If you're undecided who to vote for

bramstoker

I think some reform must be made so people can show their dis-satisfaction in the political system and the people in it, all parties seem to be almost mirror images of each other and have no clear policies except for the ones that will get them re-elected.

The Chingford Skinhead

Frank the tank wrote:

... but I still pay inflated council taxes to pay for copper bottomed pensions of public servants whilst being told I have to pay ever more into my own pension fund by my employer to get less on retirement.
Life just aint fair, is it.

The average public sector pension is £4000pa. The average public sector worker is low paid. Are you happy to reduce the pensions of care workers, nurses, police, armed forces etc?

Btw - more tax is spent providing tax relief on private pensions than on public sector pensions. The problem is that the papers don't tell you this. Of course, when the public sector pointed to the increase in private sector pay while its pay was frozen in the 80s it was referred to as the politics of greed - by the same people who now point at public sector pensions.

That isn't to say that there are not some very well paid public servants - but only 1.6% earn more than £100k - a much lower percentage than I bet you imagined.

eh

Any party that said they'd pull out of Afghanistan ASAP would certainly get a very serious look from me. Oh and binning ID cards.

Finally any politician that uses the words "change", "hard working family", "front line services" or any other waste of space buzz word, should by lynched on the spot.

takethehighroad

If the Lib Dems make Vince Cable the leader. He always seems to talk sense, and he's what we would need to get ourselves out of this financial problem...

wicked

eh wrote:

Finally any politician that uses the words "change", "hard working family", "front line services" or any other waste of space buzz word, should by lynched on the spot.

Can we just shorten your statement to "any politician should be lynched on the spot"? Has a nice ring to it.

Porgy

I haven't voted since 1997 - and then I voted Green. This time I might vote Labour just to do what I can to keep the Tories out.

Though it's not really the done thing for anarchists to vote - there's nothing that says anarchists can't vote either.

finchy

The Chingford Skinhead wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

... but I still pay inflated council taxes to pay for copper bottomed pensions of public servants whilst being told I have to pay ever more into my own pension fund by my employer to get less on retirement.
Life just aint fair, is it.

The average public sector pension is £4000pa. The average public sector worker is low paid. Are you happy to reduce the pensions of care workers, nurses, police, armed forces etc?

Btw - more tax is spent providing tax relief on private pensions than on public sector pensions. The problem is that the papers don't tell you this. Of course, when the public sector pointed to the increase in private sector pay while its pay was frozen in the 80s it was referred to as the politics of greed - by the same people who now point at public sector pensions.

That isn't to say that there are not some very well paid public servants - but only 1.6% earn more than £100k - a much lower percentage than I bet you imagined.

I agree. Also, every public sector department I've ever worked in has been seriously short-staffed, and morale was constantly at rock-bottom. I feel sorry for people working in local government who have a thankless job, and I hope that when I move back to England this summer I won't end up in the public sector again.

Pross

The average public sector pension is £4000pa. The average public sector worker is low paid. Are you happy to reduce the pensions of care workers, nurses, police, armed forces etc?

Sorry but this is a myth. Even the TUC say that the mean average pension for a public sector worker is £7,000. I worked in the public sector from the age of 17 to 26 and left on a salary of less than £20k. My pension on leaving would have been worth around £2.5k at that time even at such a junior level and only 8 years or so of service. A person retiring after 40 years service in an averagely paid public sector job (c. £25k) would have a pension of over £16k. According to the Pensions Policy Institute the average public sector pay in 2008 was £25.6k compared to £25.3k in the private sector despite the private sector having much higher rates of pay at the very top end (which suggests that the low paid in the private sector are lower than in the public sector). The public sector, despite cut backs in recent years, also benefit from far greater job security.

Jez mon

I'd be in favour of anyone who proposed some fairly large changes to the education system. Namely, reintroducing grammar schools, and having major entry points at 11+, 13+ and post GCSE...

I would also be in favour of making some exams slightly harder/more selective, I'm not going to say whether I think exams have become easier, however, it is a fact that they have become poor as a selection tool for universities.

I would also argue that some "universities" should have their power to award degrees taken away! If someone wants to spend three years of their life doing a vocational subject for one hour a week and drinking the rest of the time that's fine. But you shouldn't get a degree for it!!

Also I would be in favour of giving more funding to top universities, and give them more freedom. Instead of asking the question, "Why don't Oxbridge admit more students from state/grammar schools?" ask "Why don't state/grammar schools produce more Oxbridge candidates?"

I would stop publishing league tables for schools, I don't think it's particularly helpful.

Other things, bin ID cards once and for all. Start looking at more nuclear power stations immediately, otherwise there will be an energy shortage as more coal powered stations go offline.

awallace

Porgy wrote:

I haven't voted since 1997 - and then I voted Green. This time I might vote Labour just to do what I can to keep the Tories out.

Though it's not really the done thing for anarchists to vote - there's nothing that says anarchists can't vote either.

Ive never had a conversation with an anarchist. Its quite an intriguing idea? I dont want to be one - just wonder how it all works.

tomj113

+1 more for zedders, i'd make the punishment even harsher, but only for serious crime repeat offenders, and for most petty crimes prison IMO is wrong and the people ened help and support, not ot be surrounded by the same sort of people we're trying to prevent them from being. Prevention is better than cure and all that. A country with less crime would be a happier healthier one. Crime is the reason for most of the main problems this country has, from health to house prices.
The problem with all the parties for me is that i don't trust or believe any of them, on any issues, so i probably won't vote for anyone. We need someone who is strong minded and harsh but fair and above all trustworthy. I don't think any politician is this at the moment and they all have to win our respect and trust back.

Stewie Griffin

Voted Lib Dem last time as he was the only Candidate who lived in the Constituency. He didnt win, Labour did. Dawn Butler, from East London. Last Year she was told to give back her second home allowance (she had claimed the Maximum allowance with the "its not against the rules" excuse).

Its pretty much the same distance between either of her Houses and the Houses of Parliament. How can you even think that its OK to get us to contribute £60,000 to your second home even if it isnt "theft"? Fortunately, we have a boundary change coming up. Brent South and Brent East are merging, so now our self serving Labour MP is up against a Lib Dem MP who has claimed nothing toward her one and only home.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7962504.stm

I would probably vote Labour if they werent putting forward a greedy so and so as I think Cameron and Osbourne couldnt order Lunch properly let alone run the Country.

Porgy

awallace wrote:

Porgy wrote:

I haven't voted since 1997 - and then I voted Green. This time I might vote Labour just to do what I can to keep the Tories out.

Though it's not really the done thing for anarchists to vote - there's nothing that says anarchists can't vote either.

Ive never had a conversation with an anarchist. Its quite an intriguing idea? I dont want to be one - just wonder how it all works.

I reckon there aren't two anarchists in the world who agree on "how it all works".

TheStone

The parties are much closer than you'd think. Whoever gets in, they'll be massive cuts in
spending. Saying the NHS, Education etc is ring fenced is a lie. There simply wasn't enough
money to pay for the massive increases over the last decade.

In the last couple of years the deficit has been out of control. The interest payments are
increasing to a significant portion of the national income - even with 200bn+ of the money
being printed by the BoE.

I'd vote for any party that will actually cut the DEBT. Not just the deficit.

Don't underestimate the trouble this country is in and we're still handing out upto £1000 PER
WEEK in housing benefit (cut from 1800/week in the budget) and giving tax credits to people
making 54k !!!

nolf

I'm looking for a mixture of good economic policies (both labour and the tories seem fairly strong on this ground, but both have some stupid things around).

In terms of house prices, if you want to lower house prices, reform planning regulations. They're what cause a lot of the primary cost. You can tell theres a problem when a piece of land with planning permission is worth around 4 times as much as one without.

One of the root causes of overleveraged Britain and the financial crisis (along with the failure of ratings agencies, some senior management teams, and a few rocket scientists).

Radioactiveman

I would vote for a party that would.

1. Bring in a 3 strikes or life policy
2. Actually implement a policy that makes people work not claim the dole. Also those on dole would have to do unpaid work while claiming.
3. Death penalty introduced for exceptional cases
4. Re-nationalise infrastructure e.g. rail,energy,utilities.
5. Sort out the NHS dentist system. i.e stop them taking the p1ss . I had to get my kids in at a private dentists ffs. And do I get a discount on my NI payments.

TheStone

nolf wrote:

I'm looking for a mixture of good economic policies (both labour and the tories seem fairly strong on this ground, but both have some stupid things around).

In terms of house prices, if you want to lower house prices, reform planning regulations. They're what cause a lot of the primary cost. You can tell theres a problem when a piece of land with planning permission is worth around 4 times as much as one without.

One of the root causes of overleveraged Britain and the financial crisis (along with the failure of ratings agencies, some senior management teams, and a few rocket scientists).

The other way around? The increase in debt/leverage (inflation of the money supply),
caused the increase in land/property prices.

Pross

Porgy wrote:

awallace wrote:

Porgy wrote:

I haven't voted since 1997 - and then I voted Green. This time I might vote Labour just to do what I can to keep the Tories out.

Though it's not really the done thing for anarchists to vote - there's nothing that says anarchists can't vote either.

Ive never had a conversation with an anarchist. Its quite an intriguing idea? I dont want to be one - just wonder how it all works.

I reckon there aren't two anarchists in the world who agree on "how it all works".

Surely there are rules to tell them

verylonglegs

Radioactiveman wrote:

4. Re-nationalise infrastructure e.g. rail,energy,utilities.

This is often suggested but the country is in debt and to buy these companies would cost many tens of billions. Plus I can't see any elected government making a decent fist of running them.

As for house prices Nolf is indeed on the money so to speak with the planning regulations. What we seem to have at the moment is a carefully managed cartel with the large housebuilding companies holding land banks and carefully controlling the supply of new homes to keep prices artificially high. Its a bizarre mentality this country has with house prices with lots of people who once they find themselves on the housing ladder want to see prices rise as much as possible and not really considering the downsides ie in twenty years time you'll need to write out a five figure cheque in order to help your children buy.

Going back to the original topic of the thread...well none of the current parties really engage me in anyway and having grown up under a Tory government I was interested to see what would change when Labour came to power (I was 21 and just left college) I'd always been told by my Labour voting parents they were the 'workers' party and they now feel conned somewhat with how things have turned out. All I can really say is +1 to the idea of leaving afghanistan sharpish and beating to death those politicians who utter the phrase 'hard working families'.

passout

I want a party that will cut public spending loads eg connexions youth sevice - cancel it, sure start - cancel it, about half the QUANGOs - cancel them, Trident - bin it. We need to be more selective about where our money goes & the last thing our economy needs are tax rises. In fact we should lower taxes for companies in order to get the economy going. The Conservatives don't do this enough of this for my liking but they are the closest to it.

This won't be popular, do we really need the NHS? I've lived abroad without it and found that financially I was better off (low taxes), insurance was reasonable & the medical care better than here. We could keep a basic, cheap mini-version of the NHS for poor people....so it won't be quite as brutal as the States. Everyone on this forum would pay a little insurance, save money overall & have no waiting times.

Sorted. Next....

Homer J

it would be nice to see one of them stand up to Brussels and all the things they seem to impose on us. Not sure who i'll vote for but it won't be Brown.
I don't mind paying more in taxes as long as the money is being used effectivley.

andyxm

I'd vote for the party who has the balls to get us out of Afghanistan and stop peddling the lie that it is making Britain's streets safer. 2.5bn it cost us in 2009 and for what?

owenlars

Frank the tank wrote:

Is there any one (realistic) policy that one of the major parties could come out with that would nail your vote.

What the hell have policies got to do with it?

OffTheBackAdam

It'd be nice to have a party who wold tell us honestly what things are like and what they're going to do about it!
Cutting the number of MPs or markedly reducing our involvement in the European Union.
(85% of our laws are passed directly via the EU, so why so many MPs?)
[Ideally, both of the above!]

Smokin Joe

TakeTheHighRoad wrote:

If the Lib Dems make Vince Cable the leader. He always seems to talk sense, and he's what we would need to get ourselves out of this financial problem...

All politicians talk sense when they have no chance of power. Once office becomes a prospect and they start watching the polls and crapping themselves about about upsetting one group or another then the fudging and spinning begins. Cable himself refused to commit himself when asked by Jeremy Vine which Labour or Tory policies the Lib Dems would support or veto should they hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

passout

Smokin Joe wrote:

TakeTheHighRoad wrote:

If the Lib Dems make Vince Cable the leader. He always seems to talk sense, and he's what we would need to get ourselves out of this financial problem...

All politicians talk sense when they have no chance of power. Once office becomes a prospect and they start watching the polls and crapping themselves about about upsetting one group or another then the fudging and spinning begins. Cable himself refused to commit himself when asked by Jeremy Vine which Labour or Tory policies the Lib Dems would support or veto should they hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

According to the bookies there is a one in ten chance of Vince been the next Chancellor. I quite like him too, although I'm wouldn't vote Lib Dem.

morstar

guinea wrote:

Of course. People were only interested in telling how much extra money they made this year on their house. Not realising that all they were doing was going further down the property ladder as the next rung became more and more unaffordable.

I cannot tell you how happy it has just made me to read those words. I have been saying this for as long as I can remember and I've been looked at like the village idiot.

Assuming that the vast majority of householders dream of moving up the ladder, the gap is always growing between the value of the property you're in and the one you aspire to by a greater amount than the profit you make on the sale of your existing house.

Personally, I would like to see a big re-alignment in pricing but don't see how this can happen beyond external factors forcing it to. Personally, I think second properties should have been punitively taxed a good number of years ago. Basically, teh minute it was established that there was insufficient housing for the population. At that point, property should become a protected asset that cannot be simply subject to free market economics.

morstar

Jez mon wrote:

I'd be in favour of anyone who proposed some fairly large changes to the education system. Namely, reintroducing grammar schools, and having major entry points at 11+, 13+ and post GCSE...

I would also be in favour of making some exams slightly harder/more selective, I'm not going to say whether I think exams have become easier, however, it is a fact that they have become poor as a selection tool for universities.

I would also argue that some "universities" should have their power to award degrees taken away! If someone wants to spend three years of their life doing a vocational subject for one hour a week and drinking the rest of the time that's fine. But you shouldn't get a degree for it!!

Also I would be in favour of giving more funding to top universities, and give them more freedom. Instead of asking the question, "Why don't Oxbridge admit more students from state/grammar schools?" ask "Why don't state/grammar schools produce more Oxbridge candidates?"

I would stop publishing league tables for schools, I don't think it's particularly helpful.

Other things, bin ID cards once and for all. Start looking at more nuclear power stations immediately, otherwise there will be an energy shortage as more coal powered stations go offline.

I'll run with that ball too. Don't disagree with you, but what about the non-academics? How about we build an education system that's relevant to them also?

We seem determined to make everybody an academic and then wonder why a large proportion of society completely disengages with school. Sorry for being a bleeding leftie but, if you can't see a link between that and the crime discussed earlier in this thread then I think you're missing a trick.

I'm not arguing it is the cause of crime, but, effectively classing large numbers of children as failures rather than teaching them trades is plain stupid.

Jez mon

morstar wrote:

Jez mon wrote:

I'd be in favour of anyone who proposed some fairly large changes to the education system. Namely, reintroducing grammar schools, and having major entry points at 11+, 13+ and post GCSE...

I would also be in favour of making some exams slightly harder/more selective, I'm not going to say whether I think exams have become easier, however, it is a fact that they have become poor as a selection tool for universities.

I would also argue that some "universities" should have their power to award degrees taken away! If someone wants to spend three years of their life doing a vocational subject for one hour a week and drinking the rest of the time that's fine. But you shouldn't get a degree for it!!

Also I would be in favour of giving more funding to top universities, and give them more freedom. Instead of asking the question, "Why don't Oxbridge admit more students from state/grammar schools?" ask "Why don't state/grammar schools produce more Oxbridge candidates?"

I would stop publishing league tables for schools, I don't think it's particularly helpful.

Other things, bin ID cards once and for all. Start looking at more nuclear power stations immediately, otherwise there will be an energy shortage as more coal powered stations go offline.

I'll run with that ball too. Don't disagree with you, but what about the non-academics? How about we build an education system that's relevant to them also?

We seem determined to make everybody an academic and then wonder why a large proportion of society completely disengages with school. Sorry for being a bleeding leftie but, if you can't see a link between that and the crime discussed earlier in this thread then I think you're missing a trick.

I'm not arguing it is the cause of crime, but, effectively classing large numbers of children as failures rather than teaching them trades is plain stupid.

Completely agree, TBH, I kinda trailed off towards the end.

I'm not too sure what we can do in this country for the non-academics. However, I think that the government needs to start supporting manufacturing more and more. Also some large public works (high speed rail? Extension of local railways and power stations could be a startin point) could help.

nasahapley

I'll add a +1 to the calls for a government that'll at least try to stop house prices inflating any more. It really doesn't take much thought to see that high house prices are pretty bad for an economy in the long run, but so long as individuals can't get past seeing their little pile as a perpetual golden coin sh***ing machine rather than just somewhere to live then I don't hold much hope of any party not pandering to these easy votes. 'But I took out a barely affordable mortgage in the belief that prices would go up forever, just like that chubby posh lady on the telly told me they would' is the usual refrain, but I'm barely out of my 20s and I can remember the last time the housing market took a big dip and rates were at 10%, so I don't see what excuse anyone else has got.

And I too am not keen on the 'hardworkingfamilies' thing either, as I don't have kids, and I don't really work that hard. Though I suspect 'hard working' is just politico-speak for 'well-off', as I can't see how you'd tell if someone worked hard or not without following them around all day.