UK Election: The Big Fight Thread

[Jubal]

Herein shall lie the great debates on who should run that sceptered isle. Feel free to weigh in from the States or the Continent, interesting to see what you think of it all!

Current poll from YouGov (3 March):
Conservatives 38%
Labour 33%
Lib Dems 16%
Other 13%

[Jubal]

As for myself, I'll go for the Liberals this time. Clegg has been talking more sense than usual recently, and he has Vince Cable behind him who's more trustworthy and probably smarter than the entirety of the Labour and Tory front benches put together. It's close between that and a Labour Hung Parliament (allow Labour to do some good with significant checks from the Dems, and much, muuuch more likely to occur than a LD-led coalition winning).

[comrade_general]

Holy crap there are so many choices  :cyclops:

I couldn't decide without knowing details, so I hereby abstain.  

[Jubal]

Here's my list of the outcomes and explanations, in probability order (And yes, I am biased, just so you know).

Labour Hung; No party in power but a Labour Government. Similar to Laboiur, except that they'll need support on a vote-by-vote basis and so a) will find it harder to get thing done but b) will have to listen to other parties more.
Conservative Hung; The worst option, as the LD and Labour will always oppose the Tories so nothing will EVER get done.
Conservative; BIG cuts to deal with budget deficits quickly, change welfare system to encourage people to get married rahter than just giving depending on who actually needs the money, more charities/companies involved in government, and less tax.
Labour; centrist, will keep us on a similar course to the current one. Decent public services, stay in Afghanistan, carry on as we've been doing. Might well swing to the left after the election.
Lib/Lab; Lib Dems and Labour share power. They're quite similar politically, so it could work. However, the Liberals don't really want to share with Labour after the latter have been in power for so long.
Con/UKIP pact; Unlikely since UKIP prolly won't get any seats, but they might go with the Tories in exchange for getting out of Europe.
Lib Dems; Much heavier on the banks (we'd get our own version of Glass-Steagall), we'd scrap our nuclear deterrent (which is a TOTAL waste of cash), more money into education, stronger ties with the EU possibly, change to proportional representation for voting so everyone's vote actually counts.
UKIP; The out-of-europe party. Basically like the conservatives, but more so and more hating of outsiders and foreigners and that sort of thing. Don't much like multiculturalism or people with funny names.
Greens; Scrap nukes, high taxes, everything goes really green, we become totally eco-friendly, etc. We probably go bankrupt too, but hey, what the hell.
BNP; Our resident Nazis, basically. Their leader has shared platforms with the KKK before, they want to kick more or less all non-whites out the country.

[Goldyrulz]

looking at polls at the moment, a hung parliament of a kind is looking the most obvious outcome at the moment, so i voted on labour hung cause it shall happen. Not one party is a stand out atm and i cant see that changing atm either so hung it will be!

[DeepComet5581]

I'm 17 so I can't vote this year (Damnit).

If I do, I would probably hope for a Conservative/UKIP merger. I might have voted for the Lib Dems but they want stronger ties with the EU.

Really, the sooner we get out of the EU, the better. The bastards in Brussels have been ordering us about for too long, and France and Germany are trying to leech our financial power away from us.

We won't lose out on anything. We may lose out on maybe 10% of our trade, which can be picked up by trade with America or Asia. We also stand to gain so much.

This is why I want to vote UKIP or a merger between them and the Tories.

[comrade_general]

There I went with the conservatives.  :ouch:

[Jubal]

Unsurprised Comrade went with the Tories, since Cameron basically worships ANYTHING American.

I have to disagree on the EU. We rely on a lot more than 10% of our trade from it, our Farmers would be buggered without CAP, and if we did pull out there's no way we could build equally strong ties anytime quickly with an increasingly protectionist Asian market. We'd gain freedom from a few of the sillier regulations, true, but we benefit rather than lose out financially, contrary to what the media (which bar the BBC is basically right-wing, I might add) tend to spout on about.

The other fact we have to face is that Britain is no longer a superpower nor can it pretend to be. With the EU we have quite a powerful voice as one of the most economically powerful countries in the Union. We're never going to ahve the sort of joint muscle we have with the EU anywhere else, because the other world powers such as the USA or China simply own't listen to a smaller tag-along ally. Look at hte middle east and he we ahven't managed to work well with the Americans there for many years. The EU gives us a decent voice, at least.

[Marcus]

I won't be able to vote this year (17 till august), but the most likely party for me is probably the Lib Dems, partly because they're the one of the only three which voting for will possibly make any difference, and they also make some vague sense now and again.

On the other hand, Ben Bradshaw, Exeter's MP, has done some good stuff for the city since 97, including improving the schools and the buses, to some degree, and I'm not so sure what the Lib Dem's Graham Oakes will be like. But Labour nationally have done a wonderful job of cocking up various bits of the country, and have also displayed how little power we have against MPs who just want the free cash, and the fact that the banks, while essential to the country's ongoing existence, have been given pretty much a free ride.

[Jubal]

Put your vote down, then, Marc.

Vince Cable IS god, frankly. Only sane man on the front benches, I think, sometimes.

On another note, what do people think on voting systems? Anyone in favour of PR/AV/1st-PtP?

[DeepComet5581]

All that I said are the opinion and views and facts presented by my dad, who worked for the ECGD (Government body dealing specifically with Imports and Exports) for 27 years. He knows what he's talking about. The EU have a stranglehold over our country and so many regulations are completely pointless. Also, our taxes are paying for about 100 useless w***ers to travel to Brussels as MEPs. We also pay an incredible amount of money to be a member country.

The only reason the UK is part of the EU is because the government didn't call for a public referendum in 1973, as they knew the public didn't want it. The same is the case now. If I remember my History lessons correctly, the EU was originally established in 1950 as the European Coal and Steel Community, which sought to unify production of resources in Europe. While it did make war between European countries impossible, it was just a way for the 6 original member states to make money from the Coal and Steel industries after the war.

There is little reason Asia wouldn't increase trade with us. We already trade a lot with China (Think about how many things have a "Made in China" stamped on them). Our currency is also the strongest in the world, despite the recession, and Asian countries stand to gain a lot of money.

Even if Asia doesn't agree to increase trade, what's wrong with America?

[joek]

@Jubal - I can't say I particularly like 1stPTP, but the problem with PR is it leads to coalitions in which not much gets done. OTOH, we are currently becoming more and more like the American 'you can vote for who's in power, but it won't change ***t' method of democracy, so perhaps it's what we need. I'm not too familiar with AV, so I can't comment on that.

As for Europe - if we pull out of Europe, it will, among other things, stop the workers coming from there who do the jobs no-one over here wants to do, and it is good for teh economy. We rely on Europe for the majority of our trade at the moment, so pulling out would make trade much more expensive.

[DeepComet5581]

As for Europe - if we pull out of Europe, it will, among other things, stop the workers coming from there who do the jobs no-one over here wants to do, and it is good for teh economy. We rely on Europe for the majority of our trade at the moment, so pulling out would make trade much more expensive.

In this economic climate, most unemployed will want to do those jobs. Hell, University graduates are having to get jobs in pubs because the job market is so crap at the moment. Also, trade with Europe IS expensive for us.

Allow me to explain currency when it comes to trade.

For countries with strong currencies (i.e. EU/NATO/G8), exports are incredibly expensive but imports are similarly cheap. For countries with weak currencies, the opposite applies. With European countries, our exports go for cheaper and imports are much more expensive. If we traded solely with weak currency countries like those in Asia and South America, imports would be ridiculously cheap and exports will make a lot of money, which couldn save billions of pounds a year.

[Jubal]

Exports to South America will make a lot of money? Countries with weak currencies don't have the cash to buy most British-made products in any numbers worth selling.

Also, the worker boom from Europe. Long-term, it's making Britain richer. Muuuuch richer. At current ates, by 2030 Germany, Italy and France will all have been crippled by a population slump and having to look after a large older generation with few young workers. In Britain, we have sufficient migratory labour that our population yramid will maintain stability; in a couple decades, we'll be the biggest and strongest economic power in Europe and there ain't much anyone can do about it. If we stay in the EU, that is... basically if we staty our power increases with time, if we go we get sidelined. South America hates us, going into Africa we'd be competing with Chinese expansion which we can't do, America, China, or Russia are so big that we'd simply be marginalised in terms of both trade and geopolitics.

[comrade_general]

Hell, University graduates are having to get jobs in pubs because the job market is so crap at the moment.

pubs cheese factories