Five Labour Pledges

[Keef]

*Bob* Wrote:

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The Three Chancellors debate..

George Osborne. Good god. On a superficial level (remembering that superficiality accounts for a good third of crosses in boxes when it comes to the GE) he was every inch the oily, dead-fish-eyed, insincere caricature that the Tories are desperate not to be seen as.

As regards the position he wants to apply for: he came across as an examination 'crammer' trying to recall his four sheets of A4 (with highlighted sections) rather than someone who even seems interested in the job, let alone knowledgeable on the subject.

Spot on!

Thought Vince Gable sounded like the one who knew what he was talking about, but he lost points for me, by his little swipes at the other two. I thought Alistair Darling came across best to be honest.

[????]

I have a sneaking regard for AD not least in his patience. If I were him I'd have rammed my budget up his neighbours arse quite a few months ago...I think it's quite funny that he's got Gordon by the short and Curlies as last year Gordon was going to ditch him and had his rotweillers brief the press about this. Then when there were a whole load of resignations Gordon had to about turn them and absolutely denied it (ADs sacking) to the press corps at Westminster on the same day he'd banged on about his upbringing and how his dad had steeped him in honesty. They knew he was lying and so did he...on that day the media at Westminster lost respect for Brown which is partly why he has liitle support among the political media. This man will do anything to get elected I personally can't stand him.

[Keef]

I used to feel really sorry for him, and think that he was actually the right man for the job, just left in a mess by Blair.

I still think he was left in a mess by Blair, but basically, I have lost faith in him. He is arrogant, and seems oblivious to what people want.

However, when George Osborne tries to put himself across as the voice of the masses, I can't help but laugh. I don't think he or DC would have the first clue what the masses think or feel.

[Brendan]

And therein we have the problem with ?New Labour? they are a vote winning factory and their policy therefore reflects what they can do to win votes from where in order to keep themselves in power with bugger all joined up thinking or regard for what may actually be best for society

[Brendan]

???? Wrote:

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> Gordon was going to

> ditch him and had his rotweillers brief the press

Or as put by his wife when she heard of the plots to axe Al, ?The fucking cunts are trying to stictch up Alistair! The cunts! I can?t believe they?re such cunts!?

[katie1997]

Keef Wrote:

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> *Bob* Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> The Three Chancellors debate..

>

> George Osborne. Good god. On a superficial level

> (remembering that superficiality accounts for a

> good third of crosses in boxes when it comes to

> the GE) he was every inch the oily,

> dead-fish-eyed, insincere caricature that the

> Tories are desperate not to be seen as.

>

> As regards the position he wants to apply for: he

> came across as an examination 'crammer' trying to

> recall his four sheets of A4 (with highlighted

> sections) rather than someone who even seems

> interested in the job, let alone knowledgeable on

> the subject.

>

>

> Spot on!

>

> Thought Vince Gable sounded like the one who knew

> what he was talking about, but he lost points for

> me, by his little swipes at the other two. I

> thought Alistair Darling came across best to be

> honest.

I'll third that - spot on. I never thought I would say that about AD either...

[Marmora Man]

Brendan Wrote:

You have just in your last paragraph unintentionally displayed one of the attitudes which spark these caricatures by saying, ??they are the only option.? This echoes George Osborne?s closing comment last nigh, comes across as dismissive of the other options and belies a certain arrogance which people find objectionable and which makes it very easy to form negative opinions.

I did caveat my comment by stating "I still believe" - I didn't state it as a "fact". So to that extent I don't believe I was displaying arrogance - just expressing an opinion

There is a reliance on this dismissive arrogance in both the Conservative and Labour campaigns because it is their only argument that are any better equipped to run a government than the Liberal Democrats (an aside regarding my current political decisions) when the only evidence for this is that that they both have more money for a bigger PR campaigns. This further seems to indicate an attitude that representation should be directly proportional to how much money you have.

The political reality of this election and most since 1930 is that the Liberal party or LibDem party will be condemned to third place. It is not arrogance on George Osbourne's part to point this out - tho' it was, perhaps, a little patronising.

But this is just one example of where this caricature of conservatives comes from. My own experience, for what it?s worth, of people who support the Conservative Party in the uk is that they display little of what I believed Conservatism to be i.e. a belief in good values and personal responsibility but rather they delight in the arrogance of wealth and the only

thing they seem concerned about conserving is privilege. All you need to do is have a few chats with people in the City and around Whitehall to see this.

On this Brendan we do differ - I have met many Conservative voters and Conservative politicians. They range from our local candidate - a deeply moral man who has spent the last 10 years working on a sink estate paid far less than the minimum wage to help the poor, deprived, poorly educated and other residents of his community in many ways - including tackling drug and knife crime, to some city "fat cats" but including on the way university lecturers, school teachers, doctors, nurses, porters, mechanics and engineers, chefs and so on. I would like to think that you would find all of them rational, sensible, caring and thinking members of society with whom you would enjoy a glass of beer or wine and find them amusing and pleasant company.

[*Bob*]

'The only option' for most people in the UK ought to be the Lib Dems, but they'll still vote Labour or Conservative.

Stop them in the street and ask them what their main concern is. Hear them bleat about the war; but they won't vote for the only party that opposed it. Or about the economy; but they'll still dismiss the only ones who warned about it well before it happened. Or about MP's expenses - despite the LDs being the party least tainted by the scandal by a long chalk.

No. They'll vote Labour or Tory. Cameron or Brown - that's who they'll get. They don't deserve any better.

[Brendan]

Marmora Man Wrote:

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> On this Brendan we do differ - I have met many

> Conservative voters and Conservative politicians.

> They range from our local candidate - a deeply

> moral man who has spent the last 10 years working

> on a sink estate paid far less than the minimum

> wage to help the poor, deprived, poorly educated

> and other residents of his community in many ways

> - including tackling drug and knife crime, to some

> city "fat cats" but including on the way

> university lecturers, school teachers, doctors,

> nurses, porters, mechanics and engineers, chefs

> and so on. I would like to think that you would

> find all of them rational, sensible, caring and

> thinking members of society with whom you would

> enjoy a glass of beer or wine and find them

> amusing and pleasant company.

I don?t disagree with you. I do know some very decent Conservatives (some of the older members of my family for instance who routinely put the needs of others before their own) I also know some arrogant and unpleasant Labour supporters.

I am perhaps a victim of my environment on this though. I spend my days surrounded by policy wonks (ie aspiring career politicians) and lawyers. So these are the fires in which my opinions have been forged and they have tempered them to an edge of barbed cynicism.

[Brendan]

Anyway the point I suppose is that a lot of the argument against the Conservatives is ad hominem (if that is the correct term) in the same manner (different reasons obviously) that much of the argument against the Lib Dems also is.

[SeanMacGabhann]

*Bob*

It isn't quite fair to place the blame solely on voters with that one - i have lived in many a constituency where voting for (in most cases) LibDem - but just as often Labour or Tory where the likelyhood if it having any effect is minimal

If I vote libdem in, say, east Ham, I'm simply ensuring the Labour candidate wins. But if I vote Tory I MIGHT effect a change of MP. But if I vote LibDem.... nada

[m7post]

so I'm just wondering with the levels of dissatisfaction expressed by many above, with their own and other people's parties, - what conclusions has anyone come to? As a nonaligned person I struggle to find any reason to vote for the parties and characters discussed above. I wonder if many people voted on personal conscience - rather than traditions of political conscience - what the result would be - would those parties deemed to be unrealistic and small come to the front - or would it encourage enough of us to create something new - with out all the historic/rhetorical/political baggage?

[Huguenot]

I don't think it's either practical or necessary to start something new - it'd just be chucking the baby out with the bathwater.

I do think all of these issues would be resolved by Single Transferable Vote (that's where if your first choice candidate doesn't get in, your vote goes to your second choice and so on until someone get's elected).

It means you can vote Lib Dem first without the consequence being that your last preference gets in as a result. You'd probably actually get a Lib Dem candidate in if everyone wasn't so scared.

Much more centralist and delivery focused.

[m7post]

Personally I do think that it's long overdue that the entrenched political parties - who seem to do little more than tinker with the status-quo when power swings between them - should be challenged for their undeserved strangle hold on power. As many instances of recent years have shown - just having different tinkerers from the same old inadequate system - results in continued inequality, hideous foreign policy blunders and near financial melt down.

I do though agree with Huguenot on the need for electoral reform - I think this is critical to address the issues of one's vote counting for something - being able to have one's vote be more useful than just a tactical position to achieve little more than the least worst result/option. So yes some sort of single transferrable vote and proportional representation is a must isn't it?

So should I from this, whilst under the current non-representative(for those not aligned to main parties) vote for the bunch / combination most likely to be able to bring in / be sympathetic to a positive change in the electoral system?

[*Bob*]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

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> *Bob*

>

> It isn't quite fair to place the blame solely on

> voters with that one - ... if I vote LibDem.... nada

But I do blame them, for this very reason. An election can have any outcome, should the electorate care to stop being such mindless candy-assed drones and continue voting for one of the usual two parties who they don't really like, simply in order to try to keep the other one out, who they like slightly less.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Obviously I agree with you *B* but I've done it often enough to know I'm wasting my time. I can't MAKE other people do the same

m7post - one of the reasons teh current parties "seem to do little more than tinker with the status-quo when power swings between them" is that to manage this many people IS a balancing act and most voters tend to not want things to change too much.

This is where I come back and agree with *Bob* fundamentally - blame the voters, not the politicians

Any individual can easily jump up and down and say how cross they are, and in so doing they attract other cross people whothen collectively think they represent a majority. But they are just cross people

[Brendan]

Complaining, that?s my job. Fixing is another department.

[m7post]

Hi Sean

So for those of us who do want things to change more than 'not too much' - how do we get a change ?

Blame is surely a mute point when it comes to politics - we have what we have either by our positive endorsement or inactivity. Blame is a backward facing perspective is it not?

Looking forward, how do we break the status-quo ? Though it's comfortable to have a familiar system despite all it's faults - it's not really in any of our interest to keep supporting a faulty system is it?

[Brendan]

m7post Wrote:

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> So for those of us who do want things to change

> more than 'not too much' - how do we get a change ?

Vote for wotsisname. I am.

[*Bob*]

Yeah. Vote Thingy.

[m7post]

Brendan and Bob -

wotsisname & thingy?

[Huguenot]

m7, i think the whole point about democracy is that minorities who want to enact change against the wishes of the majority don't get to do it!

[m7post]

Huguenot - hello

"i think the whole point about democracy is that minorities who want to enact change against the wishes of the majority don't get to do it!"

- yes I think we all think we know that - though - first past the post does not often create a scenario where government is supported by anything like the majority - so the paradox there is that the staus-quo is maintained by the vote of the minority - yes?

[Marmora Man]

Huguenot Wrote:

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m7, i think the whole point about democracy is that minorities who want to enact change against the wishes of the majority don't get to do it!

Unless of course they can create a majority by persuasion, good arguments, marketing, strong feeling. There are precedents - suffragettes, universal democracy, the "original" welfare state argument.

[SeanMacGabhann]

A very good point Marmora Man - but I'm not sure about the examples. I suspect they all had majority backing, but the majority was denied access to the levers of power

I'm not so sure what m7post is FOR - I have a fair idea of what he is against but I'm not seeing much in the way of "persuasion, good arguments, marketing, strong feeling"