Do you think Labour DESERVES to get a majority in 2015?

Totally agree with you. You're lecturing someone who has seen the management consultant waste at first hand.

Wet- if you think dangerous under-staffing in the NHS was a Labour problem you need to ask yourself what the Coalition (HOW many years in power??) has done towards addressing this and not be too disappointed to realise the answer is Absolutely Nothing.

Q: niceguy :I'd like to point out that tax credits were an abomination that Labour introduced that had the unintended consequence of subsidising employers. You can't blame the Tories for that for if they tried to scrap it now there'd literally be blood on the streets. The best we can hope for is a gradual erosion of the benefit.

Now, remind me, how many years have the Coalition been in power? 'I can't blame the Tories for that'?? Why would there be 'blood on the streets'? Whose blood, exactly? And why 'abomination'? By that, do you mean 'They should have forced employers to pay a living wage?' Yes, of course they should have.

A 'gradual erosion' of tax credits? Why not just abolish them? As in 'you pay your workers enough to live on'?

Q:"The reality is that the NHS don't need MORE money. They need to spend the money they have more wisely." Yes. And no. Wisely. Actually, do you have any idea how much NHS money has been spent on hiring outside consultants to put them straight? Outside, PRIVATE sector consultants, from Big Business who thought it was oh-so-obvious? Til they recognised that you can't run the NHS like a meat factory? Took their (££) money, stayed 3 months, published their blue-sky, out-of-the-box, pushing-the-envelope thinking 'plans'... then left? In my Trust, I could name them personally. Loooong gone. 'Cos it's too hard.

I do not deny that the NHS IT project was doomed from the outset. Sounded good. Great soundbite- but no need for it. Remembering that New Labour was lead by a Boys Club member...

The issue is that with many 'problems', the solution is to intelligently spend money on it. Like, a massive input into the futures of DC born into 'suboptimal' backgrounds (SureStart) so as to make them better future socially integrated, financially active adults and therefore maybe, as an aside, discourage the mindless production of effectively unplanned, unwanted DC themselves. Result. Though not cheap.

Q:'The £8 minimum wage? Pfft. Again by 2020, the minimum wage probably wouldn't have been far off anyway. Another gimmick.' What has 2020 got to do with it??? Six years hence?? What? And try saying 'Pfft' to minimum wage earners (not people entirely supported by benefits!) who are trying to support families on inadequate wages, their employers safe in the knowledge that the rest of us are making up their pay to a 'living wage'. Reprehensible.

Finally- I hope you, niceguy genuinely understand what non-socialised medicine looks like. Like so many, I believe you have no idea.

No They dont deserve to win.

Balls still doesn't understand why he cocked it up last time.

Their Shadow minister for pensions could not state thevalue of a State Pension yesterday when asked on the BBC to state how much it curently was. How will she be able to judge if it's too high / low if she hasn't even bothered to find out how much it is. Incredible oversight.

What on earth has happened to Angy Burnham's hair? It looks like a disaster with the Grecian 2000 or he's has it replaced with a plastic Lego mans hairstyle. Anyway, the NHS was not safe in their hands as many grieving relative in Staffs and the who suffered from the other filthy dangerous hospitals will tell you - including one of their own former MPs Ann Clywd.

Ed completely forgot a large chink of his speech and missed out the bits about immigration and deficit reduction. He did however remmeber to tell us that he had met someone called Elizabeth - who just happened to be at Conference and that he'd also met Colin the plumber and Labout central Office had rung Colin to tell him that he would feature in E's speech. I wonder how they got Colin's phone number?

One of the Scottish labour MPs sat there stony faced when challenged by Andrew Neil and was unable to justify why he had voted for increased tuition fees for English students while his won Scottish constituents receive free tuition.

No, the Labour Party are currently a shambles with no real policies (their 6 pledges were total fuzzy crap) no vision and a bunch of 2nd rate luvvies with little idea of how the real world works. But at least Ed has met another 'ordinary human being' Shame it's such a rare occurrence that felt he had to tell Conference about it.

I hope the electorate will take a good look at Mr Bean and decide they cannot imagine him representing the UK on the world stage. If he is elected all will not be lost as it will b absolutely hilarious to watch him bumble through 5 years in office.

I'd like to point out that tax credits were an abomination that Labour introduced that had the unintended consequence of subsidising employers. You can't blame the Tories for that for if they tried to scrap it now there'd literally be blood on the streets. The best we can hope for is a gradual erosion of the benefit.

I don't think this government has been great. They've shied away at taking the really tough decisions and Cameron is simply out of touch with what people really think & feel.

That said look at the alternative. What have the Two Eddies been heralding this week? Mansion tax to raise a few billion for the NHS and raising the minimum wage to £8.

So basically his grand plan to save the NHS is to chuck more money at it. £2.5 billion. Sounds a lot but in reality about 2% increase. Sure it's better than a kick up the bum but I don't think it's enough to "Save the NHS" as they're claiming.

But wait....Didn't Blair & Brown pump a SHIT load of money into the NHS including a £46 BILLION pound project to upgrade the NHS IT. Where did that money go? Erm...no idea but the project was an utter shambles and a decade later what's changed? Nothing.

The reality is that the NHS don't need MORE money. They need to spend the money they have more wisely.

The problem I see is that Labour are still wedded to the idea that the answer to every problem is to chuck a bit more money at it.

The £8 minimum wage? Pfft. Again by 2020, the minimum wage probably wouldn't have been far off anyway. Another gimmick.

I think a major ishoo facing the Tories is that for all the boasting about 'unemployment being down', for all the numbers wheeled out to demonstrate that The Tory Way is the Right Way; we here on the ground see zero hours contracts, increased costs of living as the screws are kept on our wage packets; we see emasculated employment and health & safety laws to make us more afeared for our jobs; We see that the tax payer is still expected, via tax credits, to make up the shortfall in wages for the lowest paid so the companies who employ them don't have to; We see house price rises touted as being 'proof' that we're all richer (rather than being educated towards a reality: that out of control house-prices was a major factor of what got us into this mess!- and the unfettered access the world's non-dom super-rich have to our housing stock that is at the top of the pyramid); we see company Boardrooms taking home ever higher multiples of their average worker's pay-packet in remuneration; we see bankers not only going unpunished for their role in the crash, but actually pocketing bigger bonuses than they did before the crash! We saw an Education Minister who seemed determined to ensure that only DC in the private sector could get into the better universities having not had their education screwed with, every year.

Basically, we witness a government that genuinely seems hell bent on feathering the nests of the Haves over the rest of us.

So it's not that Labour deserves a majority, it's just that the Tories deserve to lose, having failed to take the majority of the rest of us along for the alleged Recovery Ride.

Well, I wouldn't quite go that far.

I see what you're saying, bigdog. Let's bring the Brown Shirts back. Time to polish up those swastika badges.

The Tories deserve it much more than the Labour filth. What we need is a Tory/UKIP coalition to put Labour and the scum who vote for them back in their place!

The Tories sure as hell don't deserve it. Whatever Labour have done in the past, they're the only chance of getting the current atrocious all in it for themselves lot out.

On the questio of popularity. Thatch won when she was unpopular. So did Major once. I see Cleggy has ditched his support for bedroom tax.

I resent a whole year of politician chasing headlines pre election. The media should largely ignore them untill 2015. But they wont.

Jon Snow really trashed Tory Chairman and Labour MP on Ch 4 news (wed) Check if its on Youtube.

As to the COALTION "working" well it works well for the people at the top.
Very unfairly for people at the bottom.....

This is the age of Tory Fashion. Ms Mcvey is semi nude in thursdays Express....She does photograph well

But are there votes in well dressed women ministers. ? I found Widdecombe easier to tolerate EACH TO HIS/HER OWN

LABOUR deserve to be the largest party. Even if they did pick the unpopular bruvver. The election is wide open anything could happen. Check the bookies odds they know a thing or 2.

It doesn't bare thinking about what a state this country would be in if Labour had stayed in power in 2010. I wouldn't leave Ed Milliband in charge of a paper bag.

I think Labour deserves to be the Largest party after the election.

Oh and the criticism about immigration is a red herring. If we stay in the EU then we have to allow immigration. The Tories have said they might have a referendum on that, but do we really think that will go through with it? I suspect they are just using that to a) get elected and b) to try and bluff their way into a little more influence with the EU.

A little more influence is not enough to solve our problems. We need to leave the EU AND elect a competent government that cares about the welfare of the people. I don't see any that meet both requirements.

Also, are you typing it in Word OP? It is impossible to read your posts on the app.

This might be an interesting thread but all the underlining and upper case is just doing my fruit in.

The coalition definitely don't deserve another term.

'Deserve to get in' is the wrong way of looking at it. It's not meant to be a reward. What matters is what we think they will do this time if they get in.

On that basis I have to say they shouldn't get in and I agree that they are dangerously incompetent idiots.

In fact the only thing that fills me with more dread than Labour running the country is the Tories running it.

Bring back David Milliband. He was an excellent foreign secretary and had a the political experience we need now. What a muck up the trade unions made selecting Ed. Pleasant enough fellow and intelligent but like Cameron so limited in real political experience.

Hopefully not. They're lower than a steaming pile of dog shit. Scum of the earth.

No, Labour don't deserve to win the next election. Thy are at best a well-meaning middle-class think tank, and at worst a bunch of dangerously incompetent idiots.

I agree Labour will form the next administration one way or another, as needing only 35% of the popular vote to win a decent majority, thereby needing the Conservatives to be around 8% AHEAD in the Polls for even a small majority

It was the Tory psychopathic scum who campaigned a dirty-tricks campaign against PR. They're hardly a shining example of 'democracy'.

The Tories will never be in power again because there aren't enough nasty old white men with Victorian values left. They're all dying off.