The Tories are gonna get in, it's inevitable do you care? Is there an upside?

[TheDullWitch]

Oh why not have the election NOW. Let the buggers get in, show their true colours, become universally loathed, then get kicked out after one term. Come on, let's get on with it!

Expat,

I think you mean samantha cameron ? Sarah is the one married to Gordon and has become the new clothes horse for the labour lovies.

How do you know cameron does not care about the soldiers in afghanistan? From what he says " no pay freeze", " double operational bonus", " make sure they have all the kit they need to do the job and protect their lives ", " increase our troops so we can train the afghan's to do the job and get our troops home " etc, etc, etc I think he cares a lot more than Gordon Brown who has our forces out there whilst leaving their families in squalour, not giving them the right kit, not increasing the number of troops even when he was 'begged' to do so and not taking care of the wounded that return.

I think not only have you mixed up Samantha cameron and Sarah Brown but you have mixed up David Cameron and Gordon Brown.

So go on then and vote, atlantis! I know I certainly will. Like my Papa always says, 'You can't complain if you didn't vote.'

I was brought up knowing what that vote cost.

I'm an American by birth, a naturalised Brith with 3 dual-national children.

My father is first generation, a man with dual nationality with Mexico. My mother with dual-nationality with France, from her mother, a pre-WWII bride.

I was brought up to think for myself, however Roman Catholic conservative my parents are.

And what I've come to believe is that DC and his ilk are dangerous because they don't care, not because they are necessarily bad people but because they never had to.

But that doesn't change my situation: the working poor mother of a beautiful, tall, long learning disabled girl; a clever, blonde girl with brown eyes; and my boy, my green-eyed, blond-curled boy.

I'll die before I vote to the likes of DC to send them away to die and take away the livelihood that is their mother packing Christmas hampers of an evening and a night 33 miles from our council flat and then again in the high season.

Because DC would have no clue. He'd not last a minute in my life.

And worse yet he can't even conceive of that life.

Therefore he is weaker than I am or any of my ilk.

So I'll be doing my best to make sure his weak, sorry ass doesn't get into office.

Because he wouldn't last 5 minutes here. We'd eat him for breakfast, find him distasteful, and spit him off into the loch.

I don't want to make a personal comment about you, so I wont but... wow !

How do I know? Because atlantis, if I had his kind of money, I'd be giving it to them.

I'd be handing it over fast as I could. But he's swilling champagne whilst Rome burns.

Sarah, Samantha, it's all the same to me, IMO.

I'm a supporter of neither one.

I'm a supporter of the working poor like myself.

MY son is the one who would sign up for Afghanistan.

His would be at Sandhurst.

By accident of birth.

And somehow it's all down to the game of scroungers and their superiors?

Do you really expect people to believe that?

Some of us bypassed Eton and went to university.

I know that is hard for the likes of DC to comprehend, but I'm happy to disabuse him or his myth system.

Why ever not? Go right ahead and make one! I invite such by sharing who I am.

I am eligible to vote.

I am a British national.

'Wow!' what, atlantis/namechanger coward whoever you are.

Or go ahead and take the coward's way out, search all my other posts and know I'm away from Saturday morning next and won't be able to post until we get set up for access again. Blame it on my having abandonded the thread then.

This will speak for itself.

"This will speak for itself. "

It certainly will.

You have gone and I will soon, too.

If I have time I might revisit this but it is more likely I will not have such.

From then we will be away for a time.

Universal suffrage, people, is such a huge privilege.

PLEASE take it seriously and exercise your rights to make your views known via the ballot!

'I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' Patrick Henry.

Read and/or listen to the parties. You have net access. Go onto the BBC website and listen or read or both on iTunes and the like.

Do those in the past a favour: make yours a vote and an informed one!

Do it for womanhood, for unlanded men, who had not the right to vote in the UK until the 20th century.

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

Of course it will, atlantis.

Why is that such a shock?

Universal suffrage is a hallmark of democracy.

May I politely cheer expat? Bravo!

We must all definately vote. I've never missed an election since I turned 18 (30yrs+. Some of you weren't born then!

I have 3 DC in their 20's. Both DS vote but DD just can't be bothered.

I always feel my vote never counts because where I live the tory always gets in. I am more depressed than ever about this. What do some of these people need to do or say to get the boot!

I want to use my vote but DC is my MP and I just don't think i can bring myself to vote Tory (though ironically, I would possibly vote for him wholly on the basis of being a good consituency MP, which he is). I'm therefore feeling rather disenfranchised, it's not as if the other parties are going to put up serious candidates to contest his seat!

put yourself up? perhaps we should have a MN party?

hah, imagine the manifesto! Any ideas?!

Personally I welcome a Tory government. Labour was ok under Tony but an absolute unmitigated disaster under Brown. The guy simply doesn't have what it takes to run a country.

The last labour government ran the country into the ground. The rich all ran off, workers were all on strike, the country had to go begging cap in hand to the IMF fund for bail outs.

Look at us now? Teetering on the brink of going bankrupt again. We are a hair's breath away from becoming the next Iceland and still people think we can carry on spending, handing out benefits that we can't as a country afford.

So yes, we need cuts. Both parties know it but only the Tories seem to be accepting it. Gordon Brown has said the word cuts but has still committed to spending more. We simply cannot go on spending money we have not got.

Personally I find those who are anti-Tory are generally the ones who are the one's who are getting their handouts slashed or being told to go and support themselves rather than expecting the state to give them free money with no conditions.

I'll vote for expat.

niceguy - I agree that we need huge cuts asap (there's no way round it) but i do not agree at all that labour voters are only motivated by free handouts (if at all?!).
We get no tax breaks/credits/anything from the gov, in common with many families, but for me it is an ideological push too far to walk away from the labour ideals of a supportive society/ infrastructure to help the poor & vulnerable.
In fact, we'd probably be marginally better off under the Tories as a family but I still don't trust them with the NHS etc enough to want them in!

lot's of upsides....the lazy will have to actually do something for their money..ie; work.... the tories will cut loads of needless benefits... this country will stop being a magnet for immigrants wanting an easy ride....bring on the tories!

labour has been trying to get people back to work - employment support benefit, loads of tightening up going on, but it's a complex situation, harder than it seems to unpick and unemployment is rising so not so simple to get people working! I still don't understand what exactly the tories are going to do differently/better on this.

Well I'm one anti tory who isn't even claiming the 'free money' or job seekers allowance that she's every right to claim.

Also I do prefer Gordon to Tony. Blair is very clever and got out before it all hit the fan.

Niceguy - you've got it all wrong.
There are loads of us who won't vote Tory desoite having nver received any benefit in our lives.
DH and I eran a lot of money between us, we have property, we have investments, we use private schools for our children and have private healthcare.

We will not vote Tory!!!!!!

I come from a family of labour voters in an area where we are in the minority None of us are poor or have ever sponged off the state. DB has done very well and is by most peoples standards very wealthy. He had a picture of Maggie Thatcher on his dart board as a teenager. His political views have hardened over the years. We all care about NHS, state schools, and what's left of industry. These did not flourish under the last tory administration, and I fear they will not in the next.

I'm not saying the Tories are the answer to all our prayers. Just the lesser of the two evils.

Those who berate Maggie seem to forget she also did a lot to help this country. Look at the mess she got when she was elected versus the state of the UK when she left. Perfect? Nope. Far from it but then you can't expect one person or even one government to create a perfect society.

As for declining industries, that will happen no matter who is in. Labour, Tories, Lib Dems whoever. No government can fight market forces and we simply cannot compete with the far east who have a labour cost a fraction of ours.

All we can do is move onto more lucrative jobs. So we moved from an industrial to service based economy. Now its time to find the next thing.

All I know is that when I was a child in the 80s it was very easy to look around and see children who were very obviously living in poverty and who had much less than I did. I think DC will suck as PM and I agree with expat above! Will never ever vote Tory - I worry about a return to Thatcherite 'me, me, me and everyone else can fuck off' attitude, which is still apparent in the ethics of how many of us live because of the damage done last time.

Yes Niceguy the country was in a state when Maggie took over. Previous tory governments had helped to make it that way. Ted Heath and the 3 day week? She like DC told us it would be hard! She even quoted Fransis of Assisi on the steps of Downing st as a rallying call.

The thing that galls me most about that time, and my real fear with the next tory administration. Is that...Millions were unemployed( they changed the way it was calculated it regularly to try to reduce it) some have never worked to this day.In some ex industrial ares a whole generation of men became unemployable.

Mortgage rates were sky high. This was good news for some ie. those with plenty of savings(tory voters). But was a nightmare for anyone trying to pay a mortgage. There were no trackers then. The government announced an increase and a few days later the notification of your higher payment would land on the mat. High interest didn't do much for any industry either. Apart from the banking industry that is. Those b*
will be laughing who ever is in power.

They also sold everything off. The unemployed and people stuggling to feed their families couldn't afford to take advantage of shares in utility comps the better off snaped them up as well. The whole 'carpet bagging' and I'm alright Jack, there's no such thing as society was really awful. The only thing that benefited a few ordinary people was selling council houses. But even that lead to homeless families living in B&Bs for months on end.