I gonna vote for my dad 
His party is pretty cr*p lol but least it keeps me in the good books when I need to borrow money
His party is pretty cr*p lol but least it keeps me in the good books when I need to borrow money 
Who are you voting for in the elections next month?
- Thread starter Ulpian
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Who are you voting for in the elections next month?
Good choice. At least he won't be fiddling his expenses. He's dead.Screaming Lord Sutch and his Monster Raving Looney Party
Vote Green; ban cars. If you don't mind me saying that's not a particularly clever method of tactical voting for someone on a car forum.
Principalled, but ultimately futile.
Must admit to being a bit confused here as to which party you are talking about.
The bizzarre comparison between this recession and the last, is that it startedCheck their track record in the 1990's. They caused the last recession
I'll vote tactically. Have to see what the pre-election polls say to see who's going to get my vote. It definitely won't be Tory and will unlikely be Labour. Or as I'm hoping to emigrate in the next few years perhaps I'll simply put "You're all useless" on the ballot paper.
off Internationally, yet Labour blamed the Tories. This one started off Internationally yet Labour say it wasn't their fault.
As for emigrating, that's the spirit. F**k off and leave the rest of us in the s**t. That certainly brings a new meaning to the phrase Tactical Voting.
Haha they can get rid of churches. Waste of money.
John major was ace.
John major was ace.
the connie bastards
Wise man say "Man who stay on sinking ship drowns."
"Rat", "Sinking ship" and "Deserting".
Chas says "Squeak"!
*Goes to book one way ticket out of the UK*
It's been a lack of principles in government and the other political parties that has led me to this decision.
Every vote counts, spoiled slips are counted too.
Chances of them getting in were slim to none (the were behind Lab, Cons, Lib Dem, BNP and UKIP in polls at time IIRC)...and tbf its not exactly like one green mp in the house of commons is going to get cars banned...
As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown sold off the majority of the UKs
gold reserve for a rediculously low price just a few months before it went up so much in value as to have cost this country billions.
The last big currency devaluation was under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. Under John Major, they tried to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and failed. At the time of Labour's devaluation, the £ was worth $2.50, afterwards it was worth $1.50
The Tories and UKIP are the two parties least likely to take us into the Euro.
Churches close because nobody goes to them. Incidentally, it's under this Government that the dis-establishment of the Church of England has never been closer, not the Tories.
Not quite sure how you privatise the Fire Engines. Oh yes, I know. The Fire Brigades will charge for everything they do short of an emergency, such as fire safety checks at companies and training staff. Even airport fire brigades charge airlines to train cabin crew how to deal with an emergency on an aircraft involving a fire. They didn't do that prior to New Labour.
Maybe you're too young to remember, but almost nobody wanted the coal those pits produced yet the left wanted to save them. At the same time the left was moaning about acid rain produced by coal fired power stations. The only way you could have both would be for everyone else to pay the wages of the miners for producing nothing. In the past, ships ran on coal, trains ran on coal, people heated their houses with coal; but none of them by the time of the miners' strike.
Margaret Thatcher must be very envious of the way New Labour have finished off the job on the Unions that she began.
As for crushing manual labour jobs, notice how they saved the banks (with reference to your later comment) but ignored LDV and almost every aspect of British manufacturing and engineering that this country was founded on. Witness the following: Rover, Leyland trucks, ERF Trucks, Foden Trucks, Volvo (Leyland) bus. Ford no longer make any cars here; or trucks, in fact even most of the Transit vans are made in Turkey. Remember, Blair intervenedto get Corus/British Steel taken over by an Indian company against the wishes of the European Union, nothing to do with the owner of that company being a major benefactor of the Labour Party of course. Corus are in the process of laying off 2,000 people in Redcar, a part of the country that can least afford the job losses. Can anyone tell me what has happened to Redpath Dorman Long or Smith Dock who were responsible for designing an building the Corvette warships that kept the convoys running in WWII? What about Cleveland Bridge who built the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Thatcher's Government
were responsible for bringing Honda, Toyota, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba and Pioneer manufacturing here not to mention keeping Rover afloat through association with British Aerospace, Honda and BMW. Yet under this mob, gone. This Government wants to destroy engineering and manufacturing and have everybody in office jobs and let others build things. I think they've been listening to Donald Fagin (Steely Dan) who wrote .....
....."we'll be eternally young,
we'll be eternally clean....."
In other words nobody will do any manual work. my brother joined British Aerospace in 1977, the last year the company took on apprentices at that plant. Remember who the Government was then. One of the main reasons was that the Unions didn't want them.
Skyscrapers were built under both the Conservatives and Labour, with most council tower blocks built under Labour because of "trendy" architects and "Social Thinkers".
Free school milk I'll give you. Yup the Tories got rid of that. Except that my memories of that were that in Winter it was frozen and in Summer it used to be left out in the Sun until it was almost curdled. I detested the stuff. In fact most of the kids I went to school with wouldn't drink it. Remember also, there was only full fat milk, which would be a major cause of childhood obesity.
I don't know what you mean about the 100 years war, but can I point out that this Government has not only allowed Eon, a German company take over a major British power producer, but also EDF, a French company, which in addition to being a major producer of power in this country has recently been sold the majority stake in present and future nuclear power generation in the UK. And before you say there's nothing they could do about it, British companies have been thwarted left, right and centre when trying to buy French telecoms companies. In one case the French Government refused to sell its stake in a French company in defiance of EU rules despite the fact that BT was sold off (EU rules) nearly 20 years ago. Don't forget, when talking of past transgressions, it was Tony Blair who apologised on our behalf for our role in slavery, despite the fact that the Romans and Egyptians beat us to the trade by about 2000 years and we outlawed the practice before any other major nation, over 200 years ago. Possibly British oranised labour's finest hour was siding with the Union against the Confederate states in the American Civil War incurring considerable personal hardship for thousands of cotton workers in Lancashire and Manchester. Hence the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Manchester, sent as a thank you.
So, let's see. The biggest devaluation of currency was under Labour in the early '70s. The biggest loss in selling off the "Family Silver" was when Brown undervalued gold hideously and lost billions.
It was Labour who tried to get us into the Euro by the back door - and failed.
It's Labour who want to dis-establish the Church and give more prominence to other faiths like Islam.
It's Labour who've made Fire Brigades charge for all work they do short of put out fires.
True it was the Tories who closed many of the pits that produced something that hardly anybody wanted.
Labour have virtually finished off the job on the Unions that the Tories started.
The biggest drop in manufacturing has occurred under New Labour.
Both major parties were involved in building sky scrapers for council accomodation, but Labour built more.
The Tories did get rid of school milk, but hardly anyone liked it anyway.
Then there's the wholesale sell off of British domestic power generation which has mostly gone to the German company Eon and the French company EDF. Oops, almost forgot Peugeot closing its plant in Ryton near Coventry and, oh yes, GEC who made everything from guided missiles to traffic light controls systems to electricity sub stations to telephone systems. Did I mention GEC locomotives? The whole company was sold to the French Alsthom company. Who in fairly short order closed down most of the factories and moved much of the production to France. Allowing a train maker to be bought by a foreign company just before the biggest growth in train companies in almost a century? I would say this Government wants manufacturing jobs to go abroad.
Mind you they've got the pick of the bunch now up in Teesside. They're taking all the hazardous and toxic components from a defunct French Aircraft Carrier.
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People like you are useless.....unless, any chance of a cheap holiday? We're very clean.Wise man say "Man who stay on sinking ship drowns."
"Rat", "Sinking ship" and "Deserting".
Chas says "Squeak"!
*Goes to book one way ticket out of the UK*
Get real. If the Conservatives caused the last one, then Labour caused this one. Except they say they didn't, so they must be right. It's obviously somebody else's fault.That's not what the country thought of him when he and his party lost to Labour in one of the biggest landslide victories since WW2!
Either that or you like recessions
You the man!
I've had a good think about who i will vote for and to be honest none of them are worth a light..i have started to construct a board which i am sticking out on the front of my home and the board will read..
To all the so called politicians and their representatives ..please do not knock on my door looking for support..you have screwed us at Westminster and no doubt you lot are screwing us at local level as well [welsh assembly] so please feel free to stick your heads where the sun don't shine..
To all the so called politicians and their representatives ..please do not knock on my door looking for support..you have screwed us at Westminster and no doubt you lot are screwing us at local level as well [welsh assembly]
so please feel free to stick your heads where the sun don't shine..
A lot of your points can be debated and argued contrarily Mr. Beard, which would make this a typical political debate whereby both sides argue endlessly whilst finding mud to sling at the opposition. For everything Labour has done wrong you can find something the Tories did equally wrong. Likewise, for every good policy (there are some!) the same will also ring true.
I can guarantee you this though, if the Tories get in you'll find that after a decade in power people will be blaming them for everything that is wrong with the country and declaring them useless. The opposition party will suddenly look like the perfect answer to all the country's ills, much like Labour appeared in 1997. This power shift yin and yang in politics will go on ad infinitum, with each successive Government going from being the popular party to the scum of the earth who've achieved nothing whilst being blamed for everything that is wrong. This scenario is about the only reliable and consistent theme in democratic politics.
The last recession wasn't on such a global scale and Britain was both more self contained AND had more homegrown industry and manufacturing, yet under the Tories 11 years in power it still wasn't able to stave off a recession. We can also argue that the Tories should have been able to stave off the stock market crash (Black Monday) of 1987, the house market crash of the 1990's, interest rates and inflation going sky high and the subsequent massive rise in unemployment (touching 4 million). In fact if I remember rightly it was the biggest rise in unemployment since WW2.
But do you know what? Despite leaning to the left of politics, had Labour been in power I doubt if anything would be much different. Economies tend to run in cycles and the saying "The higher they are the further they fall" rings very true after a decade of prosperity and booming economy. If you compare us with a country like Bulgaria then you'll see that Bulgaria hasn't suffered anywhere near as badly from this global recession. Why? Because their economy wasn't that good in the first place so they had less to lose. All Governments do is navigate a ship, to use an analogy, and though you can try and steer away from a storm you cannot stop the storm. What you can do is try and choose the best course to take whilst weathering it out.
So my summing up is this: If you believe that voting in another Government will suddenly cure all the country's ills and problems then you are very much mistaken. The Tories aren't the answer to the UK's problems any more than Labour are. When they get into power (they will do at some point) there will be a honeymoon period where the majority are relieved to have changed the old guard. Then after a period in office the realisation will set in that little has changed, just the wording on the policy documents are slightly different. Some people will become better off at the expense of others, many will become disgruntled that the pledges of the election campaigns were little more than hollow promises dressed up to make the party more electable. Then the scandals will start, the economy will boom and bust and suddenly the Government in power will become the whipping boy as the majority looks to the opposition for the answer to the country's ills. This cycle of satisfaction/ dissatisfaction is about the only consistent aspect of British politics, because if a Government was really that good then they'd never be voted out. But none of them ever are and they are all as bad as each other, though as an individual you may find you'll benefit more under one party than the other.
And my final point is this: The saying "There are lies, damned lies, and politicians" never rang truer when applied to British politics. And me cynical? Too right I am
CAMERON!
DAVE DAVE DAVE!*chants* lol
i think they are preety much useless but i think dave seems to be abit more realistic and seems he actualy wants to do something about it by getting to the point and is in the real world. so dave for me.
DAVE DAVE DAVE!*chants* lol
i think they are preety much useless but i think dave seems to be abit more realistic and seems he actualy wants to do something about it by getting to the point and is in the real world. so dave for me.
1986Uno45S. You raise many valid points. However, I've received an e-mail from a friend that I won't cut and paste here because it would be a pain to edit out a lot of the personal stuff in it, but I've copied the pertinent bits. The
details are courtesy of the World Gold Council:
Between 1999 and 2002, Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer sold off 395 tonnes of Britain's gold reserves at rock bottom prices and gained only £1.88 billion ($3.48B). He sold the lot for an average price of approx. $265 per ounce. Because he was selling it in 25 tonne batches and in a depressed market, he depressed the price further and lost an extra £495M even at rates at the time.
It got even worse. 395 tonnes is the official figure, but HM Treasury financial records show that he actually sold off 451 tonnes. In 1999, Britain had 746 tonnes of gold reserves, Brown sold 451 tonnes leaving us with only 295 tonnes as of 2006. 451 tonnes at 2006 prices = £5.47 billion and he got £1.88B making a loss of £3.59 billion. (the figures have been adjusted to take into account exchange rate) The price of gold in 2006 was £702 per ounce. Remember, he sold at (about) £180 per ounce.
It got worse again. The gold had to be paid for in $US then Brown immediately converted that to the Japanese Yen which meant he(we) lost 20%, before he converted the Yen into the then new Euro, which was a huge risk, and, without a shadow of a doubt helped to prop up the new currency. As with all dealings with the EC, it cost us a fortune.
There is a lot of rhetoric floating around alleging that Brown has a well known dislike of the US and this was his way of giving the Euro a boost at the expense of the Dollar, no way of proving or disproving that theory. However, what I hadn't thought about was, what happened to the £1.88B? Here's one for you; Between 1999 and 2002 was a boom period for publicly funded jobs. In the North East of England, almost 50% of working people in that region were employed by the Government, Local Councils or other Government funded bodies. On that basis, our recession would have come in or near to 2002 as the only thing that avoided it was the injection of approx £1.5Billion into providing publicly funded jobs.
Just one other quick question for you. Exactly what has the Billions of Pounds that have been poured into banks in the last few months actually paid for. Ever heard of Credit Default Swaps? You will. They are arguably a greater cause of the current recession than the US Sub-Prime market, and we've been dealing in them virtually since day 1. One of the ways Bankers can afford their Ferraris and motor yachts is through CDS. What has all this money gone on? The toxic debt is CDS! Not only that, but Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have been buying them up all over the show.
Personally, I sincerely believe that Blair, Brown, Darling, Reid et al have taken deceit to a new level and contempt for the British people to a new low. They lied to us about Eastern European immigration, they lied to us about Iraq, they lied to us about Aghanistan and they lied to us about MPs expenses.
The speaker of the house. There's a topical point. Did you know that traditionally the Speaker of the House is drawn from the Opposition in the interests of fairness? During the much maligned John Major term, they elected Betty Boothroyd a Labour MP. When she stepped down who did the Blair Government have elected to the position? Perhaps Kenneth Clarke or Douglas Hurd, both veteran Tory MPs? Er no, they elected one of their own. All he's done of late is try and block public access to the worst excesses of MP expense claims. Mind you there was also the case of the Police raid on the office of Tory MP Damien Green. Which turned out to be political, but the Serjant at Arms took the blame for that one, but even she still seems to be in a job.
details are courtesy of the World Gold Council:
Between 1999 and 2002, Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer sold off 395 tonnes of Britain's gold reserves at rock bottom prices and gained only £1.88 billion ($3.48B). He sold the lot for an average price of approx. $265 per ounce. Because he was selling it in 25 tonne batches and in a depressed market, he depressed the price further and lost an extra £495M even at rates at the time.
It got even worse. 395 tonnes is the official figure, but HM Treasury financial records show that he actually sold off 451 tonnes. In 1999, Britain had 746 tonnes of gold reserves, Brown sold 451 tonnes leaving us with only 295 tonnes as of 2006. 451 tonnes at 2006 prices = £5.47 billion and he got £1.88B making a loss of £3.59 billion. (the figures have been adjusted to take into account exchange rate) The price of gold in 2006 was £702 per ounce. Remember, he sold at (about) £180 per ounce.
It got worse again. The gold had to be paid for in $US then Brown immediately converted that to the Japanese Yen which meant he(we) lost 20%, before he converted the Yen into the then new Euro, which was a huge risk, and, without a shadow of a doubt helped to prop up the new currency. As with all dealings with the EC, it cost us a fortune.
There is a lot of rhetoric floating around alleging that Brown has a well known dislike of the US and this was his way of giving the Euro a boost at the expense of the Dollar, no way of proving or disproving that theory. However, what I hadn't thought about was, what happened to the £1.88B? Here's one for you; Between 1999 and 2002 was a boom period for publicly funded jobs. In the North East of England, almost 50% of working people in that region were employed by the Government, Local Councils or other Government funded bodies. On that basis, our recession would have come in or near to 2002 as the only thing that avoided it was the injection of approx £1.5Billion into providing publicly funded jobs.
Just one other quick question for you. Exactly what has the Billions of Pounds that have been poured into banks in the last few months actually paid for. Ever heard of Credit Default Swaps? You will. They are arguably a greater cause of the current recession than the US Sub-Prime market, and we've been dealing in them virtually since day 1. One of the ways Bankers can afford their Ferraris and motor yachts is through CDS. What has all this money gone on? The toxic debt is CDS! Not only that, but Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling have been buying them up all over the show.
Personally, I sincerely believe that Blair, Brown, Darling, Reid et al have taken deceit to a new level and contempt for the British people to a new low. They lied to us about Eastern European immigration, they lied to us about Iraq, they lied to us about Aghanistan and they lied to us about MPs expenses.
The speaker of the house. There's a topical point. Did you know that traditionally the Speaker of the House is drawn from the Opposition in the interests of fairness? During the much maligned John Major term, they elected Betty Boothroyd a Labour MP. When she stepped down who did the Blair Government have elected to the position? Perhaps Kenneth Clarke or Douglas Hurd, both veteran Tory MPs? Er no, they elected one of their own. All he's done of late is try and block public access to the worst excesses of MP expense claims. Mind you there was also the case of the Police raid on the office of Tory MP Damien Green. Which turned out to be political, but the Serjant at Arms took the blame for that one, but even she still seems to be in a job.
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Bnp
I don't think that if Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and Nye Bevin were elected at the next General Election they would suddenly cure all the country's ills.
I think you'll find the Tories were in Government for 18 years not 11.
I wasn't really interested in financial matters at the time to have really noticed what was going on; must aquaint myself with it
The house market crash was a cyclical event, don't worry, I felt it, as we did the subsequent interest rate rises, we bought a house in 1989.
It would have been the largest rise in unemployment since WWII as the only way we could have been any lower in 1945 would to have been Germany.
The Conservatives got in because they were a radically different proposition to the Wilson/Callaghan/Foot version of Labour who had gone before. So the New Labour of Blair et al were radically different from the by then tired Major Government. I voted for them matey.
What have I done? What have I done?
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You misunderstand me Mr. Beard! I said the recession of the 1990's still hit despite the Tories having been in power for 11 years at that point (1979 they came into office, 1990/1 officially declared as the country in recession). They neither foresaw the recession (the then chancellor Norman Lamont famously described "a blip in the economy" when discussing the emerging economic instabilities 6 months before everything came crashing down), nor were they able to stop it despite being in office for three successive terms (1979, 1983, 1987), again at this point. And yes, I was fully aware they were in power for 18 years. That's why me and most of the country wanted rid of them in 1997.
New Labour seemed like a breath of fresh air after the stale Major led Tory Government and the authoritarian Thatcher led government prior to that. I do agree that the current Labour party are now just as stale as the Tories were in '97, however I do not see an exciting Cameron led Tory party waiting in the wings ready to take their place with workable policies that will revitalise the country. I see a voting public tired of the same old Goverment and simply wanting a change, and one reason I say that is because when I ask those who suddenly declare that they will vote Tory to tell me what their policies are I normally get a blank, confused look in return. Occasionally there might be muttering about "immigration" or "bloody European Union" but none seem to have any clue what exactly has been proposed nor how it will be implemented. Same as in the local elections, the average punter doesn't even know who their local Labour/ Tory MP candidate is yet they will happily tick the ballot paper on the strength that they want a change of government.
Still, whatever party you vote for one thing we probably all agree on is that all politicians are "economical with the truth", can't be trusted and fiddle their expenses. There appears to be just as many Tories caught out in this expenses scandal as with Labour so again they're all as bad as each other. So with that in mind perhaps it doesn't even matter what each politician/ political party tell us about their policies, to those that actually listen anyway, because we should all take them with a pinch of salt.
My advice to anyone who is actually going to bother to vote is to greet all political parties with a massive degree of cynicism, consider all available evidence, look at the track records and THEN decide which party/ MP to vote for. Mind you if everyone did that then there'd be a very good chance that the Natural Law party may get into power
Oh isn't Politics a fun game?
if you go to the EU profiler website you just fill in the questionnaire, it only takes about 5 minutes, and they tell you which party in your area is best suited to your political opinions.
It will also tell you which party is closest to your opinions in the rest of the EU too.
