Election

[Hazzo]

This area has been labour since the party began, they have done nothing for north east people since coming to power, the tories closed the mines and shipyards and have already outlined plans for cuts/ more job losses in the north east, no doubt to relocate south, liberals seem to make sense apart from ditching the nuclear deterrent, which personally I'd rather have one so I'll be spoiling mine or UKIP, as the euro union helped to drive this area into unemployment and the tory referendum ignored my wishes against joining. H

[Sancho]

BNP, UKIP, Green get the grace of a separate line on your poll, yet you lump
SNP/Plaid Cymru/Sinn Fein/Unionist etc. into one line.

Probably a good example of the political divide in people's outlook
at each end of the country. I imagine most people in London and surrounding areas would have listed the parties in a similar manner.

Not said with any offence intended,
English independence can't come quick enough.

More thought went into that than you probably think. I thought about giving them separate lines but then wondered where you end - Monster raving loonies, independents etc? In the end I lumped them together as parties that have one issue at their core (either independence or unionism) and, possibly more to the point, parties that you can't vote for in England.

My curiosity is into how we vote as British people, so I also wanted to put all the nationalist parties together to see how relevant they were in the overall picture. On reflection, I could have just added their scores up.

I'll put you down as Tory will I Brian?

[Rustinho]

This area has been labour since the party began, they have done nothing for north east people since coming to power, the tories closed the mines and shipyards and have already outlined plans for cuts/ more job losses in the north east, no doubt to relocate south, liberals seem to make sense apart from ditching the nuclear deterrent, which personally I'd rather have one so I'll be spoiling mine or UKIP, as the euro union helped to drive this area into unemployment and the tory referendum ignored my wishes against joining. H

As opposed to the Labour government shutting the Hartlepool steel plant (for example), paying off the company to do it, then the EU paying the company to build an almost identical plant in India all in the name of shifting CO2 emissions from the UK/EU to India to make it look like they care about the environment?!

In all honesty I think it's less to do with political colours than to do with the changing world, beaurocracy and people out to make lots of money from doing very little. (In this case something like £80m if my memory serves me correctly)

[yoshie]

More thought went into that than you probably think. I thought about giving them separate lines but then wondered where you end - Monster raving loonies, independents etc? In the end I lumped them together as parties that have one issue at their core (either independence or unionism) and, possibly more to the point, parties that you can't vote for in England.

My curiosity is into how we vote as British people, so I also wanted to put all the nationalist parties together to see how relevant they were in the overall picture. On reflection, I could have just added their scores up.

I'll put you down as Tory will I Brian?

"One issue at their core"
I would suggest all parties have a core ideology, some better placed and thought out than others.
To lump SNP in with monster raving parties is not thought through, given that they are the elected majority party in the Scottish Parliament. I do understand why you arrived at this decision given your narrow view of UK politics, as they are on the surface meaningless to you and I accept why you would think that.

It is for this reason that I hope the Union will come to an end in my lifetime.

[Sancho]

"One issue at their core"
I would suggest all parties have a core ideology, some better placed and thought out than others.
To lump SNP in with monster raving parties is rather ignorant given that they were elected as the majority party in the Scottish elections.

Meaningless to you and I accept that. It is for this reason that I hope the Union will come to an end in my lifetime.

I never lumped them in with the loonies but I can see you're determined to get all hurt about it. Yes, it's a bit London-centric, but that's where I live and consequently how my brain works. Putting them altogether was an attempt to get some kind of significant response. Like I say, I appreciate now that I could have added them all up.

It's just a bit of fun, I'm not proposing we hang Alex Salmond as a traitor. In terms of the last general election, this chart shows who got the votes. None of the nationalist parties are particularly significant in terms of number of voters, which is partly why they want to be independent.

[yoshie]

I never lumped them in with the loonies but I can see you're determined to get all hurt about it. Yes, it's a bit London-centric, but that's where I live and consequently how my brain works. Putting them altogether was an attempt to get some kind of significant response. Like I say, I appreciate now that I could have added them all up.

It's just a bit of fun, I'm not proposing we hang Alex Salmond as a traitor. In terms of the last general election, this chart shows who got the votes. None of the nationalist parties are particularly significant in terms of number of voters, which is partly why they want to be independent.

I absolutely accept this however, will maintain that it does not serve all of the UK.
I am not a flag waving zealot.
I firmly believe that Scotland will be far better off in Social, Financial and Cultural issues if we had independence. 5million is a small population given our resources and infrastructure. We have had a taste of this over the last few years of a devolved parliament which we have Labour and in particular Donald Dewar to thank for.
As SNP are the only party that will give a referendum on the subject they get my vote. If Mr Cameron gives the same pledge I maybe a Tory voter

[Sancho]

I absolutely accept this however, will maintain that it does not serve all of the UK.
I am not a flag waving zealot.
I firmly believe that Scotland will be far better off in Social, Financial and Cultural issues if we had independence. 5million is a small population given our resources and infrastructure. We have had a taste of this over the last few years of a devolved parliament which we have Labour and in particular Donald Dewar to thank for.
As SNP are the only party that will give a referendum on the subject they get my vote. If Mr Cameron gives the same pledge I maybe a Tory voter

Well, I agree with what you say above, except that I am never going to vote for Cameron regardless of what he says.

[Rustinho]

Without wanting to sound too pendantic, you can't vote for David Cameron unless you happen to live in the constituency of Witney, Oxfordshire.

That is one of the joys of our current parliamentary democracy!

I read an interesting article recently that advocated changing the voting system so that we had a vote for a prime minister and a seperate vote for our consituency MP. I believe a similar system operates for the mayor/London assembly voting.

Not quite a presidential system but perhaps a slightly more honest system than the one we have at the moment.

Just for the record, I'm against PR (certainly for electing MPs) although I would be open to an electoral system that elected most of a second chamber on either STV or some form of PR with some life peers/religious representatives there to scrutinise legislation there too - say 30% vs 70% elected. I'd also like to see Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland represented on an equal footing to England and budgets also distributed more evenly (for example the Scots get a huge amount of money from London in comparison to other regions around the UK as well as having their own assembly to pass legislation and yet still allowing Scottish MPs to vote down issues which only apply to England & Wales)

[Apache]

I am never going to vote for Cameron regardless of what he says.

<David Cameron> "I promise to give all gingers penis extension surgery, and free hair dye for life" (Sun, 26/4/2010)

Even now???

[gwh200]

I'd vote for alex salmond not because I want to see the uk broken up, but he obviously knows where all the good pie shops are.

[Sancho]

Without wanting to sound too pendantic, you can't vote for David Cameron unless you happen to live in the constituency of Witney, Oxfordshire.

That is one of the joys of our current parliamentary democracy!

Not technically, but if you vote for anyone in his slimey ball-licking party, they'll always vote in his favour in Parliament, so it's the same thing (also applies to all other parties). In practical terms, the whole thing is a nonsense and all we're doing is picking a leader.

[Sancho]

<David Cameron> "I promise to give all gingers penis extension surgery, and free hair dye for life" (Sun, 26/4/2010)

Even now???

Well, I'm still waiting for the reduction operation since they cocked all the hospitals up in the 80s and 90s, so why not get in the queue for an extension too.

I see the LibDems are offering a year's free subscription to Max Power for any Phil Mitchell look-alikes who've had a mid-life crisis in the last year.

[Apache]

Well, I'm still waiting for the reduction operation since they cocked all the hospitals up in the 80s and 90s, so why not get in the queue for an extension too.

I see the LibDems are offering a year's free subscription to Max Power for any Phil Mitchell look-alikes who've had a mid-life crisis in the last year.

Good comeback!

[Hazzo]

As far as the General Election is concerned, I'm voting for the Icelandic Volcano Party – it’s done more to stop immigration in the last 5 days than labour has done in the last 10 years.

A little email joke I just received, H

[Don Logan]

I don't know much about politics, but can't politicians say what ever they want in their manifestos, but be under no obligation to fulfil their promises if they do get into power? If there were fiancial (or some other) penalties for not doing what they said they'd do, i'd be more inclined to pick someone. Otherwise it's hard to know what to believe... Saying that, i thought Nick Clegg came out quite well in the TV debates, but it could easily all be b0ll0cks and they're probably all equally as bad as each other. I would like to see that slimy b'stard Cameron as PM getting an absolute grilling from Paxman if he did get in though, if for nothing else.