To ask you who I should vote for?

[VivaLeBeaver]

I can read their policies, watch their debates until the cows come home but the problem is I don't believe a word any of them say.

I'm cross that the Conservatives haven't done stuff which they said they'd do. However my mum (dye in the wool Tory blames the LibDems for holding them back).

My main concern is the economy. So do I believe Dave who says the last Labour lot fucked the economy up and they're trying to sort out the mess and are doing a steady job of sorting it?

Or do I believe Labour who say it was a global recession and not their fault and that its a global recovery which has been aiding the Tories recently. And also that the Debt hasn't decreased as much as the Tories like people to think?

Then of course there is the fact that the Tories seem to be trying to save money by cutting public spending especially from vulnerable sectors of society which I don't agree with. But the Tories say that sadly this is the only way And if they don't do this we will end up like Greece or something.

I work in the nhs and worry about how much the Tories seem to be privatising bits of it and am concerned this will get worse.

Dd is a teenager and I want her to have a chance of getting a job when she's older so I'm worried about unemployment rates.

One of the main problems I have with the Conservatives is that they want to privatise things like education and health care. It doesn't make sense - why would you want people to profit from basic services like that?

zeezeek you should look at the PFI scandal the Labour party put the NHS in, which has caused a huge strain on budgets and will continue to do so.

Vivacia I do not care whether people make a profit or not, just that we have the most efficient, effective service. The NHS is excellent sometimes and rubbish at others (mid-staffs etc), so trying different methods, which can then be rolled out across the country, is, imo, a good idea.

If you want no profit making from health, then we have no drug companies, no equipment suppliers, no buildings, no beds, no ambulances. The only NHS spending not to profit making companies is staff.

Education is the same - why does your local authority know best, why not give others a go - it won't be perfect initially, but neither is the current state system. Those providers that do succeed will then be able to spread out and raise standards.

Hannahouse Just before the election in 2010 the rate was 8%

Carol Decker
As Mervyn King says, “the real problem was a shared intellectual view right across the entire political spectrum and shared across the financial markets that things were going pretty well”, a view which he of course shared.

“I think the claim that the recession would have been worse if the Conservatives had been in government can be justified on two grounds. First, the Conservatives did accuse Labour of too much financial regulation, not too little. Second, they were against Labour’s fiscal stimulus in 2009.”

What DawnDonna says.

Love the fact that the Tories blame Labour for causing a (global??) recession because the banks weren't regulated enough, when under them they would have been less regulated!

Westminster is a chunky soup of hypocrites, spin doctors, liars and twats. I'm going to vote Green, partly because they seem least entangled in the whole system.

hanna as mentioned by gingham, 6.8% in 1997, when they came into power and 8% in 2010 when they left.

worka It is not about the totality of regulation, but the right sort. The conservatives were against the tri-partitie system and the FSA which failed. Would it have been better if conservatives were in power during the run-up, nobody knows, but they could not have been worse.
The regulation the conservatives mentioned stopping was things such as SoX, which is irrelevant to this.

Also the second quote on your post is not Mervyn King - he was critical of the Labour position

If you care about public services like schools, the NHS, Sure Start etc then don't vote Tory or UKIP.

And don't fall for this rhetoric about the Tories "sorting out the economy" - we're in a bigger mess than when Labour went out and we've got nothing to show for it (unless you count lots of very desperate people and food banks)

You won't get a balanced view on Mumsnet.

Everyone votes Labour or Green here.

anna

scaremongering may work but will not help people - the Labour party will spend less on education than the conservatives and they landed the NHS will several hundred billion of PFI contracts.

I do not care whether people make a profit or not, just that we have the most efficient, effective service. The NHS is excellent sometimes and rubbish at others (mid-staffs etc), so trying different methods, which can then be rolled out across the country, is, imo, a good idea

Where do the profits come from? People paying more. Personally, I believe that basics such as health care and education should be free for all at the point of service. Otherwise only the rich can afford them. If we pay for this via taxes, and allow profit-making, then society pays more - why should the majority pay more taxes so that the few can profit? Nationalise.

If you want no profit making from health, then we have no drug companies, no equipment suppliers, no buildings, no beds, no ambulances. The only NHS spending not to profit making companies is staff.

Well, not true, it could all be nationalised. However, that's not the situation we are in and I agree that there have to be incentives to innovate and discover new treatments for example. I'm not convinced that money is the main one. But there's a downside to this as we see companies withhold drugs and drug formulas in order to make more money for longer.

The fact that you would make it more expensive and harder for people to educate their children or get cancer treatment for their parents just so a few rich people can make more money stinks.

When Labour left government in 2010, the national debt was 50% GDP. It is now 80% GDP. The Coalition government has borrowed more money in 5 years than Labour borrowed in 13, yet the economy has been stagnant or falling for most of their term.

Conservatives say they're better for the economy, but the actual figures don't back this up.

Carole, I am not scaremongering - I am genuinely fucking scared; terrified, in fact, at the prospect of a Tory/ UKIP coalition and the damage they will continue do to this country and our children's education.

You have no evidence that the Tories will spend more on education than labour - I simply do not believe it. And, what's more, most schools have had to make huge spending cuts to allow these ridiculous "free" schools, which, frankly benefit very few people and many of which are now failing.

The fact is that the Tory party is ideologically opposed to the welfare state and public services. They can't come out and say this, of course, because nobody would vote for them. Instead, they have to get their chums in the media to start a campaign of benefits bashing and slating the NHS so that when they completely privatise the NHS it will be perceived as them "saving" it.

Seriously, OP, if you work for the NHS, you'd be crazy to vote for the Tories or UKIP.

I don't agree with any of the parties. The stuff on the conservative website is all about the effect on you as an individual..... no one apparently then gives a shite about anyone else at all. As long as I have a nice house and lifestyle who cares .

Except apparently I agree with more of their policies well apart from housing which is as fundamental to UK success as the overall economy.

I really am lost.

With regards to the financial crisis, the Tories would not have created a better outcome with regard to the financial crisis-that is certainly known. The crisis originated in the global securitisation of US subprime debt, with the decades-long deregulation of the US housing market and financial deregulation (mostly the glass-steagall-bliley act a repeal of the glass steagall act passed following the Great Depression and the bizarre repeal of something known as the Uptick Rule when asset prices were in sharp decline). A reification of sorts of the knowledge of wall st bankers led to Tim Geithner and others giving Wall St way too much control, and coupled with a complete lack of understanding of the complexity of securitised vehicles (eg subprime CDO's) by both CEOs and politicians led to grave circumstances, where banks leveraged up to 40 times their entire capital in subprime debt. It is the global nature of securitisation that meant that the debt from US subprime (mostly located in the 'sand states' - eg Florida, Nevada) bought the markets to their knees. In fact it was a core belief in the protection of a free market ideology that set Bush and Clinton as main advocates of this path so it is certainly not something the Toriesmwould have stood in the way of.

With regard to RBS and the ABN takeover, the hiring of Fred Goodwin was the real problem here - characteristic of a more general propensity for the markets (boards) to hire CEOs on the basis of 'star power' / charisma, which generally ends on disaster (alongside their inability to manage their excesses and bad decisions). Ill advised M&A's are actually a proven pattern in the actions of charismatic overly self-interested CeO's with the takeover of ABN AMRO a near perfect example.

Sorry Carol, have I missed your reply with regard to the Tories looking after the vulnerable?
I'm ignoring the aged and boring trope of Labour's profligacy, there are only two Labour governments that left the national debt greater than when they started and both had mitigating circumstances. The majority of Labour governments have reduced the debt. As stated above, George Osborne has added to said debt and to a greater extent than any Labour government in history.

I should also add that the shadow banking system also falls largely outside regulatory powers of the FSA etc and if you consider the first major sign of the 2008 crisis being the failure of two Bear Stearns hedge funds you can see the enormity of a problem that sat pretty much completely outside the powers of the regulators. Is still a massive threat to global stability. Any party in favour if deregulation (the Tories are one for sure) remain complicit in creating the long term instabilities of this nature. I am not saying that Labour would do a great job either but its important to be aware of this.

Labour pay for the lazy to sit on their arses and are happy for the state to make decisions for them on their behalf; Tories support those who want to work hard and make their own decisions.

Pseudonym Another tired trope. I am a carer for my disabled dh and two disabled dds. Do tell me how the Tories look after me, oh, and how lazy I am, for I am of course benefit scrounging scum.

Easy SNP.

labour pay for the lazy to sit on their arses and are happy for the state to make decisions for them on their behalf; Tories support those who want to work hard and make their own decisions.

Replace work hard with millionaires.

The Tories have no respect for the welfare state in general. People that receive tax credits work hard but are going to fax cuts to them. People who care for disabled people work hard but will face cuts to carers alowence.

Fax = face spell mistake

bluesky If it was all about US sub-prime mortgages, why did it only affect the US and UK banks. Where were all the affected European banks, Australian banks, Canadian banks, Asian banks? They were all properly regulated.
Anna if you believe that, then nothing I say will chnage that, but I think yu are wrong, and you have no evidence for your belief.
dawn The conservatives were left with an annual deficit of nearly £200bn. If you think they should have spent less in this parliament and cut faster, then say so.