Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:03 pm  

Damo-Leeds wrote:

I want a labour majority but conservative local MP.

My prospective Labour MP ........... conspired with a union rep to have my mother suspended from a three day event just so his friend could go instead.

Can you prove that?

Damo-Leeds wrote:

My current local MP Stuart Andrew has experience long term unemployment and can relate to me even better than most of the union activist I started hanging around with from the end of last year,

You really shouldn't hang around with union activists, they are well known for conspiring against mothers.

Damo-Leeds wrote:

Thankfully Labour has a good policy for solving long term unemployment by guaranteeing proper jobs as opposed to the work for your benefits policy that the conservatives currently have in place.

So good in fact that you nearly got a job during their 13 years in power.

Damo-Leeds wrote:

Stuart Andrew has been a lot quicker to deal with things than the union I’m involved in so I’d rather stick with him. At least he seems to know what he’s doing. Unions need to modernise fast but in my experience that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

I hear some union leaders shag mothers, is yours up for that?

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:04 pm  

Stuart Andrew is actually a Tory that I could possibly vote for, he's from the same mould as Mulholland in that he pays a lot of attention to his constituency and campaigns heavily on local issues, maybe its a Leeds thing but both of them are always in the local media and I dare say that Andrew probably uses social media a lot too, having access to an MP who will actually reply to emails or Tweets is the future.

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:31 pm  

I shall probably vote although it will no doubt be a wasted vote in our first past the post system. Not sure who I will vote for yet. If our politicians were serious about re-engaging the apathetic public they would move to a PR system. Another split vote may hasten that. As it would the height of non-democracy if, say, the Tories went into coalition with UKIP or the LibDems, when, say, Labour and SNP got an equivalent number of votes. If we are to keep getting coalitions with a first past the post system we will end up a dangerously divided country. Having said that, coalitions have been rare but if they were to be the future under the current system we ought to legitimise the coalition concept via PR.

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 12:37 pm  

The other thing that is sickening about our established political class is that they defend our method of 'democracy' as giving people a local representative in parliament and yet come the elections they make it all about the leaders and the prospective PM! Hypocrisy as with everything they utter. To hear Cameron and the female on QT last night was truly pathetic - they just repeat their simple message over and over again and stick to the party script. Not sure that's leadership or representation. Then there was Ed who did rather well with the audience but was embarrassing when Paxman interviewed him - came across like a petulant teenager.

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 1:47 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

Not being a fan of the party whips and toe-ing the party line for five years of sheep-herding and establishing rules and dogma behind closed doors while conveniently ignoring the tales you spun at the sales pitch (the general election), I simply vote for my representative and not his party. He is a good bloke, works hard in the constituency, tweets every time he goes for a p1ss break in the Commons so I know exactly where he is and what he's doing, and he campaigns in the House on constituency issues.

All of which is 100% more than I knew about the previous Labour and Conservative MP's who held this seat before Greg Mulholland came along, admittedly they didn't have the advantage of a smart phone but nor did they ever bother to let anyone know via other media what they were up to.

I know that to some it comes down to party issues and that to some its a very passionate affair, personally I see nothing between the parties anyway (not like it was when I first started to vote) and so that being the case its only down to who I want as a representative and the incumbent has proved that he is worthy of continuing in the job.

Mullholland is exactly what an MP should - he is superb at supporting is constituents, a credit to his party, his area and most of all himself. It would be a tragedy if he didn't get re-elected.

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 3:32 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Mullholland is exactly what an MP should - he is superb at supporting is constituents, a credit to his party, his area and most of all himself. It would be a tragedy if he didn't get re-elected.

This is from one of his Facebook posts today after his local campaign for an Otley kid to receive a drug that completely alleviates a rare condition ...

Disgusted at NHS England cowards for refusing to meet campaigners over much-needed drugs. Yesterday we met health minister George Freeman, NHS England didn't bother showing up! Completely letting down 180 people who desperately need their drugs!

There isn't a party line for Greg Mulholland

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 4:11 pm  

peggy wrote:

Can you prove that?

There's better places to use this evidence than on a message board..

peggy wrote:

So good in fact that you nearly got a job during their 13 years in power.

I had my longest period of employment when Labour was in power actually

Beside a lot of my acquaintances started their creative industry careers through the future jobs fund which the conservatives scrapped and replaced with work for your benefits at Poundland.

peggy wrote:

I hear some union leaders shag mothers

Can you prove that?

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 8:03 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

There isn't a party line for Greg Mulholland

I bet there is when it comes to a division.

What's his voting record like?

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 8:03 pm  

double post

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:12 pm  

shinymcshine wrote:

Seems crazy to focus on TV leaders debate when you can only vote in your local constituancy, and most of the time the candidates there are complete "unknowns".

Getting people interested in voting again needs to build from the bottom up.

The only time I ever see engagement from my local candidates is via a few leaflets in the run-up to a vote. The last MP I knew anything about is because he was jailed for expenses fraud (David Chaytor, Labour). Granted, I don't go hunting them down but they're not a priority for time once I've factored in work, family, etc. I've had a couple of leaflets but generally the headline bullet points are all the same. I'm pretty aware of what's going on locally and I've never seen any engagement from an MP.

Interesting the Greens are getting a few votes on here. Is that because people can't bring themselves to vote for one of the 'big' parties (as in cod'ead), or because they genuinely support the Greens and want to help them grow share? Disillusioned ex-Labour/Lib Dem moving on perhaps?

I view the Greens a bit like UKIP. Both have radical views and are utterly dedicated to them, but frankly they come across as right muppets and I wouldn't place any of them in a position of power.