attention prospective Tory voters (unless you really don't care about "ordinary people")

[Ponders]

have a look at this

'The truth is plain, and it is provable. David Cameron's policies will take money from the hard-working majority of Brits, and hand it to his friends and relatives on landed estates and in tax havens. He is not on your side; he is on the side of a tiny clique who have every luxury in life and now bray for even more. Cameron bragged to his supporters last month: "Nothing and no one can stop us." It's up to the majority who will lose out if he become PM to say - oh yeah?'

But aren't Labour planning on bringing a new points system similar to Australia?

And the Lib Dems are going to bring in a regional points system ensuring that areas who actually want more migrant workers get them. As well as giving more power to border control and offering long term migrants the chance to become tax paying citizens.

How are the Tories planning on implementing change? I don't understand what you mean by quotas and requirements.

maybe not, but Labour certainly won't. The Tories will cut red tape, they will free up business, so that it can soak up the unemployed and lift us out of the disaster that Labour has bequeathed us.

Well, perhaps Hair didn;t mention it because the Tories didn;t then?

Admittedly, having read thier draft manifestos, I can see why people are making stuff up - to fill in the gaps..

Hair? Hari

'Shinyandnew, I wish we could explain to more young people how divisive it was before 97.'

And post 97, the creeping intrusion of the state into every day life. Taxes raised by the back door - NI increases, fiscal drag, personal allowances not raised, inequality in schools funding, rural deprivation, defence under funded, education dumbed down, a tick box culture which achieved squat, change for changes sake, proliferation of non jobs, penalising kids who weren't one the first in their families to go to uni (even though the state mandates that their parents had to have degrees to do their jobs), spin, spin and more spin, burying bad news.....

I will NOT be voting Labour.

Well, I'm married, white, R.C, able-bodied and fairly affluent. We pay for school and have private health cover through DH's work. Many Tory policies would benefit us quite nicely; Inheritance tax for instance will hit us hard when DH's Mum shuffles off.

-But hang on, it's not just about me, is it?

If Brown gets back in he'll start fining old age pensioners £100 if their bin lids aren't shut. That's how he'll raise the money that he blew on his banker buddies. The creditors want their money and Brown's already promised them that he'll squeeze it out of us.

"He forgets to mention that the Tories are inclined to cut taxes on all strata of society"

Interesting then he chooses to start off his massive give away by scrapping IHT for the very richest.

Well Scary, I'm no lover of the nanny state but personally I'm glad less pensioners are freezing to death and that teachers are now allowed to teach about the existence of homosexuality rather than be gagged by the restrictions of section 28 which the Tories fought to keep in place.

Oh and that handguns are no longer legal.

Just the OAPs?

Honestly, if you actually referred to stated policy, I'd be more convinced. Rather than talking about parties being "inclined" to do swomething, or simply making things up.

Lincs you are making yourself look daft with that latest rant. You are also not doing Cameron any favours, he wants us to believe that the days of the nasty party are gone. You are just reminding us what they are actually like.

Fining OAPs! Yes, of course! And I bet the bloke who decides whether it's shut or not will be Polish too!
Or maybe he'll have stolen the poor OAP's bin the week before. Bloody foreigners!

I was quite shocked to hear Gordon Brown when he was announcing the election refer to himself proudly as coming from 'an ordinary middle class family'. I suppose this was meant to be another crack at DC for being a 'toff', but it left me wondering who is standing up for the working class if the LABOUR party does not represent the LABOURERS, nor the brickies, the postpersons, the cleaners, hairdressers, factory workers, lorry drivers, nursery nurses, firefighters, etc.etc.etc. - then who does? I do not know quite how it started but we now seem to split society into 3 classes - the toffs, the middle classes, and the benefit cheats. What about the workers?

This Labour government is giving tax concessions and help with child care costs to those earning up to £50,000 whilst turning a blind eye to low paid workers who cannot afford to work because CHILD CARE COSTS MORE THAN THEY CAN EARN.
2 DC in nursery 5 days a week = £400;
shopworker, 35 hour week at £7 = £245.
Many do work but only because they can rely on e.g.unpaid Grandparents, sisters on maternity leave, or shift working partners because they cannot afford childcare. Yes there are free nursery places for over 3's BUT what use is 09.15 to 11.45 daily to a working parent?

Feel slightly better, having got that off my chest.

My sister is a low paid worker, and has a large proportion of her childcare covered by tax credits.

'teachers are now allowed to teach about the existence of homosexuality' not when it comes at the expense of the good bits in the new RE GCSE syllabus I'm not.

You vote how you like, but nothing on this earth can or will convince me to vote Labour.

To be fair, he would have been slated had he referred to himself as working class.

Also it would be a bit disingenuous for him to do so considering his salary and position.

TheFallenMadonna, you don't actually believe the policies do you? It's all spin, they chuck it in the bin. They rip up their manifestos. The figures are massaged by all sides. The public don't pay attention to the politicos running their sliderules over the figures, they know the score, they've seen it all before. People vote on the basis of how they perceive the parties, what they think their objectives are and their opinion of how effective they will be.

Granny, the low paid workers would get most childcare paid for if they are on that low a salary and using registered childcare.

But you said you believed they were going to do something. I pointed out that in fact they were saying something quite different. So do you honestly believe that when they get in, they will cut NI, but won't promise that during the campaign? Really?

By your own arguments surely, voting on perception is a dicey thing to do. What do you think people's perception of Labour was in 1997? Do you think they have lived up to that? Might your perceptions of the Tories be inaccurate and misleading?

I voted Labour in 1997, we were all sick to death of the Tories and just wanted them out. We hoped they would create a fairer society. They let us down. We've seen them in action (even as the clock strikes twelve pretending that they care about proportional representation). The public has had enough of them. We know that the Tories are pro-business, anti-regulation, pro choice in education, pro freedom, against bin snooping etc. Of course they will let us down, plus ca change, but we need a new broom.

I think whoever gets in will do what they always do, as Churchill used to say "keep on buggering on". When they get in they will find a way to do what is necessary to get the country moving again. All of their predictions now don't mean much, they have to get their feet under the table to see the real situation.

I didn't vote Labour in 1997 and was neither unsurprised nor disappointed (as I had a suspicion it was all window dressing) when it all turned to rats.

I have forgotten what the atmosphere was like in 1997, but I just remember the mood that we all hoped it would be better. I can't remember anymore why the Tories had let us down so much. But we have seen Labour in action for years now, we are under no illusions. We know what they will dish out if we vote them back in.

The country is coming through a tough time - a global economic storm - and at the moment the recovery is fragile. The tories are skillfully capitalising on the public's general but natural feeling of lassitude by suggesting that we would all be better off under the tax give-aways they are promising. One thing is certin - someone will have to pay for them. Who? How much is £3:00 a week in marriage allowance worth when your job has been cut from underneath you, when your child care services are slashed, when your families health care and education are "rationalised" under "efficiency savings"? They claim that Labour has been profligate with money and wasted our resources, but if you think about it, where has the money gone? I was in hospital for 2 months in the 80s and believe me, you don't want to go back there! I started teaching in the 80s and remember the crumbling state of the building (6 buckets and pans in my classroom whenever it rained). Now think about what state these services would be in now if Labour had not wasted money putting them right. I shudder to think! And the global economic bomb would still have hit - the banks would have probably collapsed (can you imagine Osbourne ever having come up with the solution to it?)

If the electorate decides to have a collective tantrum and vote against Gordon Brown, thereby cutting off its nose to spite its face - then God help us... because the tories won't!

tories tax break for married couples announced for those earning under £44,000