to think we should all back edd to stop the tories and ukip getting into power

[wilsonq2]

This weekend many people in labour have turned against edd. I think its just too late to replace him and we should support him to stop the other two getting in
The has tag has been hijacked I think, not sure if it is genuine.

[Uptheairymountain]

So Labour left a "mess" (as opposed to a worldwide recession? Well, to the idiots in government, any "mess" there is now is YOUR fault. You sound like whiny kids bleating that it's all Labour's fault after 4 1/2 years so take some responsibility. And this pathetic shower is what some people want in government? Unbelievable!

Look at the coalition's record:
NHS - dead
Defecit - doubled
Cuts - pointless
Welfare - people are afraid that their insurance safety net is gone
Tax - cuts for the richest (any cuts that people on minimum wage get will be lost from working tax credits)
Europe - this country is the laughing stock. Dunno why Angela Merkel doesn't throw us out and have done with it
Child benefit cuts - come on, a 5 year old with a calculator could work out that it's not very fair to take CB off a household earning 60k while one with 2 x 45k earners keeps it
Food banks - a rich country in 2014 and people are starving. In 2014. No one anywhere should go hungry but people are here and today.

Gay marriage was a good idea though ... I liked that one.

[clam]

Well, we'd be in a far greater mess if Labour had remained in power 4 years ago.
Although this tax bill we seem to owe the EU wouldn't have materialised, as we'd have been in a similar position to Greece and Spain and all those other countries who haven't had the growth we have.

[Uptheairymountain]

[Uptheairymountain]

You can only speculate that, clam and I could equally speculate that we'd be far better off. Doesn't matter anyway because this is the situation we're in and it's pretty bad.

[WetAugust]

Just heard Ed's strangulated vowels on the radio telling me that Britain has no future outside Europe.

That says it all for me because I want a PM who believes in this country and doesn't see it as an appendage to an undemocratic cabal run by a bunch of unelected and failed politicians (e.g. Kinnock, Mandelsohn, Paton, Brittain, and who will probably be joined very soon by Nick Clegg)..

Churchill was right when he wrote in 1930:

'We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.

I'm for a trading partnership. But the EU is more than that as its ultimate aim is total political union.

[clam]

"I'm for a trading partnership. But the EU is more than that as its ultimate aim is total political union."

And the trading partnership, the Common Market, was what we signed up for back in the 70s, not that we were asked at the time. But it's evolved far above and beyond those initial understandings. And again, we have not been consulted so far. Yet the changes that have been foisted upon our nation have been far-reaching.

[Dawndonnaagain]

Our European MPs are elected and we are an appendage to the rest of Europe, when will folk grow up and realise we don't own half the world, we're a piddling little island with a piddling little economy. We need Europe a lot more than it needs us. Gone are the days of empire, thank goodness!

[DrDre]

The cuts were not pointless. They are necessary - you can't spend money you haven't got. I say this as someone who was made redundant as a consequence of the cuts.
I have to say I think welfare spending needs to be aggressively managed. It is currently 20 billion pounds more than education spending! Ideally I would like the amounts of money spent on education and welfare swapped.

[WetAugust]

Dawn

We may be a piddling little island but we are also a major player on the world stage as we are also a Permemanent member if the UN Security Council, a founder member of NATO, a key G7/8/ (or however many there are this week) etc etc etc.

If you want us to relinquish all this privilege and resposbility then fine - but be proaraped to be bossed about by those people who have more pride in their country than you have in your own.

And your reasoning for wanting Ed to protect the NHS is rather strange as a couple of his Labour peers have recently come up and stated that they think you should pay to see your GP and pay when you stay in a hopsital bed. Not bad for a supposedly socilaist party.

The Tories are supporting EU led TTIP which will open the Health Service to private companies.

UKIP have stated that there will be no charge to see your GP (despite Labour trying to lie otherwise) and
that they will not priviaise it via TTIP, which they oppose and
that they are against the bedroom tax (which discrimminates against some disabled people)

So, you probably didn't want to hear that but I dislike the fact that people vote tribally or on their own misconceptions, rather than on facts.

[Uptheairymountain]

But what good have the cuts done? Where are the benefits?

[emotionsecho]

Our economy can't be that piddling otherwise we wouldn't be a member of the G7/G8, one of very few European countries who are.

No-one debating on here needs to 'grow up' as no-one has given any indication that they think we own half the world or still have an Empire.

As for the us being a 'piddling little island', it's an island I'm rather proud of and judging by the amount of people who want to come here not many think it is that 'piddling' either.

[DrDre]

Yeah and our "piddling little economy" is the 6th biggest in the world!

[CaptainAnkles]

If there was a UKIP / Tory coalition, I would be seriously considering which other countries I could move to. Horrifying thought.

[WetAugust]

Absolutely

It makes me so mad when defeatist people come on here slagging off our country.

We get good Governements and we get bad, but at least we can vote them out when we are fed up with them.

The problem with the EU is that we can only vote for MEPs and we cannot get rid of the Commission itself which is where the power actually lies and these politicians are not elected and cannot be removed by the EU citizens.

I don't want to be ruled by a bunch of EU failed politocians.

[DrDre]

The cuts are resulting in lower government borrowing, which in turn improves our economic credentials as a country. This means, for example, we are more attractive for inward investment which results in more jobs, and can borrow money more cheaply as a country. Contrast this with some of the Mediterranean countries where the situation hasn't been managed so well. They have far worse unemployment than here. I'm not saying things are ideal here, but I think reining in government spending was necessary. And for Ed not to mention it at all at the Labour conference was a big misjudgement IMO.

[WetAugust]

As Dre says, the cuts have gone some way to reducing the amount we would have had to borrow. As it is our defict is the largest in Europe.

That is a very dangerous position to be in and we're already being told that the tempo of cuts will have to be increased.

Whoever gets in at the next election is going to have to cut deeper and faster and we cannot keep borrowing at the rate we are currently doing. Ed would have a very lucky escape if Labour did not get in.

Alternatively, we could stop sending 55million pounds a day to the EU. plus the occasional 1.7 special payments that they hit us with. We could also stop sending large amounts of foreign aid to countries that care so little about their own poulations that they prefer to invest in nuclear weapons or space exploration rather than look after their people.

We cannot contine to feed the world, police the world and pay the world to indulge in its own fantasies while our poor and ill and old and disadvantaged are sent ot the bottom of our pile. It has to stop.

[hellsbellsmelons]

No no and no again.
I cannot stand the man.
His accent. The way he speaks.
He's all nasally and horrid and I cannot possibly bear the thought of having to listen to his speeches as prime minister.
And I dread to think what state this country would be in now if Labour had won the last election.

[DrDre]

I think the overseas aid budget (0.7% of gdp) should be protected. We are a big enough economy to support genuinely developing countries, as long as the money is properly accounted for. That's something that makes me proud to be British. The overseas aid budget is peanuts compared to other areas of government spending.

[DrDre]

Who's racist? No one has mentioned race.

[WetAugust]

Dawndonna called us racists.

It seems she's made a huge intellectual jump of UKIP = racists.

Pathetic.

[DrDre]

Well I won't be voting UKIP.
But if you can't distinguish between wanting to leave the EU and racism you've got problems.

[emotionsecho]

Ok *Dawndonna posters challenge you on your classification of the UK as a "piddling little island with a piddling little economy" by posting facts that don't support that view, and point out that no-one on the thread has even so much as intimated that they think the UK owns half the world and still has an Empire, and they are racist?

I'd love to know how you deduced my race, voting intentions, stance on immigration or the EU from my post. You come across as blinkered and narrow-minded as those you accuse of being so.

I'll correct my earlier post someone on this thread does need to grow up and it's you.