UK: Who will you vote for?
- Started
- Last post
- 110 Responses
- lowimpakt0
Kuz, i don't mean to sound like an apologist for Labour/Brown.
I'm just pointing out facts and maybe getting people to think about the state of the UK more objectively.
- Khurram0
I don't think John Major would have introduced 28 days detention for terrorist suspects, university top-up fees, complete unregulation of the financial sector, raping of the public sector by private firms through the Public-Private-Partnership initiative nor the zeal for US led wars.
Loooking at this objectively, we're being told that "at least the Labour Party aren't the Tories", as though the choice is the lesser of two evils. I don't actually see them as being "lesser" of anything.
Except that their base, by the quirks of tradition alone, are of the social-democratic variety. Which is the only reason that there is the prospect of a hung-parliament. Not because the Tories have won anyone over, but because the left will have, rightly, completely abandoned Labour.
- What the fuck is the FSA if it isn't regulation for the financial sector???********
- What the fuck is the FSA if it isn't regulation for the financial sector???
- lowimpakt0
What would John Major have done if he was faced with similar circumstances (in terms of terroism)?
You're also forgetting that deregulation of the financial services sector was a Thatcher project. That and closing down and removing suppport for state owned business at a time of high/mass unemployment.
- lowimpakt0
It was the tories/thatcher that promoted and developed the financial services sector at the devastating expense of the manufacturing sectors.
how people think this was started by Labour I'll never understand.
- Khurram0
i have no idea what Major would have done - i do know that none of the anti-terror laws came from Tory think tanks or policies (i.e, detention without trial, ID cards, banning protests around parliament etc...)
As for your Tatcher assertion. Yes, exactly. That's my whole point!
- lowimpakt0
What's your point again?
are you trying to say that John Major managed the transition from tory ruin to labour partial ruin therefore John Major is great.? :)
- You know exactly what my point is. What are you talking about "ruin" anyway?Khurram
- The foundation for UK economic success you credit Labour for in the 90s was laid by Major anywayKhurram
- The biggest growth in UK GDP in the last 20 years was in 1994 - New Labour never cam close to matching thatKhurram
- johnnnnyh0
Thatcher took away the university grant system
- thats a good thing, too many cunts at university.PIZZA
- definitelycalculator
- johnnnnyh0
Lesser of two evils perhaps - but really the Tory evil isn't one you even want to consider.
- Khurram0
It's all been smoke and mirrors. It turns out, that the British public are more toleratnt of right-wing, tabloid appeasing, free-market politics when it comes from the left than when it comes from the right. It's all about the messenger.
It's like "yeah, the gap between rich and poor is the biggest it has EVER been in living memory, but they're doing it for the 'greater good',"
Do you think the Tories could have gotten away with that? Same scenario, different party it'd be all:
"Private pocket lining, elitist rich cunt helping out their friends!" etc.
- johnnnnyh0
Blair was retrospectively more Tory than Labour would have liked to admit. At the time he didn't seem so, and it really, and completely was a good thing when he was elected. The day I mean, not the time in power - over which his policies became less and less acceptable as socialist ones.
John Major was so ineffective, but the Govt was dying then and Labour only had Micheal Foot or Kinnock and they weren't being bought into by the "loads-a-money" culture. John Smith looked promising but he selfishly died.
Actually on paper GBrown has good credentials - just called the election too late - should have done it in his first few months.
- lowimpakt0
kuz. so you're saying they are not socialist enough? i agree with you there and that has been clear from day 1 of new labour.
but, in terms of the cards on the table the additional options appear to be vote Lib Dem or vote noone.
Clegg is a happy chappy but doesn't he have the gumption to lead in the current situation?
- isakosmo0
lowimpakt you talk a lot of sense.
ill be voting labour in the local elections (im foreign so thats all i get). lib dems all look very nice, i've met my local lib dem prospective councillors, all very nice with a lot of nice promises (open more youth centers, more affordable housing, yada yada yada) but where will they find the cash?!! its a lot of unrealistic promises. gordon brown is the best placed to get the country sorted economically, and right now that's all that matters.
- Khurram0
I'm uncomfortable pigeon holing myself, but i would say, that from the point of view of a social democrat, New Labour's record is far worse than the predecessor Tory government judging by many different quantifiers.
Judging by "cards on the table", i don't exactly see how Cameron would be better/worse for the left than the Tories - except of course in the realsm of "appearance politics" which is the only thing that matters these days.
I tend to agree with Tony Wood from this month's New Left Review:
"But surely the clinching argument against New Labour is one of simple democratic principle. Any government with a record as appalling as this one’s deserves to be punished at the polls, if accountability to the voting public is to have any meaning. The specifics of New Labour’s record—one murderous war after another; slavish devotion to finance; promotion of rampant inequality; repeated assaults on civil liberties; fragmentation and privatization of public services; outrageous corruption—make plain that they have fully merited being turfed out of office. Good riddance; this execrable government deserves to go."
But really, i've been a New Labour success story, so i shouldn't complain. My net worth has grown exponentially over the last 5 years. My house is stacked with Hi-Def widescreen 45" TV, cinema sound systems, PS3, got the latest 3G phone, and just yesterday i bought a new designer suit for £500!!
This one:
http://www.asos.com/Hugo-Boss/Hu…
So, well, fuck it!
- shit suit matePIZZA
- Your mom is a shit suit! In the ARSE!Khurram
- wow you've made it BIG!! (you need to spend money on better shit)Projectile
- how are those monthly payments?calculator
- Khurram0
and yeah, i know i skirted the question re: the Lib Dems, with whom i'm less than enamoured, and yeah i know the logical conclusions of my argument will mean waking up to a Cameron government on Friday morning, but if that's the price i pay for voting a third/fourth party alternative or even abstaining out of total apathy, then fuck it, real social change happens amongst the masses anyway, not through the mechanisms of the state.
And check out my new suit!
- This will look really sexy on me, because i have a great physique.Khurram
- BaskerviIle0
Well, I voted this morning and I voted tactically, which I wasn't going to do, but it served my opinions and local constituency best.
Now I can enjoy sitting back and watching the results roll in tonight.Did anyone see this video of a BNP candidate getting into a fight on the street? if nothing else, vote to keep scum like this out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_po…- looks like they got a doin'Stugoo
- hahahahaha, this country is fucked.********
- isakosmo0
for all you lot who were going on about how we need to get labour out and the tories are a good option...
Robert Mugabe gives Cameron election backing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/…- well maybe he'll listen to Cameron telling him how much of a fuck up he is then********
- well maybe he'll listen to Cameron telling him how much of a fuck up he is then
- Ranger0
The way I see it whoever gets in is going to be in such a shit storm that they won't win the following election. I loathe both labour and the tories.
If the tories get in we will have 5 years of excuses blaming the previous labour government for leaving them this mess. I don't believe they will be good for the economy or society.
If labour get in they will have to finally come clean and admit the scale of the shit they've allowed us to get into. I trust that Brown personally understands better the implications of economic decisions and knock on effects. I'd like to see them get back in with a majority and stew in it. Allow them to tackle the problems they've got the country into without any excuses of it being the oppositions fault. I'm fairly sure Brown will be out rather sharpish regardless of the result though.
Assuming Lib Dems don't get in tonight and how they handle themselves over the next few years they could be well poised for the next election when Labour or the Tories get voted out again.
- calculator0
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_po…
Who's the scum? The guy who spits or the guy that throws the punch?
Any fucker who spits on me is getting a beat down.
- I kind of agree although theres the third possibility that the person being spat on deserves it...********
- stupid fucks stooped to the level of the BNP by spitting at him...hans_glib
- I kind of agree although theres the third possibility that the person being spat on deserves it...
- calculator0
We're in a worse financial situation than the Greeks?!