Re: The General Election Thread : Wed May 13, 2015 9:02 pm  

Him wrote:

I think some people are getting a bit carried away with thinking the Tories can just push through whatever they want now that they have a majority.

But in a way their position is actually weaker now than in 2010-2015.
The Tory-Lib Dem government had a majority of 33.
The new Tory government has a majority of just 6.

The Lib Dems jumped in with the Tories so willingly that there was never a chance of them bringing down a major Tory proposal, as they'd all been agreed to in the formation of the Coalition and the Lib Dems were determined to not be the ones who broke up the Coalition.

With the Lib Dems licking their wounds and the SNP very anti-Tory, there's probably a much higher chance of a controversial Tory proposal being beaten.

I hope your right and boundary change is one of them.

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed May 13, 2015 9:33 pm  

HullFC50 wrote:

I hope your right and boundary change is one of them.

Every single Tory MP will vote for the boundary changes, even if they have to be wheeled in on their death beds

It will then be defeated in the House of Lords

It will then be voted through again by every Tory MP.

Re: The General Election Thread : Wed May 13, 2015 11:16 pm  

I thought the Torys got 331 seats

That would give them a majority of 12 on the 326 majority point add on the 4 Senn Fein members who do not attend . DUP have 8 and will vote with the Tories as will the one UKIP
Tories 331
DUP 8
ukip 1

TOTAL 340

Labour 232
SNP 56
LIBS 8
WELSH 3
GREENS 1
SDLP 3
OTHERS 3

TOTAL 306


four SF do not count

Anything with Europe in it will trip up the Tories as they are split wide open and they will struggle with the Europe poll. The Tories would need to lose around 16 seats to be close to losing power, a'int going to happen in the length of a parliament so lets get used to it.

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu May 14, 2015 1:45 am  

Couldn't the point about the majority of people not voting for the Tories also be said for almost every government elected in the UK since the end of rotten boroughs? IIRC Thatcher and co never got close to an actual majority of votes, but stayed in power for quite some time.

I still like PR in principle, but having seen minority/coalition governments I tend to shy away from them, and they're an almost inevitable outcome of PR.

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu May 14, 2015 7:58 am  

General Zod. wrote:

You really are clueless.

The economically illiterate tories like yourself refer to the "deficit" in pounds and pence as if the international bond market keep tabs on it with a calculator.

1) The budget deficit has been reduced with the aid of printed money of £375B by the Bank of England who have bought these bonds and artificially suppressed interest rates to reduce the deficit whilst this capital finds itself misallocated in the service sector to give a temporary impression that all is well when it is not.

2) The budget deficit is the numerator where as the debt to GDP ratio is the denominator and this trend has continued to worsen EVERY year under this government.

3) One of the biggest indicators that the foreign bond market look at is the current account deficit which has exploded under Cameron and Osborne.

There are already fund managers with short positions against UK Government bonds and the currency because they know that once the bond market starts shifting, then this country gets wiped out.

You really are out of your debt so I'd just give up if I was you.

The current account deficit as a % of GDP has been higher and we managed to survive that.

You seem to place a lot of store by the actions of a few fund managers who will be gambling a very small element of their portfolio.

One thing to consider is how safe is UK debt compared to other countries and whilst ever it seen as secure there will always be a market at affordable rates for the government

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu May 14, 2015 12:55 pm  

The Governor of the BoE's comments came after the General Election. Could have done UKIP and Labour a favour by speaking out earlier!

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu May 14, 2015 1:44 pm  

It won't matter what party is in government in terms of the economy when the US $ collapses in the next couple of years according to people like Peter Schiff, and Mike Malloney, we'll all be pretty fecked.

Re: The General Election Thread : Thu May 14, 2015 1:49 pm  

Charlie Sheen wrote:

It won't matter what party is in government in terms of the economy when the US $ collapses in the next couple of years according to people like Peter Schiff, and Mike Malloney, we'll all be pretty fecked.

You mean we all ready aren't?

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri May 15, 2015 12:45 am  

The whole idea of REPRESENTATION is an anachronism dating back centuries. It necessitates a class of people who once served a critical function in society which is now REDUNDANT in the 21st century. Think about it: back in days of yore when a trip down to London and back took the best part of a week on horseback one needed an individual to REPRESENT your interests along with the butcher's, the baker's and the candlestick maker's from the village.

But this is the information age. An age of instantaneous communication. There is no longer any NEED to keep financing the upkeep of these charlatans and crooks in parliament.

In any case, the idea that some politician can represent YOUR INTERESTS along with your neighbour's, the shopkeeper's across the road, the single mother's three streets away, the pensioner's in sheltered accommodation along with BAE systems on the outskirts of town is PATENTLY ABSURD.

I've long advocated a simple challenge which could be undertaken each election: At the polling station you are given a sheet of triplicate paper containing an empty pie chart. On that chart you draw in lines to represent how you would like to see your taxes spent. Say 25% on education, 25% on the NHS, 18% on pensions etc. etc.). Once finished you tear off your copy, another copy goes to your MP and another copy goes for the record.

Once voting is over the recorded copies are tallied up to find out what the final results were for the district and they are published. So the next time you're scheduled to meet your MP you compare your own sheet and the district's with his voting patterns in parliament so that you may ask him: PRECISELY WHOSE INTERESTS ARE YOU REPRESENTING? Who'd bet against some wildly divergent figures?

Given that it's now possible for nearly every individual to access the Internet in some way (broadband, telephone, cellular etc.) it should be no challenge whatsoever to set up a secure system of electronic polling. A person could, say, return home from work one evening and spend an hour or so browsing a list of upcoming issues which he or she feels are important. Supplementary information including a summary of the problem, arguments on both sides, proposals for improvements, costings etc. could be downloaded in PDF form. Discussion of the question could take place on a forum not much different than this. Then when the deadline for voting arrives he or she simply casts her ballot and exits the software.

Once the ballot is cast and the winning proposal is known it would then be the responsibility of the civil service to execute the will of the people.

Now, I'm not saying for one moment that there wouldn't be tremendous challenges (organisational, procedural, infrastructure etc.). But given the intelligence, ingenuity and expertise which exists in this country I'm certain it's doable.

After all, not only is this a far more democratic system (truly representational democracy) it completely does away with a corrupt, venal and decadent class of politicians which has singularly failed the people of this country for over a century.

Re: The General Election Thread : Fri May 15, 2015 3:52 am  

So who comes up with 'the issues'? And you'd be happy with a country that has the death penalty (just time the 'vote' just after a particularly nasty child murder for example)? Speaking of which, how long before paedophiles were executed? How would funding be decided within a sphere - e.g. health? I'd bet hardly anyone who hasn't either been affected or knows someone who has been affected would think of putting much money into mental health for example, let alone understand how best to use those funds. Etc etc.

The problems with the sort of model you suggest would be far, far worse than what we have now. Just check any theme trending on social media to see how mob rule by the masses would work in reality.

The only way that could happen is to have the 'bureacracy' actively engage in setting policy directions - i.e. you'd have a completely unelected elite running the country in no time at all.