Who Gets Your Vote??

:spangled:

I've just voted but it's put down one of the other options!

:spangled:

vote for the green party, read this months mixmag ( i think its this month) and find out why!!!!!!!!:angel2:
hahahahahahaha

Lib - dems for me like

Re: Who Gets Your Vote??

We'd be really fucked!

Re: Re: Who Gets Your Vote??

Would be by the results so far

Re: Re: Who Gets Your Vote??

That is because this website is based in Florida

Labour is the only realist party for me - admitted that the government lost the war on drugs in clubs

Ulster Unionist Party for me

/starts being overly opinionated in the hope of causing an argument out of boredom

So far 13 out of 28 would vote for either the Conservatives (fascists) or Labour (aka The Conservative Party on steroids). How many of those 13 could actually name 3 (differing) policies of either Party that would actually directly affect them? Imo both have policies that are almost identical, and the issues that most Labour/Tory voters seem concerned about anyways have nothing to do with the person voting in the first place (eg immigration/europe/etc).

I'm not condoning the other Party's either, any government would have to be a puppet to big business otherwise the country would go into meltdown. And with our version of democracy (vote on a manifesto - then we'll change it!), it'd be same shit, different day.

And to the other 3 who voted for 'none of the above' - if that's because you're dissatisfied completely, whatcha gonna do about it?

/ends, hoping there'll be some decent conversation

Labour just 4 sommit to do cuz Im bored

I'm voting labour as its the best of 3 very unappealling parties.

1) Europe. The Tories are making noises about completely re-negotiating our membership and certain of them would be happy to pull out altogether. This could well be to stave off the UKIP of course. But 40% of our trade is through them - If we lost say even a quarter of this then it would have a downward affect on everyone here and the working class would bare the brunt of it as usual.

2) Drugs. The Tory policy is knee-jerk, dictated by nasty right-wing papers like the Daily Mail. Labour's has been based on common sense. Making drug taking in clubs safer. Re-classification of cannabis so that police can concentrate on the drugs that destroy communities.

3) Housing. Labour has a commitment to building hundreds of thousands of new properties to meet the changing demands. The Tories want to build precisely none so it doesn't affect the thousands of acres owned by the rich that they will be built next to - they are still stuck in that new-right way of thinking from the Thatcher era that thinks schools, hospitals and houses grow out of the ground.

Finally, someone making some noise - I applaud you for that. :clap:

But...

1) Europe - As far as I'm aware the Tories official stance is to stay in the EU and retain economic links, but they want a referendum held on the EU Constitution (if they hadn't shouted about it Labour wouldn't have promised it). Bit pointless having a referendum though as the average voter has no clue as to what the Constitution really entails. (Side note on economics - both Party's put big business' interests before the average working class citizen anyway, read up on PFI). Verdict: Policy at the moment is almost exactly the same

2) Drugs - You haven't read the news lately then? Labour are wanting to backtrack on the re-classification on cannabis, they're trying to make fresh shrooms illegal, they want to make positives on drugs tests count as possession, etc. Both Party's pander to media reaction rather than common sense. Verdict: Policy at the moment is almost exactly the same

3) Housing - You're seriously mistaken here, Labour want to build approx 2 million homes on green-belt land. The Tories have called for 2/3 of that to be built on brown-belt land. (I've got to say I prefer the Tory plans). The Tories want to build the same number of houses as Labour (approx 4 million by 2016).
Not noticing the privatisation of council housing? 200,000 council houses are being sold off to private companies every year at the moment, at that rate there will be none left in 10 years. Not noticed hyper-inflation of house prices? Both of these are having dire consequences on finances of the increasing amount of people living in poverty, eg "State financial support for families with children has more than doubled in real terms since the mid-1970s to reach £22 billion a year—with the most dramatic increases taking place in the past four years" (Report by JRF and the Institute of Fiscal Studies, Jan 04)
Statistics on homelessness from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister revealed that the number of homeless families (living in temporary accomodation) in Britain has reached 100,000 (approx 250,000 people). This record level of homelessness is more than double the total when Labour took office and the government estimates that this number will continue to rise until at least 2008.
Verdict: Policy at the moment is almost exactly the same (screw the poor bastards, make money for the rich). But at least the Tories have greener Policies on this one, even if it's due to other interests.

And without sounding offensive - the spin with which you have put forth those arguments sounds like it's been lifted directly from The Sun. It goes to show what propoganda can achieve.

Directed at Geordies!

If any of you are considering voting Conservative or Lib Dem just compare the Newcastle of 1996-7 to the Newcastle of now!

Labour have done wonders for this city in their eight years!

Whoever comes into power next will have a very difficult term or two. The economies of the western countries will change dramatically because of the emerging superpowers of China and India. As an example, British people are going to have to stop relying on manufacturing and call centres for example as we head toward a more professional services era. Patterns are forming already with 10% of Uni graduates go into accountancy alone!

On Europe...

I think here I mis-read the original question here as it states policies. I am well aware of the Tories official policy. But there is no doubt about the will of some very prominent Tories, eg John Redwood to pull out of Europe altogether. Westminster correspondents on news channels have been pointing this out since before the EU constitution was put forward. There was massive Tory support for withdrawal in their last government and the only prominent advocate of it not still in parliament is Portillo.

On drugs...

The government policy is not to re-classify cannabis, it is to hold an enquiry in to its effects, following the release of important medical research linking it to increased chances of mental illness. How can this be the same as the Tory policy, which is painstakingly clear that they will definitely re-classify cannabis to class B?

Fresh Shroom sale was never intended to be legal, they are just closing a loophole here. I don't agree with it, but we can't all have everything.

Going back to drugs in clubs, the government brought in measures to make it safer and try reducing deaths; Amnesty boxes, availabilty of free drinking water, cool down areas. The Tories wanted to follow the draconian US route.

The possesion in the blood is for addictive class A drugs. The Tories were opposed to this on the grounds that it is draconian and won't help solve the problem. I am sure they proposed more treatment places instead? Either way, policy is again not the same.

There is no way the two parties have the same policies, but depending on how we look at it the policies overall could be just as good or bad.

On housing...

I know that the government policy is crap on this. I would have liked to see them imposing a limit of a house per person to stop greedy landlords using wealth to amass portfolios at the expense of first time buyers. I also disagree with housing associations taking over properties , not least because it is a short term measure and pandering to businesses. The Tories let the council housing stock rot just as badly though and their policies of shared ownership and the like will do little to help either. Let us also not forget that the Tories let council houses rot away for a decade and a half because they messed the economy so much that the money from sales had to be used to keep public borrowing down.

I read a 40 odd page document on the Tory housing policy on their website and found no mention of the number of homes they wanted to build. They claim Labour want to build 125,000 a year, meaning about 1.4 million. Fair enough. However, I said Labour is committed to building hundreds of thousands and they have committed so far to building 200,000. Its not enough but it is a start. The rest is plans at this point in time. It is therefore hard to understand how they have planned to build 2 million homes on greenbelt.

And without sounding offensive - the spin with which you have put forth those arguments sounds like it's been lifted directly from The Sun. It goes to show what propoganda can achieve. [/QUOTE]

It does? Dont read much of the likes of The Sun as there articles on asylumn and the likes equate to something along the lines of "Pakies Out". However, I am not capable of, and what would be the point of, writing an article worthy of a broadsheet and posting it on a board? If I could do that I would be writing for them rather than frying my brains with chemicals on a weekend! I concentrated on the aspects of the policies that directly affect me in the way that I see they do. If you think that is spin then fair enough but I am not trying to influence anyone, just answering a question with my opinion. Forgive me for pointing out, but you have re-packaged a government statement about launching an enquiry about cannabis and mental illness and said they want to re-classify it. Forgive me if I am wrong but the enquiry has barely even started, if it has and already you have bought the Tory and Daily Mail version of the statement! And you say I am spinning?

No offence taken or intended by the way

Finally, I voted Labour in the 1997 and 2001 elections. This time I will be voting against the Conservatives. This may mean a Labour vote again, but until we get a proportional voting system I will continue to do so.

Newcastle's fucked then. :laugh:

Yay! Some intelligence on this board!

Housing: http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2063439 - interesting link

Disagree with a lot of what you're saying, but to argue against I would be mainly using opinion rather than trying to argue objectively.

"Labour are wanting to backtrack on the re-classification on cannabis" - trying not to write an essay But if you notice the nature of government-ordered enquiries these days you can see where I'm coming from.

Definitely not, I dislike both Labour and the Tories (imo both Party's are exactly the same) as much as I dislike our system of democracy. Hence why I choose not to vote until another option is put on a ballot paper.

Got to get to bed otherwise I would argue for the sake of it, but cheers for getting something interesting going in this thread.

One of the main reasons I voted for Blair was the original promise of proportional representation and therefore a better range of policies.

Me neither - Gives us an excuse to step outside and discuss something next time you run a night with a hardstyle DJ

Being entirely honest I read more on African issues, economics and politics than ours because it's more interesting, so I havent got much more to say on the subject.

We have a mail reader... leran some real facts