UK General Election - May 6 2010

[Lorem Ipsum]

This is one of the most important elections that we've had in a long time, for several reasons. First of all, the party that wins will have to deal with the colossal budget deficit that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair landed us with. Secondly, the public image of the Liberal Democrats has seemed to grow exponentially over the past week. And yes, for the first time in thirty years, it's possible that we could have a hung parliament. We may as well say goodbye to our credit rating right now.

Anyway, what are your opinions on the matter? Personally, if I was old enough, I'd vote Conservative. Labour's policy is just... odd, to begin with. They want to pay back the debt to the IMF by... spending some more money, by paying quangos a lot more money, and by doing nothing except flirting with the LibDems for a coalition, because they know that they'll lose. And then, there's the LibDems. I swear if they ever form a government with anything resembling their manifesto this year, I will shoot myself. Getting rid of Trident would mean the loss of our UN seat, and leave us wide open to attack in today's volatile world. And then the income tax allowance thing benefits the middle class more than the working class, so is hardly fair.

Only the Conservatives seem to have viable options, and they all make sense. Allowing teachers and schools to be scrutinised by the public. Handing power back to the people, so they're not just ruled by councils and Westminster. Cutting the extraordinary amount of waste in Westminster.

But that's enough of my rambling. Europeans! What do you think of our strange election?

[Tsuroerusu]

This is one of the most important elections that we've had in a long time, for several reasons. First of all, the party that wins will have to deal with the colossal budget deficit that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair landed us with. Secondly, the public image of the Liberal Democrats has seemed to grow exponentially over the past week. And yes, for the first time in thirty years, it's possible that we could have a hung parliament. We may as well say goodbye to our credit rating right now.

For most other people here, a hung parliament, in Britsh policy jargon, is where no party wins a majority of the seats. For Lorem Ipsum, I don't see why you'd lose your credit ratio or anything in case your politicians are not competent enough to do what most other European countries do. Here in Denmark, we only have coalition governments, same thing in Sweden, Norway (Right brothers and sisters?), Germany darn sure gets coalition governments very often etc. etc. I could go on. One thing I agree with the Libdems on is that your electoral system is extremely undemocratic, because all the votes in a constituency not cast for the winner in that constituency are wasted and thus excluded. In my opinion, in any reasonable democracy, it should be such that if you get 55% of the votes, you get 55% of the seats, and if you get 45% of the votes, you get 45% of the seats, seems like common sense, unless one prefers a two-party system, where differences between significant parties eventually wither away.

Anyway, what are your opinions on the matter? Personally, if I was old enough, I'd vote Conservative. Labour's policy is just... odd, to begin with. They want to pay back the debt to the IMF by... spending some more money, by paying quangos a lot more money, and by doing nothing except flirting with the LibDems for a coalition, because they know that they'll lose.

None of your main political parties, to me, seems all that much different from each other. Really, ask yourself, is it really a big difference to be debating whether one should have 3 or 4 nuclear weapons of mass destruction? If you tried making that argument over here, people would roll all the way to the Kiel canal. All of them support a hopeless, misguided and unneeded war in Afghanistan. Neither Labour or the Conservatives distance themself from an illegal war in Iraq etc. etc. all the big things they more or less agree on, what kind of choice is that to put to an intelligent electorate? Personally, I'd feel insulted as a voter if I didn't get other realistic options to vote for. Notice I say "realistic" options, as it's darn near impossible for non Labour/Conservative MPs to get elected compared to here in Denmark, we have tons of non-liberal, non-social democratic MPs. Over here a majority is 90 seats, and the most any party currently has is like 46 - 47.

And then, there's the LibDems. I swear if they ever form a government with anything resembling their manifesto this year, I will shoot myself. Getting rid of Trident would mean the loss of our UN seat, and leave us wide open to attack in today's volatile world. And then the income tax allowance thing benefits the middle class more than the working class, so is hardly fair.

Regarding what you said about Trident, pardon me saying, but that's simply a doomsday scenario that is absurd and grounded in political propaganda. First of all, why would you lose your permanent UN seat (Which is an absurdly undemocratic concept to begin with, but that's for another debate) by not having weapons of mass destruction? And what is this notion of being open to attack? Look, Germany does not have any nuclear weapons, are they more open to attacks than you are (Considering they don't overthrow people's democratically elected governments and install monarchical dictators to get the country's oil, I'd say Germany is generally less prone to resentment in the world) ? Or for that matter, is any nation that rejects weapons of mass destruction more vulnerable in today's world? Is Russia gonna bomb us? Let me say this, not very likely. The Russians, to me, seem to only be as dangerous as one makes them to be. I don't blame the Russians for speaking up for themselves when the US wants to place missiles near their borders. The US was extremely upset about the Soviet Union placing missiles in Cuba, same thing, now it's the other way around, and everybody is blaming the Russians for being paranoid. Is the Chinese gonna send their nukes our way? Not very likely! The North Koreans? LOL, the nukes they have can't even be put on a missile yet! And its the fault of the US that North Korea even has nuclear weapons, by giving up on diplomacy under the regime of George "Chuckle Nuts" Bush, North Korea just went their merry way. Iran doesn't even have a nuclear bomb, and they're saying that is not their intent, and, unlike Israel, abides by the non-proliferation treaty. The only reason the US makes such a big stink about it, is that they cannot stand the far-off, remote notion of a nation, whose oil they consider to be the property of the "AMRRRRRRCAHN PEOPLE!", to be able to defend itself, so they will deny it even the access to what many other countries in the world have, nuclear power.

Only the Conservatives seem to have viable options, and they all make sense. Allowing teachers and schools to be scrutinised by the public. Handing power back to the people, so they're not just ruled by councils and Westminster. Cutting the extraordinary amount of waste in Westminster.

Some of those I'd be skeptical of, it's not my election so I don't feel the urge to dig into the details of it. However the Tories are the party of Margaret Thatcher, I'd be extremely suspicious of them running a government that administrative a European-style welfare state (Note I am using this term in a Danish context, which is a positive concept, where "wellness" of the people is the main object of public spending), but that's my ideological bias I guess.

But that's enough of my rambling. Europeans! What do you think of our strange election?

(Swedes, back me up here!) I think it's somewhat of redundant, because your electoral system is so undemocratic. I'm not gonna tell you guys in Britain what to do, although in terms of the political system, I'd simply recommend that you should look "north of the border". Or even to Germany. The Germans have one of the most solid constitutions I've ever read, and the political system seems to me (Germans, please correct me if I am wrong) to be positively stable, and the German people generally eschew "charismatic" politicians (Excellent job guys!). Last election in Germany, the only BNP-style party in the Bundestag was flushed out by the voters. Also, pardon me, but what is with hereditary privileges in the House of Lords? This is the 21st century, over 200 years since the French Revolution, when the French set about to get rid of the aristocracy.


Also, just in case you're thinking "Trident isn't weapons of mass destruction", well, go to Google's image search and type in something like "nuclear bomb hiroshima" and stand back!

[Lorem Ipsum]

For most other people here, a hung parliament, in Britsh policy jargon, is where no party wins a majority of the seats. For Lorem Ipsum, I don't see why you'd lose your credit ratio or anything in case your politicians are not competent enough to do what most other European countries do. Here in Denmark, we only have coalition governments, same thing in Sweden, Norway (Right brothers and sisters?), Germany darn sure gets coalition governments very often etc. etc. I could go on. One thing I agree with the Libdems on is that your electoral system is extremely undemocratic, because all the votes in a constituency not cast for the winner in that constituency are wasted and thus excluded. In my opinion, in any reasonable democracy, it should be such that if you get 55% of the votes, you get 55% of the seats, and if you get 45% of the votes, you get 45% of the seats, seems like common sense, unless one prefers a two-party system, where differences between significant parties eventually wither away.

Our country is built on the First Past the Post system, which basically means that nine times out of ten, you're going to get a Parliamentary majority (which is 326 seats over here). And to be honest, I kind of like it that way, because I'm a fan of the traditional 'vote for an MP, not a party' way of doing things, which is how it was meant to be in Britain. But anyway, having a majority government effectively means that government has the support of more than half of the country, and thus, is allowed to put through the laws they want and utilise their majority to pass them without opposition (providing that all MPs follow the whip). This means very, very quick decisions on matters (some debates on the final readings of bills last just hours), and means that MPs can focus on better debate rather than bickering amongst coalitions. The UK is already in the biggest budget deficit of the Western world (I think that's right), and its markets were one of the last to stabilise. Thus, investment is currently very risky. And when you put into context, the credit ratings supervisors look at our country and say "at least they're decisive on matters". If we had a hung parliament, which is a rarity for Britain, they would say "they're going to dither around with decisions, which will weaken their economic policy and values", which will almost certainly mean a downgrading in economic rating, which is precarious in its current state. This would be bad for Britain, who relies on its excellent status rather a lot in terms of world banking.

None of your main political parties, to me, seems all that much different from each other. Really, ask yourself, is it really a big difference to be debating whether one should have 3 or 4 nuclear weapons of mass destruction? If you tried making that argument over here, people would roll all the way to the Kiel canal. All of them support a hopeless, misguided and unneeded war in Afghanistan. Neither Labour or the Conservatives distance themself from an illegal war in Iraq etc. etc. all the big things they more or less agree on, what kind of choice is that to put to an intelligent electorate? Personally, I'd feel insulted as a voter if I didn't get other realistic options to vote for. Notice I say "realistic" options, as it's darn near impossible for non Labour/Conservative MPs to get elected compared to here in Denmark, we have tons of non-liberal, non-social democratic MPs. Over here a majority is 90 seats, and the most any party currently has is like 46 - 47.

On domestic issues, there's rather a lot of difference amongst the parties. For instance, Labour favours big government, where everything is controlled from the centre, whereas the Conservatives favour big society, in giving power to the people, as in vetoing council decisions, kicking out hospital administrators if they're not doing a good job, electing police commissioners, and setting up their own schools. On another subject, the Conservatives favour cuts, whereas Labour favours spending more money to reduce our debt. But yes, they are quite close on some matters; they both support Afghanistan, and both support Trident.

Regarding what you said about Trident, pardon me saying, but that's simply a doomsday scenario that is absurd and grounded in political propaganda. First of all, why would you lose your permanent UN seat (Which is an absurdly undemocratic concept to begin with, but that's for another debate) by not having weapons of mass destruction? And what is this notion of being open to attack? Look, Germany does not have any nuclear weapons, are they more open to attacks than you are (Considering they don't overthrow people's democratically elected governments and install monarchical dictators to get the country's oil, I'd say Germany is generally less prone to resentment in the world) ? Or for that matter, is any nation that rejects weapons of mass destruction more vulnerable in today's world? Is Russia gonna bomb us? Let me say this, not very likely. The Russians, to me, seem to only be as dangerous as one makes them to be. I don't blame the Russians for speaking up for themselves when the US wants to place missiles near their borders. The US was extremely upset about the Soviet Union placing missiles in Cuba, same thing, now it's the other way around, and everybody is blaming the Russians for being paranoid. Is the Chinese gonna send their nukes our way? Not very likely! The North Koreans? LOL, the nukes they have can't even be put on a missile yet! And its the fault of the US that North Korea even has nuclear weapons, by giving up on diplomacy under the regime of George "Chuckle Nuts" Bush, North Korea just went their merry way. Iran doesn't even have a nuclear bomb, and they're saying that is not their intent, and, unlike Israel, abides by the non-proliferation treaty. The only reason the US makes such a big stink about it, is that they cannot stand the far-off, remote notion of a nation, whose oil they consider to be the property of the "AMRRRRRRCAHN PEOPLE!", to be able to defend itself, so they will deny it even the access to what many other countries in the world have, nuclear power.

We'd lose our permanent UN seat because, quite frankly, Britain is no longer a superpower, and the only thing that makes it remotely noticeable in the world is its nuclear weapons. If those are gone, so goes the seat. It would also be highly irresponsible to get rid of a system that gives thousands of jobs (about three quarters of my relatives work in something to do with Trident and the Navy), and also ensures the protection of the entire populace against pretty much any threat. Let's put it this way - however unlikely it is, nobody is going to directly attack British citizens when they know that we can unleash unimagineable destruction upon them at the click of a button. The US is stupid about it though.

Some of those I'd be skeptical of, it's not my election so I don't feel the urge to dig into the details of it. However the Tories are the party of Margaret Thatcher, I'd be extremely suspicious of them running a government that administrative a European-style welfare state (Note I am using this term in a Danish context, which is a positive concept, where "wellness" of the people is the main object of public spending), but that's my ideological bias I guess.

I'm probably going to disagree with you here, but I thought that Thatcher was our best post-war PM, by a mile.

(Swedes, back me up here!) I think it's somewhat of redundant, because your electoral system is so undemocratic. I'm not gonna tell you guys in Britain what to do, although in terms of the political system, I'd simply recommend that you should look "north of the border". Or even to Germany. The Germans have one of the most solid constitutions I've ever read, and the political system seems to me (Germans, please correct me if I am wrong) to be positively stable, and the German people generally eschew "charismatic" politicians (Excellent job guys!). Last election in Germany, the only BNP-style party in the Bundestag was flushed out by the voters. Also, pardon me, but what is with hereditary privileges in the House of Lords? This is the 21st century, over 200 years since the French Revolution, when the French set about to get rid of the aristocracy.

I like our system as it is, it provides for some very interesting things. Although the d'Hondt method of PR is rather appealing. And our topsy-turvy constitution is part of the reason why I love our country. It means that you have an effective way of making policy, and an effective way of democratic process. But the whole House of Lords thing is clear in my mind: get rid of hereditary peers, but block any plans to make it elected. The moment one elects the Lords, it becomes yet another political institution, and not the relatively non-partisan thing we have at the moment.

[Tsuroerusu]

Our country is built on the First Past the Post system, which basically means that nine times out of ten, you're going to get a Parliamentary majority (which is 326 seats over here). And to be honest, I kind of like it that way, because I'm a fan of the traditional 'vote for an MP, not a party' way of doing things, which is how it was meant to be in Britain.

Well, there's many ways of doing proportional representation. So just because you like voting for an MP and not a party that is not an argument in favor of FPTP at all.

But anyway, having a majority government effectively means that government has the support of more than half of the country, and thus, is allowed to put through the laws they want and utilise their majority to pass them without opposition (providing that all MPs follow the whip). This means very, very quick decisions on matters (some debates on the final readings of bills last just hours), and means that MPs can focus on better debate rather than bickering amongst coalitions.

Actually I think that's a pretty bad argument because essentially what you're saying is that a majority government can ignore what anybody else thinks and just do as it pleases. Also, you said just before you like voting for MPs and not a party, if that's case, it seems like a contradiction that MPs should "follow the whip", then you're in reality just voting for a party. Also I've seen debates in the House of Commons, no offense man, but it looks ridiculous at times with people yelling and not keeping quiet so people can speak. If that's quality of debate to you, more power to you. Although I prefer an orderly debate where people can speak without being interrupted.

On the notion of a majority government representing more than half of the country, well, I'd just like to ask this. Let's say we're in a predominantly Labour-leaning constituency in the UK and there's 30% conservative voters. Well, those 30% would always waste their vote at the ballot box since it would "always", so to speak, be a Labour MP that is elected. That would certainly enhance voter apathy and people would think "My vote doesn't count, so why should I vote?", which is a threat to democracy as far as I am concerned.

Here in Denmark (Not saying you should do like we do, just giving this as example of what I personally prefer) we have several smaller parties with views different from that of the bigger parties. If we were using the FPTP system, there's no way none of those would ever get into parliament, and thus opinion in our country would not be represented in the political process. People often speak of a democratic deficit of the EU, well, I think the FPTP system (Which is used not just in Britain) does a fine job at creating a democratic deficit of its own.

Here's a scenario I'd like to present to you. Let's say we have five candidates A, B, C, D and E. A gets 25 votes, B gets 22 votes, C gets 20 votes, D gets 18 votes and E gets 15 votes. Under FPTP, A would be the winner as he/she got the most votes. .... but wait! In total there's 75 people who did not vote for A. You used the notion of a "government has the support of more than half of the country", this seems to me, an absolutely ridiculous way to do just that.

The UK is already in the biggest budget deficit of the Western world (I think that's right), and its markets were one of the last to stabilise. Thus, investment is currently very risky. And when you put into context, the credit ratings supervisors look at our country and say "at least they're decisive on matters". If we had a hung parliament, which is a rarity for Britain, they would say "they're going to dither around with decisions, which will weaken their economic policy and values", which will almost certainly mean a downgrading in economic rating, which is precarious in its current state. This would be bad for Britain, who relies on its excellent status rather a lot in terms of world banking.

Well that's capitalism for ya. I can't say I disagree with your description of the system, although it seems extremely silly to me, to claim that Britain would have problems with coalition governments when pretty much (With a few exceptions) the rest of Europe manages perfectly fine with it. Recently in France we've seen the socialists and the greens starting to work more closely together, what in the world is healthier than that, than parties working together to achieve common goals etc. etc.

On domestic issues, there's rather a lot of difference amongst the parties. For instance, Labour favours big government, where everything is controlled from the centre, whereas the Conservatives favour big society, in giving power to the people, as in vetoing council decisions, kicking out hospital administrators if they're not doing a good job, electing police commissioners, and setting up their own schools. On another subject, the Conservatives favour cuts, whereas Labour favours spending more money to reduce our debt. But yes, they are quite close on some matters; they both support Afghanistan, and both support Trident.

It's not my country, so I am not gonna comment on your domestic affairs. But regarding the last bit. OK, so if I were British guy, and I was opposed to the war in Afghanistan, there is no party I can realistically vote for. Essentially, the FPTP system silences me. It's often times very hard to move existing parties toward a new position, it's often easier to establish a new one if you have enough people behind you.

We'd lose our permanent UN seat because, quite frankly, Britain is no longer a superpower, and the only thing that makes it remotely noticeable in the world is its nuclear weapons. If those are gone, so goes the seat.

That does not make any sense, sure Britain is not a superpower, and good riddance, I am sure the Indians are happy that the empires are gone! The world is better off without big hegemons like the British Empire, the Soviet Union or the USA (Which seems to be crumbling just like the Soviet Union did). First of all, Britain has a veto in the UN Security Council, so if somebody proposed to take away your permanent seat because of a lack of nukes, then you could just veto such a decision. Also, who would take away your permanent seat? The Russians? The Chinese? Again, your claim doesn't carry any argumentative power to it. It's called a permanent seat for a reason.

It would also be highly irresponsible to get rid of a system that gives thousands of jobs (about three quarters of my relatives work in something to do with Trident and the Navy),

Bad argument, because by that kind of logic, we should never get rid of any kind of weapons production. Also, it's been shown that investment in military spending is not very effective as a government jobs program (Which seems to be an odd thing for an, I assume economically liberal person to support). Whereas investment in infrastructure etc. etc. are much more efficient. Also, I don't know about you, but I don't like war, so why pump money into something that can kill a million people in an instant? The only reason that, that would make sense if one was a war-loving, vampiric maniac like Dick Cheney.

and also ensures the protection of the entire populace against pretty much any threat. Let's put it this way - however unlikely it is, nobody is going to directly attack British citizens when they know that we can unleash unimagineable destruction upon them at the click of a button. The US is stupid about it though.

Please explain the London bombings then. Your nukes didn't save those people, did they? Also, I find something about your statement utterly disgusting, that you would even threaten to "unleash unimagineable destruction upon them at the click of a button.", do you not realize that that is a war crime of the highest order? Plus, you don't seem to care about the people who would die with such a statement. Again, please go to Google and search for pictures from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Images of children with their skin burned off, and ugh it's horrifying. One war crime does certainly not justify another, and if you think so, then I assume you would find it fair and just for a relative of victim of murder, to go murder the murderer, and then we're down to the old, blatantly immoral "eye for an eye" concept.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Oh, I should add that the modern nuclear bombs are a lot more powerful than the Fatman and Little Boy bombs that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Japan in one instant, and caused unimaginable suffering for millions because of radiation. When you're evaluating a war, you get an unrealistic picture of what war is when you think in "Oh what can we achieve through this?" rather than looking and every human being who would die, every human being would lose a limb, every human being who would become blind and every human being who would come out mentally damaged. That is how you evaluate a war, if you ask me.

I'm probably going to disagree with you here, but I thought that Thatcher was our best post-war PM, by a mile.

I see, well, fair enough. All I can say about that is that I think the Germans are pretty happy they still have a lot of their heavy industry and their government not letting it all be out sourced to China. Even the German conservatives are in favor of what they call the social market economy, rather than this ultra-neoliberalism that we've seen in the US and UK over the last 30 years. Whether it's Reaganism or Thatcherism, I still find the notion of a "service economy" to be absurd. This is one reason why I an generally skeptic of free market economics, because if it was only price and quality being competed on, then OK, MAYBE it might be a good idea (Although given the quality of laptops these days, that's a huge can of worms to argue). However in reality it's wages, worker safety etc. etc. that companies are seeing who can ratchet down first. Either by cutting it at home, or out sourcing it to countries like China, with dictatorial regimes that couldn't care less about the welfare of their people, and at the same time either jail or torture people if they speak out against it. For example, in China it's illegal to form a labor union, and the "official" one is just a government department that's acting like anything but a labor union. I mean say what you want about unions, however I hope you'd concede that workers in China have some horrible working conditions, that would benefit from collective bargaining. Or ship workers in India dying from accidents because of lack of safety etc, I havn't even delved into mine workers!

I like our system as it is, it provides for some very interesting things. Although the d'Hondt method of PR is rather appealing. And our topsy-turvy constitution is part of the reason why I love our country. It means that you have an effective way of making policy, and an effective way of democratic process.

Which constitution are you speaking of? The UK does not have a codified written constitution at all, all it has is a slew of laws, conventions and writings dating back to medieval times, which could be abolished tomorrow because there is no limits on what the Westminster parliament can legislate on. If it wanted to, the UK parliament could abolish the Human Rights Act tomorrow and reinstate the medieval punishment called hanging, drawing, quartering etc. Sure that's unlikely, but if the unlikeliness of something is the deciding factor on whether to do something about it, then there'd be no reason to have any laws to begin with. Also, I don't know about you, but I think government power needs to be controlled and watched carefully, and not having a constitution is the last thing I would want for that purpose. I was reading the German constitution the other day and it says (paraphrasing) "No German shall be extradited to another country", I don't know about you, but I think that's a good idea. Also you use the word "effective", well a dictatorship is even more effective. Just because something is "effective" is not an argument to say something is necessarily good. If the Chinese government wants to do something, it just does it, it doesn't have to listen to anybody. That's effectiveness. Democracy is always slow and gradual, because of differing opinions obviously. Also, according to your argument as it's written, I would have to assume you think the rest of European states can't make "effective" decisions, because they have codified written constitutions and codified laws and not law made by judges.

But the whole House of Lords thing is clear in my mind: get rid of hereditary peers, but block any plans to make it elected. The moment one elects the Lords, it becomes yet another political institution, and not the relatively non-partisan thing we have at the moment.

Okay, again, I don't wanna say "You should XYZ because it works for us", although trust me, I don't want our Landsting back! Back before 1953, here in Denmark the parliament was called the Rigsdag, the lower house was the Folketing and the upper house was the Landsting. Today we just have one legislative chamber, and the entire parliament is called the Folketing, which is Old Norse meaning "People's Assembly", which is nice so I can scare all the foolish Americans who don't want "GOVERNMENT HEALTHCARE" and "GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS" ! But are perfectly happy about 30% of their health care costs going to executive salaries and other nonsense.

[Pirate Dave]

Without wanting to enter into a massive discussion, I will totally be voting Lib Dem this year, and praying to God for at least a hung parliament, so they can push to get rid of the ridiculous FPP system so we can have PR which I feel makes a lot more sense.

The reasons are basically that I feel Nick Clegg represents me better than that smarmy toff David Cameron or Gordon Brown who will most likely have a game of, 'do nothing' if he gets back in.

On trident, I'm sure we don't need to spend £100bn on something that we intend not to use.

I think the best I an hope for is something like a hung parliament where the Tories have a majority but not enough to win, where the Lib Dems have over taken Labour as the 'second' party so that something useful might actually happen.

[Lorem Ipsum]

I love how you call David Cameron a 'smarmy toff' when Nick Clegg is arguably more posh than Cameron. Although he tries to hide it, Clegg didn't grow up in Sheffield: he attended Westminster School and currently (jointly) owns a lot of property in Spain.

A hung parliament would cripple this country completely. It wouldn't be the 'co-operation' miracle that people are thinking of: it would just mean that Parliament would become a bartering ground of backroom deals rather than putting policy through.

[Pirate Dave]

I love how you call David Cameron a 'smarmy toff' when Nick Clegg is arguably more posh than Cameron. Although he tries to hide it, Clegg didn't grow up in Sheffield: he attended Westminster School and currently (jointly) owns a lot of property in Spain.

A hung parliament would cripple this country completely. It wouldn't be the 'co-operation' miracle that people are thinking of: it would just mean that Parliament would become a bartering ground of backroom deals rather than putting policy through.

I love how you never denied that David Cameron is a smarmy toff… seriously, Nick Clegg is favour of fairer taxes and David Cameron is in favour of making his rich mates richer… seeing as I'm not one of his rich mates (we fell out over the ownership of a racing turtle) I feel that it probably is true that 'Nick Clegg represents me better than that smarmy toff David Cameron'.

I also question the idea of the country being crippled by a hung parliament, I mean maybe nothing would happen, but maybe the country would realise that they have a unique opportunity to use politicians to get things done; with them all jockeying for position it would be actually important for them to deliver for once. Either way it wouldn't 'cripple' the country, the popular opinion is that the government has done a whole lot of nothing for ages anyway so the worst that can happen is they continue doing a whole lot of nothing.

[Lorem Ipsum]

Fairer taxes? Don't make me laugh. His schools premium gives over £500 more to well off schools in the country than schools in inner London that desperately need the money. His £10,000 allowance means that, sure, a person earning £15,000 gets £780 more. But a person earning £46,000 gets £1,000 more. That's hardly fair is it, especially when the person on £15,000 won't be able to afford other commodities and the rise in NI that Clegg hasn't denied that he would do?

[Pirate Dave]

Fairer taxes? Don't make me laugh. His schools premium gives over £500 more to well off schools in the country than schools in inner London that desperately need the money. His £10,000 allowance means that, sure, a person earning £15,000 gets £780 more. But a person earning £46,000 gets £1,000 more. That's hardly fair is it, especially when the person on £15,000 won't be able to afford other commodities and the rise in NI that Clegg hasn't denied that he would do?

Well now how can you say that they can't afford a potential rise? If there needed to be a raise in taxes, (which to be clear, I would support) no-one could say they couldn't afford it until they knew how much it was. It raises an issue with the other parties which makes me just pure confused.

The issue is that the Lib Dems are the only party, so far as I can see, to say in terms of actual numbers what they intend to do! I mean ok so maybe you don't like the specifics of the plans, but what are the Tories going to do? I'm damned if I know, because their promises seem to just be vagaries and then when pushed it just feels like they pull a number out of their behinds. This is epitomised by the promise of the Tories to 'cut waste' in order to raise the money needed to not have a National Insurance rise… what on earth does that mean? How can you quantify waste? The truth is that you probably can't, and that in reality the Tories are going to have to pay for not having a National Insurance rise by increasing tax elsewhere, which ultimately would cause lower-income families harm.

Maybe you don't like the idea of a National Insurance rise, but at least the Lib Dems have been honest about the fact that the upcoming years are going to be a little harder than we'd like due to the two old parties' inability to look after the economy. (Yes, yes, I know that it was mainly America's fault. )

PS:- Remember when I said, 'Without wanting to enter into a massive discussion…'

Lol, gotta love the way politics can make people have big conversations despite the fact that everyone knows that no-one is gonna budge.

[Lorem Ipsum]

RESULTS OF UNITED KINGDOM GENERAL ELECTION 2010 - 1 SEAT YET TO DECLARE:
Conservative Party [David Cameron] - 306
Labour Party [Gordon Brown] - 258
Liberal Democratic Party [Nick Clegg] - 57
Democratic Unionist Party [Peter Robinson] - 8
Scottish National Party [Alex Salmond] - 6
Sinn Féin [Gerry Adams] - 5
Plaid Cymru [Ieuan Wyn Jones] - 3
Social Democratic and Labour Party [Margaret Ritchie] - 3
Green Party [Caroline Lucas] - 1
Alliance Party [David Ford] - 1
Speaker of the House - 1

We've a hung parliament, guys.