Election Poll: Round 2

Post by **Jedburgh** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:09 pm 0

A little over halfway through the campaign, now. Let's see if the figures have changed at all. It's scientific, probably. Added Respect and Monster Raving Loony for those that want them.

Zen-Chan · Post by **Zen-Chan** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 10:20 pm 0

I have actually switched - from Conservative to Lib Dem for the first time in my life.

Bluey · Post by **Bluey** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:43 am 0

I'm lib dem-ing by proxy* (thanks mummy), although I'd prefer to vote for Jed, cos he'd do a better job at running the country, imho.

(*I'll still be in Oz when the voting takes place ya see..)

VOTE JEDBURGH FOR PRIME MINISTER!
The Screaming Raving Yakyak party

laptoplover · Post by **laptoplover** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 9:01 am 0

Zen-Chan wrote:I have actually switched - from Conservative to Lib Dem for the first time in my life.

This is good. It means that there are people out there still willing to keep an open mind and are actually listenning to what is being said and not just voting for the same people they did last time and the time before and the time before that.

betamax · Post by **betamax** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 9:03 am 0

Bluey wrote:I'm lib dem-ing by proxy* (thanks mummy), although I'd prefer to vote for Jed, cos he'd do a better job at running the country, imho.

(*I'll still be in Oz when the voting takes place ya see..)

VOTE JEDBURGH FOR PRIME MINISTER!
The Screaming Raving Yakyak party

A sound notion. He does a good job of ruling the forum. An iron fist in a titanium glove....

DutchLlama · Post by **DutchLlama** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:03 am 0

Jedburgh wrote:A little over halfway through the campaign, now. Let's see if the figures have changed at all. It's scientific, probably. Added Respect and Monster Raving Loony for those that want them.

A mate of mine who lives in the London area wants to vote for some outfit called the Rainbow Dream Party becuz there's nobody else he wants to support and he wants to vote for something, not abstain (and because they want to abolish all MP's and introduce democracy by referendum).

So how about adding them too?

koworld · Post by **koworld** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:39 am 0

If the Greens weren't so rabidly anti business I'd switch to them. I really like their policies on education, health, immigration and so on.

And even though Oliver Letwin is a fucking dipstick, and even though the party has John Redwood in it, and even though Howard is a race-card playing prick - I think I might have to switch from Lib to Con. I've so wanted the Lib dems to say 'something' but it just isn't happening here.

Then again, I want the Tory's to get a sound kicking so that they might just re-shuffle again in a positive way this time.

I got really quite angry listening to Ken Clarke on Any Questions the other day because I found myself supporting everything he said. On everything. Even the labour rep, and then the Lib rep, at different points quietly asked him 'When are you going to join us then - you're not a tory.' and he didn't deny it.

EDIT

Mind you, this carries a lot of clout for me:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1370066.html?menu=

littledrummerboy · Post by **littledrummerboy** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:58 am 0

OH VERIIIIIIIIIIITAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSS

aureole · Post by **aureole** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:01 pm 0

Ditto your sentiments. I'm getting increasingly disenfranchised, as I'm broadly liberal on moral issues and conservative on finacial issues, or rather, I'm weakly libertarian and a big fan of small government. So I don't have much of a choice this time round.

The Tories plans to control the housing market by scrapping Stamp Duty are asinine and are going to totally bugger up the small steps that have been taking place to cool the market to allow the interest rate drop that most of the rest of the economy needs. Also, I find their current stance on immigration offensive in the extreme.

Labour are a no-no just for their love of PPP/PFI and big government, and their irksome habit of legislating moral issues, although "Vote Blair, Get Brown" isn't something I'd be too bothered by. Also, there are massive trust issues on the major points of the campaign and some large civil-liberty issues I'm not so keen about either.

And the Lib Dems don't seem to have much to offer me either. Their spending bonanza seems to be mostly misguided to me, and I'm a little icky about their plans to court/bribe the grey vote: I'm not convinced you can or should buy your way out of a pensions crisis, and the local income tax doesn't seem a great idea to me.

So with little enthusiasm, I'm going for a weak Lib Dem vote.

koworld · Post by **koworld** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:06 pm 0

Fuck me, that could have been exactly my post.

I reckon there are a lot of us semi-libertarians just waiting for somebody to come along and represent us.

Acronym · Post by **Acronym** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:12 pm 0

I have 25-minute long radio-format interviews with each of the major-party candidates in Cambridge sitting on minidiscs. I'll be turning them into mp3s and posting them to the web (and broadcasting them on the student radio station).

They do a pretty good job of breaking down party policy - the candidates in Cambridge are all exceptionally lucid people. I was very impressed, even when I was having to stifle the urge to scream *but that's total bollocks!* at them (which happened with each of them at least once, mainly because I'm an opinionated bugger.)

They'll be worth a listen, anyway.

Re. Ken Clarke: he's representative of pro-euro One-Nation Conservatism; basically the Tory party pre-Thatcher. A throwback to a gentler age, in many ways...

TFO · Post by **TFO** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:07 pm 0

aureole wrote:I'm not convinced you can or should buy your way out of a pensions crisis

There is no way out of it. Governments know this, and know that the time bomb will go bang in about 30 years' time. Sure they can blame Thatcher for it, but she'll be long dead by then.
The bottom line is that there will be too many old people with not enough money in the pot to support them, and most average people's private pension will never amount to enough.
The Tory suggestion of forcing people to save is a joke, and will benefit only those who have shit loads of money anyway (i.e. the core Tory voters).

The whole issue scares me. I save what I can afford to - but with a mortgage and 2 kids, I cannot think too far ahead - the hear and now is reality. My missus doesn't save anything, and what I will have as a pension is not enough to support me (as it currently stands), let alone 2 of us.

Post by **gribbles** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:21 pm 0

FWIW, I've always quite liked Ken Clarke. Well, when I say liked I guess I mean not actively disliked. He often seemed to make sense. Well, when I say sense I guess I mean more sense than other politicians.

Anyway, I'll be another weak Lib vote. I broadly like the policies in the main. I just wish that they showed a stronger leadership. But then when you look at strong leaders in the last 20 years, that brings up Thatcher and Blair.
I keep searching for the policies from any party that will make me go 'Hell, YES! You've got my vote'. But they're just not there. But I'll vote. I may not feel totally happy or comfortable with it, but I will.

Meh.

sty · Post by **sty** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:36 pm 0

The Frozen One wrote:
aureole wrote:I'm not convinced you can or should buy your way out of a pensions crisis
There is no way out of it. Governments know this, and know that the time bomb will go bang in about 30 years' time. Sure they can blame Thatcher for it, but she'll be long dead by then.
The bottom line is that there will be too many old people with not enough money in the pot to support them, and most average people's private pension will never amount to enough.
The Tory suggestion of forcing people to save is a joke, and will benefit only those who have shit loads of money anyway (i.e. the core Tory voters).

The whole issue scares me. I save what I can afford to - but with a mortgage and 2 kids, I cannot think too far ahead - the hear and now is reality. My missus doesn't save anything, and what I will have as a pension is not enough to support me (as it currently stands), let alone 2 of us.

This also scared me, and in all honesty isn't really being addressed by any party.

My pensions contributions have been worthless it seems, and I have cancelled them all.

When I was originally paying into them they were progressing nicely, however with the changes that have occurred in the economy in the last 8 years they have turned out to be useless. None of my other savings plans have recovered from the post 9/11 market crash, which combined with me being made redundant have pretty much buggered them as well.

So I'm off, leaving, quitting the country, taking my equity and starting again somewhere where I can invest and save and hopefully have a happy retirement and leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren.

aureole · Post by **aureole** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 1:54 pm 0

The Frozen One wrote:
aureole wrote:I'm not convinced you can or should buy your way out of a pensions crisis
There is no way out of it. Governments know this, and know that the time bomb will go bang in about 30 years' time. Sure they can blame Thatcher for it, but she'll be long dead by then.
The Tory suggestion of forcing people to save is a joke, and will benefit only those who have shit loads of money anyway (i.e. the core Tory voters).

.... unless, of course you were to (say) actively encourage economic migration which gets you a lot of workers paying NI who (in the majority of cases) oblidgingly return to their home countries and don't claim a pension.

The other way to leverage it is via the equity that people have held in their homes to support a pension, but that's not exactly a vote-winner

.

YakYak

Election Poll: Round 2

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Election Poll: Round 2

Re: Election Poll: Round 2