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1) Voting according to your values?
2) Voting tactically to keep a particular political party out of government at all costs?

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3) Voting in terms of the wider picture and attempting to break the status quo?

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Will it be a close run thing in 2008, or are the current lot on their last legs?

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Will it be a close run thing in 2008, or are the current lot on their last legs?

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

Dtesmoac,

I read your education point with interest because Labour had to shift to the right. They followed the British people and their conservative whims - hence, this "tough on crime" bollocks and breaking up the grants system. They were in danger of never being elected again.

If you want free education for all, then you're too late. The chance to rein in class structure was there for the taking in the 1980s and the British people rejected it - hence the traditional left-wing party moving towards the centre and imposing wealth redistribution by stealth. You know the script - "tax! scroungers!".

The free education one is not such a straight left v right item though. The reason for removing the free fee's and the grant was beacuae there was a push to have much wider participation in higher education which "could then not be funded by government" and so the loss of grants and then the introduction of fees. My solution is to set a certain standard and then say if you meet the standard no matter your age or background we (the country) invest in you i.e. no fee and full grant. Yes people from private schools etc may have an advantage but they do anyway due to Mum and Dads money, but at least this way someone with no finances behind them but the ability to perform within academia can go. Labour's never being elected risk in the 80s was due to other policies. The new system results in over qualified or mickey mouse qualified people with over expectaions and big debts entering the workplace.
 
It would be nice one day to positively vote for a party, I know for me that Labour & LibDems seems impossible and Conservatives seam highly unlikely. As to actual politicians I would vote for Denis Skinner & Ken Livingston (I agree with very little of their politics but they are conviction politicains and not money grabbing gits) John Major, given a poison chalice but apart from taste of Edwina someone I could understand & Clement Freud & Cyril Smith - they just don't make them like that anymore.
 
 

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ORIGINAL: Vendaval

The next election is likely to be messier and dirtier than usual because of the war, and
people may well change their voting patterns in response.

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Sounds like you've an interesting election on your hands. If yours is anything like ours, they don't even bother to push their policies anymore - they just hammer the other party. A few years ago, the conservatives simply put a massive poster of Tony Blair with red devil eyes on bill-boards.....I mean, I'm no fan of Blair, but that just isn't politics! Politics really needs to get back to being politics, but then with business interests dominating proceedings, there isn't much chance of that.

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ORIGINAL: Sternhand4

But Fred Thompson can..

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Hi NG - been away and so not responded.


mindset of Britons in that, as a nation, we are incapable of seeing the wider picture and the need to invest heavily in areas such as education and health. Not sure I really agree anymore. I think it is other arwas of spending that people disagree with and it is politicians that deflect the investement. Also in theory the NHS has had a large injection of cash, it is the expectations placed upon it and the growth of non "medical" costs that is the problem.

As a nation, our priorities are elsewhere. Hence, the pressure is always to reduce tax and spend policies.Taxation currently is massivly higher than in past, it is how it is spent that is the issue. Event the IMF is warning the UK about the effects.

It should be means tested, thus providing grants only to those from poorer households. One of the problems is that those that pay in feel anti the policies and so create a probelm. Universal benefits help the poor and ensure a higher proportion of the non poor feel  included. Also when someone goes from the poor and enters the "middle income bracket if they are not laden down with debt they can start to influence the social structures rather than clearly being one of the oiks whose risen above their station. !!!  Hit the more affluent through taxation and loop closing but still give them universal benefits.

Where the line is drawn would need some working out, but as a general principle, if not having a grant genuinely prevents a person from going to university, then a grant should be on the table. what about rich kids whose parents don't want them to go?
but it's the first time in my life I've heard a conservative politician raise the issue - no its often a theme, remeber just a labour is a very broad "church of views so are the conservatives

. There will always be the wealthy, the middle class and the working class - no arguments here, but what we have is an underclass which is almost a third world country in our closet. - I agree and unfortunately they are unlikly to educate themselves out through universities, so additional mechanisms are required, but not sadling the bightest with big depts allows such people to take porer paying jobs which afoten / debatable, are aimed at more social justice.

The money isn't available to provide grants to 50% of young people attending university - I think this is one of the problems, it is creating too many people with big debts and over expectation of what they can / will earn, who then have to obtain over inflated places to live etc, etc, etc. They end up chasing the money. The only ones that can get out of the cycle are people with wealthy parents. It actualy is creating a more fixed barrier across society than fewer kids going to Uni and not having big debts, because it was not such a gamble and crippiling burden upon those comming from less affluent housholds.

(in reply to NorthernGent)