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The Tories and NuLabour should really stop trying to pretend they have different policies on anything. If all they have to talk about is miniscule differences like SA or how quickly they privatise the health service then we really need to start viewing them as the same monster.<br>
It’s a rarity, but I have to agree with Grasshopper regarding David Cameron.<br>I think he’s a knob.
Couldn’t possibly vote for any of the three ‘main’ parties nowadays so it would be Green, as it has been for the last two elections. Not a fanatical ‘save the planet’ type but there’s less wrong with their policies than t’others.
If there was the choice of registering an abstention on the ballot paper I’d probably vote that way.
Still remain true to the belief that all who are fortunate enough to live in a democracy should vote, even if it’s for the ‘least bad’ option as in my case: there’s still too many folk in the world denied the fundamental right of deciding who governs them.
As well to remember what side your bread’s buttered.
(Edited by Drone at 8:25 pm on Aug. 29, 2006)
I really dont know who I would vote for .. I voted Tory last time and Labour before that .. UKIP at the last Euro-elections and Green at the one before that.
Labour get 53% of the vote in our constituency, so who knows.
Voted Labour the last two elections and happen to live in one of the few constituencies (Selby) where the result is marginal. Huge polarisation in the area with a mix of ex-miners and a large farming community saw a predicted torie gain stay with labour, but only just. Think our MP had to take his house back of the market when he heard he was still in.
If an election was called tomorrow with either Blair or Brown as lab leader my decision is still the same and would be in the same camp as Trackside.
Voted Blair in 97 and 01 but Green last time. I come from a staunchly Labour family and that means we were prepared to overlook some of the ominous signs in 97, and to give him the benefit of the doubt in 2001, but that was it. His continuing privatisation of public services and catastrophic foreign policy have been a disaster for this country. I would give Brown the opportunity to distance himself from all that but am unlikely to vote Labour again until it returns to democratic socialism.
Voted Labour in ’97, Tory after that (UKIP in Euro elections).<br>Am no lover of present Labour or Conservatives (or UK politicians in general), but would vote Conservative in next general election. This is simply because my current MP is a lightweight no-mark who, if her leader suggested all 2nd born babies should be gassed, would go along with it. A nodding-donkey; she was chosen as the Labour candidate in ’97 from a women-only list. I knew her well enough to know that she made Frank Spencer seem like Bertrand Russell. (Although I’d have given her one back then).<br>The Conservative candidate here is actually a hard-working, clever bloke with more up top than his p**s
-poor party leader. So I’ll vote for him rather than his party.There are huge differences between Cameron and Blair; Tory and New Labour.
One is for huge hovernment, controlling our every move, The other is a much more libertarian approach, with a far smaller bureaucracy.
The Tories will also relagalise Hunting. If this does not happen, National Hunt racing will decline.
And I cannot imagine a Tory Government banning stilletoes or allowing shoplifters to walk free either.
Loads more. The Conservatives are the only party who will address environmental concerns too.
On a personality level I am inclined to agree. The majority of people sadly now do not consider political questions; so the public image becomes all.
I agree on Thatcher. She was a cow and the reason why we have had to put up with 10 years of Blair.
I think the UK politics is now skewed too much to the US presidential style where people take their views purely on the party leaders using soundbites and press hype. Little attention paid to what either party stands for as they fall over themselves to out spin each other. The press makes the agenda nowadays turning politics into a soap opera and it really does not matter who is right if they are out gunning for you.
I can see where Grasshopper is coming from as Cameron tries to out spin Tony Blair and steal back the middle ground he stole from them. On issues such as Iraq where Blair gets all the flak the Torries would have done little different. On issues such as sleaze I think they are always worse.
As someone who grew up in a mining village through the troubles I for one cannot bring myself to vote Tory. If you look past Cameron it is just the same people.
The Liberals can afford the luxury of being liberal because they have no chance of winning. Same goes for the other parties in permanent opposition who can promise the earth or soundbite on a few issues. A vote for them is wasted.
That leaves Labour for me as a party or a good local candidate as Insomniac suggests. If Brown or Reid take over soon then who knows how the press machine will play it out.
On all the policies the parties are profoundly dofferent; though it may not appear that way.<br>Foriegn policy:<br>While the Tories have a reputation of being warmongerers, they would certainly not have left out troops inadequately provided for with helicopters, ammunition and anti flak armour. That is a disgrace<br>Secondly, they would not have been up Bush’ s backside on everything. Bush even feared a Tory victory at the last election and that should tell you something. They have raised issues about the lies told about WMD’s , and stated their opposition to that as a reason for war.
The Tory policy on the NHS is for less bureacracy. Ask any professional in the service and they will tell you that that is the number one problem with it. Some of that is the fault of thatcherism and the accountability idea. However Cameron has stated that this Tory party recognise that some things, like British rail and the Health service, should not necessarily be under control of  free market policies. They admitted that rail privatisation was ill conceived. They stand for less bureacracy and money targetted at the front line of health care. Contrast that with the current service which is denying life saving cancer treatments becuase of money, yet have a vast army of bureaucrats.
The Tory Education policy will always radically differ from labour’s. What appears a benign and caring approach to Education by Labour actually masks a darker social agenda. Equality of opportunity ends up as dumbing down. Academic education under labour has become the perogative of the middle class and the spectre of VOCATIONAL education for the masses moves closer. Their policies on student grants and fees went where Thatcher feared to go. <br>Tory education policy however is truly based on the idea of equality of opportunity regardless of class. Working class kids could get to grammar school remember? The Tory policy has been the same since Disreali: that there is vast "waste" of talent among the working class and we should try to bring it out.<br>Contrast that with the fact that few working class kids manage to get to university …since new labour.
The Tories would NEVER  have introduced the scores of indirect taxes that this Government has. Neither will it conceive any more….unlike new labour who have taxed <br>everything from fags to £80 fines for drunken behaviour . This has reduced the Police to being taxmen with truncheons.
The Tories have rightly expressed grave concerns about <br>ID cards. They have conistently opposed, as have the House of Lords , policies which interfere with liberty.
European Policy? The EEC is a New Labour gravy train.<br>Again the Tories biew the EEC as an economic necessity. Labour see it as a social one, creating vast numbers of laws interfering with the individual.
If you think the Tories would EVER legalise shoplifting as this government are doing….
What the hell have this government ever done for the poor? They have given their kids a crap education. Had all the state hand outs back in indirect tax, encouraged them to have more kids as they=money, made hospitals filthy places with massive waiting lists, and raised the ninimum wage losing many full time jobs with good overtime(remember that?) and replacing them with lots of part time or casual jobs.
My Labour council spent 5 million on an Arts centre (for the middle class) while housing conditions are apalling, street crime is rife and the place stinks.
They are now preparing to attack the sick, blaming them for not being able to work, instead of their lousy health care system and absurd beureacracy. One anecdotal example. One guy I know has been off work for a year. Finally he got over his injury, and tried to take on a part time job to ease him in. It was 15 hours. Immediately he had his sick benefit cut form £160 a fortnight to £120.<br>Then his wages are taken out which leaves him about a fiver. His rent rebate is in a mess because they can’t cope with the change in circumstances and he may lose his flat. yeah right; all that f**** bureacracy and it ends up being used AGAINST the poor.
I was brought up on a council estate and all my life these middle class Labour jerks and their bureacratic lapdogs have interfered with everything in my life. Sometimes the poor just want to be left alone ro make their own way without a bunch of crap from the state. When out Dad died the Labour Council tried to evict my brother and I sayoing they do not let houses to two single men. I was 23 and my brother 17. It was a vicious fight to stay in our family home and we were eventually helped by a TORY . The house was a crumbling 70’s striucture, damp and ugly. Could never get any repair work done on it but the Council could mobilise an army if you had a horse in your garden for an hour and threaten you with all sorts of crap.  See Tories are for the individual, and against the might of the state being used against them. Labour…old and New…are for the might of the state and all its employees…and they have grown and grown and grown under New Labour until we can do NOTHING without state interference.<br>I am currently preparing to sue the Labour incompetents regarding another matter at the moment, and if you do not think that the state’s power has grown , you wouldn’t believe what has happened to us in the last few weeks. I can’t say for obvious reasons but it is frightening.
THAT is the fundamental difference between Labour and Tory.
Another anecdote which may interest you is in the thread on "Blair the Nazi"
That I agree on. I am just hoping Cameron is hiding his balls. <br>He can’t exactly go around saying he is going to sack half of unison and bring back hunting and have death sentences for shoplifters can he? <br>I wish a politician would though.
Just a minor point re the shoplifting thing. Another example of lazy reporting designed to get people angry, regardless of the facts.
The Sentencing Advisory Panel has produced a paper and has invited views on it before it publishes its final report. The Sentencing Advisory Panel reports to the Sentencing Guidelines Council. Included in its paper were suggestions to tackle shoplifting in different ways, including community rather than jail sentences. This has not been announced by a government minister, it is not Labour party policy, it is one idea produced by a panel set up to discuss ideas.
This was quite sensibly reported by Radio 4, which I listened to in the way in to work. When I arrived at work, I noticed a colleague’s copy of some tabloid had the headline, ‘Shoplift Till You Drop’ and proceeded to announce that the government is planning to bring this in.
Rather typical of the way our media works and the feeble standard of ‘debate’ that exists in this country.
For the record, I think it is a bad idea. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be discussed.
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