Loz

Melanie Phillips would only be worth commenting upon if her views weren't completely odious. She was brilliant at contradicting herself - often in the one sentence.

Speaking of QT, did anyone else feel the urge to punch the guy from the New Statesman? Very well informed, but *really* grating way of saying things. Never thought I'd cheer for Heseltine.

I worked in Germany for a while on a project. A colleague received a call one day from a Herr Titz. Her giggled a lot during the call.

Heh, heh. You took the words right out of my mouth... :)-D But there was a serious point to my rather flippant comment. Gender is not a priority for the way most women, or indeed most men, vote. For instance, if your favoured party put forward an identikit white, middle-class lawyer type and, say, the Tories fielded a female candidate, which way would you vote? And the parties know this. All they want/need is a few women and minorities fend off the media (e.g. May and Warsi in the new cabinet).

Oooh. I wish. Partially the first, definitely the second, but sadly not the rest of it. As Meatloaf said, "Two out of three ain't bad". But then he also had a song called 'Bat out of Hell". What'd you do with that mirror, LM? :))

Is that because women are crap at being in the majority? *runs away at a quite astonishing speed*

I take umbrage at this. Most of the stuff I write is regurgitated from yesterday's Cbeebies.

This follows the Australian system, which works rather well. Stable lower house, wider representation in the upper house.

What about the idea of forcing the electorate to elect certain genders?

jenny1840 - are you drunk in charge of a keyboard AGAIN? The sun's hardly over the yardarm.

Yep, have to say the IRA reference jarred with me as well, James.

It surprises me that LibDem supporters would have been happier with a LibLab coalition. Labour made it clear that their manifesto was the only way, so the LibDems would have got nothing into the Queen's Speech. And why would coalition with Labout be seen as 'progressive left', when the modern Labour party is neither? I'd be interested to see where Keef's mate sees himself going next. If he wants to stay on the laft, then the Greens are his only choice, but he was a disenchanted Labour boy all along and I suspect he will return there. And continue to be disenchanted. Politics in this country are pretty narrow - you have the LibDems slightly left of centre, Labour slightly right of centre and the Tories slightly right from them. But there is, in reality, a cigarette paper between the policies across the board. All this 'I hate the Tories' is a silly hangover from the Thatcher years. Not unlike a lot of doubts about Labour still hang over their heads from the 70's. Both are distant history.

I'm not arguing that more women in parliament would be a good thing, LM - it plainly would be. But it is hardly the be-all and end-all of equality. Representative government means more than just gender issues. For instance, I haven't seen to 2010 figures, but the previous parliament had a grand total of 5 black MPs. Five! What has Harman's law done in that area? Sweet FA. Oh and ?Stuffing Parliament with more middle-class, Oxbridge-educated lawyers? is not in the act. But it is firmly enshrined in the Law of Unintended Consequences. Do you really think that the someone like Harriet Harmans really 'represent' the Asian working class women of, say, Bradford, just because she is female?

I can't believe that DJ is caring so much whether the rent hike was 14% or 17%. Pretty insignificant difference. > A political party puts out a leaflet telling voters > that a Labour council WILL transfer housing > mamagement to the team lambeth use to manage their > housing stock. Since you seem to take an interest in such things, what are the new Labour administration's plans for housing management then?

How do you see this as selling out? Considering they came to the table with a mere 57 MPs, I'm not sure of how they could have done any better. Thanks to Labour at least looking like they were interested, I think the LibDems have done better than they'd ever hoped. A good proportion of their manifesto is now part of the coalition manifesto, they have five cabinet ministers and one-third (!) of their MPs are going to get ministerial roles. After years in the political wilderness, they have a chance to put their ideas into practice. And isn't that why people voted LibDem? Or do you think they vote for them to be an ineffective minority voice in opposition. As soemone who did vote for them, I am tremendously pleased. The Tory's ability to manage the economy with the LIbDem as their social conscience. As they say, it's crazy, but it just might work. What did you expect them to do, tomk? Team up with five different parties into an unworkable coalition, or sit down with the Tories and hammer out a solid and credible plan for government? The Tory/LibDem coalition may or may not come off. The 'traffic light' coalition was doomed to failure. And, believe it or not, it's good for Labour. Any party in government for too long becomes tired and bereft of ideas, and the past Labour administration was no exception. A period in opposition will allow them to strip away the dead wood and come back refreshed under one of the Milibands. That is, unless the are stupid enough to elect Ed Balls.

I am just loving the Civil Liberties section. 13 years of authoritarian, big brother government to be rolled back. The UK is rolling back the police state.

Harman was never deputy PM. She was only deputy leader of the party. I think Gordon thought 'it's Mad Hattie or nobody for deputy PM, considered the issue and plumped for nobody as the better option. At least until Mandy made a comeback.

Mick Mac - are you insinuating that the Queen swings both ways? Or did she go without through the Thatcher years?

Harman's equality bill called more for all-women shortlists. Stuffing Parliament with more middle-class, Oxbridge-educated lawyers - male or female - will hardly improve things. I would suggest that more 'non-lawyer' and 'non-Oxbridge' lists would lead to more equality in Parliament. Possibly even the occasional 'working-class only' shortlist wouldn't go astray, either.

Apparently Labour said, 'here's our manifesto', whereas the Tories were willing to bring the Tory and LibDem manifesto in negotiations. On the bright side, a Tory/LibDem coalition is really good news for civil liberties. We may actually get some now.

While politically that may make sense, LM, I'm afraid that stability-wise, blue-yellow is the better option. For Lib/Lab to work, it will still need the SDLP plus the Scottish nationalist and probably the Welsh nationalists, and there will be a price to be paid for that. Which will leave England to pretty much bear the brunt of upcoming cost cutting.

I think that the authorities should pay you the amount of the ticket if it overturned. At the moment there is no reason for councils to reduce the number of false tickets. Currently, at the very worst, they just don't get the fine, so there is no disincentive. It's a bit like having the penalty for robbing a bank as 'you don't get to keep the loot'.

I'd be wary, Nunhead people - something has to give to pay for all the free meals for the middle class kids.

I also read somewhere that scantily clad LibDems are responsible for earthquakes.

Duncan, Personally, I was giving DavidH quite a bit of stick because, as far as I could establish, he was being a disingenuous git. "Oooh, these poor underpaid Polish workers" - yeah, right. He was only concerned because it involved LibDem leaflets. Is he following up with the right authorities (that does not mean his mates in the local Labour chapter) to ensure that the minimum wage is being paid to the workers? Now that the election is over, if you, Duncan, want to follow this up and check if this company is underpaying its workers, then you have my full backing. But, if you want to make an issue out of this to use as a stick to beat another political party with, then I suspect you will get much the same response. PS I hope you weren't the idiot racing around in the car harassing the other leaflet deliverers.