All parties have fringe members who make a loony comment but that doesn't make it party policy so they shouldn't really be of any concern. Look at Jim Murphy who has been contradicted on nearly every promise he made during the TV debate by his own party's leadership and by Labour's standards he's not even a loony.
i find labour about as far from intune or representive of the working man as possible
I could never vote conservative.
I find this so frustrating and one of the reasons why politics falls down a little in this country. There are a big percentage of people that will always be red or always be blue regardless of anything, and would never give any consideration to 'the other lot'.
Electing a government is not like supporting a football team, which so many take the approach to. Your local representative changes, leaders change, cabinets change, policies change.
The days where major parties were poles apart are in history, there is a fag paper in the grand scheme of things between the major parties of what they would actually do in power.
Find it a shame that the governance of this country is basically down to those who take an open mind and prepared to float with their vote, and the percentage of those never-changers that bother to turn out or not.
Just wish our voting brief was more dynamic and rewarding / punishing on achievements / non achievements
I still see your point but I disagree that there are insubstantial differences between Labour and Conservatives. There's a lot of rhetorically nonsense thrown around by all parties but if you look at the recent manifesto announcements there are still fundamental differences between them.
Would Labour use the local authority budget to subsidise a reduction in the availability of affordable housing for example? Or the Tories freeze utility bills? There's still plenty of differences when one starts to look beyond the meaningless "hardworking families", "fairer society" platitudes imo.
In saying this I don't blame people for voting for the party that best fits their personal situation btw that's a perfectly understandable position to take.
All parties have fringe members who make a loony comment but that doesn't make it party policy so they shouldn't really be of any concern. Look at Jim Murphy who has been contradicted on nearly every promise he made during the TV debate by his own party's leadership and by Labour's standards he's not even a loony.
Completely agree but it seems like cafcfan was defending the indefensible there. A total crackpot idea that is very offensive.
i find labour about as far from intune or representive of the working man as possible
I could never vote conservative.
I find this so frustrating and one of the reasons why politics falls down a little in this country. There are a big percentage of people that will always be red or always be blue regardless of anything, and would never give any consideration to 'the other lot'.
Electing a government is not like supporting a football team, which so many take the approach to. Your local representative changes, leaders change, cabinets change, policies change.
The days where major parties were poles apart are in history, there is a fag paper in the grand scheme of things between the major parties of what they would actually do in power.
Find it a shame that the governance of this country is basically down to those who take an open mind and prepared to float with their vote, and the percentage of those never-changers that bother to turn out or not.
Just wish our voting brief was more dynamic and rewarding / punishing on achievements / non achievements
but if you look at the recent manifesto announcements there are still fundamental differences between them.
'manifesto pledges', then, yes. 'What they actually do in power', then no imo
i find labour about as far from intune or representive of the working man as possible
I could never vote conservative.
I find this so frustrating and one of the reasons why politics falls down a little in this country. There are a big percentage of people that will always be red or always be blue regardless of anything, and would never give any consideration to 'the other lot'.
Electing a government is not like supporting a football team, which so many take the approach to. Your local representative changes, leaders change, cabinets change, policies change.
The days where major parties were poles apart are in history, there is a fag paper in the grand scheme of things between the major parties of what they would actually do in power.
Find it a shame that the governance of this country is basically down to those who take an open mind and prepared to float with their vote, and the percentage of those never-changers that bother to turn out or not.
Just wish our voting brief was more dynamic and rewarding / punishing on achievements / non achievements
fuckin ay.
Throughout this campaign i've warmed to miliband, he seems like he's that hopeless weirdo at school that's trying desperately to do the right thing. I've always had a soft spot for weirdos and outcasts, a lot of my friends are like that, including myself! It's made me consider voting labour on that alone, however memories are not short and i'm not much of a fan of some of their policies.
Stop supporting political parties like they're football teams. Unfortunately i'm not sure that will happen with unions heavily donating to labour and the mega rich heavily donating to the tories. Personally i'm against individual donations, I'd much rather an independent body dealt out appropriate funds for the largest 4-5 parties in the uk at the same level and then from there on staggered down for smaller parties. But, that's open for abuse and even just typing it out it seemed like a pretty flawed idea. Ahhh well.
I don't think the manifestos are anything like they used to be, no real issues, just tinkering around the edges. Not like say in the 1940s when the NHS really was a defining policy separating the main parties.
Today the Government has too much influence on our day to day lives. Forget if that's good or bad, the fact is that it creates hundreds of angles for politicians to market their wares in an effort to buy votes and that's all the manifesto is. There is no one big issue, apart from Europe, and they carefully sidestep that.
The NHS is seen as the biggest concern for voters. What is the real difference in the parties? I see the differences as a largely artificially created divide. We've gone beyond the need to argue for the sort of social reforms needed 60 years ago. No one is going to get rid of the NHS with its principle of "free at the point of delivery" until we run out of money. We could spend 100% of our GDP on health services and there would probably still be gaps in care needs. Anyone who thinks compromises don't have to be made by whichever party is governing is deluding themselves. Compromises can't actually be talked about, so both parties move the debate to how much they will spend, even though neither have shown how the £8bn shortfall being faced can be bridged. Instead of acknowledging that voters concern is about running out of money it's turned into a threat of privatisation.
Frankly I don't think there is a fag paper between the parties on the NHS as it will affect the users, it will be good in parts, bad in parts, and different services constantly leapfrogging for higher ratings as spending moves around racing to stand still.
In the long term I think the Tories focus on needing to generate more growth to pay for the NHS is more sensible compared to the Labour stance of finding more taxes to meet escalating costs.
If GPs weren't self employed, if much of the staff working in the NHS were not employed by agencies and the hospitals weren't owned by construction companies I might understand the nonsense spouted about save our NHS from privatisation and vote labour.
All I want is to get treated well, I don't give a hoot who employs the person who gives me pills or cuts me up and stitches me back together again. The fact that I pay private health insurance for the cost of a Big Mac meal a day is a reflection of my past bad experiences with the NHS and its staff, but I still need the NHS with its GPs and A&E services, and my views on the NHS being free at the point of delivery are unaffected. I don't see the profit motive as any more a problem than the existing problem within the NHS of turkeys not voting for Xmas and reducing waste and inefficiency.
Just like PFI was a Tory idea that only a Labour government would get away with and completely messed up, we will eventually stumble into privatisation on the back of an ill though out plan pushed through under the radar by Labour without any national debate or electoral consensus. I would rather the parties agreed to have a cross party review of modernisation of the NHS with and without private health care as an element and then the parties decide which they support and we vote for it in the knowledge of the pros and cons, the risks and rewards.
i find labour about as far from intune or representive of the working man as possible
I could never vote conservative.
I find this so frustrating and one of the reasons why politics falls down a little in this country. There are a big percentage of people that will always be red or always be blue regardless of anything, and would never give any consideration to 'the other lot'.
Electing a government is not like supporting a football team, which so many take the approach to. Your local representative changes, leaders change, cabinets change, policies change.
The days where major parties were poles apart are in history, there is a fag paper in the grand scheme of things between the major parties of what they would actually do in power.
Find it a shame that the governance of this country is basically down to those who take an open mind and prepared to float with their vote, and the percentage of those never-changers that bother to turn out or not.
Just wish our voting brief was more dynamic and rewarding / punishing on achievements / non achievements
I still see your point but I disagree that there are insubstantial differences between Labour and Conservatives. There's a lot of rhetorically nonsense thrown around by all parties but if you look at the recent manifesto announcements there are still fundamental differences between them.
Would Labour use the local authority budget to subsidise a reduction in the availability of affordable housing for example? Or the Tories freeze utility bills? There's still plenty of differences when one starts to look beyond the meaningless "hardworking families", "fairer society" platitudes imo.
In saying this I don't blame people for voting for the party that best fits their personal situation btw that's a perfectly understandable position to take.
@Bournemouth Addick thanks for sharing. I like the odd mainline policy from each party's key pledges, which were
CONS 30 hours of free childcare per week for working parents of 3&4-year-olds Extra £8bn above inflation for the NHS by 2020 Eliminate the deficit and be running a surplus by the end of the Parliament
LAB Freeze energy bills until 2017 and give energy regulator new powers to cut bills this winter
LIB Invest £8bn in the NHS. Equal care for mental & physical health Balance the budget fairly through a mixture of cuts and taxes on higher earners Five new laws to protect nature and fight climate change
UKIP Control immigration with points system, limit of 50,000 skilled workers a year and a five-year ban on unskilled immigration
GREEN £85bn programme of home insulation, renewable electricity generation & flood defences Provide 500,000 social homes for rent by 2020 and control rent levels
so if I just took a tally on these, my vote would either go to the Lib Dems or Conservatives, if I did it on how many I agree with, not how strongly I felt about each issue.
I'm going to have a look at the housing policies of each of them in a bit more detail, as that is a key issue for me
I don't think the manifestos are anything like they used to be, no real issues, just tinkering around the edges. Not like say in the 1940s when the NHS really was a defining policy separating the main parties.
Today the Government has too much influence on our day to day lives. Forget if that's good or bad, the fact is that it creates hundreds of angles for politicians to market their wares in an effort to buy votes and that's all the manifesto is. There is no one big issue, apart from Europe, and they carefully sidestep that.
The NHS is seen as the biggest concern for voters. What is the real difference in the parties? I see the differences as a largely artificially created divide. We've gone beyond the need to argue for the sort of social reforms needed 60 years ago. No one is going to get rid of the NHS with its principle of "free at the point of delivery" until we run out of money. We could spend 100% of our GDP on health services and there would probably still be gaps in care needs. Anyone who thinks compromises don't have to be made by whichever party is governing is deluding themselves. Compromises can't actually be talked about, so both parties move the debate to how much they will spend, even though neither have shown how the £8bn shortfall being faced can be bridged. Instead of acknowledging that voters concern is about running out of money it's turned into a threat of privatisation.
Frankly I don't think there is a fag paper between the parties on the NHS as it will affect the users, it will be good in parts, bad in parts, and different services constantly leapfrogging for higher ratings as spending moves around racing to stand still.
In the long term I think the Tories focus on needing to generate more growth to pay for the NHS is more sensible compared to the Labour stance of finding more taxes to meet escalating costs.
If GPs weren't self employed, if much of the staff working in the NHS were not employed by agencies and the hospitals weren't owned by construction companies I might understand the nonsense spouted about save our NHS from privatisation and vote labour.
All I want is to get treated well, I don't give a hoot who employs the person who gives me pills or cuts me up and stitches me back together again. The fact that I pay private health insurance for the cost of a Big Mac meal a day is a reflection of my past bad experiences with the NHS and its staff, but I still need the NHS with its GPs and A&E services, and my views on the NHS being free at the point of delivery are unaffected. I don't see the profit motive as any more a problem than the existing problem within the NHS of turkeys not voting for Xmas and reducing waste and inefficiency.
Just like PFI was a Tory idea that only a Labour government would get away with and completely messed up, we will eventually stumble into privatisation on the back of an ill though out plan pushed through under the radar by Labour without any national debate or electoral consensus. I would rather the parties agreed to have a cross party review of modernisation of the NHS with and without private health care as an element and then the parties decide which they support and we vote for it in the knowledge of the pros and cons, the risks and rewards.
My wife's recently changed jobs. Her PMI is laughable, and that is meant to be one of the better schemes. So many exclusions and restrictions. I shudder to think of the cost of really good healthcare
i find labour about as far from intune or representive of the working man as possible
I could never vote conservative.
I find this so frustrating and one of the reasons why politics falls down a little in this country. There are a big percentage of people that will always be red or always be blue regardless of anything, and would never give any consideration to 'the other lot'.
Electing a government is not like supporting a football team, which so many take the approach to. Your local representative changes, leaders change, cabinets change, policies change.
The days where major parties were poles apart are in history, there is a fag paper in the grand scheme of things between the major parties of what they would actually do in power.
Find it a shame that the governance of this country is basically down to those who take an open mind and prepared to float with their vote, and the percentage of those never-changers that bother to turn out or not.
Just wish our voting brief was more dynamic and rewarding / punishing on achievements / non achievements
I still see your point but I disagree that there are insubstantial differences between Labour and Conservatives. There's a lot of rhetorically nonsense thrown around by all parties but if you look at the recent manifesto announcements there are still fundamental differences between them.
Would Labour use the local authority budget to subsidise a reduction in the availability of affordable housing for example? Or the Tories freeze utility bills? There's still plenty of differences when one starts to look beyond the meaningless "hardworking families", "fairer society" platitudes imo.
In saying this I don't blame people for voting for the party that best fits their personal situation btw that's a perfectly understandable position to take.
GREEN £85bn programme of home insulation, renewable electricity generation & flood defences Provide 500,000 social homes for rent by 2020 and control rent levels
I don't suppose they've actually said how they're going to achieve this?
Are they to actually start building wind farms and social housing on 8th May?
Can't see where Mr Nick Clegg Esq gets his motivation to give such a solid performance when delivering their manifesto. He's either very stupid or a typical politician putting on a show while talking out his arse.
Can't see where Mr Nick Clegg Esq gets his motivation to give such a solid performance when delivering their manifesto. He's either very stupid or a typical politician putting on a show while talking out his arse.
Or a passionate, intelligent man with a desire to change things for the better?
Can't see where Mr Nick Clegg Esq gets his motivation to give such a solid performance when delivering their manifesto. He's either very stupid or a typical politician putting on a show while talking out his arse.
Or a passionate, intelligent man with a desire to change things for the better?
Can't see where Mr Nick Clegg Esq gets his motivation to give such a solid performance when delivering their manifesto. He's either very stupid or a typical politician putting on a show while talking out his arse.
Or a passionate, intelligent man with a desire to change things for the better?
Can't see where Mr Nick Clegg Esq gets his motivation to give such a solid performance when delivering their manifesto. He's either very stupid or a typical politician putting on a show while talking out his arse.
he is typical politician in that he sold out young people for a crack at being full time king maker as he would've been if we would've voted for AV.
If he would've kept his pledge for students he would've garunteed a lot of lib dem voters from my generation. Typical short termism over long term gain from politicians.
Have the Tories said how they'd pay for the extra 8bn increase in the NHS? Seems a bit of a big figure to pull out of thin air, especially while lowering taxes and trying to lower the budget deficit.
i find labour about as far from intune or representive of the working man as possible
I could never vote conservative.
I find this so frustrating and one of the reasons why politics falls down a little in this country. There are a big percentage of people that will always be red or always be blue regardless of anything, and would never give any consideration to 'the other lot'.
Electing a government is not like supporting a football team, which so many take the approach to. Your local representative changes, leaders change, cabinets change, policies change.
The days where major parties were poles apart are in history, there is a fag paper in the grand scheme of things between the major parties of what they would actually do in power.
Find it a shame that the governance of this country is basically down to those who take an open mind and prepared to float with their vote, and the percentage of those never-changers that bother to turn out or not.
Just wish our voting brief was more dynamic and rewarding / punishing on achievements / non achievements
I still see your point but I disagree that there are insubstantial differences between Labour and Conservatives. There's a lot of rhetorically nonsense thrown around by all parties but if you look at the recent manifesto announcements there are still fundamental differences between them.
Would Labour use the local authority budget to subsidise a reduction in the availability of affordable housing for example? Or the Tories freeze utility bills? There's still plenty of differences when one starts to look beyond the meaningless "hardworking families", "fairer society" platitudes imo.
In saying this I don't blame people for voting for the party that best fits their personal situation btw that's a perfectly understandable position to take.
GREEN £85bn programme of home insulation, renewable electricity generation & flood defences Provide 500,000 social homes for rent by 2020 and control rent levels
I don't suppose they've actually said how they're going to achieve this?
Are they to actually start building wind farms and social housing on 8th May?
If I was going to vote with my heart I'd vote Lib Dem as they seem to lie closest to my political views. However the Tories are much more likely to beat Labour in my seat and Labour still present the most dangerous threat to this country's stability. I am also smart enough to understand that the Lib Dems could not keep all their promises as part of a Coalition and the Tories had to drop key pledges too. Let's hope both parties have learned from Coalition and the country has as well, we're going to see more coalitions in the future, at least then there is a practical reason for not following through on manifesto pledges, rather than the farce of Blair disregarding 3 manifestos even though he had majorities.
It doesn't surprise me but I'll still say it - the polarisation of views on this thread is quite incredible.
All of the parties have apple pie and motherhood manifestos but the reality is that broadly speaking the economy is immune to the tinkering of politicians, the NHS will always need more money than is available but most people accept the compromise that non-critical care may have a waiting list as long as critical care is available immediately (which it is pretty much), we have to accept EU immigration or get out (and only the people will decide that through a referendum). Non-EU immigration could be blocked tomorrow but business would suffer (and it aint that easy to get a Tier 2 Visa!).
The crash in 2008 would have almost certainly happened if the Tories had been in power, and the so-called recovery would have happened had Labour won in 2010. We perhaps think too much of the politicians' ability to make a difference.
The rest is all about ideologies that actually evaporated decades ago.
•Coalition programme for government: “real increases in spending in each year of the Parliament”
•Real public sector expenditure on health in the UK as a whole increased from £116.9 billion in 2009/10 to £120.0 billion in 2013/14 (in 2009/10 prices) - a real terms increase of 2.7 per cent or 0.8 per cent / year.
BUT ...
•5.7 per cent / year increases under New Labour
•3 – 4 per cent / year healthcare cost inflation
•NHS England: funding gap of £30bn by 2020
The 3-4%/ year healthcare cost inflation is why we are seeing that the NHS is in crisis because of the 0.8% only increase under Cameron.
The conservatives say they will increase NHS spending by £8 billion but refuse to say how this will be done. There is nowhere near efficiency savings in the NHS that could come close to finding that. The staff have had a pay freeze for four of the last five years and then only a 1% increase.
I hate to imagine how they intend to bridge the gap. Relying on economic growth is laughable and the Tories call Labour irresponsible on economic issues.
So UKIP claim their figures have been independently verified - is this normal or unusual and is it likely to be true? Not seen any other party willingly state that.
Have to say for me personally I find it hard to disagree with much of their manifesto and I think joe blogs would feel the same.
Everyone has been waiting for them to publish it, most in the anticipation of ripping it to shreds or laughing at it - so what do people actually think?
Comments
Would Labour use the local authority budget to subsidise a reduction in the availability of affordable housing for example? Or the Tories freeze utility bills? There's still plenty of differences when one starts to look beyond the meaningless "hardworking families", "fairer society" platitudes imo.
In saying this I don't blame people for voting for the party that best fits their personal situation btw that's a perfectly understandable position to take.
m.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/manifesto-guide
Throughout this campaign i've warmed to miliband, he seems like he's that hopeless weirdo at school that's trying desperately to do the right thing. I've always had a soft spot for weirdos and outcasts, a lot of my friends are like that, including myself! It's made me consider voting labour on that alone, however memories are not short and i'm not much of a fan of some of their policies.
Stop supporting political parties like they're football teams. Unfortunately i'm not sure that will happen with unions heavily donating to labour and the mega rich heavily donating to the tories. Personally i'm against individual donations, I'd much rather an independent body dealt out appropriate funds for the largest 4-5 parties in the uk at the same level and then from there on staggered down for smaller parties. But, that's open for abuse and even just typing it out it seemed like a pretty flawed idea. Ahhh well.
Today the Government has too much influence on our day to day lives. Forget if that's good or bad, the fact is that it creates hundreds of angles for politicians to market their wares in an effort to buy votes and that's all the manifesto is. There is no one big issue, apart from Europe, and they carefully sidestep that.
The NHS is seen as the biggest concern for voters. What is the real difference in the parties? I see the differences as a largely artificially created divide. We've gone beyond the need to argue for the sort of social reforms needed 60 years ago. No one is going to get rid of the NHS with its principle of "free at the point of delivery" until we run out of money. We could spend 100% of our GDP on health services and there would probably still be gaps in care needs. Anyone who thinks compromises don't have to be made by whichever party is governing is deluding themselves. Compromises can't actually be talked about, so both parties move the debate to how much they will spend, even though neither have shown how the £8bn shortfall being faced can be bridged. Instead of acknowledging that voters concern is about running out of money it's turned into a threat of privatisation.
Frankly I don't think there is a fag paper between the parties on the NHS as it will affect the users, it will be good in parts, bad in parts, and different services constantly leapfrogging for higher ratings as spending moves around racing to stand still.
In the long term I think the Tories focus on needing to generate more growth to pay for the NHS is more sensible compared to the Labour stance of finding more taxes to meet escalating costs.
If GPs weren't self employed, if much of the staff working in the NHS were not employed by agencies and the hospitals weren't owned by construction companies I might understand the nonsense spouted about save our NHS from privatisation and vote labour.
All I want is to get treated well, I don't give a hoot who employs the person who gives me pills or cuts me up and stitches me back together again. The fact that I pay private health insurance for the cost of a Big Mac meal a day is a reflection of my past bad experiences with the NHS and its staff, but I still need the NHS with its GPs and A&E services, and my views on the NHS being free at the point of delivery are unaffected. I don't see the profit motive as any more a problem than the existing problem within the NHS of turkeys not voting for Xmas and reducing waste and inefficiency.
Just like PFI was a Tory idea that only a Labour government would get away with and completely messed up, we will eventually stumble into privatisation on the back of an ill though out plan pushed through under the radar by Labour without any national debate or electoral consensus. I would rather the parties agreed to have a cross party review of modernisation of the NHS with and without private health care as an element and then the parties decide which they support and we vote for it in the knowledge of the pros and cons, the risks and rewards.
CONS
30 hours of free childcare per week for working parents of 3&4-year-olds
Extra £8bn above inflation for the NHS by 2020
Eliminate the deficit and be running a surplus by the end of the Parliament
LAB
Freeze energy bills until 2017 and give energy regulator new powers to cut bills this winter
LIB
Invest £8bn in the NHS. Equal care for mental & physical health
Balance the budget fairly through a mixture of cuts and taxes on higher earners
Five new laws to protect nature and fight climate change
UKIP
Control immigration with points system, limit of 50,000 skilled workers a year and a five-year ban on unskilled immigration
GREEN
£85bn programme of home insulation, renewable electricity generation & flood defences
Provide 500,000 social homes for rent by 2020 and control rent levels
so if I just took a tally on these, my vote would either go to the Lib Dems or Conservatives, if I did it on how many I agree with, not how strongly I felt about each issue.
I'm going to have a look at the housing policies of each of them in a bit more detail, as that is a key issue for me
Are they to actually start building wind farms and social housing on 8th May?
One of us might be.
And it isnt me!
;-)
If he would've kept his pledge for students he would've garunteed a lot of lib dem voters from my generation. Typical short termism over long term gain from politicians.
Odd view.
All of the parties have apple pie and motherhood manifestos but the reality is that broadly speaking the economy is immune to the tinkering of politicians, the NHS will always need more money than is available but most people accept the compromise that non-critical care may have a waiting list as long as critical care is available immediately (which it is pretty much), we have to accept EU immigration or get out (and only the people will decide that through a referendum). Non-EU immigration could be blocked tomorrow but business would suffer (and it aint that easy to get a Tier 2 Visa!).
The crash in 2008 would have almost certainly happened if the Tories had been in power, and the so-called recovery would have happened had Labour won in 2010. We perhaps think too much of the politicians' ability to make a difference.
The rest is all about ideologies that actually evaporated decades ago.
OK - call me an old cynic!
•Coalition programme for government: “real increases in spending in each year of the Parliament”
•Real public sector expenditure on health in the UK as a whole increased from £116.9 billion in 2009/10 to £120.0 billion in 2013/14 (in 2009/10 prices) - a real terms increase of 2.7 per cent or 0.8 per cent / year.
BUT ...
•5.7 per cent / year increases under New Labour
•3 – 4 per cent / year healthcare cost inflation
•NHS England: funding gap of £30bn by 2020
The 3-4%/ year healthcare cost inflation is why we are seeing that the NHS is in crisis because of the 0.8% only increase under Cameron.
The conservatives say they will increase NHS spending by £8 billion but refuse to say how this will be done. There is nowhere near efficiency savings in the NHS that could come close to finding that. The staff have had a pay freeze for four of the last five years and then only a 1% increase.
I hate to imagine how they intend to bridge the gap. Relying on economic growth is laughable and the Tories call Labour irresponsible on economic issues.
Have to say for me personally I find it hard to disagree with much of their manifesto and I think joe blogs would feel the same.
Everyone has been waiting for them to publish it, most in the anticipation of ripping it to shreds or laughing at it - so what do people actually think?