Did you vote Conservative?

Please LFN what are you talking about.

You do know that debt as a % of GDP was lower under Labour than the previous tory administration until the banks nearly collapsed and the bail out was required. The banks racked up the debts not Labour.

As for spending - despite rebuilding the infrastructure of this country desimated by the last tory government the debt was still lower than under the tories. Please get your facts right.

New wave is correct tory voters are selfish or deluded. The only reason to vote tory on an intellectual basis is if you are very rich.

Labour were dealing with the debt. Unemployment was lower than expected, confidence higher, the debt itself was 10billion less than forecast, crime at its lowest in 20 years, growth higher than expected.

Now afer only 8 monthe of the condems the debt is already higher than expected, unemployment higher than expected, growth lower and confidence has fallen through the floor.

You are right too New Wave, Labour looks after and tries to look after everyone in society, the tories look after themselves and their rich mates. The rest of society and especially the weakest and most needy can go to hell.

Why can't we all pull together and help the needy and vulnerable in our society - what is wrong with that? why are people talking about cost cost cost so that more and more people are struggling and suffering.

Tories = the price of everything - the value of nothing.

It's worth adding OTHM, that a number of HEIs are at risk regardless if the hike in tuition fees. A £9k fee doesn't help if a course costs more than this to deliver and your teaching budget has also been cut.

Just to be clear, I completely agree with your analysis re 50% participation rates and the impact this has had. A laudable attempt by Labour to further widen access to HE has backfired I think. And we're all crazy if we think the fee hike isn't going to impact on the sorts of people who feel able to go into HE. I guess I think the whole thing is a bloody mess.

There is an issue across the education sector I think, about what we (and our politicians) value, and about what our young people subsequently aspire too. There's an argument for sector wide reform, a real look at academic and vocational education, and a more equal relationship between the two. My personal feeling is that this is a hangover from more than the last labour government. We're at the culmination of a trend which started way before that (and certainly during the previous tory years).

I voted Tory at the last election, much to my surprise, partly because I was so appalled at how Labour had cocked up higher education, the economy and Iraq, but also because the Tories promised to scrap ID cards. I actually wanted a Lib-Con coalition.

On the whole I think they've done okay so far with a very ugly situation. I'm unhappy with the way that tuition fees have been raised, but I blame Blair's disastrous decision to commoditise further education a decade ago, which has driven the cost of FE up and standards down to the point where a lot of it is just a vast Ponzi scheme. Politically, the coalition had to choose between shutting down half the universities, and raising tuition fees: there simply isn't the money to fund the current volume of students.

Hopefully by the time my kids are ready for uni the the Mickey Mouse degrees will have disappeared, as no-one will want to pay nine grand a year for one, and we'll have a sensible system with proper academic standards again.

EdgarAleNPie, I thought that might be a solution. But it's like trying to give up smoking. I guess I will have to buy some new keyboards.

Giddypickle and chil1234 I agree with you both. The coalition as it is was the only possible outcome given the results, and the libdems would have been remiss to have entered into any other agreement (including non-coalition arrangements). I do think there are areas of consensus between Tories and libdems which as you suggest can't (and shouldn't) be ignored. A libdem vote is not a left wing vote, but a 'liberal' vote. I suppose that was my point really ( maybe not very well put). I had rather hoped that a movement away from very simple 'left' and 'right' with libdems perceived to sit on the fence somewhere between the two, was possible. I don't wholly agree with libdem positions, but I do think they had a valid third perspective. It seems to be being lost on the coalition.

I also agree that the tories are doing ok out of all of this at the moment. Can't see how anything other than a Tory majority is going to happen at the next election. Gutted.

Labour is the problem at the moment. Swimming around, bad choice of leader I'm afraid, no clarity. As someone who wants to vote labour, it's incredibly frustrating that they seem to have as an ineffective a voice as the Tories did after 97, without having suffered the same level of defeat.

"Tory voters probably aren't kicking themselves quite as much as some others."

Tory voters aren't as disappointed as others. As they OP put it... they are doing maybe not exactly what it said on the tin but what we'd expect to find in the tin!

No. My vote has always been anti-Tory. I'm an instinctive labour voter but have also voted lib dem on occasion. There is less difference between the three parties these days (in terms of actual policy decisions) so ultimately I had to refer back to the very foundations of what I believe. As much as I respect many Tory party members and politicians, they do not speak for me (despite being the middle-class married person they seem to assume will support them).

It felt to me that the last election presented an opportunity for real political change and reform with a
more diverse parliament possible (post expenses etc). I'm not sure that the coalition represents this (although I do think it was the only realistic solution given the circumstances. Much as I would have loved liblab government). Possibly if the libdems had done as well as was predicted, we would have seen more obvious change.

I'm ultimately pleased that however underwhelmed I am by the coalition, there is at least some neutralising of the worst excesses of toryism... and I suspect Cameron is quite pleased that it's protecting him from the right wing of his party too....

claig

i'm afraid the only solution is to make vicious cuts to your MNing :)

my keyboard is buggered.

at JoanofArgos

economy.

Damn keyboard. It is less than 6 months old, and already many of the letters have been wiped off. Has anyone got a solution to the lettering on these keyboards? Is there some paint or other solution to it?

'I may be naive, but I don't think anyone actually goes into politics with the intention of making things worse.'

then how do you explain the management of the econimy under Labour?

jackstarb - The tories are ideologically predisposed toward a smaller state, less spending and fewer but better public services but the individual gets to keep more money.

This is why they sometimes come across as selfish (or very naive if they are not rich).

Joan - the Tories are in favour of a smaller state. They think that will help people and make their lives better (all be it in the long run).

The Coalition have argued that the state is currently larger than we can afford. It appears that Labour agrees. So yes, spending cuts are both ideological and necessary.

But I would argue that Labour grew the state for ideological reasons as well as genuinely trying to improve things.

I'm not sure what the issue is really.

but the definition of 'better' is a tricky one, no?

You seem to be implying that it's a naive/paranoid assumption to think that the Tories are ideologically motivated to shrink the state, rather than accepting at face value their claims that their hands have been forced by the deficit - I don't think it is.

Yes, I may be naive, but I don't think anyone actually goes into politics with the intention of making things worse. They just differ in their ideological approach to improving things.

Joan - I'm pretty sure most Tories are ideologically predisposed toward a smaller state, less spending and fewer but better public services.

JoanofArgos, I'm perplexed - are you implying I'm a Tory? I'm not.

and erm.... thinking that the Tories are ideologically predisposed toward a smaller state, less spending, fewer and worse public services is basically the same thing as thinking Sarah Palin is a big old shooting murderer? Seems a slightly tenuous connection!

Unquietdad

'Does the extent to which one finds it a Good Thing depend on where one is in relation to the Sharp End?'

Probably, to Tories.

UQD - when the threshold for WTC is raised to 24 hours a week, i'll lose that part of our benefits income.

we'll manage without it - ultimately I am conscious that it's all very well to make a genral statement about cuts being needed and then not being prepared to take a reduction of your benefits yourself. I also accept the CHB freeze will erode the value of that part of our income in time.

i was quite annoyed by the hand- wringing that went on about the CHB change, and the lowering of the higher threshold for CTC.

'I'm not alright jack' is just a crapulent a POV as its opposite brother.

I suppose the problem is that it's possible in theory to be broadly in favour of what's being done, but still to be aghast at the way in which it is being done - and if you or your other half is, for example, a librarian who is about to lose their job (or indeed a parent whose local library is about to vanish) it's very hard to see the benefits.

Does the extent to which one finds it a Good Thing depend on where one is in relation to the Sharp End? Is there anyone here who has lost a job or a public service as a result of the cuts, but who still thinks it is a price worth paying - and/or that cuts, at the moment, in general, are a necessary evil?

There is also the idea being put about that these cuts are not pragmatic but, in fact, ideological (i.e,. that the Conservative party was looking for an excuse to cut public services and dismantle the Welfare State), and that it came along handed to them on a plate. In this argument the deficit is, in fact, a red herring.

I'm not entirely convinced by this (yet)... Worryingly, it seems to occupy the same headspace as some of my American Democrat friends who are currently wanting, by insinuation and implication, to associate Sarah Palin with the attempted murder of Congresswoman Giffords because of some misjudged "bullseye" and "target" metaphors she used. You start off by thinking the worst of someone and support the notion by using the facts which suit that picture...

I did, and I am reasonably happy with the direction that is being taken.

My gripes are with David Cameron for letting Vince Cable crawl all over the economy. He is a very dangerous man with enough knowledge to fool the laymen that he knows what he's talking about whereas any financially astute person recognised his serious flaws. The grapevine tells me that his most trusted advisor is an ex spread better. Hardly a prestigious position!

Sorry, 'Unquietdad!'

Unquitdad. You do talk a lot of sense, so much so, I showed it to my DH!