Quote: Original post by OrangyTang
However their track record has been pretty bad - in particular their constant passing of knee-jerk legislation and walking all over civil liberties, combined with a long and unpopular war means that even if people agree with their basic philosophy they're going to vote for "the other guy" regardless.

The thing is, while not defending Labour in any way, I think we'd be in the same situation if the Conservatives had been in power as well.

Quote: Original post by phantom

I'll believe it when I see it; I remember the feeling for the 80s and early 90s, and for 'the average working man' having them in power is not, and will not, be a good thing.

My argument here, regardless of political alignment, is that "the average working man" has moved on significantly in the 20-30 years since that generation. We're less about manual unionised work and moved into an age where people's jobs and lives are entirely different. We've got no export industry to speak of, we've become a nation of importers propped up by our "strong" financial/banking industry and IT systems. We scrapped investment in our trades by side lining the apprenticeships and encouraging as many 18/19 year olds to go into university and rack up massive personal debt, regardless of actual skill or ability. The shortage of tradesmen encouraged EU immigration which has fuelled the far-right issues - hell, even Labour said "British jobs for British people".

I'm not going to argue about who did what, why or when - all I'm saying is that the notion of "old style" politics and generation-held belief is pointless.

I agree with the sentiment of Blair/Cameron - I really dislike the "career politicians" with no life experience or industry experience. These people come out of university and stand for MP. A prime example was an email I received about a local party of mine - "I'm sorry that XXX cannot attend this meeting, he's finishing his exams at university - however he will be ready his campaign trail". It's straight out of Blackadder!

PS: Mmmm crumpets. Warburton's crumpets are the best

Quote: Original post by OrangyTang

Quote: Original post by LessBread
It seems to me that the UK wants Labour policies but not Brown.

The thing is that there's a serious disconnect between the stated Labour policies and their actual behaviour. Theoretically they're mostly socialist, in favour of well funded education, national health service, welfare and policing, and aren't afraid to have (relatively) high taxes to fund those. IMHO these are all things that resonate well with the general public.

However their track record has been pretty bad - in particular their constant passing of knee-jerk legislation and walking all over civil liberties, combined with a long and unpopular war means that even if people agree with their basic philosophy they're going to vote for "the other guy" regardless.

That's pretty much what I was getting at. After a decade of Labour politicians pushing what amounts to a Tory foreign policy - which spills back into domestic politics - and sooner or later those Labour politicians are bound to be seen as phonies and lose popularity.

For what it's worth, I had not checked the news before I posted earlier. It looks like it will be a hung parliament.

Exit polls: Conservatives fall short of majority

Quote:
...
An analysis by Britain's main television networks suggested David Cameron's Conservative party will win 307 House of Commons seats, short of the 326 seats needed for a majority.

Polls gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party 255 seats, and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats 59 seats - far less than had been expected. Small parties got 29 other seats.
...
Even combined, Labour and the Liberal Democrats would not have the 326 seats needed to form a majority in a coalition - which had been a widely discussed possibility.
...
The projection suggests that the Conservatives will gain 97 seats, Labour lose 94 and the Liberal Democrats lose three.
...

I don't know enough about the smaller parties to guess how they might align on the subject of Prime Minister. Cameron needs 19 votes. Can he get them? Where will they come from? After losing 94 seats it would surprise me if Brown didn't step down.

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by OrangyTang

Quote: Original post by LessBread
It seems to me that the UK wants Labour policies but not Brown.

The thing is that there's a serious disconnect between the stated Labour policies and their actual behaviour. Theoretically they're mostly socialist, in favour of well funded education, national health service, welfare and policing, and aren't afraid to have (relatively) high taxes to fund those. IMHO these are all things that resonate well with the general public.

However their track record has been pretty bad - in particular their constant passing of knee-jerk legislation and walking all over civil liberties, combined with a long and unpopular war means that even if people agree with their basic philosophy they're going to vote for "the other guy" regardless.

That's pretty much what I was getting at. After a decade of Labour politicians pushing what amounts to a Tory foreign policy - which spills back into domestic politics - and sooner or later those Labour politicians are bound to be seen as phonies and lose popularity.

I wonder if it's also about Brown's record being based on Tory-style free capital markets, but the core Labour policies don't favour these markets. Seems like he's on a bit of a knife edge; he got away with his idea for years in the boom years because it was working, so why question them? But these arguments don't hold water in the bust.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

The story is getting interesting. Inconsistent closure of polling stations; some are closing at 10pm exactly and turning people away, others are allowing those in the door to vote. I wonder if there's been a huge amount of people voting, or if they've just spiked at times close to closure.

Blech, Labour have held three seats. Two of them were hardcore Labour, the third was marginal and dodgy.

That said, the Conservatives have made massive swings and Labour's share of the vote was down sharply despite them winning still.

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
perfect recipe to weasel Gordon Brown back in for five more years of bankruptcy, Big Brother, zero civil liberties, expenses fiddling etc. usw.

So your solution to these problems is to vote in the Tories!?

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper

Quote: Original post by ChurchSkiz
I never knew a crumpet was an english muffin. If you're in england, shouldn't you just be calling them muffins?

Nope, in the UK a "muffin" is one of these:



"English muffin" isn't a term used here, they're "crumpets".

Ok now i'm confused..
I always thought this was an English Muffin



which is different from the Muffin that ukdeveloper posted, which is different from a Crumpet which was originally posted. 3 seperate things right??

Quote: Original post by LessBread
For what it's worth, I had not checked the news before I posted earlier. It looks like it will be a hung parliament.

I don't know enough about the smaller parties to guess how they might align on the subject of Prime Minister. Cameron needs 19 votes. Can he get them? Where will they come from? After losing 94 seats it would surprise me if Brown didn't step down.

Yes, probably hung, but not in the way most people were hoping.

If the Tories were short by a significant margin then they'd have to deal with the Lib Dems, but since the exit polls are predicting they'll only be a few seats short they'll probably strike a deal with some of the Northern Ireland parties. They're politically much closer so will probably demand much less concessions and be generally easier to work with. The end result being almost identical from a straight Tory win. There's still hope for the much more interesting hung result where the Lib Dems hold the balance of power, but that's looking increasingly unlikely.

Meanwhile the reports of people being turned away from polling stations have been growing, and it looks like it's not a few isolated problems. Frankly it sounds like a bit of a disgrace - if people have turned up before 10pm then they should keep them open until everyone has voted, a delay in the final count by a couple of hours isn't going to hurt anyone. I don't expect that story to go away anytime soon (especially with newspapers writing their front pages now before the actual result is in).