Dear Nick Clegg...

[CUNextTuesday]

e.g.

This is the most fascinating election I've ever voted in - I feel a buzz in the air from giant bees a genuine 3rd option.

Please don't let the hype of your last TV debate make you either complacent or nervous. People who genuinely want a choice are relying on your popularity sustaining itself. So...er.... no pressure or owt.

Love C. U. N. Tuesday (Ms)

[TDiddy]

Osbourne is a very bright guy but he doesn@t seem able to win people over.

[snowlady]

Its interesting to see that the mail has a poll over who would make the best chancellor and the options are:
Ken clarke
Vince Cable
Alastair Darling

er..I thought osborne was the tory shadow chancellor. Does this mean if the tories get in ken clarke will be chancellor? The mail doesn't seem very impressed by osborne either!

[MrsCosmopolite]

There is an article in the Independent which somewhat debunks the myth that a hung parliament will trigger off the end of the world a huge financial crisis.

linkey dinkey doo

[snowlady]

Madame castafiore

How would you say the economy has gone under labour madame castafiore..I would say it has already gone to s...

George Osborne is very unconvincing as a potential chancellor. The tories have not spelt out their policies or cuts so things might get even worse.

The lib dems are most unlikely to win the election so you don't really need to worry about that. However if they do well cable would be the best of the three chancellors in my opinion.

one minute ken clarke was saying don't vote lib dem as a coalition will be dangerous, now he is suggesting a tory/lib dem coalition would be a good option. The tories are just trying to scare everyone into voting for them rather than trying to win the debate on policy.

[MadameCastafiore]

It's not going to be an issue - if he gets into government be it as a majority or part of a deal after a hung parliament the economy is going to go to shit.

Politicians will be arguing and we will end up the way of Greece with the IMF being called in - that is the BIG ISSUE in this election not Trident or class sizes but what will happen if Labour or the Conservatives do not get a majority (well not that Labour did last time but that's another debate altogether!)

[TDiddy]

I think if you had to develop an arsenal for the current and future state of the world you wouldn't go for Trident but the problem is testing new stuff is ruled out by the non proliferation treaty. I don't know the answer but good that the Lib Dems are forcing the debate before we mindlessly commit spend.

[TDiddy]

MadameCastafiore - I think the Lib Dems are saying that money saved (over the Lterm) from TRident could affect public spending including class sizes so you may be making Nick Clegg's point for him.

[MadameCastafiore]

Guys - really look at what the parties policies will do to our economy and what a hung parliament will do - because the last thing you will give a toss about is Trident and how many kids are in your kids class or whether degrees or paid for or what a nice smiley chap that Nick Clegg is when you are struggling to put food on the table and pay your mortgage.

[CurlyCasper]

webdude thanks for the idea but I've just found out that they have replaced the LD candidate. Just wish the new one would actually do some campaigning. We also have a BNP one I did not know of, not that that bears any relevance!

[WebDude]

loulou77 - "maybe I have pre-election overload"

I think it is quite easy for that to happen. I certainly don't feel over-excited like some (naming no names) !

I just go off to watch the Snooker for 3 or 4 hours, and make the PC go to sleep too

[WebDude]

CurlyCasper - don't think I've suggested it before, so, given the choices you have, perhaps best to spoil your paper by writing "None of the Above" so it will count as a rejection of all those standing on the day.

[TDiddy]

Maybe the Lib Dems will become the dominant force of this century.

Whatever people say, charisma is such a potent force in politics. I am straight man but I can't help noticing how handsome Cleggie is becoming by the day

[WilfandWilma]

But Nanabear, the Lib Dems are still going to have some sort of nuclear deterrent which will be a cheaper version of trident (apparently). It's worth remembering that cancelling the Trident nuclear missile system isn't going to save any money in the short term. My understanding is that it will save £100 billion over a 16 year period. In the meantime our national debt stands at £890 billion and we desperately need to start dealing with it as soon as possible.

Sophable - yes I have read the back of the Lib Dem manifesto which costs out their various policies. While I think some of the policies sound very attractive, there does seem to be a certain amount of sceptism over whether they can actually deliver what they have promised for the costs they have quoted. I am quite sure that if they seriously thought that they were going to be elected as our next government they wouldn't be talking about (to take just one example) paying tuition fees for all first degrees. I'd really like to know how they can justify doing this pledge when, we going to have to make some pretty big cuts to public spending in the very near future. I think everyone agrees that these cuts are going to have to be made whoever wins the election.

[Nanabear]

Well last night made it very clear for me, thank goodness one of them can see sense and not want to spend £100billion on Trident!! Well done Mr Clegg.

[Maaster]

Mum knows best used to be the old adage.But in our politics only one mum has made it to the top and that was Margaret Thatcher ,a mu to mark and daughter.
But maggie upset many mums up and down the country by withdrawing free scholl milk and was called thatcher the snatcher.Pity she didnt replace milk with an english apple a day which keeps the doctor away and keeps children healthy and happy and give mum less stress and worries and anxieties!.
Indeed,UK PLC with over fifty percent females shareholders or stake holders and mums and sis didnt have a single mum on the podioum when the three lads from the three main political parties fought out a synthesided bland political battle and thier deputies did the same when the mums will have to bear the brunt of economic mismanagement by the lads of the right and

[CLeggyBlonde]

Was on the edge of my seat 8-9.30pm last night; another strong performance AND a decent rebuttal of the other crazies' Nuke Power policies. It seems to me there's a bridgehead into the opposing camps to be inserted as follows: Eurofighter - Trident Nuke Doomsday Weapon - Nuke Power. A three-pronged attack on fiendishly costly programmes that we can save a King's ransome on.

[TDiddy]

The nasty tabloid stories make me want to vote for Clegg altho' I wasn't planning to. We can't let Murdoch control things in such an unfair manner.

Also, there is something pleasing about voting for someone who probably went into politics not expecting to be in government.

[Mystro]

Hi Captain Haddock. I think I understand. What you're saying is a consumer-led economy based on high house prices is the best we've got, so we better hold on to it? But that sort of underlines my point I think. Don't we need to get ourselves out of this addiction to credit and start building a 'real' economy? It just seems to me that by putting off the inevitable (in this and so many other areas including reining in the banks) we're building up to a bigger and more spectacular crash than ever before.

Bubbles ALWAYS burst, and surely this housing bubble is no different. Wouldn't it be better to gently deflate it, or at the very least not to stoke it? Apart from anything else, rampant consumerism is not sustainable on any level and it makes people miserable too.

I think paradoxically I might be sounding Thatcher-esque here, which is the very last thing that I would want (ie if it's not hurting etc) but we do need someone to be honest and responsible, don't we? Or maybe sadly I just sound ridiculously idealistic, and should face up to the fact that rampant capitalism has won the day. I dunno, maybe I'll vote Green ...

[amothersplaceisinthewrong]

We don't want a hung parliament. Didn't the last one in 1974 lead eventually to Dennis Healey going to the IMF for a bailout..

[Heathcliffscathy]

i'm really really curious at these assertions of not enough realistic detail: they are the only party that provides any! have you actually read the back of the manifesto?

[dunceinlove]

Everyone will win sorry.

[dunceinlove]

They could recruit more teachers easily. On my pgce course there were 200 students but only 100 jobs.
Everyone will will. More jobs for teachers and smaller classes. Smaller classess will attract more teachers and raise standards overall.

[vesela]

The £2.5bn for schools investment is costed in the back of the manifesto (unlike anybody else's). Deficit reduction plan starts from 2011.

[MadameCastafiore]

Mystro...for what it's worth and it's only one opinion. Higher interest rates mean higher mortgage rates and higher interest payments on consumer debt. Official interest rates may be close to zero but have banks passed this on to joe public? No. Will they pass on interest rates to existing mortgage holders and credit card holders etc. Yes. Double digit mortgage will see people queueing up to hand the keys back or if we see a housing market crash lots more lovely negative equity. Do people spend what they earn in this country, no, they spend what they think (or would like to think) they will earn and what they think they have in assets and worry about it later. Alot of wealth in this country is caused by housing market booms - booms are not necessarily good but crashes are worse. How many Range Rovers do you see being driven around? Lots I reckon - can most people afford a 70k motor, probably not, but whack it on the mortgage and we got a new car honey. In a consumer driven economy - nobody should kid themselves we have any kind of industry here except in services (and that is predominantly the financial services and those nasty bankers) - a spending freeze by the public would be catastrophic. If your High Street looks tatty now, then it'll look worse with interest rates at 2-3%. Bank lending to corporates is pretty non existant so corporate debt refinance goes up bond prices go down and everyone hurts - pension funds the lot, cue more deficits. Agreed savers are getting a raw deal - but on 10k in a bank we are really only talking a couple hundred pounds a year if the banks pass on any rate increase to savers (highly unlikely that they would). The difference of any increase on a 25 yr mortgage is enormous. A clear majority for any party is better than a hung parliament - a hung parliament will probably see higher rates and a nice phone call to the IMF to come and help with fiscal policy, because the politicians will not be able to agree on the necessary steps to manage the nation debt. That is not a scenario we should look forward to. Politicians dont really care - they mostly have 2 houses, all have lovely final salary pension schemes, can whack whatever through expenses and charge it to HM Revenue, so we shouldn't kid ourselves that they are actually helping us out.

Captain Haddock

[WilfandWilma]

I'm curious to know how the Lib Dems are proposing to pay student tuition fees. It sounds wonderful and I'm sure this proposal must be very popular with all the students, but I'd like to know where the money will be coming from - many cash strapped universities would now like to raise tuition fees to £5000 per student per year.

I'd also like to hear more about their pledge to limit school class sizes to 20. Again, sounds fantastic, but how are they going to do this? Are they planning to build hundreds of new schools? Are they planning to concrete over school playgrounds so they can accomodate all the extra classes that will be needed. Are they intending to recruit hundreds of new teachers?

The Lib Dems have told us how important it is to reduce our deficit, however I'm having some difficulty seeing how they'll do this when some of the proposals in their manifesto are going to be hugely expensive.