So it's not Sunday, but lets have a symposium!

[HereComesPete]

So, it's always something that gets people pissed off with each other, it's a national election and it's happening this week. We're closer than we've ever been to grand coalitions and minority party rule. I'm not going to ask the obvious, but you can tell us if you want who you're voting for and why.

We're urged to be the change, to be part of big society, to look after each other and build for the common good. Is it all a load of claptrap or do you think one of the parties big or small that are out there genuinely represent you and what you want from your taxes, healthcare, utilities, banks, education, old age etc etc.

If you don't want to answer that, have these thoughts for chewing on - have we the people changed, have our prejudices and past held us up or guided our actions for the better? Have we now become so here and now that our needs can't be represented by one of the major parties? Have politicians and parties become so broad focus and main-streamed that it's impossible to like, but easy to dislike?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Voting wise we have the options of;

Labour: Chap with all the charisma of a moist towelette.
Lib Dem: Pathetic fucking spineless lapdog who wants to feel power.
Tory: Hitler
Others: *shrug*

None of them have really impressed me, so I voted labour because I'd rather be a little less persecuted for being a spacker for the next 4 years.

Ultimately ConDem have successfully made it almost impossible to live if you're disabled, combined with making the NHS ineffective and increasing the national debt, so they're not getting a vote.

The others? Yeah, No. At least something approaching a left wing majority government is probably not going to boot us out of the EU, undermine our human rights and whore us out to the highest bidder in exchange for 0% tax for bajillionaires.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the mayor of London was elected because he was unintentionally amusing on Have I got news for you, so any actual politics fall by the wayside based on entertaining buzzwords and pandering to the lowest common denominator (I know at least one person who has decided to vote UKIP because they don't like polish people taking their (both retired/disabled) manual labour jobs). So ultimately, we're fucked, no matter how you look at it.

[Dog Pants]

I really don't know who to vote for this time. I don't think the Tories represent the majority, although I do think they've held us out of a worse economic situation than we might have been in. I don't think Labour are the party for the working people either, there seems to be just as many wealthy professional politicians with private concerns. I just don't think any of the parties are in it for anyone but themselves and their sponsors, so I don't want to vote for any of them. Fortunately I'm absolved of the responsibility of voting - my constituency is a Conservative fortress, so whoever I vote for it's wasted. I can vote for whoever the hell I like safe in the knowledge the Tories will get in here and if it goes wrong it won't be my fault. Probably Green. Nobody can feel guilty for voting Green.

Incidentally I'd vote SNP just to shake things up if they ran in Surrey.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Nobody can feel guilty for voting Green.

I would, no nuclear power with the greens, ergo we'd be doing the world out of many different superhero options.

[FatherJack]

The blue team will probably be like but the yellows will be all so the reds will be like and the scots will be all then the yellows will be all and the purples will be like and the people will be all

That's my analysis.

[Mr. Johnson]

I would, no nuclear power with the greens, ergo we'd be doing the world out of many different superhero options.

I've heard a similar argument when I mentioned I vote green:

Me: I'll probably just vote green like usual, they're the only ones that makes sense really.
Other guy: Why the hell would you vote green? They want to take away our cars!

He seemed to be genuinely concerned that the green party would literally come to his house and fuck up his car. I'm fairly certain that's not what they meant.

Granted, that's not the exact same argument as a power plant but I doubt any green party can actually close power plants until we found a viable alternative. They have to say that because the only green thing about nuclear power plants is the colour they make you glow in the dark. Personally, I see them as a necessary evil until we have something worthwhile in place but that's pretty much the only thing I disagree with the greens on, and in this current political climate of overly hopeful socialists and the current right-wing dickheads in charge green often sounds like the most sensible voice.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Indeed, I'm a great fan of nuclear power, unlike the Greens (see: EN261 and EN262), because it's safe as fuck, massively efficient and while the waste is nastier than a blue waffle on a warm day, it's quote compact and manageable, unlike traditional power generation, where we just spuff shite into the atmosphere.

Yep, Renewable energy sources are fucking wonderful, in the right climate (both weathery and economic) IIRC germany is succeeding at >100% of demand being provided from renewable sources a lot of the time.

But unfortunately in the UK we're nowhere near that point, and the system of NIMBYism, crap subsidies and generally shitty deals for renewable power make it a long way off.

[buzzmong]

I'm in a conundrum.

Thanks to being part of the great constituency reshuffle of 2010, I'm in a Conservative seat. Not a 100% safe one, but one where they had a sizable majority.

Unfortunately, the toss up is between Tories or the Lib Dems. As much as I think Clegg and Co are unprincipled wimps who should have ended the coalition a few years back to prove they're actually marginally trustworthy and principled, I think the Conservative MP for this area is a prize bellend who I really don't want to see get back into Parliament.

There lies my problem, pick an arguably wasted vote like the Green party (who are generally ok, aside from their utterly stupid anti-nuclear stance), vote Labour who don't stand a chance in this location but for the short term support pretty much all the policies I want to see enacted, or vote Lib Dem again this year in the hope they can actually win the constituency this time around and therefore stop the Tory chap holding onto his seat (thereby reducing Tory MP count), but be left with five years of self loathing and knowledge that showing support for them supports their coalition actions.

Think I know what it'll be, mostly in the hope that in the wider world we'll see a Red and Yellow coalition to temper both parts of them.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

mostly in the hope that in the wider world we'll see a Red and Yellow coalition to temper both parts of them.

Was that not the aim of people tactically voting lib dem last time? all we did was give adolf cameron a nice poodle with a yellow lead.

[Wiggy]

Personally, I'm voting Green (I even joined the Green Party, woo yay). I can't pretend that I agree with all of their policies (i.e. the nuclear power one that Berk mentioned) but I do think that they have the most progressive, social change platform out of all the parties I've seen. They want a living wage (not just a minimum wage), more social housing at reasonable rents, re-nationalised railways and so on - all points that I agree with.

I have no pretentions about them winning a seat in Chesterfield (given it's been Lib Dem since Tony Benn was an MP, and Labour the whole time he was there) but like Bane said - it's about sending a message. I firmly believe that the Conservatives are hurting too many people with austerity while the filthy rich get filthy richer.

Funnily enough, I don't know how many people remember the Tories pre-election contract from 2010? They laid out 16 points and said "If we don't deliver, kick us out in five years". They managed to deliver exactly zero of those 16 'promises'.

[HereComesPete]

But green made a right mess of Brighton!

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... n-brighton

[Wiggy]

Yes, the issue there was a strike caused by the council wanting to change refuse workers conditions, which was resolved and everything returned to normal. I assume they must be doing something right, as they are currently projected to retain in Brighton Pavilion.

Like I said, I appreciate they aren't always right on everything, but I'd rather it be them than the Tories, who have (for example) created more debt than every Labour government in history combined, the workfare scheme which horses the long term unemployed into 30 hours of unpaid work per week to "gain experience", but if they don't turn up to their job centre appointments they get sanctioned and lose their benefits anyway, cuts to disability benefit (which, I admit, I'm not really qualified to comment on) - I really could go on and on, but long and short of my opinion is - get corporations and those who can afford to to pay their fair share of tax (or get them to pay tax in the first place) and help those that need it. If we have people in this country who need help (and aren't obviously taking the piss) then we have a moral obligation to help them have a decent standard of living. If we annoy some rich companies in order to be able to do that, so be it.

[FatherJack]

the workfare scheme which horses the long term unemployed into 30 hours of unpaid work per week to "gain experience", but if they don't turn up to their job centre appointments they get sanctioned and lose their benefits

I spent over a year unemployed separately under both governments and was quite worried about this scheme when it was announced, but I think there was a bit of scaremongering going on, as it only applied in special circumstances.

My own experiences was that under Labour you just turned up every two weeks, showed you'd done the absolute minimum (as agreed when you first sign) and then went away. Very occasionally (like every year) you might have to attend a training course, which was a roomful of miserable people who didn't want to be there getting talked at.

Under the coalition, it was much the same for the first year, although it was hinted that instead of the minimum, if you did a little more then you would never need to worry about being sanctioned - low-hanging fruit and all that. As I always did the maximum (completely filling the sheet) it was never a concern. After a year they sent me on the Work Programme, I was shitting it, but rather than slave labour this was an outsourced, professional employment specialist actually helping me, one-to-one to do the right things in finding a job.

For myself, I was pretty much doing all the right things anyway, so it didn't have much benefit, but it was the first time anyone had actually done anything positive to help me. It would have gone on for pretty much another year before workfare was even a possibility.

I can see how people have fallen foul of things, but not turning up to appointments without calling or any sort of explanation, or not doing what you have been tasked with without a good reason are exactly the sort of things you can't do when you're in work. For people that have never been in work and so aren't used to that way of thinking there were plenty of opportunities short of workfare that were offered to me - practice interviews, shadowing people working at the WP offices, even some paid shop/warehouse work if I wanted it.

My main issue with the last lot though was not so much the measures they put in place geared to me it seemed at weeding out people who didn't want to work which might be fair enough, the problem was they lumped all the other benefits into it, so it wasn't just the unfortunate unemployed, but the practically unemployable. There are a whole raft of reasons why those are two different things including disability and mental health and a whole bunch of other things I'm similarly not qualified to talk about.