General Election 2010 Thread

[Guest]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

We were debating Europe and you can pick up stuff from the LibDems policy and from Labour but yet with Conservative policy you can't. That isn't exactly a reason to vote Conservative so I guess we have to choose the party based on who we believe is credible. Who we believe will be the best for our country(and that may mean that we don't agree with certain elements of policy as put in the manifesto).
I do believe in a vote for change and I don't believe David Cameron and the Conservatives are the right party to lead the country so I WILL be voting LibDems and if that means Labour and Gordon Brown becomes leader again then so be it but I don't believe that the Conservative Party is the right choice.

However, I will leave a caveat for you. Mervyn King has said that whoever wins the next general election may well be given a poison chalice that could ruin their party for a generation.

You do believe in a vote for change, yet are quite prepared for Gordon Brown to remain - precisely how does that represent change?

Just who do you think created the poison chalice you mention above? The very person you would see in charge again through your prejudiced voting strategy. Why not just vote Labour and have done with it?

Finally, why on earth would you want to have anything to do with Europe, have you not seen the news?

[natweststaffmember]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

You do believe in a vote for change, yet are quite prepared for Gordon Brown to remain - precisely how does that represent change?
I think I'll vote for who I believe is the right person for the job. If I don't vote Conservative that doesn't mean that my vote is not for change. As a politician I think Gordon Brown is very good but visually he isn't.
Just who do you think created the poison chalice you mention above?
Economic conditions globally have caused it and I am sure you have seen the issues Greece have had, Iceland have had, etc,etc,
The very person you would see in charge again through your prejudiced voting strategy. Why not just vote Labour and have done with it?
I would vote Labour if I believed that they were the right party to govern but it's time for a change. If that means a hung parliament then so be it.
Finally, why on earth would you want to have anything to do with Europe, have you not seen the news?

I have talked about policy with the EU. That comes into trade, immigration, economy, foreign policy, etc,etc,etc, It is about policies so you ask why? I thought it was pretty obvious why or am I just some young kid who simply doesn't know it?

I still don't understand why a vote for David Cameron is really a vote for change.
As a matter of interest, did anyone watch Channel 4 last night? Programme on 7:30pm until 9pm(4on demand should have it). Very very interesting

[EXC]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

Just who do you think created the poison chalice you mention above?
Economic conditions globally have caused it and I am sure you have seen the issues Greece have had, Iceland have had, etc,etc,

You're forgetting that London is the financial centre of the world - created by way of light touch regulation - by one Gordon Brown.

Greece and Icelend were not responsible for clocking up the UK's deficit.

[BBB]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

Brown was borrowing money as chancellor long before the current financial crisis hit the world. So much for prudence.

[scoobydoo]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

As we are talking about the leaders here - just to put the spanner in the works one of MOH colleague went to do some work for a staunch Tory suporter who had recently been to a conservative fund raiser who met DC for the first time . Basically he said DC has no charisma or presence and said in real life he was very two dimensional in his words you might as well buy the DVD. A week later he met Sarah and GB in a social environment and said he came over much better. He will not be changing his vote as he is Tory through and through - but an interesting comment. I still will be voting conservative but hope in the world arena he is up to the job. TBH I dont know why anyone would want to win for this term it is going to be a poisoned chalice really.

[BBB]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

My wife is a staunch Labour supporter. She has worked for the NHS since training as a nurse in the 80's, converting to a midwife in 1990 and she has now moved up the ladder to the point where she is in charge of a maternity unit that delivers 6000 babies a year. She is seriously considering voting elsewhere for the first time. The trigger point for her is the level of bureacracy she has to deal with on a day to day basis. It has increased dramatically over the last 5-6 years and it impedes her ability to carry out her primary role, and all because of the Governments demands for facts and figures, many of which have little or no value.

This increased bureaucracy has impacted all the essential public sector services, police and education being hit as badly. Whoever wins needs to cut down on the paperwork and let the essential services get on with doing what they do best.

[scoobydoo]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

Thanks that is a useful post - someone on the front line telling us the truth.

If the figures are correct and there are more managers than beds in the NHS if they halved the management and retrained them as nurses or auxilaries then presumably we would all be better off.

I am verysuspicious of all these figures anyway - a friend had to go to a local A&E recently after a very nasty bike accident - true along with everyone else he was seen within 1 hour by triage - but there was no doctor to see any patient - so they were then all waiting for over 3 hours before they were even started to be treated - and even then they did not even clean him up properly - he came out covered in blood. Very distressing for a young lad. He then had to go to another hospital miles away for an operation the next day. Not ideal is it. But I expect they met targets - and also how stressful for the nurses not to have the back up they need.

[BBB]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

The A & E departments have a four hour target in which they have to deal with patients admitted to them. If they are getting close to the four hour deadline and the patient has yet to be seen by a doctor they will move them on to a ward, and that gets round the target nicely.

[scoobydoo]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

I guess a lot of this boils down to education and training. If the bureaucracy and paperwork is reduced the pen-pushers will be out of work - but how do we transfer at least part of that funding that to more front-line staff . Where I live the police have not been recruiting for some time and yet I know some youngsters who are desperate to join and are unable to do so.

Also I have said for sometime in my experience careers advice seems to be lacking - and right from an early age we should be encouraging youngsters in to the NHS and Police etc it would give them a focus. We can not all work in offices and services.There are hundreds of jobs that our youngsters have no vision or idea that they are out there and they seem so ill prepared for the real world.

I guess thats targets and paperwork again - its about time we valued all professions more and streamlined our university courses to deal with useful degrees and for those who are not academic transfer them to technical colleges at an earlier age - there is nothing wrong with manual hands on professions and we should all respect peoples varying abilities rather them all coming out with useless bits of paper.

[natweststaffmember]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

You're forgetting that London is the financial centre of the world - created by way of light touch regulation - by one Gordon Brown.

Greece and Icelend were not responsible for clocking up the UK's deficit.

I remember that way back in the 1990's that the issue of over regulation was an issue rather than under regulation that appears to be the case now.
The issues of Iceland and Greece are merely that, ie that the UK deficit is not entirely a unique event.
The issue I have is I don't trust the Conservative party however, if by electing them it will mean they will never govern for a generation then I might be tempted to vote for them, lol.

This Thursday we will know. At the moment the Nick Clegg, first 10,000 pounds of income will not be taxed is very much something that I like being someone who earns under 20000 per annum. I don't like all his policies but then again who likes every single policy of a party that they are going to vote for?

[scoobydoo]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

I agree about the first £10000 being tax free as it will help people who are on low wages and those trying to get off benefits and get into work - however are they really going to be able to pay for it? I also agreed with NC in that as the economy is in such a state we should have all party discussions a sort of war cabinet to pool ideas -


Also you have to be very careful about penalising all top earners as if they have worked hard to run a business that employs others why should they be penalised?

I guess the correct way is to look at tax for small businesses as well.

[BBB]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

When tax allowances were first introduced in the early 20th century if they had been increased in line with inflation then the first £10k of anyones income would be tax free now. Instead they have been steadily eroded over the years.

[EXC]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

I see Clegg's taking a battering in the press.

[Smasher]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

Haha

Of course if Cameron wins on thursday, it'll be "thanks to the sun's support"..

[Guest]

Re: General Election 2010 Thread

The reason we have so much bureaucracy, more managers than beds and so much paperwork is quite simple. It was and is Labour job creation. It is typical big-Government and even under the Conservatives, little is going to change now.

There are over 900,000 more civil servants now than there were under the last Conservative administration. We did not need them back then, so why do we need them now? None of the services are better, many if not all of them are far worse. We now have an unproductive and overpaid public sector which accounts for 52% of the economy and it cannot continue. Labour and in particular Gordon Brown have done this. Last quarter for example, private sector jobs fell by 61,000 yet public sector employment grew by 7,000.

Bear in mind of course, that no public sector workers pay tax, at least not in any meaningful sense. The money they take home is all tax revenue from the private sector and any "tax" they pay is simply paid from money already given to them by the state.