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Post by venceremos on May 8, 2015 11:40:43 GMT 1
Just picking up the bits and pieces this morning on the Beeb and it's mad how this works. More people voted for UKIP than SNP yesterday yet look to many seats each party has. Makes it all a bit of a farce that... You do know the SNP only stand in Scotland don't you? Our voting system is way past its sell by date. The Tory vote is 0.7% higher than in 2010, yet this time they get a majority (albeit very small). They have the support of less than a quarter of the electorate but get all the power. I know they've done better than any other party but there's no disputing the system is shot when over 75% of the electorate didn't vote for its government. Disastrous night for everyone except the Tories, SNP and Greens. The Tories sold out the union for the sake of their party, which is ironic for the "Conservative and Unionist" Party. They fought a negative campaign built on fear and somehow conned enough of the electorate into believing the myth that it wasn't global economic forces that brought the country into recession and that the coalition made everything better. All sane folk will hope their inbuilt Euro divisions tear them apart over the next 18 months. Labour doesn't know whether to turn left or right. No easy answer to that one but Blair remains the only Labour winner since the 1970s, which might be a big hint, if unpalatable to many. The Lib Dems have taken all the punishment for the coalition and are back to their 1970s marginalisation. A high price paid and confirmation of Clegg's failure - all the more so as the PR referendum was so hopelessly botched. He should have left the Tories to form a minority government in 2010. The SNP have done brilliantly but will have little power in Westminster. Scotland is politically a separate country in every sense except the one that matters most to the SNP. Sturgeon must be wondering why all these SNP voters didn't vote for independence when they had the chance. Answer - fear, the greatest political motivator of them all. Ukip is already a spent force. All the talk of building on good 2nd places is drivel. It was now or never for them to make an impact at Westminster. Once the EU referendum is over, they have no further purpose. Carswell will be regretting that he jumped ship and others, such as Owen Paterson, will be relieved they didn't. Personally I'm very disappointed with the result because the polls made me hopeful of a hung parliament and some interesting political times. Maybe it's my age but it's not as bad as the disappointment I felt in 1983, 1987 or 1992. Hard to see that we won't become an even more divided and unequal society though, and I fear for those about to face the newer, deeper cuts to come, not to mention the future of the NHS. It just shows that this is still a conservative country, fearful of change. The Tories know that and use it. Life goes on.
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Post by SouthStandShrew on May 8, 2015 11:49:41 GMT 1
Clegg has gone, you do a deal with the devil and all that...
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Post by QuorndonShrew on May 8, 2015 11:54:23 GMT 1
I'm not sure how anyone can contend that UKIP have failed their objectives tonight, or are indeed a 'spent force'.
A vote somewhere in the region of 3.8 million, a threefold increase on last election, challenging for seats in Labour heartlands and now likely to be a guaranteed referendum on Europe.
UKIP may not have the representation they'd like in Westminster but I imagine their presence will be hugely influential going into the vote on Europe.
The electoral system in this country supposedly encourages 'stable government' but is heavily angled towards the two party system. No populist party is ever going to make significant gains in one parliamentary term. I won't be entirely surprised that following Farage's 'resignation', he will be re-elected unchallenged in September.
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Post by heavyglow on May 8, 2015 12:01:12 GMT 1
What a wonderful, wonderful evening. I'd be keen to give a brain examination to anyone who on one hand claims to support England in the World Cup / Euros, but yet also claims not to vote Conservative.
Quite inconsistent views. Patriotism on one hand, yet voting to b****r the country on the other.
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Post by northwestman on May 8, 2015 12:23:49 GMT 1
Clegg, Farage and Miliband all resign before 12.30.
Wonder what odds I'd have got on that at the bookies!
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2015 13:00:04 GMT 1
Exit poll in Conservatives 316 (+9) Labour 239 (-19) SNP 58 (+52) Lib Dems 10 (-47) Plaid Cymru 4 (+1) UKIP 2 (+2) Greens 2 (+1) Other 19 (+1) Hands up who saw that one coming. I can hear the Milifandom weeping from here. Not sure why you are so pleased - Likud have won hardly any seats... Ball bouncingly funny!!
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Post by venceremos on May 8, 2015 14:05:12 GMT 1
What a wonderful, wonderful evening. I'd be keen to give a brain examination to anyone who on one hand claims to support England in the World Cup / Euros, but yet also claims not to vote Conservative. Quite inconsistent views. Patriotism on one hand, yet voting to b****r the country on the other. Supporting a football team is a "view"? Your comments make Tebbit's cricket test seem like a heavyweight intellectual theory. Something's gone to your head.
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Post by venceremos on May 8, 2015 14:27:40 GMT 1
I'm not sure how anyone can contend that UKIP have failed their objectives tonight, or are indeed a 'spent force'. A vote somewhere in the region of 3.8 million, a threefold increase on last election, challenging for seats in Labour heartlands and now likely to be a guaranteed referendum on Europe. UKIP may not have the representation they'd like in Westminster but I imagine their presence will be hugely influential going into the vote on Europe. The electoral system in this country supposedly encourages 'stable government' but is heavily angled towards the two party system. No populist party is ever going to make significant gains in one parliamentary term. I won't be entirely surprised that following Farage's 'resignation', he will be re-elected unchallenged in September. Farage and Ukip ARE a spent force. What do they have to build on? One seat, and that was really the sitting Tory MP If this election shows anything it shows the strength of conservative forces in this country. Cameron will try to appear tough on Europe, we'll have some arguments, an in/out referendum and ultimately I'm sure we'll stay in the EU. The Tories might be split on this but those with power don't want us out of the EU. Fear will win that vote, just as it has the election. Ukip have peaked. I can't see them attracting more support from Labour and the "shy Tories" that swung this election always run back to the Tory Party soon enough. Hard to measure but there seems to be a huge bloc of voters on all sides that will never go to Ukip and, once the main plank of Ukipdom has gone after the referendum, it's surely game over. What do Ukip have other than the EU and immigration? And after the EU issue's settled in 2017, there's just immigration. It isn't enough, there's nothing to build on. A bunch of 2nd places and a decent number of votes count for nothing in our electoral system. That's the painful lesson every smaller party learns sooner or later. Whether Farage returns to leadership or not is a sideshow. He'll be vocal in the referendum debate whether he's leader or not but he's not going to attract the levels of support to Ukip that it needs to make a real breakthrough. And, whilst I hope he's well of course, there were questions about his health in this election. 2020 could be an interesting election though - Sturgeon will probably be the only current leader still around. I hope Grant Shapps will be leading the Tories but I don't think they'd be that stupid!
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Post by mattmw on May 8, 2015 15:55:09 GMT 1
Going to see how it all pans out but if Conservative manifesto is implemented in full going to decimate a lot of services in Shropshire. What were tough spending cuts are now looking like the demise of much of the public sector in the county.
Got to assume that's what the public wants and is hoping for judging by the sea of blue across Shropshire, but is scaring living daylights out of me.
If I was Cameron I'd hold the EU referendum before the end of the year and get it done and dusted before UKIP and the other parties regroup. It's the one issue that could split his party - best to get it sorted ASAP while he is riding the post election support he's now got behind him
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Post by SouthStandShrew on May 8, 2015 16:25:22 GMT 1
See BNP did badly, wonder where all their 'supporters' have voted?
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Post by Stowmarket Shrew on May 8, 2015 16:29:33 GMT 1
I work as a planner in local government. Not sure where to start really. Democracy yes, but only to a point. Not sure I've ever been this depressed about politics in all my adult life. I have views that spread right across the political spectrum from pretty right wing (immigration, benefits), to pretty left wing (belief in the goodness and value of a well run public sector working for the public good, not for financial ends), but mostly I occupy the middle ground. I've never voted for either the Labour Party or the Conservatives until yesterday, but something absolutely terrifies the life out of me in the present Tory party. Perhaps because I was more concerned about pocket money and playing football the last time they really cocked things up I don't know. I voted Labour because the Liberal Democrats lost me as a voter the moment they went into coalition, and despite the fact that Ed Milliband is a total plonker, and also despite the fact that Labour's reaction to the more right wing dominated coalition has seem them, in opposition, move further left than I am normally politically comfortable with. I also voted Labour despite the fact that I live in rural Suffolk, among the safest Tory seats in the country, so my vote was in effect wasted, meaning another reason why I feel disenfranchised. I have also seen at first hand the effect that right wing politics has had on local government. I don't care about my own job security, whatever will be will be - this is a bigger issue than this. I care about fairness, and equal opportunity, and in serving and protecting those who are otherwise unable to do so or do not have the knowledge and / or power to do so and that is the reason why I chose to work in the public sector. I don't work 6 hours a day for 4 days a week as most right wing commentators would have you believe always happens in the public sector, I'm not a lazy Flartless bureaucrat checking regulations, shuffling papers and stamping plans, I earn less than I could in the private sector, I routinely (as do any number of vast numbers of other equally hard working public servants) work considerably more hours than I am contracted without extra pay. I also see day in and day out the passion and diligence that many of my colleagues genuinely share about making a difference to people's lives, to the benefit of the greater good, not simply to service the bottom line.
I now sit here fully expecting to see the complete and total destruction of the public sector as we know it, for wholly ideological reasons, along with further chopping and changing of the planning system. Through sheer dedication, good will, and an overwhelming desire to continue to serve the public good, the sector has struggled on for the past five years. The easy savings have been made, the simple cuts sorted, all in the face of constant criticism, the vast majority of which wholly ideological, from the government. This will intensify now as even harder cuts are demanded and even more unrealistic expectations rain down from some chuckling minister, rubbing his or her hands together at the wonderful thought of totally dismantling the sector entirely. After all, surely the market is the best place to sort out the housing crisis?! Wrong! How on earth will our kids be even able to afford to rent, let alone buy, in the face of policies which continue to favour a housebuilding and construction sector which has long has this government completely in its pocket, as if short term 'growth' for short term political gain is somehow better than a sustainable and long term sorting out of a problem of gigantic proportions, and which is only going to get a whole lot worse. I see the effects of it every day in my professional life, where every time policy expects the public good to miss out, for the sake of 'growth', as if putting slightly more money in the bank balance of Barratts or Persimmon (other house builders are available of course) will suddenly solve the country's problems and they'll all fall over themselves to build the houses we need, in the places we need them, and at prices that we can afford. With an overworked and understaffed local government being the only thing standing between fairness and rampant commercialism, and with planning facing almost constant criticism and belittlement from central government that will only increase, it's a David and Goliath scenario where David already has both hands tied behind his back and Eric Pickles sitting on his shoulders.
I have absolutely no doubt that I will be working in the private sector at the end of this parliament. I'll either be working in an outsourced department for local government or else cuts and changes, and criticism and morale will all be such that I'll have given up on wanting to do something because it's the right thing to do, for the greater good and the benefit of all, and simply moved into the private sector.
The most frustrating part of all this is actually that 'I am alright Jack', so I should be delighted with a right wing government. I own a five bedroom detached house in the middle of the beautiful Suffolk countryside worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, the value of which is only going to go one way. I have a mortgage in five figures and plenty of equity to downsize and support my kids on the housing ladder when the time comes. BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. I wouldn't work in local government if I didn't passionately believe in doing the right thing. Not to control and restrict and prevaricate, or to stifle enterprise and development, but to offer an effective and wholly necessary check and balance to make sure that opportunity to benefit is available to all as a simple and fundamental premise of fairness. I think this will all be very quickly destroyed if we're not careful, most likely before those that I seek to protect and support every day in the job that I do even know it
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Post by northwestman on May 8, 2015 16:38:20 GMT 1
PLEASE paragraph! My eyes are hurting!
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Post by ssshrew on May 8, 2015 16:46:34 GMT 1
Mine too but I have read it and, apart from the fact that I a not in planning, it mirrors me almost completely. I have felt really, really, down and apprehensive for the future today. I have felt like this for five years now and blow me I've got another five years of it!!!
In my working life, I was a school secretary and I too wasn't a 9-5er. What is happening to our state schools worries me and there will be no fair deal for them in the foreseeable future let alone our local services, NHS, etc.
Still one minor consolation when the next lot of cuts bite ..... I can truly say well don't blame me I didn't vote for them.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2015 16:55:29 GMT 1
However unpalatable the upcoming cuts may be, they are going to have to happen.
We cannot continue to spend more than we earn, I for one do not want to pass on a milestone of spiralling debt to my children and that is the view of the electorate who have endorsed the Tory’s plans for a further 5 years.
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Post by mrbunny on May 8, 2015 16:55:39 GMT 1
See BNP did badly, wonder where all their 'supporters' have voted? Will have gone UKIP. The acceptable face of racism.
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Post by scooter on May 8, 2015 17:01:06 GMT 1
However unpalatable the upcoming cuts may be, they are going to have to happen. We cannot continue to spend more than we earn, I for one do not want to pass on a milestone of spiralling debt to my children and that is the view of the electorate who have endorsed the Tory’s plans for a further 5 years. When was the last time we weren't in debt. The 1700's or even earlier?
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Post by ssshrew on May 8, 2015 17:03:55 GMT 1
However unpalatable the upcoming cuts may be, they are going to have to happen. We cannot continue to spend more than we earn, I for one do not want to pass on a milestone of spiralling debt to my children and that is the view of the electorate who have endorsed the Tory’s plans for a further 5 years. You are, of course, quite correct in this. But we weren't told before the election what cuts to expect, whether somehow they would be spread evenly between those who have very little, those in the middle and those who have more. Such information would have been useful when deciding on who to vote for. Now we just have to wait and hope the electorate were correct but I won't be holding my breath.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2015 17:08:55 GMT 1
However unpalatable the upcoming cuts may be, they are going to have to happen. We cannot continue to spend more than we earn, I for one do not want to pass on a milestone of spiralling debt to my children and that is the view of the electorate who have endorsed the Tory’s plans for a further 5 years. When was the last time we weren't in debt. The 1700's or even earlier? Being in debt is one thing but to the tune of £1.36 trillion?
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Post by northwestman on May 8, 2015 17:12:30 GMT 1
Mine too but I have read it and, apart from the fact that I a not in planning, it mirrors me almost completely. I have felt really, really, down and apprehensive for the future today. I have felt like this for five years now and blow me I've got another five years of it!!! In my working life, I was a school secretary and I too wasn't a 9-5er. What is happening to our state schools worries me and there will be no fair deal for them in the foreseeable future let alone our local services, NHS, etc. Still one minor consolation when the next lot of cuts bite ..... I can truly say well don't blame me I didn't vote for them. It's worse in Wales. As Lianne Wood has pointed out, Wales is starved of funding compared to Scotland. The Welsh Assembly then has to decide where to make the cuts. This year they've been particularly harsh on Colleges. Loads of staff will be losing their jobs as a result of the Colleges having to make cutbacks. I've retired now, but if I was still working in the public sector I'd certainly feel pressurized. Local government is next on the agenda I believe. The Welsh NHS is already regarded as considerably inferior to the English one. Welsh schoolchildren under perform compared to their English counterparts. And more cuts to come!
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2015 17:17:46 GMT 1
Mine too but I have read it and, apart from the fact that I a not in planning, it mirrors me almost completely. I have felt really, really, down and apprehensive for the future today. I have felt like this for five years now and blow me I've got another five years of it!!! In my working life, I was a school secretary and I too wasn't a 9-5er. What is happening to our state schools worries me and there will be no fair deal for them in the foreseeable future let alone our local services, NHS, etc. Still one minor consolation when the next lot of cuts bite ..... I can truly say well don't blame me I didn't vote for them. It's worse in Wales. As Lianne Wood has pointed out, Wales is starved of funding compared to Scotland. The Welsh Assembly then has to decide where to make the cuts. This year they've been particularly harsh on Colleges. Loads of staff will be losing their jobs as a result of the Colleges having to make cutbacks. I've retired now, but if I was still working in the public sector I'd certainly feel pressurized. Local government is next on the agenda I believe. The Welsh NHS is already regarded as considerably inferior to the English one. Welsh schoolchildren under perform compared to their English counterparts. And more cuts to come! Public expenditure per head in Wales is already 11% higher than the English average, but like you say it's even higher in Scotland and even more so in Northern Ireland. I do fear for my country of birth, I have only recently seen how harder it's getting for my parents to access health and social care in mid Wales. My mum, for example has now been waiting for a new knee for over 16 months after 2 previous planned operations were cancelled due to funding not being available.
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Post by jamo on May 8, 2015 17:25:23 GMT 1
I work as a planner in local government. Not sure where to start really. Democracy yes, but only to a point. Not sure I've ever been this depressed about politics in all my adult life. I have views that spread right across the political spectrum from pretty right wing (immigration, benefits), to pretty left wing (belief in the goodness and value of a well run public sector working for the public good, not for financial ends), but mostly I occupy the middle ground. I've never voted for either the Labour Party or the Conservatives until yesterday, but something absolutely terrifies the life out of me in the present Tory party. Perhaps because I was more concerned about pocket money and playing football the last time they really cocked things up I don't know. I voted Labour because the Liberal Democrats lost me as a voter the moment they went into coalition, and despite the fact that Ed Milliband is a total plonker, and also despite the fact that Labour's reaction to the more right wing dominated coalition has seem them, in opposition, move further left than I am normally politically comfortable with. I also voted Labour despite the fact that I live in rural Suffolk, among the safest Tory seats in the country, so my vote was in effect wasted, meaning another reason why I feel disenfranchised. I have also seen at first hand the effect that right wing politics has had on local government. I don't care about my own job security, whatever will be will be - this is a bigger issue than this. I care about fairness, and equal opportunity, and in serving and protecting those who are otherwise unable to do so or do not have the knowledge and / or power to do so and that is the reason why I chose to work in the public sector. I don't work 6 hours a day for 4 days a week as most right wing commentators would have you believe always happens in the public sector, I'm not a lazy Flartless bureaucrat checking regulations, shuffling papers and stamping plans, I earn less than I could in the private sector, I routinely (as do any number of vast numbers of other equally hard working public servants) work considerably more hours than I am contracted without extra pay. I also see day in and day out the passion and diligence that many of my colleagues genuinely share about making a difference to people's lives, to the benefit of the greater good, not simply to service the bottom line. I now sit here fully expecting to see the complete and total destruction of the public sector as we know it, for wholly ideological reasons, along with further chopping and changing of the planning system. Through sheer dedication, good will, and an overwhelming desire to continue to serve the public good, the sector has struggled on for the past five years. The easy savings have been made, the simple cuts sorted, all in the face of constant criticism, the vast majority of which wholly ideological, from the government. This will intensify now as even harder cuts are demanded and even more unrealistic expectations rain down from some chuckling minister, rubbing his or her hands together at the wonderful thought of totally dismantling the sector entirely. After all, surely the market is the best place to sort out the housing crisis?! Wrong! How on earth will our kids be even able to afford to rent, let alone buy, in the face of policies which continue to favour a housebuilding and construction sector which has long has this government completely in its pocket, as if short term 'growth' for short term political gain is somehow better than a sustainable and long term sorting out of a problem of gigantic proportions, and which is only going to get a whole lot worse. I see the effects of it every day in my professional life, where every time policy expects the public good to miss out, for the sake of 'growth', as if putting slightly more money in the bank balance of Barratts or Persimmon (other house builders are available of course) will suddenly solve the country's problems and they'll all fall over themselves to build the houses we need, in the places we need them, and at prices that we can afford. With an overworked and understaffed local government being the only thing standing between fairness and rampant commercialism, and with planning facing almost constant criticism and belittlement from central government that will only increase, it's a David and Goliath scenario where David already has both hands tied behind his back and Eric Pickles sitting on his shoulders. I have absolutely no doubt that I will be working in the private sector at the end of this parliament. I'll either be working in an outsourced department for local government or else cuts and changes, and criticism and morale will all be such that I'll have given up on wanting to do something because it's the right thing to do, for the greater good and the benefit of all, and simply moved into the private sector. The most frustrating part of all this is actually that 'I am alright Jack', so I should be delighted with a right wing government. I own a five bedroom detached house in the middle of the beautiful Suffolk countryside worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, the value of which is only going to go one way. I have a mortgage in five figures and plenty of equity to downsize and support my kids on the housing ladder when the time comes. BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. I wouldn't work in local government if I didn't passionately believe in doing the right thing. Not to control and restrict and prevaricate, or to stifle enterprise and development, but to offer an effective and wholly necessary check and balance to make sure that opportunity to benefit is available to all as a simple and fundamental premise of fairness. I think this will all be very quickly destroyed if we're not careful, most likely before those that I seek to protect and support every day in the job that I do even know it That's difficult to read , for a couple of reasons ! but it absolutely bang on the money. Clearly The Tories were better at delivering their message than were Labour and to the victor the spoils but just what will happen to our county now with this particular government in office and a local council that quite frankly operates on a similar system to North Korea God only knows.
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Post by jamo on May 8, 2015 18:06:22 GMT 1
I never want to see Labour in power again I find that a puzzling comment Stutty. The alternative is a One Party State ( there is no alternative to either a Tory or Labour Government ) Any democracy worth its salt needs checks and balances and this system we have - as flawed as some would have us believe - gives us the best possible chance of saying to a particular Government that we don't like what they have done. Potentially this result will give us a chance to have real alternatives in the future, of course that's only if The Labour Party can sort themselves out. Big if !
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Post by Red Rose In Exile on May 8, 2015 18:22:07 GMT 1
Time for a PR debate me thinks
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Post by Red Rose In Exile on May 8, 2015 18:31:50 GMT 1
It's worse in Wales. As Lianne Wood has pointed out, Wales is starved of funding compared to Scotland. The Welsh Assembly then has to decide where to make the cuts. This year they've been particularly harsh on Colleges. Loads of staff will be losing their jobs as a result of the Colleges having to make cutbacks. I've retired now, but if I was still working in the public sector I'd certainly feel pressurized. Local government is next on the agenda I believe. The Welsh NHS is already regarded as considerably inferior to the English one. Welsh schoolchildren under perform compared to their English counterparts. And more cuts to come! As somebody with kids in year 10, living in an SY22 (Wales) postcode I have to say yes - loads more cuts to come. I know we don't pay for prescriptions etc, but the spend per head in The Principality is well below the UK average. Plaid Cymru should have gone on the offensive like SNP did. I choose to live here (Lancastrian by birth - hence Red Rose in Exile), but it is time that there was a long hard look and reconsideration about giving power to the provinces - all the Assembly Government has done is introduced another tier of bureaucracy (which costs sheds loads).
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Post by Red Rose In Exile on May 8, 2015 18:32:31 GMT 1
Right signing off now before I start on the Vino and have any rants!!
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Post by highlandshrew on May 8, 2015 18:39:52 GMT 1
Time for a PR debate me thinks We had one 4 years ago and the consensus was to keep what we had!
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Post by venceremos on May 8, 2015 18:46:14 GMT 1
However unpalatable the upcoming cuts may be, they are going to have to happen. We cannot continue to spend more than we earn, I for one do not want to pass on a milestone of spiralling debt to my children and that is the view of the electorate who have endorsed the Tory’s plans for a further 5 years. Not wanting to pick a fight here chaddy but you're talking about a government, not a business. Governments don't "earn" anything and they're not run for profit. All western governments are debt financed and always have been. I think Labour were too soft on the coalition. They should have taken the fight to them on the economy and set about busting the myths that the Tories (and Lib Dems) were allowed to get away with. The coalition hasn't reduced the deficit at all - it's still 6% of GDP, just as it was in 2010. The coalition hasn't reduced the debt at all - it's inreased from 60% of GDP in 2009 to 80% now. Labour isn't the party of high taxation and the Tories of low taxation - since the 1960s, tax as a percentage of GDP has almost never moved outside the range 34-36%. Why did the electorate buy the myth that the deficit and debt are under control when the figures show that's not the case? More to the point, why didn't Labour take the fight to the Tories on its poor management of the economy? I think it was a mistake to focus so much on the NHS and the cuts to come, whilst letting the coalition's poor economic record go unchallenged.
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Post by mattmw on May 8, 2015 18:46:23 GMT 1
There is a need to highlight the difference between the policy changes to meet austerity reasons, and those that are being done purely for ideology
As Jamo and stowmarket shrew have posted the cuts at local government level have primarily been done with no public consultation, often by very small groups of Councillors. In my view its also highly debatable if savings are actually being made
Massive changes to planning, health care delivery, leisure provision, youth clubs, libraries, social care and housing, once decided in the public arena are now decided behind closed doors. Within the next 12 months the future of Telford and Shrewsbury hospitals will get decided with minimal public consultation or ability for the public to influence the decision.
That's not healthy for democracy. Isolate people from the decisions and you have serious long term problems on your hands
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Post by venceremos on May 8, 2015 18:54:04 GMT 1
Right signing off now before I start on the Vino and have any rants!! Glass of red in front of me as I write and the urge to consume a lot more this evening! This is the 9th general election I've voted in and it struck me that Labour has had only one winner in that time (you know who). When he won in 1997 (followed by a glorious, sunny spring day as I recall), it was the first Labour win in 22 years. This win for the Tories (followed by a cold, grey day of relentless heavy rain - we know which side the gods prefer!) is actually their first in 23 years! Doesn't feel like it, but it is. What seems clear is that Labour can't turn left from here if it wants to win another election. It just wouldn't win support in those seats in the Midlands and South that Labour needs to win back. Labour only wins when it turns right and takes the centre ground from the Tories which, for all their faults, Blair and Mandelson were masters at doing. The left won't like it, and I'm not entirely sold on it myself, but a strong, centrist leader is what Labour must find now. It's the best, possibly only, option if they want to win again.
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Post by stfcfan87 on May 8, 2015 19:12:09 GMT 1
However unpalatable the upcoming cuts may be, they are going to have to happen. We cannot continue to spend more than we earn, I for one do not want to pass on a milestone of spiralling debt to my children and that is the view of the electorate who have endorsed the Tory’s plans for a further 5 years. It's the younger generation that are and will continue to suffer! - Have to take on a big loan to go to uni - Higher Unemployment for young people - If they do get a decent job they'll have to pay back thousands from uni days - Virtually impossible to get on the housing market - The NHS as we've known it for years will have been destroyed in a few years - As opposed to being able to retire at 65 they'll be lucky if it's before 70 and then god knows what pension they'll have
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