The 2010 General Election Thread: Week 2

Welcome to the official Cable Forum General Election Thread, week 2. 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 Week 1 thread, which is now closed, but which you can still see here.

Over 100 people voted in last weeks poll - here is a summary of last weeks poll:

Labour 17 Votes 16.50%
Conservative 37 Votes 35.92%
Liberal Democrat 19 Votes 18.45%
United Kingdom Independence Party 4 Votes 3.88%
British National Party 11 Votes 10.68%
Plaid Cymru the Party of Wales 2 Votes 1.94%
GB-wide, any other party 2 Votes 1.94%
I choose not to vote 3 Votes 2.91%
I cannot vote 1 Votes 0.97%
Undecided 7 Votes 6.80%

[frogstamper]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Good to know 32% of the population are idiots and 22% are either welfare whores, easily confused or ideologically diametrically opposed to me. Hung parliament would likely achieve nothing.

So basically its "vote like me or your a moron or a scrounger"...and you talk about Labour being authoritarian?
Yet another typical visceral post by a Tory voter who's first instinct is to denigrate and attack, I wonder why the polls are not showing the Tory party steaming ahead as Labour did in 97?
Could it be that a lot of people believe that Cameron is a different kind of Tory to past incarnations?...I'd say yes most fair minded people would agree that was true, the problem comes when they ask "has the party itself really changed"?
In my opinion thats whats stopping them charging ahead, fear of the old nasty party...a perfect example of how you expressed yourself above.
If you are this bitter and angry now methinks you'll be psychotically apoplectic on the morning of the 7th.

[Jimmy-J]

Why work when I can get £42,000 in benefits a year AND drive a Mercedes?

She added: 'I don't feel bad about being subsidised by people who are working. I'm just working with the system that's there.
'If the government wants to give me money, I'm happy to take it. We get what we're entitled to. I don't put in anything because I don't pay taxes, but if I could work I would.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0l2g5j5Xz

If a family are legally entitled to this amount of benefits, then why shouldn't they claim it?

It's no use taking it out on the families, it's the government who allow this to happen. So which of the parties are promising to change the benefits system and actually stand by it if they manage to get in?

I was told that in order to get the things in life I wanted, I'd have to work hard and save my money, etc etc... But now it's all gone topsy-turvy! It seems the harder you work the more you lose out. It doesn't seem to make sense to go out and work these days.

This family live in rented accommodation, so if anything goes wrong, such as their boiler breaks down, or the guttering get's blocked etc, then they just pick up the phone and get it all repaired or replaced for free. They could also be in line for all new double glazed windows, doors, fencing, drives, roofing, kitchen, bathroom and a brand new combi boiler, radiators in every room with a nice new real flame effect fire with fireplace/surround.

I live in a 3 bedroom council house which will be getting the above makeover between now and the next 2 to 3 years.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by frogstamper

So basically its "vote like me or your a moron or a scrounger"...and you talk about Labour being authoritarian?
Yet another typical visceral post by a Tory voter who's first instinct is to denigrate and attack, I wonder why the polls are not showing the Tory party steaming ahead as Labour did in 97?
Could it be that a lot of people believe that Cameron is a different kind of Tory to past incarnations?...I'd say yes most fair minded people would agree that was true, the problem comes when they ask "has the party itself really changed"?
In my opinion thats whats stopping them charging ahead, fear of the old nasty party...a perfect example of how you expressed yourself above.
If you are this bitter and angry now methinks you'll be psychotically apoplectic on the morning of the 7th.

Minor issues with your statement.

1) I'm not a Tory voter, the only time I have voted Conservative in anything was for Boris Johnson in the last mayoral election.
2) I stand by my comment that wanting a hung parliament is idiotic. Based on previous evidence they accomplish nothing.
3) I point you to a part of my post you quoted 'or ideologically diametrically opposed to me' - plenty of intelligent, productive people who simply disagree with me in this regard. To believe Labour's baseless attacks or their promises requires either a willingness to let things slide or a lack of intellect.

Other than that from where I am the nasty party based on campaigning is the Labour party with their offensive cancer mailing, cynical mud throwing, pretty transparent bribery and inability to use their record of the last 13 years to any depth to justify their own re-election. Their record is simply so poor in most regards that this is all they can do. I would say voting for that requires either being gullible enough to buy their rhetoric, preferring their 'State knows best' way of doing things or being, like yourself, left leaning and not wanting the alternatives. Hope you are happy to lean some more to the left if you plan on voting for them though looking at their manifesto

Incidentally that you automatically assumed I was a Tory voter speaks more for your own prejudices than mine. I have a similar view of David Cameron to Barack Obama, he's a lightweight. That they haven't buried Labour in the polls yet suggests either serious issues on the Conservative side or serious issues with the electorate because there really isn't that much for Labour to point to that justifies the polls being as close as they are.

[punky]

Probably the Lib Dem going a bit crazy with the yellow lights but Sarah Teather is looking horribly jaundiced.

[Flyboy]

Originally Posted by Damien

I can't make sense of the Polls at all. How are the Tories not steaming ahead in the manor New Labour did in '97? The polls have tightened considerably over the last year but there they never reached massive majority numbered and not, despite 13 years of the current government, they are quite close!

My first impression was that the numbers for the Tories would be quite higher with Tory voters less likely to admit it and being of a demographic which is harder to poll. Then I thought that's rubbish! For a start I think people would be more embarrassed to say they would vote Labour than Tory, and their supports are probably also contain demographics which are harder to poll. If anything the Labour support would be underestimated.

So what gives?! How come the Tories have been unable to reverse the decline in their poll support despite, what I thought was, a strong first week of campaigning?

A poll by ICM yesterday showed only a three point lead.

---------- Post added at 12:29 ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 ----------

It seems some are not happy with the Tories' education plans.

50 heads attack Conservative education plans

A group of 51 headteachers, including prominent academy leaders, today attacked the Tories' plans to give parents the freedom to set up schools and said they feared "across-the-board cuts" to schooling under the Conservatives.

Originally Posted by Flyboy

A poll by ICM yesterday showed only a three point lead.

It seems some are not happy with the Tories' education plans.

50 heads attack Conservative education plans

Erm, Fb, you "forgot" to mention that the Headmasters are all members of the Progressive Education Network, which is financially supported by "Ken" Follett (who is also one of their Directors), millionaire husband of "Barbara" Follett, who is currently Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Also on their Board of Directors are Baroness Morris of Yardley, aka "Estelle" Morris, ex-Labour Education Secretary, "Deryn" Harvey, who was Director of the Labour Government's Schools Innovation Unit 2002-2009, and "Russell" Gill, who is Manager Member Services at the Co-operative Group.

Nice unbiased selection there, with no obvious agenda.........

What will be in your next post - that Unison will be monetarily and logistically supporting the Labour Party during the election?

[Osem]

Well Brown finally admits he got it wrong.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...10/8618974.stm

Gordon Brown has admitted he made a mistake in not introducing tougher bank regulation when he was chancellor.

How nice of him after all those years gloating about how prudent he'd been followed by all that denial when the wheels came off just after he'd predicted the start of a Golden era for the City of London and started doling out gongs to the likes of Fred the Shred....

I reckon somewhere within the bowels of New Labour's grubby spin machine someone's decided that a large section of the electorate know Brown got it badly wrong and many will vote accordingly. These people are lost and 'admitting' his mistake won't affect their decision but a display of 'sincerity' at this time may just convince a few waverers to vote for him on the basis that he's at last accepted some responsibility for the catastrophe he allowed to unfold right under his nose.

Some of these people will no doubt feel better about the claims that no savers lost deposits as a result of the firm (and necessary) action taken to save the banks. Well that may be true but what is equally true is that, due to the lack of oversight of the banks that were funding Brown's manic spending spree, we're all going to pay a very heavy price. Our currency is in the doldrums, taxpayers will pay more for less, jobs will be lost, services will be cut and those who rely on their savings for some additional income to supplement their meagre pensions will continue to see that reduced to a trickle and their hard earned capital eroded.

Cast your minds back to all those promises to get tough on the bankers and force our newly 'nationalised' institutions banks to lend to business and stimulate the recovery. Well what's actually happened?? More, cynical rhetoric designed solely to mislead the people for as long as possible. Does anyone really believe anything these people say or do now?

---------- Post added at 12:49 ---------- Previous post was at 12:47 ----------

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Erm, Fb, you "forgot" to mention that the Headmasters are all members of the Progressive Education Network, which is financially supported by "Ken" Follett (who is also one of their Directors), millionaire husband of "Barbara" Follett, who is currently Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Also on their Board of Directors are Baroness Morris of Yardley, aka Estelle Morris, ex-Labour Education Secretary, Deryn Harvey, who was Director of the Labour Government's Schools Innovation Unit 2002-2009, Russell Gill, who is Manager Member Services at the Co-operative Group.

Nice unbiased selection there, with no obvious agenda.........

Yeah but, yeah but, yeah but....... Some people really don't like answering questions with answers do they....

[Flyboy]

Would that be the same deregulation supported by the Tories?

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Would that be the same deregulation supported by the Tories?

Were they the Government of the day, and thus had responsibility?

"Ed" Balls comments in the FT today are priceless

“We should, in retrospect, have been tougher on some of the investment banks who didn’t really know the risks they were running.�
At the same time, however, he said that Labour had been under huge pressure from the media, the City and the Tories to retain a light-touch regulatory regime

Yes, because the Labour Government always listen to and do what the Conservatives say.

[Flyboy]

Do we know what the regulations were before nineteen ninety-seven?

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Do we know what the regulations were before nineteen ninety-seven?

Who was in a position to change the regulations since 97?

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Who was in a position to change the regulations since 97?

Yeah but no but yeah but no but (repeat ad infinitum....)

[Flyboy]

It can't be had both ways. The Tories either criticise plans made whilst they were in power and admit they were wrong, or cut the hypocrisy.

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Do we know what the regulations were before nineteen ninety-seven?

Seriously, is that what you're reduced to?