Conservatives humiliated! Massive gains for Labour!

[nagerous]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... government

This is clear evidence that people are not happy with David Cameron's austerity program and the Coalition of liars.



How do the vicious right wing react to their loss? Through disrespectful egg tossing.

[pimpdave]

The Coalition of Liars sounds suspiciously like the Tea Party!

[ManBungalow]

[nagerous]

The question on everyone's minds now is whether Blundering Boris can hold onto his position as London Mayor. I think so, as he is just such a hilarious guy - that people will vote him.



Fastforward to 2.20

[pmchugh]

I find it ironic that people keep voting for "change". When the torries are in power Labour are popular and when Labour are in the Torries are popular. I think the turnout says it all really, everyone knows all the main parties will do nothing different yet no one does anything about it.

I find myself sitting and wishing for the grey counter to go up, although I am glad to see the greens make minor progress. I voted for an ex-lib dem guy who became independent after they joined the coalition.

p.s. I love Boris, how could anyone not love him? The only candidate I would vote for over him is Professor Pongoo.

[Phatscotty]

Leftism has failed Europe. Bless Britain for acknowledging the problems and at least attempting to deal with their debt.

All you are reporting here is your country has decided for more debt and is choosing the easy way out. We probably will see you here in a few years complaining about how your countries problems are bigger than they ever were, and how that is the Conservatives fault too.

btw, your conservatives would be considered liberals to us. I can see why they failed you

[DangerBoy]

I thought Player only started threads about American politics?

[Night Strike]

How will the government get out of debt without massive cuts? How is infinite spending sustainable?

[Symmetry]

How will the government get out of debt without massive cuts? How is infinite spending sustainable?

Infinite spending is, of course, not sustainable, but then again none of the major parties are proposing that. The major reason the conservatives are losing is that the spending cuts they deem necessary are blatantly partisan and deeply unpopular, often going against the election promises they made that cuts would not be made to certain sectors- specifically the NHS.

[Night Strike]

How will the government get out of debt without massive cuts? How is infinite spending sustainable?

Infinite spending is, of course, not sustainable, but then again none of the major parties are proposing that. The major reason the conservatives are losing is that the spending cuts they deem necessary are blatantly partisan and deeply unpopular, often going against the election promises they made that cuts would not be made to certain sectors- specifically the NHS.

So nationalized health care is too expensive to maintain yet everyone gets very angry when cuts and reforms are proposed in the system. And you all want to impose that system on the US as well, on a population that is 5 times larger?

[Symmetry]

How will the government get out of debt without massive cuts? How is infinite spending sustainable?

Infinite spending is, of course, not sustainable, but then again none of the major parties are proposing that. The major reason the conservatives are losing is that the spending cuts they deem necessary are blatantly partisan and deeply unpopular, often going against the election promises they made that cuts would not be made to certain sectors- specifically the NHS.

So nationalized health care is too expensive to maintain yet everyone gets very angry when cuts and reforms are proposed in the system. And you all want to impose that system on the US as well, on a population that is 5 times larger?

Not at all, Labour also proposed reform, the problem is in the nature of the cuts. Virtually all medical professionals in the UK opposed the cuts, and were ignored. Andrew Lansley, the minister in charge of the reforms, has been a shambles.

It's an easy job for reporters to talk about the coalition's proposed reforms. Day 1- report what Lansley proposes, Day 2- report the widespread opposition from within the coalition, from opposing parties, from medical professionals, from patients, and the general public. Day 3- report Lansley's apology. Repeat.

[Night Strike]

Are those proposed reforms by Labour much like the proposed reforms by Democrats in the US: all superficial that don't address any of the problems present? In the US, if the Democrats even propose spending cuts, they want to cut the pace of budget increases, even though year-over-year spending will still increase. REAL cuts require sacrifice because today's society has decided that they'd rather the government give them everything they want then work to leave their children with a better society than the one they had. Of course that idea would be unpopular, but it's necessary.

[Symmetry]

Are those proposed reforms by Labour much like the proposed reforms by Democrats in the US: all superficial that don't address any of the problems present? In the US, if the Democrats even propose spending cuts, they want to cut the pace of budget increases, even though year-over-year spending will still increase. REAL cuts require sacrifice because today's society has decided that they'd rather the government give them everything they want then work to leave their children with a better society than the one they had. Of course that idea would be unpopular, but it's necessary.

I appreciate that you want to bring this back on to home turf, but the REAL cuts that the coalition have proposed seem more about crippling the NHS. Labour had a poor record with regards to the NHS, with many people seeing them as overloading it with bureaucracy. That was why many people voted against them- the economy being the larger reason, of course. The conservatives promised they wouldn't attack the NHS.

The new Labour leadership run on a very simple message- "You can't trust the Conservatives with the NHS". And really, you can't.

[pmchugh]

The funny thing is most a lot of people voted the torries in because they believed labour to be less willing to cut down on what is needed to get the economy back on track, yet as soon as there are cuts everyone gets mad. Why the f*ck did people vote for them in the first place?

Also Labour would have made significant cuts as well, they are only now leaning left to point out the big bad conservatives.

@NS and PS, you guys are so caught up in your own little world views it's cute. Everyone in Britain wants the NHS, if the conservatives declared they wanted rid of it then it would be political suicide. Even in the Thatcher hay days they could never touch the NHS. As symm points out even cutting it back is enough to leave you trailing an incompetent labour party by 7%. The NHS is the single greatest thing UK politics has ever produced even with all its flaws and costs.

[saxitoxin]

Also Labour would have made significant cuts as well, they are only now leaning left to point out the big bad conservatives.

I'm curious what Labour's proposed cuts were? I went to their website and all I found was a variety of slogans, photographs of The Leader, "Donate Now" pages and an online shop. I couldn't find a comprehensive manifesto. (To be fair, I found the exact same situation on the Conservative website. The Liberal Democrats had a deep and comprehensive programme that was publicly viewable, as did the UKIP [though there were a lot of spelling and grammar errors in it] and Plaid Cymru.)

[nagerous]

I Laugh at the trolling americans, especially the few idiots from the forums that no one respects!


Mugs

[Phatscotty]

I Laugh at the trolling americans, especially the few idiots from the forums that no one respects!


Mugs

Calling people idiots demands respect. A lot more respect than engaging in a discussion and pointing out where or why they are wrong.

[nagerous]

You're a massive tool, body movin! body movin!

[Phatscotty]

You're a massive tool, body movin! body movin!

Mad respect son. You are really schoolin peeps with your style.

[pmchugh]

Also Labour would have made significant cuts as well, they are only now leaning left to point out the big bad conservatives.

I'm curious what Labour's proposed cuts were? I went to their website and all I found was a variety of slogans, photographs of The Leader, "Donate Now" pages and an online shop. I couldn't find a comprehensive manifesto. (To be fair, I found the exact same situation on the Conservative website. The Liberal Democrats had a deep and comprehensive programme that was publicly viewable, as did the UKIP [though there were a lot of spelling and grammar errors in it] and Plaid Cymru.)

They never said, pre-election they were saying they were going to make cuts but were never specific. In fact they actively avoided the question. For anyone who has forgotten what Labour would have done, here is a helpful article:

Labour would have cut deeper than Thatcher

Here is the current Leader post election on cuts:

There is going to have to be cuts, there is going to have to be difficult decisions. We would have to have cuts in police, we would have to have cuts in the schools budget, we would have to have cuts in the defence budget.

We can make no commitment to reverse any of the Government's tax rises or spending cuts because we don't know the state of the economy we are going to inherit and what the fiscal position will be.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 87589.html

[saxitoxin]

We would have to have cuts in police, we would have to have cuts in the schools budget, we would have to have cuts in the defence budget.

We can make no commitment to reverse any of the Government's tax rises or spending cuts because we don't know the state of the economy we are going to inherit and what the fiscal position will be.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 87589.html

Police/Schools: In your opinion are cuts in police and schools (set aside cuts in defence for the moment) (a) better for the UK (b) not better for the UK, than the Tories proposed cuts? Why?

During riots that would accompany increases in student fees under Labour, would a smaller number of UK police be able to restore order where current levels barely succeeded during the 2011 race riots? From an outsider's perspective (which is often wrong) it appeared there was a danger of the state itself collapsing last year. (I read a DPR article that indicated a dramatic worsening was much closer than the public was led to believe - that there were no home-deployed military reserves around to call on would the police have been overrun. No government = 100% austerity.)

Defence: I think the UK could accomplish dramatic cuts in defence but it would have to be accompanied by a major realignment of foreign policy so that the military could safely become just a small home island defence force, which is basically the next step below its current level. I'm confident a Labour government could make cuts (easy - a few keystrokes in MS Excel). Has Labour indicated they have the courage to change foreign policy (from global-focus to local, North Sea focus) in a way that would make such cuts responsible?

This shocked the west in 1961 - reliable allies was supposed to mean Portugal didn't need much. But Portugal overestimated the interest of other nations in defending Portuguese territory. I don't know what allies the UK has in 2012 that are any more reliable than Portugal's principal ally in 1961 (ironically, the UK).

[saxitoxin]

Defence Cuts -

Looking at Wikipedia, the UK spent £682 billion in 2012, of which about 5% was spent on the military. If the UK military was cut in half that would mean a 2.5% budget savings.

Cutting the armed forces in half would be pretty dramatic. If it were uniform, across the board, this is what it would mean:

- instead of 4 aircraft assigned to a certain South Atlantic island, said island would be defended by 2 aircraft
- surface ships of the RN would drop from 18 combatants to 9 combatants (one ship smaller than the Dutch navy)
- the UK would only have nuclear weapons available 6 months out of the year (cut from 4 to 2 Trident - realistically you'd just scrap nuclear weapons altogether at that point)
- the size of the Army would contract from 150,000 to 75,000 (the size of the German army which has zero overseas military commitments - IOW, all UK troops would have to be pulled back to the home island and overseas deployments terminated)

Could the UK live with being a world power on par with the Netherlands and abandon interests in the South Atlantic, Gibraltar and Cyprus in order to save 2.5% of the budget? (For the record, I could - I'm just very skeptical the UK public at large would keep a Labour gov't more than one election after the final nail had been hammered into the coffin of the Camelot myth.)

"They're [UK] no longer a world power. All they've got left are generals, admirals and bands." - US warmonger Gen. Scratch Brown way back in 1974

[BigBallinStalin]

The 1961 Indian annexation of Goa (also referred to as Operation Vijay, Invasion of Goa,[4] the Liberation of Goa[5] and the Portuguese-Indian War[citation needed]), was an action by India's armed forces that ended Portuguese rule in its Indian enclaves in 1961. The armed action, codenamed Operation Vijay by the Indian government, involved air, sea and land strikes for over 36 hours, and was a decisive victory for India, ending 451 years of Portuguese colonial rule in Goa.

[pmchugh]

We would have to have cuts in police, we would have to have cuts in the schools budget, we would have to have cuts in the defence budget.

We can make no commitment to reverse any of the Government's tax rises or spending cuts because we don't know the state of the economy we are going to inherit and what the fiscal position will be.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 87589.html

Police/Schools: In your opinion are cuts in police and schools (set aside cuts in defence for the moment) (a) better for the UK (b) not better for the UK, than the Tories proposed cuts? Why?

During riots that would accompany increases in student fees under Labour, would a smaller number of UK police be able to restore order where current levels barely succeeded during the 2011 race riots? From an outsider's perspective (which is often wrong) it appeared there was a danger of the state itself collapsing last year. (I read a DPR article that indicated a dramatic worsening was much closer than the public was led to believe - that there were no home-deployed military reserves around to call on would the police have been overrun. No government = 100% austerity.)

Defence: I think the UK could accomplish dramatic cuts in defence but it would have to be accompanied by a major realignment of foreign policy so that the military could safely become just a small home island defence force, which is basically the next step below its current level. I'm confident a Labour government could make cuts (easy - a few keystrokes in MS Excel). Has Labour indicated they have the courage to change foreign policy (from global-focus to local, North Sea focus) in a way that would make such cuts responsible?

This shocked the west in 1961 - reliable allies was supposed to mean Portugal didn't need much. But Portugal overestimated the interest of other nations in defending Portuguese territory. I don't know what allies the UK has in 2012 that are any more reliable than Portugal's principal ally in 1961 (ironically, the UK).

Defence: We could definitely cut back on the "defence" budget and I doubt many people would care too much, the people caring would probably not be British if you catch my drift. Plus its being cut back anyway: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16588436

Police: The police are being cut back under the torries anyway (20% compared to the 12% planned by Labour) so it wouldn't be any worse. Although I don't think the police were all that overrun, they did manage to get 1000+ convictions from the riots.

Schools: I am not sure about schools because the Scottish parliament are in control of education north of the border. I do remember Labour criticizing the government over scrapping a school building scheme that they were going to cut billions of pound from anyway, I don't know how people didn't see the irony.

Obviously it is hard to tell how things would have been under Labour but I think they are secretly glad they lost the last election because they got rid of the unpopular but bullish Gordon Brown and this will probably increase their overall popularity in the long run, especially since the Lib Dems have destroyed their own vote by entering the coalition.

Labour were going to cut back the same things as the Torries and at a similar rate. Defence, police, NHS, schools, welfare programs.. absolutely everything. They defend this by claiming their cuts would have been "morally fair". There is little difference, its just opposition for the sake of opposition.

[Night Strike]

Are those proposed reforms by Labour much like the proposed reforms by Democrats in the US: all superficial that don't address any of the problems present? In the US, if the Democrats even propose spending cuts, they want to cut the pace of budget increases, even though year-over-year spending will still increase. REAL cuts require sacrifice because today's society has decided that they'd rather the government give them everything they want then work to leave their children with a better society than the one they had. Of course that idea would be unpopular, but it's necessary.

I appreciate that you want to bring this back on to home turf, but the REAL cuts that the coalition have proposed seem more about crippling the NHS. Labour had a poor record with regards to the NHS, with many people seeing them as overloading it with bureaucracy. That was why many people voted against them- the economy being the larger reason, of course. The conservatives promised they wouldn't attack the NHS.

The new Labour leadership run on a very simple message- "You can't trust the Conservatives with the NHS". And really, you can't.

So were they just trying to cut the bureaucracy, or go further? If people voted them in to cut the bureaucracy, why are they complaining and trying to vote them out?