For me the single biggest issue in the election is the war in Afghanistan, where UK armed forces are being used for political purposes to prop up one of the most corrupt regimes in the world, which is based on vote rigging, drugs trade, human rights abuses and internal corruption. Any efforts for winning hearts and minds by the UK forces (however well intentioned) are undermined, by the fact they are seen as the security forces of a corrupt unpopular regime. Hence Karzai's own security forces, who we are supposed to be training up to a point where they can maintain security and allow us to leave, according to the official strategy, are also seen in Afghanistan as traitors and the security forces of a corrupt unpopular regime.

I am not anti-war for the sake of it by any means, I would have supported the Falklands War, but UK forces should never be fighting under Hamid Karzai's banner, its an outrage.

Clegg opposed the war in Iraq but he generally supports the idea of being in Afghanistan so thats him off my list as well. Also he seems to be giving mixed messages over Trident, we won't renew Trident but we will look at a cheapo nuclear missile system, that's halfway house. I see no justification for the UK having a WMD programme now, and its not affordable in the current financial situation.

My constituency has 4 candidates, the main three and the Greens, I will be voting for the Greens.

I voted Greens in the Euros time before last. I will be voting Labour this time though in case you hadn't realised.

Great - 5 more years.

Ok are we ready for predictions? Cons win with small majority of six. Lib dems pick up 30 seats at the expense of Labour ( apologies if my maths are out). Helen Jones takes Warrington North on severly reduced majority. David Mowat wins Warrington South by 1,000 votes

Hung Parliament. Bad news with decisions taking forever.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc

In all honesty the bickering and back stabbing of politics bores me.
Actually with that being on TV I get to do a lot more because I'm not in front of the tele.

All parties will have to put taxes up and whenever they 'give away' some money they'll have to claw that back too.

I can't say I agree completely or even 70% with any parties manifesto so if I voted I'b be voting for at least 30% of what i don't want!

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/liveevent/Tories rattled or what![/url




They are supposed to be fighting for every vote on the basis of their manifesto and ability to lead the country, not basing their campaign on hypothetical situations.

Excellent.

Ta for that. Having wiped the tea of my screen I would suggest that you keep very quite on fighting on a manifesto bit ............ "Back me, I'm the only one who can lead the country out of the mess of the last 13 years created by er, er ........"*

[size=50* copyright G Brown[/size

Also, see P Mandelson (Lord) doing his bit on behalf of the Lib-Dems .............. brilliant.

Manifesto is about the future. Then again as the Tory manifesto has nothing in it, you'd struggle to base a campaign on that.

You also mentioned "ability to lead the country" which is the only thing that Gordon is crapping on about, you know, about getting the BIG decisions right............ I can tick them off the list if you like.

WMD
War in Iraq
The Election that never was
Flogging Gold at a knockdown price
Tax on dividend payments of pension funds
Banking Regulation
Peter Mandelson (twice)

Don't forget 10% tax rate though that one you probably liked.

WMD/Iraq - isn't 20/20 hindsight wonderful? And anyway, Saddam's gone. That was last election. Read "Saturday" by Ian McEwan.

Election that never was? Eh, not sure what that's about?

Flogging gold and tax on pensions - gotta get money from somewhere.

Banking regulation - what? you wanted more, did you? Hypocrite.

Peter Mandelson. I'll see him and raise you a Lord Ashcroft.

Sure Start, Minimum Wage, School building programme, Winter Fuel Allowance, Child Trust Fund, Tax Credits, Free Nursery Care.

Next? Economic recovery without throwing a million or so on the scrapheap. And without dumping the weak. Tories are Tories even if they are called Dave.

.

Immigration
Afghanistan - Poorly equipped
Lisbon treaty referrendum promise broken
record youth unemployment
gap between rich and poor widening


Labour have well and truly stuffed up since Tony Blair left. I do feel a lot of the decisions they have made around the recession have mainly been driven by the Bank of England rather than Brown and Darling being economic saviours. Labour got elected because of Blair in 97. He was the guy people trusted and he attracted voters - especially Tories - to back him. Brown has no chance and will only be saved from a humilating landslide defeat bythanks to general political apathy

Decisions decisions!!!! On one hand i think GB and the labour party have screwed some stuff up recently I cant help but think that things will be a whole lot worse under Cameron. He's spent the last 3 years spouting the tory policy on everything from the economy to the wars as being "this lot are crap" (what would you do Mr Cameron?.... "(I dont know but) we wouldnt do what labour did". He's likely to spend the next 3 years spouting on about "well look what labout did before we took over".

Personally i would love a hung parliament (noooo not in that sense but the thought is a good one). Maybe for once decision will be made by negotiation and reason rather than the usual confrontational two party politics weve put up with for the last god knows how long!

I think your view of a hung parliament is more romantic than realistic. History shows us they don't work in the UK. Decisions will be made by horsetrading and ensuring they don't get defeated and end up with a second general election.

And that is different from the current method of parliamentary decision making how?

At the beginning of TBs second term of office a university did a study of "MAJOR polictical decisions" over the last 40 years (eg:- tax cuts/wars/poll tax introduction/poll tax abolition). Every single one of them was made for the benefit/survival of the party in office rather than the good of the nation.

The "problem" with hung parliments is not that they wont work, its that the policitcians wont make them work. Now however, MPs are aware that the public are already watching them so maybe...just maybe... they might actually decide to do the job they were voted in to do.

So much to go through off your last post but I'll just say that the points you raised above are all valid and personally I have no problem with them but all of the above were easy to do - it was a simple case of chucking money at it ........... that's what Labour have done, glibly thrown money at everything.

BTW the way - I'm the hypocrite? Your man has already admitted responsibility for the banking crash after so much denial so accept it FFs and the fact that you accept the Gold issue is progress in recognising GB's constant need for cash to fund LieBour's stunningly unproductive policies - No 10 centrally negotiated GP contracts anyone??

Whatever else you might be thinking I just want these people out - they've been an absolute disaster. We're skint and we have nothing to show for the next 30 years despite the money that's been splashed out in the last 13.

We have no money left to spend. It's gone, they've spent it and so based on what they do when they have money I dread to think what life will be like with them in power without any dosh.

Yes, we need money. Any government does. I want a government though which at heart recgonises that the state has to intervene to make things work for all. I don't want a government which will rely on the WI and the PTA to run our local services.

Wait for it ............... I absolutely agree with you. The railways should never have been sold and I would have hoped that Labour would have renationalised them given the chance when Network Rail and various franchises went belly up. Labour shouldn't be rationalising the Post Office network it should be expanding it and they had a glorious chance to do so when the banking crash hit - but they didn't.

You've been sold Conservative Lite - admit it, that's exactly how NuLiebour positioned themselves in their efforts to get elected 13 years ago and they've achieved it. What about the Unions? They've been sold an absolute pup by their lords and masters and the biggest/saddest joke is they are funding it!

Cameron's espousings of the WI & PTA to run local services is an absolute joke but running alongside that their vision of expanding the private sector is absolutely correct - the private sector has to be given the tools to be given the chance to develop and grow without the masses of red-tape that it's being strangled by because at the moment businesses are a being treated as a cashpoint by the Gov't to fund evermore poorly thought out initiatives and policies that are launched with the single aim of keeping them in power - it's pathetic.

I hope you mean Railtrack went belly up, Network Rail is very much alive and very well.

Business was chumming up to Labour for ten years. We never heard this stuff about excessive red tape, business being used as a cash cow to fund the public sector or whatever, at the 2001 or 2005 elections….the business community was firmly behind Labour which is why they won three pretty easy election victories. Even in 2005 the main opposition to Labour was from the left (anti war), the business community was onside which is why the Tories found it hard to make headway. Business is disgruntled basically because we have had a global recession, which was not caused by the Labour government, it was caused by excessive greed fuelling excessive risk, and a lack of government regulation because Labour were in on the game of getting off the financial sector’s back. If there is a critique on bad economic management, it comes from the left not the free-marketers.

Belatedly the Labour government has got in on the act and tried to negate some of the effects, its shutting the gate after the horse has bolted, but the arguments against Labour from some sections of the business community are basically complaining about shutting the gate. The Tories have got no answers on how to mend the economy, which is glaringly apparent by the stock Conservative answer to every question about their plans for growing the private sector: “we won’t bring in Labours jobs tax”. Fantastic, the Tories won’t increase NI by 1%. But their plan that simply by keeping NI at the same rate its been under Labour up till now, that the private sector will suddenly boom, doesn’t wash. They will also be making about 500000 job cuts in the public sector, which is going to have an impact on peoples willingness to buy private sector goods, and putting tuition fees up to about £7000. George Osborne needs to be careful about all of his doomsday warnings about “going to the IMF for money” as an example of the worst possible example of economic failure, because the likelihood is that in 1-2 years, a Tory government is going to do just that. History will blame the Tories for it not Labour, just like they blamed Labour in 1976, despite the fact they inherited a bankrupt economy from Ted Heath in December 1974.

You have elucidated my thoughts to a tee. "We won't do what Labour have done/going to do" Vote for change. If the Conservatives could confirm what they ARE going to do, I would gladly listen to them. As it stands, the silence is deafening. The best of it being their previous stance on Blair's spin over substance, as the old adage goes: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The Tories have confirmed what they are going to do. They are going to cut waste.

I can't see how having the bins collected once every two weeks instead of every week is going to save £6billion next year alone.


Seriously - what is this "waste" the Tories keep going on about?

This "waste" is jobs in the public sector.

The Conservatives are trying to win an election on the back of 'we are not labour'.