The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 3

Welcome to the official Cable Forum General Election Thread, week 3. This is the place to discuss any and all political stories during this week of the campaign. There is an opinion poll - please use it to indicate your voting intentions. There will be many more parties standing for election than we have room for, so please make use of the 'other' or 'none of the above' options if you need to.

This thread will remain open for one week. After that it will be replaced with a new thread with a new poll. This will allow us to see how voting intentions change and crystallize as polling day approaches. The final thread in this series will open on the day of the election with an exit poll so we can see which party wins the seat for Cable Forum Central.

Please do not start any other political threads during the election campaign. They will be closed.

This is a continuation of the thread for week 2, which is now closed, but which you can still see here.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

However, it is appropriate to for the press, and others, to point out discrepancies and issues in Lib Dem policies and stories, just like they do with the other parties - the Lib Dems should not be treated any differently.

If they want to play with the big boys, they have to play by the big boys rules......

Yes, until now the other major parties have enjoyed the luxury of being able to largely ignore the Lib Dems and, as a result, they've slipped under the radar. Having made Brown look like a pathetic middle aged groupie with a crush on a 'pretty' young thing (something he'll always have my respect for!), Clegg is in for a rough ride and about to find out how the 'premier league' conducts its business. It'll be interesting to see if he rises to the challenge or.......

Originally Posted by foreverwar

However, it is appropriate to for the press, and others, to point out discrepancies and issues in Lib Dem policies and stories, just like they do with the other parties - the Lib Dems should not be treated any differently.

If they want to play with the big boys, they have to play by the big boys rules......

That is what the Telegraph are doing, The Sun and Mail are just smearing him as much as possible to try and stop him preventing the Tories.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Damien

If anyone wants to read the article the Mail referenced in context it is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/19/eu.germany

Or, as I suspect many will, you can ignore it and focus on the Mail's interpretation.

Nice persecution complex, woe is me!

They all take smears from their respective opponents, in the case of the Tories it's the Mirror and, more subtlely, the BBC. Lib Dems had it easy because they weren't considered worth the effort. The extent to which Vince Cable unravelled on the Daily Politics show yesterday wasn't good, we'll see if they can actually stand up to the scrutiny they haven't experienced yet.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Damien

If anyone wants to read the article the Mail referenced in context it is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/19/eu.germany

Or, as I suspect many will, you can ignore it and focus on the Mail's interpretation.

Not a problem i am happy to correct the quote

All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war is much harder to shake off. I wish Mr Puhle and Mr Sawartzki well. We need to be put back in our place.

So how does he intend to do that ?????

Is that a better quote for you, btw the corrections are in red

---------- Post added at 10:35 ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 ----------

Originally Posted by Damien

That is what the Telegraph are doing, The Sun and Mail are just smearing him as much as possible to try and stop him preventing the Tories.

If he wants to play with the big kids, He needs to act like one of them. He has moved out of the junior section of politics and into the senior section and the crap throwing that it brings with it. If he cannot handle this what would he be like when we need him to support us in negotiations with other countries and we all know how nasty that can get..

I heard the Mail is considering adding Nick Clegg to its list of things that Could Cause Cancer ...

Originally Posted by Sirius

Not a problem i am happy to correct the quote


So how does he intend to do that ?????

Is that a better quote for you, btw the corrections are in red

---------- Post added at 10:35 ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 ----------


.

The quote is nowhere need as outrageous in the context of the topic. He is talking about the attitude of the British Press and some people towards Germany and it was written in the mist of a slew of articles about the Germany economy.

Therefore I would suggest the 'Put in our place' would mean to recognise that we could learn a lot from Germany and their economy rather than dismissing them. The two people that you were put in red were people who sued for constructive dismissal because of nazi songs/slogans/jokes directed at them for being German. That is the mindset he was referring too.

So his quote is understandable in that context.

---------- Post added at 11:04 ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 ----------

Originally Posted by Sirius

If he wants to play with the big kids, He needs to act like one of them. He has moved out of the junior section of politics and into the senior section and the crap throwing that it brings with it. If he cannot handle this what would he be like when we need him to support us in negotiations with other countries and we all know how nasty that can get..

Well does his square with the amount of criticism Labour get's for smearing the Tories? We're either against spin, smears and "dirty" politics or we are for it when it's in our favour. Which is it?

The Lib Dems deserve to be investigated. Clegg's donations, lobbying past are part of this. However, The Mail and Sun's campaigns are no different to what Labour did,. only more intense.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Damien

No it doesn't. Where is it written that he will rollover? I think he is saying that Britain needs to be more realistic about it's place in the world.

I agree. While I mean no disrespect to anyone who has fought in a war (after all, without the efforts of the armed forces in WWII, we would be speaking german now), the war finished 60 odd years ago. Before most of the current population of both the UK and Germany were born. In a lot of cases, before their parents were born. It's also worth pointing out that the Germans I have met have been extremely polite, friendly people and are (if anything) more horrified by what the Nazis did than we are.

Germany now is NOT the same country it was then. We bang on about what a great country we are, and how bad the Germans are, but who is better off? We have mass unemployment and a debt that is greater than the GDP of a lot of countries. The Germans were similarly affected by the world wide recession, but were able to turn their economy around far quicker than we have been. We also have failing public transport systems, and while they are certainly not underfunded, thanks to privatisation, a lot of the money we give to the companies running them isn't actually being spent on improving or maintaining the networks. From what I have seen, German public transport is an order of magnitude better.

As Nick Clegg notes, the average German is also 6% better off than the average Brit. Why? Could it be that they actually worked to improve their lot rather than just bitch about how everyone else made it worse for them?

The war was 60 years ago. We do need to get over it, and work to improve things.

---------- Post added at 11:15 ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 ----------

Oh, and if anyone wants to find the Mail's origins, it was founded by (amongst others) the then Lord Rothermere, who was a friend of Adolf Hitler. It also apparently published articles criticising the repatriation of "stateless Jews" in Britain (no change there, then)..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail

Also, if that article is correct, then it seems that Lord Rothermere wrote to Hitler congratulating him on annexing Czechoslovakia, and urging him to invade Romania.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

The war was 60 years ago. We do need to get over it, and work to improve things.

There is a new war and its over deck chairs and sun loungers

Chris Huhne may regret making this statement

Asked about another story that Mr Clegg worked for a lobbying firm that helped weaken EU financial rules, Mr Huhne said: "That's the sort of smear that we are getting in the Tory papers this morning."

He said it was "no secret" Mr Clegg had been a lobbyist but said he had a "career doing real work outside the political system" and had been a lobbyist for a "brief period".

The Times CV (from two years ago) for Nick Clegg states

Journalism: Trainee journalist, Nation magazine, New York, 1990

— Other jobs:
Political consultant GJW Government Relations 1992-93;
adviser to Sir Leon Brittan, European Commission vice-president, 1996-99;
lecturer, Sheffield University, 1999

— European politics:
MEP for East Midlands, 1999-2004

— British politics:
Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam since May 2005;
foreign affairs spokesman 2005-06;
home affairs spokesman since 2006;
elected leader of the party in December 2007

What that misses out is that Mr Clegg worked in 1991 as a Trainee at the European Commission, Brussels. DGI, G-24 Co-ordination Unit, and for GPlus (another lobbying firm) 2004-05, where he described his work as

giving businesses "intelligent professional help in engaging with the EU institutions".

Besides a trainee journalist post for six months, and some part-time lecturing for under a year, what is this "career doing real work outside the political system" that Nick Huhne refers to?

(strangely enough, if it's "no secret", why is neither lobbying job mentioned on Nick's CV on the Lib Dem website.... ).

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

I am goin to vote for Iclandic Volcano party, they have done more to stop immigration into the UK in 5 days than new Labour did in 13 years.....

[Osem]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Chris Huhne may regret making this statement

The Times CV (from two years ago) for Nick Clegg states

What that misses out is that Mr Clegg worked in 1991 as a Trainee at the European Commission, Brussels. DGI, G-24 Co-ordination Unit, and for GPlus (another lobbying firm) 2004-05, where he described his work as

Besides a trainee journalist post for six months, and some part-time lecturing for under a year, what is this "career doing real work outside the political system" that Nick Huhne refers to?

(strangely enough, if it's "no secret", why is neither lobbying job mentioned on Nick's CV on the Lib Dem website.... ).

Yes odd that eh....

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by Damien

If anyone wants to read the article the Mail referenced in context it is here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/19/eu.germany

Or, as I suspect many will, you can ignore it and focus on the Mail's interpretation.

Thank you for that Damien, I was wondering about the context and how it was truly presented. But, sadly, I am in agreement about the fact that it will be greatly ignored by the gutter press and therefore the uninformed masses will just behave like sheep and believe what they are told to believe.

---------- Post added at 13:17 ---------- Previous post was at 13:12 ----------

Originally Posted by Sirius

Not a problem i am happy to correct the quote

So how does he intend to do that ?????

Is that a better quote for you, btw the corrections are in red.

But, as you well know, that paragraph is pointless when not taken into context the entire article. Or are you proud of a Britain that could sponsor such blatant racism? Something, which many need to be reminded, the war was fought to prevent.

Daily Mail Lib Dem headline generator: http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/

I think this is going to back fire on the Tories anyway, People aren't stupid and they will probably end up being turned off from the negative headlines. Even the valid ones (i.e Telegraph) will be lost/dismissed amongst the slime.

BNP facing Marmite legal injunction - BBC