So there you go. Why not to vote Tory in one easy lesson.

What you may not know is I am the parent of an Autistic child who will soon turn 18 and be an adult and believe me if you think this is a long post as to why you would be insane to vote Tory, you want to be in my shoes in that regard. You'd probably consider assassination of each and every Tory MP rather than the ballot box (and lets not forget ,Cameron made a great play about his (now sadly deceased) disabled child in the last election...).

Just to pick up on this one point, "pledges and policies" will be forgotten on May 8th just as soon as it becomes clear if we have an outright winner or a coalition, even quicker if its a coalition (did we not learn anything from 2010).

I regard tonights seven party debate on ITV as being akin to inviting seven double glazing companies to come around to your house on the same evening and argue amongst each other pitching for your business while you sit on the settee and wonder why you did it.

I was one of the 2 million that voted for the Green Party at the 1989 EU election. They gained 15% of the vote but didnt win a seat. Despite that I regarded it as hugely significant vote. It demonstrated that quite a significant chunk of the electorate thought that environmental issues should be taken seriously.

It seems to me that much of the current support for the Green Party is coming from people who just want a more left wing alternative to Labour, and that environmental issues are a distinctly secondary consideration. That will provide the Green's with a short term boost, but ultimately I think it could be quite damaging for the party. It shouldnt be a party that only appeals to hard lefties.

Apparently the Brighton council, where the Greens have the most seats, has split into two factions. "Watermelons" - green on the outside and red on the inside, "Mangoes" - green on the outside yellow on the inside. It doesn't bode well for thieir future.

Labour. Hate Tories - they're scum.

By the way, the puppy has just ripped up ANOTHER communication from the Labour Party that was shoved through the door this morning, thats two in a week and he never touches any other mail - I'm beginning to think he has an opinion.

Lots of lefties, even hard ones are very serious about environmental issues. Think you'll find that it is the hard and soft righties who are the deniers.

The thing about shouting out numbers like they're facts is it's so much easier these days to find out if the person is telling the truth or simply making stuff up because, y'now, WAAAAHHHH...Tories. So, let's take a look. 2% growth? Nah. Recession? Nah.


Then there's Germany for the same period


And France



Which basically makes the rest of your diatribe utterly redundant. Oh, the "bedroom tax (of which Rachel Reeves says abolishing will raise 10's of millions, which shows the economic illiteracy of her and her party) is a Labour invention. Still, you keep voting for them with your oh so shiny moral conscience.

But you want privatisation of the NHS, both cod'ead and yourself actively voted for it. What are you complaining about?

Oh, and here's some more numbers for you.

In 2008 817,800 people received "crisis loans"
In 2009 1,070,100 people received "crisis loans"
You do know what a crisis loan is? It's like a foodbank only the Labour gov and it's voters hopes no one asks about them. 1 million families in "crisis" under a Lab gov.

Not another economics lecture from Dave O, the man who said a couple of years ago that the economy wasn't going to grow before the next election.

Still won't admit he was wrong.

Have people actually read some of the bonkers policies of the Green Party?! To think people mock UKIP!!

Still waiting for answers to legitimate questions.

That's certainly not how I recall it, and the figures seem to back me up. The UK entered recession in early 2008 for around 18 months - the deepest recession since the war. Recovery came around the end of 2009 although the economy was still in pretty dire straits due to the banks and lack of confidence. We slipped briefly back into a much smaller and shorter recession in early 2012, the effect of which was pretty insignificant and largely lost given the shockwaves of 2008/9, when the damage was largely done.

I don't particularly blame Labour for the big crash, nor do I blame the Tories for the smaller dip. 2008 was a global crash on a stunning scale. What I've been more interested in is how the recovery has been handled as it was clear to me from the start this would be long and painful road back, not without risks on the way. There was no easy answer and the key point for me is that I seriously doubt anyone could have done a significantly better job.


As I mentioned, I deal with people at every level of varying sizes of business, from blokes with their own little office to the boards of some of the largest multinationals you can think of. Almost without exception they all squeezed their belts as tight as they would go in 2008 and didn't relax for the next 3-4 years. They knew the recovery would take time. In the meantime unfortunately, jobs were lost, a lot of voluntary redundancy was paid out, any hint of risk was eliminated, and expensive investments and projects were postponed or scrapped.

Those same companies - again almost without exception - have increasingly been telling me since around 2012 that things are looking up, and I can see this reflected in their figures and activities. One large multinational I work closely with suspended a number of projects in South America and Japan in 2008, but started them up again 2 years ago. Another suspended all non-essential and business class travel in 2008, yet in 2012 instructed their staff to start travelling in bulk again to "do business with one another" - in business class. I could repeat similar stories for many others companies. Regardless of the numbers making the headlines, confidence has been slowly growing for the last 3-4 years. That simply would not happen if they felt the economy would not support them.


I didn't say I 'believe them'. I only believe a fraction of anything any politician says on face value. As others have said on this very thread, most of the promises can be thrown out the window the day after the results are in. Indeed, that's partly why the big parties aren't revealing TOO much just yet. They all know a hung parliament is on the cards, and they all know hard and unpopular decisions still need to be made.


TTIP is an EU-led initiative. Bearing in mind the Tories and UKIP are taking the toughest stance on the EU, whereas the rest want to further embrace Europe, perhaps you should have a radical re-think of your vote.




As some may recall on here, I have every good reason within my family not to vote for a party that will damage the NHS and/or cut disability benefits and I'm well aware of the ongoing changes and what's on the horizon.

I'd largely agree with that. Many Lefties feel they have nowhere to turn. Labour have morphed into some reactive directionless mongrel and the Lib Dems cynically abandoned their core values in 2010, something that many are finding hard to forgive. Many are finding the Greens are the only party somewhere close to their values. It's just a shame their policies read like the naive wish list of a hormonal teenager.

Anyone what the great "debate" tonight? For me Nichola Sturgeon came across best, followed by Ed M. Those two were way better than the others. Probably then Cameron, Green woman (who was much better than I expected), Farage, Clegg and then way behind that bunch the Welsh Nationalist.

You keep trotting out this crap, where from?

[url=http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2010/04/liberal-democrat-manifesto-end-pctThe Kings Fund appraisal of LimpDem 2010 manifesto on NHS[/url

Pretty much how I scored it too.

Farage came across like the shouty drunk down the pub, who keeps butting into other peoples' conversations with the same argument.

Which I suppose is what he actually is

Sturgeon was easily the best performer. The SNP, Green and Plaid leaders all had an advantage in that they were able to take pot shots at Cameron and Miliband without their own policies coming under any scrutiny. Sturgeon had the advantage over the other minor parties' leaders in that she's battle hardened by the independence campaign.

I can't gauge whether the debate will have done UKIP any good. I always think that Farage is a complete idiot, but he still seems to be popular.

Overall I think the debate will have little impact on the election result. But the group that I think will have least enjoyed it will have been Labour candidates in Scotland.

You didn't need to trawl the internet to find something that didn't say anything at all, you could have just read the manifesto! Here, let me help you

So, for the umpteenth time, just why did you vote to privatise the NHS?

I think that expectations of Miliband were so low due to ongoing press mockery that he has so far come out of the two staged TV events very well. If Labour can use him sparingly until the last week of the campaign and if he can get through gaffe free and they keep Balls off screen they may do well. Indeed if it weren't for the SNP they could win. But the SNP will do well as Sturgeon outperformed the other leaders and was the only person with a plausible sounding alternative approach to Cons and Lab.

Can I make things clear and concise?

If you are employed by someone else and you vote Tory you are out of your mind, you are illogical, you are being ripped off and conned, in fact lets make it even simpler YOU ARE STUPID!!!

Now go vote for whom you "think" will be better for YOU.