The UK election thread

[RuleBritannia]

UKIP deny global warming, that's reason enough not to vote for them.

[Pappa]

UKIP deny global warming, that's reason enough not to vote for them.

Do they have a policy on unnatural homos too?

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Intersting take, from Carole Malone in the NOTW this week. She wrote ...

IF Jim, my dad, was alive I know what he'd say if I told him that, for the first time ever, I might be about to vote Tory.

I can hear him now. "You're still not too old for a clip across the ear," he'd shout.

And I'd know I'd deserve it. Because voting Tory is a betrayal of everything I am. The class I was born into. Everything I grew up with - the people, the poverty, the struggle.

You see, I was growing up on a council estate in Newcastle at the time Thatcher closed the mines. And then the shipyards.

And then she smashed the unions, which back then actually existed to help safeguard the workers' interests, not to prop up and call the shots in ailing governments.

I saw what the Iron Lady's steel heart did to good, proud men who'd never been out of work a day in their lives but who, because of their age, and because they'd never known any other job, would never work again.

I saw what the theft of their jobs did to their spirit, their pride and their families.

I saw their hearts literally break once it became clear that never again would the job of supporting the people they loved be down to them - it would be down to the state.

And while, thanks to this present Government, languishing on benefits might suit the great armies of slobs who've never bothered to even try hauling their lazy backsides into the workplace, it was an anathema to those men who'd rather have walked over broken glass than walk into the dole office to 'sign on'.

I was brought up to hate the Tories and to believe they hated us. I was told the Tories were for the toffs, the rich, the privileged and that they'd never give a stuff about the likes of us. And back then it was true.

I think Jim had a sneaking admiration for Maggie Thatcher. "At least she's a bloody leader", he used to shout at the TV. But he'd never have voted for her. He'd never have voted for any Tory because it wasn't what working class people did.

Yes, Thatcher said we could buy our own council houses but that wasn't much use to those redundant miners and shipyard workers whose jobs she'd stolen and who, thanks to her, could barely afford their rent, let alone a mortgage.

So, as the years went on I came to hate the Tories more. And when their 17-year reign of sleaze came to an end that sunny May evening back in '97 I was one of the thousands out on the streets partying.

I don't think I've ever felt as good about politics as I did that night. Not before - or since - has my entire being been infused with the kind of hope that made you believe ANYTHING was possible.

At last the working classes were home and we were all going to be taken care of by the man who held the key to our dreams, the Socialist Messiah, Tony Blair.

Fast forward 13 years and I don't think I've ever been as despairing about politics as I am now. I don't think I've ever felt such disgust, such disrespect, such hopelessness about a party and a government that hasn't just lost its way but whose core beliefs are in the gutter - along with thousands of trumped up expenses forms and a million broken promises.

The Labour Party I used to know, the one I've voted for my entire life, is dead.

And men like Jim, who until the day he died was proud he'd only ever been out of work for four weeks in 50 years, don't matter any more. Now politics - at least Labour politics - is about ripping off the workers. It's about self-interest. It's about money. It's about power and position. Not for us. For them.

Now, instead of pride, instead of the hope we all felt in '97, we're engulfed in a tidal wave of revulsion for what politics has become.

Because somewhere along the way politicians forgot their job was to serve the people - not themselves.

I see what New Labour has done to our Health service, our depleted police forces.

I see how it sides with the perpetrators of crime, not the victims. How it supports the bone idle and punishes those who dare to want to work and succeed.

I see the shameful way it treats the elderly, the infirm and the vulnerable. I see how it lets sick people die yet spends the money that could save them on a benefit system that pampers wasters.

Every day I see decent, law abiding people being criminalised for piddling misdemeanours, yet hardened criminals walking free.

I see New Labour treat the electorate with contempt, slating anyone who dares voice their concerns over immigration as "bigots".

I see them refusing to listen to what we want - ignoring the concerns of the people they came into politics to serve.

And I just don't want to be part of that system any more.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Tories are any better. I don't believe they're going to miraculously make Britain a better place. But they can't be any worse than Labour.

I want change. In an ideal world I'd want cleaner, less deceitful politics. And I'd want politicians who are in the job for all the right reasons.

I'm not naïve to think that if I vote Tory I'm going to get that. But if ever there was a time to stand up and scream for change and to make it happen - it's now.

This election can no longer be about where politicians went to school, how much money they have or what accents they have.

It can no longer be about party colours or stereotypes. It's got to be about their intentions, their empathy with the British people and about what they can and want to do.

Truth be told, whoever gets into Number 10 is going to make a pig's ear of it. Labour's ineptitude in recent years has seen to it that no policy - be it Labour, Tory or Lib Dem - can work, at least for the foresee- able future.

But it's got to be about politicians desperately TRYING to make them work. And whatever it's promising now, Labour's had 13 years of trying - and they've failed.

So come polling day, my intention is to walk into the booth and put my cross next to the Tory candidate's name.

I tried to do it last time because I was so angry with Tony Blair - but come the crunch I just couldn't.

But this time I really want to, not because I'm a Tory, but because in my heart I know that this Labour party's brand of socialism is no longer mine.

But come Thursday, who knows, maybe Jim will be standing over me threatening to deliver that clip round the ear. Maybe he won't let me do it. But maybe he will.

Not because he'd like Cameron or the Tories but because he'd HATE Brown, Mandelson, and Co.

More importantly he'd know they'd hate him - and everything he, and people like him, stand for!

[RuleBritannia]

So what she's saying, is that the Tories fucked things up, then Labour fucked things up, so we'd better go back to the Tories. False dichotomy much Carole.

[Rum]

Or we could give the Libs the opportunity of experiencing fucking things up? (not that I think they are in with a hope).

[Clinton Huxley]

Or we could give the Libs the opportunity of experiencing fucking things up? (not that I think they are in with a hope).

Now this is an electoral philosophy with traction....

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Yup, that's just what she's saying.

Either way, it's gonna get fucked up. I think I might soil my paper.

[Rum]

Whoever gets in will end up probably fucking things up big time and will in any case be the most unpopular government since the heyday of Mrs Thatcher.

[RuleBritannia]

Whoever gets in will end up probably fucking things up big time and will in any case be the most unpopular government since the heyday of Mrs Thatcher.

Let's hope it is the Tories then.

[Coito ergo sum]

Whoever gets in will end up probably fucking things up big time and will in any case be the most unpopular government since the heyday of Mrs Thatcher.

Thatcher wasn't popular? Hmmm.... I recall Thatcher being quite popular, and effective. But, then again, I am over here in the States, and I was in my youth at the time, so I am sure my information is incomplete in part and incorrect in part.

[Ian]

Whoever gets in will end up probably fucking things up big time and will in any case be the most unpopular government since the heyday of Mrs Thatcher.

Thatcher wasn't popular? Hmmm.... I recall Thatcher being quite popular, and effective. But, then again, I am over here in the States, and I was in my youth at the time, so I am sure my information is incomplete in part and incorrect in part.

Maybe the next PM can get the UK into a silly war many thousands of miles away and win themselves re-election.
The Falklands has been done...
Maybe New Zealand can start a rebellion?

[redunderthebed]

Whoever gets in will end up probably fucking things up big time and will in any case be the most unpopular government since the heyday of Mrs Thatcher.

Thatcher wasn't popular? Hmmm.... I recall Thatcher being quite popular, and effective. But, then again, I am over here in the States, and I was in my youth at the time, so I am sure my information is incomplete in part and incorrect in part.

Maybe the next PM can get the UK into a silly war many thousands of miles away and win themselves re-election.
The Falklands has been done...
Maybe New Zealand can start a rebellion?

Maybe they could use some of those nukes.

[Hermit]

Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Tories are any better. I don't believe they're going to miraculously make Britain a better place. But they can't be any worse than Labour.

Carole did get it wrong. Big time. Yes, Labour fucked it up. Blair's "Third Way" was a betrayal of the social strata the party was traditionally meant to represent, and it was obvious and inevitable right from the outset that he would fail spectacularly, but I can assure you, if the likes of Malone get their way - a Tory government for the sake of change - the future of the majority of British citizens will be a lot worse than if they don't.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

Whoever gets in will end up probably fucking things up big time and will in any case be the most unpopular government since the heyday of Mrs Thatcher.

Thatcher wasn't popular? Hmmm.... I recall Thatcher being quite popular, and effective. But, then again, I am over here in the States, and I was in my youth at the time, so I am sure my information is incomplete in part and incorrect in part.

Maybe the next PM can get the UK into a silly war many thousands of miles away and win themselves re-election.
The Falklands has been done...
:

Falklands was a silly war?
The islands are British territory and the islanders are British. A government have a duty to protect it's citizens, do they not?
What would America do if Japan attacked Hawaii?

[RuleBritannia]

Well the Lib Dems are now 1 vote up in my constituency. It's been Labour since 1935, so probably won't count towards the Lib Dem's seats in parliament, but I think it's important to get thier vote percentage as high as possible to illustrate why first-past-the-post need to be thrown in the garbage bin of history.