The big debate 2015 !!!

First topic message reminder :

Clegg non existent.....Cam and Mili going through the motions....Farage chucking grenades and misfiring.....Little feisty Nicola Sturgeon stealing the show.....What a fighter..

Think I'm falling in love.....Shorter version of my Mrs....

It really is. I'm sure England used to care about people

It's headline grabbing at it's best same with benefits and such, the media report it as a major major issue when it's a small part but it hits home due to the waiting lists and such.

The rules need tightening up to prevent abuse of the system but if they're on about saving money, I think there's other things the MP's could focus on.

http://reasonstovoteukip.com/

I think I'll vote for UKIP based upon:

- Leaving the political union we have with Europe (and going back to a trading union)
- Cutting foreign aid
- Scrapping HS2
- Controlled immigration (not no immigration, controlled)
- Addressing the Barnett Formula
- Scrapping the ludicrous target of 50% of children going to University
- English votes for English laws (thus solving the West Lothian question)
- A focus on Grammar Schools (better for social mobility)
- Letting the British Parliament vote on GM Crops (that's a good idea)
- Prisoners will still not be allowed to vote (something a future Labour/Conservative government will inevitably waver on when the EU dictate to us)
- Reducing the BBC license fee (although I wish they would scrap it all together)
- Oh and I prefer Farage as a leader to Cameron/Miliband/Clegg

UKIP are also going to take those on the minimum wage out of tax............You forgot that one !!

I think you're better off in the EU tent than out for all it's idiosyncracies.....You'll find yourself very isolated.....Why risk the recovery..

You should cut foreign aid to Countries spending money on nuclear weapons.......

I want to see more kids going to UNI not less...........

Haven't read anything about Labour and Tories and prisoner voting rights......So that's innuendo.

Licence fee is a value for money.............So don't mind that...

Oh and I don't prefer Farage as a leader to Cameron/Clegg/Miliband...

1) True!
2) Better off out, surely? The restoration of parliamentary sovereignty, and regain control of our borders, surely outweighs any potential economic risk (which is pure conjecture at this stage, anyway).
3) Certainly. Countries such as India (who have their own space program), or Argentina (who just plain despise us).
4) That would be a bad thing. It degrades the importance and prestige of Universities, leading to an over-saturated graduate market.
5) Well the choice won't be up to them. It will depend on the whim of the European Union.
6 and 7) To each their own.

Whilst I've fell off the UKIP bandwagon in the last few months (too many distasteful things happening in the party to even say it's different from the others (Fiddling expenses and taking more money from the EU really peed me off)

But Duty's got some good points, we need a referendum on the EU it was promised us and has yet to been delivered.
Foreign aid should be cut to any/all countries that are spending their own money on things that aren't completely necessary (Nuclear weapons/space programmes/sending Foreign aid to other countries.)
Targets for Uni/NHS anything are inherently a bad thing as instead of focussing on what they're supposed to be doing they're focussing on the targets. 50% of all kids going to uni is ridiculous, it's supposed to be for the brightest and best, the degree you hold is supposed to be something special and help you stand out, if everyones got one it means as much as the latest happy meal toy from Mcdonalds.
Licence fee should be binned, with the advent of Sky/BT etc it's now hardly watched by some people.
The prisoner voting thing has been on and off for a few years, can't see it coming in unless one of the parties thinks they'll benefit from it.

All the MP's we've got are so out of touch, i'd rather Wheely gets in and takes over.

"It's supposed to be for the brightest and best"

Yes it is isn't it !!

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:"It's supposed to be for the brightest and best"

Yes it is isn't it !!

I don't get what your saying here Truss, are you agreeing? stating you don't like the numbers either?

You know and I know that the brightest and best don't always get the places they should.....

Got you now, that's true as well but expanding the list to add more in the hope that you do get the doesn't help in the slightest.

Carry on the way we are and it won't be long before the degree is seen the same as an NVQ (I've got 2 of them )

Derbymanc wrote:Got you now, that's true as well but expanding the list to add more in the hope that you do get the doesn't help in the slightest.

Carry on the way we are and it won't be long before the degree is seen the same as an NVQ (I've got 2 of them )

Degrees are overrated anyway................I've got one.

Some of the crap we've had working here who are armed to the teeth in qualifications being a fine example............

They don't have degrees in common sense..

Very True that Truss, some are worth more than others and some people won't be 'smarter' no matter how many bits of paper they have. I'm sure you'll know though that the more bits of paper out there then the harder it is to sift through the flotsam.

Licence fee should be binned, with the advent of Sky/BT etc it's now hardly watched by some people.

Not even close to being true.

http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-viewing-summary

BBC together gets nearly a quarter of everybody in the UK watching TV.

Fair do's Crimey, can't argue with the figures really and as that's the case then it's not bad value I suppose (although I still think we should still be given the choice.)

Derbymanc wrote:Fair do's Crimey, can't argue with the figures really and as that's the case then it's not bad value I suppose (although I still think we should still be given the choice.)

You do have a choice: you don't have to pay the license fee.

And it is completely unenforceable.

Duty281 wrote:

Derbymanc wrote:Fair do's Crimey, can't argue with the figures really and as that's the case then it's not bad value I suppose (although I still think we should still be given the choice.)

You do have a choice: you don't have to pay the license fee.

And it is completely unenforceable.

BBC a bit left wing for you is it mate ??

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

Derbymanc wrote:Fair do's Crimey, can't argue with the figures really and as that's the case then it's not bad value I suppose (although I still think we should still be given the choice.)

You do have a choice: you don't have to pay the license fee.

And it is completely unenforceable.

BBC a bit left wing for you is it mate ??

Ah...let's not go there.

The license fee is a reasonably enforceable law. It's also a pittance for quality and legislated television

I'd hate to see what you would be like If you were interested in politics...Dolphin !!

suppose 12.13 a month isn't too bad considering it covers tv and radio (I believe) still think we should be given a choice like we are with sky.

I see Tony Blair is back and getting stuck in...

Interesting to see If that's a good or bad thing for his party..

Another debate tonight. Farage to emerge victorious.

Do it for England, Nige!

Duty281 wrote:Another debate tonight. Farage to emerge victorious.

Do it for England, Nige!

Not sure a victory will make a difference........To UKIP.....

I just refuse to vote for Eds bastard union of the nationalists and the loonies (greens)

The Greens manifesto was one of the funniest things I'd read in a while. Not quite as scary as UKIP's but still...

It was probably worth the 10 minutes they spent on it with the abacus they rented.

Excellent stuff, Farage. I'm guessing he was sick of those bloody BBC audiences after three years.

Won on immigration (duh!), defence and tied first for most convincing arguments with Miliband, according to a snap Survation survey.

Awful that he won't be included on the 30th.

The benefits of knowing you have no chance of getting into power re. Greens. Would love to vote for them, but they are totally loony.

At this point Clegg is really the only sane hope for Labour and Conservatives. UKIP and the Conservatives are unlikely to be a majority. Miliband forming a coalition with the Nationalists would be career suicide.

Thoughts on the debate:

Sturgeon the clear winner. Her message seems to be "vote for us so we can help Labour keep the conservatives out" which makes absolutely no sense but somehow nobody has picked up on it. I'm beginning to believe the polls can't be all wrong, and the SNP will essentially clean up Scotland. What this means for the UK as a whole I have no real idea.

Milliband did OK I thought. Not great, but OK. Being "attacked" from the left may have actually helped him in that he generally came across as reasonable/responsible (relatively) which I suspect will be a positive if any central swing voters were watching. Hard to tell. Thought his challenge to Cameron sounded a bit forced and contrived.

Farage was Farage. His supporters will have loved it (good old Nige, sticking it up to em again), the sane and sensible are by now well aware of his obnoxiousness, incoherence and simple hypocrisy (OMG we're being demonised for demonising people!! OMG you can't point out how we don't like black people, that's racist!! We're the anti-establishment party backed by big businesses... etc. etc.), but it was nice to have it pointed out. It was a performance very much aimed at consolidating his current base rather than trying to expand it.

Wood I thought came across quite well, but was somewhat marginalised. She was unapologetic about standing up for Wales which given the SNP presence came across as being "fair enough" to me at least. I thought at times she was a bit eager to jump in with Sturgeon and seemed a bit like an "SNP for Wales -Light".

Bennett I can't remember saying much of note, which is not really a good sign. Mind you I have kind of tuned out to the Greens.

The polls still seem to be consistent. As things stand, the Conservative and Labour would get roughly the same number of seats.

There is a slight trend of UKIP's support dropping gradually which for those of us who would like to think 15% of the population aren't bigots or ignorant is probably a good thing.

There will probably be a slight incumbent bounce for the Conservatives. Whether this is enough for them (possibly with some Lib Dem support) to beat the Labour-SNP block and actually form a government remains to be seen. If it isn't then things get quite uncertain...

Talk of the SNP wagging the dog reminds me of similar scare stories being bandied about 5 years ago. How coalitions are weak and unstable, how giving the most power to the 3rd largest party was perverting democracy, etc. These mostly proved to be unfounded. The coalition whatever you think of it has lasted the course and engaged on some quite fundamental reforms. The Lib Dems have had by and large as much influence as the arithmetic and political landscape suggests. They have blocked some of the more extreme right-wing measures, but it has definitely been a Conservative-led government.

It is actually my view that coalitions are no bad thing: they force people to work together, so you need some dialogue and compromise rather than mindlessly charging on ahead.

The difference between that situation and what could transpire with the SNP of course is that the Lib Dems occupied the centre ground. They had to make the coalition work to some extent to justify their very existence. That and the fact the Tories were still trying to "detoxify" meant the common ground was in the centre which tends to work better. Governments where the extremes hold bargaining power fare less well, because the extremes tend to be by definition less reasonable. See for example France where a major issue at the moment is the left-drag on the socialists by the greens/communists (note that this was the same when the right was in power before 2012; a similar drag from the right of the UMP (French conservatives)...).

that would be a big concern for me with a Labour-SNP pact. The Lib Dems couldn't really just throw their toys out, because they wanted to appear like a party who could govern. The SNP have no real ambition to govern Britain and therefore no real motivation to act responsibly. Their scope for making unreasonable demands is therefore that much more. This is not to say that they would do so of course.

Fantastic eye opener of a debate.

Made one thing abundantly clear:

Sturgeon owns Milliband and (English) Tory-hating morons are going to deliver 5 years of England being Scotland's bItch.

Great.

Thought Miliband was excellent last night...Sturgeon too.

Farage awful....Plaid non existent again...Green much improved !!

Cam was silly not to do it...Clegg biggest loser.

Mike Selig wrote:Farage was Farage. His supporters will have loved it (good old Nige, sticking it up to em again), the sane and sensible are by now well aware of his obnoxiousness, incoherence and simple hypocrisy (OMG we're being demonised for demonising people!! OMG you can't point out how we don't like black people, that's racist!! We're the anti-establishment party backed by big businesses... etc. etc.), but it was nice to have it pointed out. It was a performance very much aimed at consolidating his current base rather than trying to expand it.

There is a slight trend of UKIP's support dropping gradually which for those of us who would like to think 15% of the population aren't bigots or ignorant is probably a good thing.

Oh dear.

Reminds me of that idiotic Telegraph journalist the other day:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11537768/Watch-What-happens-when-a-Telegraph-journalist-asked-Ukip-if-their-manifesto-was-racist.html

Cam couldn't have gained anything. Was kids squabbling.

Debate did his job without him - Vote Tory/LD or accept England run by Scotland, couldn't have been laid out any more starkly.

TopHat24/7 wrote:Fantastic eye opener of a debate.

Made one thing abundantly clear:

Sturgeon owns Milliband and (English) Tory-hating morons are going to deliver 5 years of England being Scotland's bItch.

Great.

The best line being how this election is about getting rid of the Tories.

No, it's about who's going to run the country the best.

Which wouldn't be the bastard union of nationalists all seeking to tear the country apart to benefit a select group.

Miliband had a nice platform to look prime ministerial and to accuse like Farage and sturgeon did of Cameron having no bollox...

Latest survation poll after debate..............Who'd make best PM out of Cam v Miliband

Cameron 40%
Miliband 45%

So of course Cameron did nothing wrong..

One thing actually has been made clear: the Conservatives are going to try to frame the remainder of this election exactly along the lines of "vote Labour, get SNP" that Top Hat is spinning. They have focused relentlessly on Labour's troubles in Scotland and this seems to be working to some extent. They are now hoping that fear of the SNP will allow them to sneak home. It will be interesting to see if this strategy bears fruit.

I do not agree that this reflects the reality of the debate. It was Sturgeon spinning the line "we must do everything we can to stop the conservatives". How this translates as "Labour will allow themselves to be dictated to by the SNP" escapes me somewhat - I see where the logic of the latter statement is coming from, but it doesn't reconcile with the SNP claiming that they will do everything to stop the conservatives, because surely that would mean propping up a Labour government no matter what.

Labour have consistently said that they wouldn't enter a formal coalition with the SNP, though this is being spun as "Labour refuse to rule out power sharing deal with the SNP".

The truth is that if as seems likely neither party secures an overall majority, both sides are going to need support from elsewhere. That does not necessarily mean the the smaller party will be able to dictate terms entirely - that is the kind of reasoning we heard 5 years ago and it simply hasn't happened that way.

We don't really know how the dynamics of an SNP-Labour (-Lib Dem?) deal would look like. Except that it probably won't be either the SNP agreeing to everything to keep the Conservatives out, or Labour allowing the SNP to dictate everything to stay in power. The reality is rarely black and white - it will probably be something in the middle.

£8 billion for the NHS and Right to buy = "Ed is crap" not working !!

I remember some blonde chick on Fox news ...John Stewart used to take the pee out of...

Rasmussen poll - Obama 53% Mccain 47 % .................."You can't trust polls"

Rasmussen poll - Obamacare Yes 48% No 52% ..."This poll shows the public don't want Obamacare"..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:I remember some blonde chick on Fox news ...John Stewart used to take the pee out of...

Rasmussen poll - Obama 53% Mccain 47 % .................."You can't trust polls"

Rasmussen poll - Obamacare Yes 48% No 52% ..."This poll shows the public don't want Obamacare"..

 

Says the guy whose almost entire politically debating ability centres around spanking the monkey over poll results

Mike Selig wrote:One thing actually has been made clear: the Conservatives are going to try to frame the remainder of this election exactly along the lines of "vote Labour, get SNP" that Top Hat is spinning. They have focused relentlessly on Labour's troubles in Scotland and this seems to be working to some extent. They are now hoping that fear of the SNP will allow them to sneak home. It will be interesting to see if this strategy bears fruit.

I do not agree that this reflects the reality of the debate. It was Sturgeon spinning the line "we must do everything we can to stop the conservatives". How this translates as "Labour will allow themselves to be dictated to by the SNP" escapes me somewhat - I see where the logic of the latter statement is coming from, but it doesn't reconcile with the SNP claiming that they will do everything to stop the conservatives, because surely that would mean propping up a Labour government no matter what.

Labour have consistently said that they wouldn't enter a formal coalition with the SNP, though this is being spun as "Labour refuse to rule out power sharing deal with the SNP".

The truth is that if as seems likely neither party secures an overall majority, both sides are going to need support from elsewhere. That does not necessarily mean the the smaller party will be able to dictate terms entirely - that is the kind of reasoning we heard 5 years ago and it simply hasn't happened that way.

We don't really know how the dynamics of an SNP-Labour (-Lib Dem?) deal would look like. Except that it probably won't be either the SNP agreeing to everything to keep the Conservatives out, or Labour allowing the SNP to dictate everything to stay in power. The reality is rarely black and white - it will probably be something in the middle.

Labour can't take power on their own (neither can Cons). Sturgeon has set her stall out firmly as king-maker and it seems clear she'll wipe out Labour from Scotland (even further emphasising Labour's inability to win majority). Sturgeon's entire raison d'etre is screwing England on behalf of Scotland, and she's the only way Red Ed can get in power (don't think an LD tie-up will cut it, or happen).

Con-LD 'worked' as a coalition because they were just about sufficiently aligned politically & geographically so that the junior partner couldn't dictate terms. This is not the same as SNP-Lab where one part controls one country and the other another and both are pitted directly against each-other's interests.

Sturgeon won't get into bed without a guarantee of major concessions/giveaways to Scotland, ergo if Labour wins England loses.

I agree with a lot of what you say Top Hat, but I think you are being a bit too alarmist. I also think describing the SNP's sole raison d'etre as screwing over England a bit unhelpful.

I have conceded that any SNP-Labour deal will have a different dynamic to the current coalition. I think that is a lot to do with the SNP being left of Labour rather than towards the middle. Extremes tend to have a bigger say because they have less to lose. I don't think it necessarily follows that they will be able to dictate things entirely. Ed has made it quite clear that he has fundamental disagreements with the SNP and I imagine there will be a fair amount of red lines. A fair bit of "bluff calling" may be needed, but the SNP will have to play ball to some extent because I doubt they want another election within 6 months (which is what will probably happen if nobody gets a foothold on any kind of power).

I also think talk of the SNP-Labour potential deal does ignore the part the Lib Dems could play. I expect they will hold 20-30 seats. If Labour have a lead of say 10-20 seats over the Conservatives (not impossible) and the Lib Dems side with Labour, then that is somewhere between 30-50 seats the two would have over the Conservatives without the SNP. That is non-negligible, and I can't see the SNP voting a left of centre government down, so that would force them to play ball. Yes they will get concessions along the way, but I don't think it need to be as drastic as you and others are making up.

Much rather see Labour/SNP coalition than have Tory majority and more endless pain to the needy...

Have a high regard for your NHS...........It's an institution admired around the world.

Hate to see you lose it...

Mike Selig wrote:I agree with a lot of what you say Top Hat, but I think you are being a bit too alarmist. I also think describing the SNP's sole raison d'etre as screwing over England a bit unhelpful.

Didn't follow the independence campaign with much interest then..?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11544246/Nigel-Farage-repeats-claim-that-BBC-debate-audience-was-biased.html

Farage sticking to his point, quite rightly. Wasn't quite as bad as the Question Time in Clacton a few months ago, but still!

It's BBC, of course it was going to lean to the left. Farage knew what he was going into, both eyes open....

I don't want the SNP propping up Labour. But nor do I want UKIP and the DUP propping up the Tories. More so the DUP (they make UKIP look sane)

Today they've came out and said they want a Right to March law as a condition of support, for goodness sake. More to life than flegs and parades for goodness sake.

Do you not see another Con-LD happening/working.....?

I doubt they'd have the seats