I can't tell you how much I hope the Conservatives win the election.

[AntoinetteOuradi]

Just had to get that off my chest.

Please come and join me if you feel the same, and then I can stop annoying myself (and others) by hijacking the anti-Tory threads.

Can anyone explain to me why there seems to be a general feeling that the Labour government has been giving away money in benefits that we cannot afford which is why we're in a financial mess?

My understanding was that the banks are mostly responsible for the economic crisis because they lent money that did not exist.

If anyone can explain it better to me I would be willing to take on board other angles....

I have to say though I really don't understand this idea of people having a party living on benefits. The people I know who rely on their tax credits to get by have to watch every penny and buy their children's clothes second hand.

I am really hoping they win too, Labour need to go and the Tories will be far better for the country. However, they will be blamed for the cuts they will need to make despite it not being their mess from those who fail to understand this.

GB appears to have got the country into heavy debt and is overspending every day. Think CTF, HIP grant, Surestart Grant etc - all these gimmicks cost money that the state simply cant afford. Not to mention the "benefit nation" labour has encouraged, thousands of people now choose not to work or work the bare minimum to maximise state top-ups. GB did his homework right as all those people will vote to keep him in to keep the benefits they are provided with.

The Tories have always had a great work and family ethic - something badly needed in the country now if we are to get ourselves out of debt.

I am all for paying taxes to help those in need of a welfare state, but many of people who do claim could actually work to support themselves and thats what needs to change.

Happy Mum - I thought we were mostly in trouble because of the banks.

How is it all Gordon Brown's fault?

Hi, I agree with the title of your thread Antoinette. I will be voting conservative because they are the best party to get the country out of the financial crisis. I don't think people in general understand quite how bad the situation is.

I don't like any of the political parties because they are taking the electorate as idiots by not spelling out the cuts that will be needed, but the tories are the best option IMO.

'I don't think people in general understand quite how bad the situation is.'

It's true, I don't - and I am trying to find out more about it but nobody is answering my question about Gordon Brown and the banks!!

The UK in financial trouble because of the banks, but the situation is a lot more serious because labour spent rather than paying down the national debt when times were good.

Coutries such as Australia were more prudent in the way they ran their economies so they won't be suffering the reductions in quality of life that we in the UK will.

Labour in the 70's run this country into the ground, the tories built it up again - not all good and it took a long time, labour then inherited a country that was in a good place and has run it into the ground again

I was a newly wed in the 80's. Our combined wages then were half of what I earn alone now. We had a very good standard of living - I scrape by now. Tory living caused the housing boom which now means house buying and borrowing is sky high and the majority that can buy, can only buy with two very good wages. Living costs are now triple what they were but wages do not reflect that

My children will never afford property, they will all start work with £20k of debt

Whilst, I understand that some policies that have affected me and my children were tory ones - Labour didn't remove them (student loans for eg)

We have once again close to 3 million unemployed - I remember the furore that figure caused in the 80's - where are the protests now?

The elderly and the disabled are still poor - that hasn't changed under labour

Someone needs to do something, I haven't seen Labour doing much to help in the last 10 years, it's time for a change.

'labour then inherited a country that was in a good place'

If it was in such a good place why was nearly everyone desperate to get the tories out at that time?

I remember the 80s as being very violent times.

electra - you know full well she meant the economy was in a good place.

How does the economy get to a good place?

You stop spending money you don't have.

How violent do you think the future will be when the freebies are axed?

Do you honestly believe that there's a giant bucket of money out there and the Tories are just mean and won't hand out 20s? Seriously?

"I remember the 80s as being very violent times."

Electra,the violence was caused by left wingers who were throwing their bottle out of the pram because they couldn't get their own way ie the unions realising their gravy train was coming to the end.
The Poll Tax riots were fueled by the Millitant Tendancy the forerunner of the Socialist party.

Now this week my 14 year old has been mugged for the 2nd time in his life. Every few weeks another teenager is murdered in london. The violence against children today is sickening!

With regard to the 'stop spending money you don't have', it is worth bearing in mind that on a global (or more to the point Western European) scale, government expenditure in the UK is not particularly high as a percentage of GDP.
You have to do a bit of calculation to find the figures, & I can't link to a table of Europe only, but this link here has done the calculations based on information from the CIA World Factbook (Govt expenditure here and GDP here ). The UK is certainly not near the top of European nations, it is a little above Germany, but behind France, Austria & Denmark amongst others.

The point being, I suppose, that there is no automatic reason why we should cut government spending in order to balance the budget, rather than increase taxes. From a purely economic (rather than social) point of view, there are some sound arguments for taxing the higher income members of society and redistributing to the poorer when you need a boost to the economy and are at risk of recession - because poorer citizens are more likely to spend a higher percentage of their income on basic goods & services, where a higher proportion are produced in the UK.

Sorry, there are rather too many percentages in that post

To Op - you are a loser

I hate seeing people posting that they don't want the Tories to get in 'cos of their bad mamories of the 80s. Regardess of whetehr the 80s were bad or not its a totally different party now, different people and different policies.

It would be like saying well I remember the 70s and the Winter of Discontent and therefore Labour are crap.

You have to judge them on how they are now, not 20 or 30 years ago.

Don't tell me what I know. How rude.

I think we will have to agree to differ because you are being deliberately adversarial. What I believe about the tories is that they don't appear to care about the most vulnerable members of society and I consider many of those (though not all) in the party to be unprincipled people. It has nothing to do with 'handing out 20s' - it has to do with their ideals. Which kind of amount to fuck em.

MintHumbug - you make a lot of fair points - particularly the war (although the Cons supported that) and the gold reserves (a total fuck-up, although I believe that the advice was mixed at the time).
But my problem is that so many of the fundamental underpinnings to the crisis date right back to the Big Bang & 1986, and the massive deregulation of the City. Unfortunately, I don't see any signs that Brown changed direction in any fundamental way from the previous Cons govt, other than giving independence to the Bank of England (which was generally considered A Good Thing at the time). Nor do I see looking back any evidence that the Conservatives were arguing against deregulation & promotion of the City - rather the opposite.
So, whilst both parties are now clearly aware of the problems, I don't think that the Cons. would have done anything different in the past 10 years or so on the bank/City front.

That is absolutely true MintHumbug - and if the Conservatives had been arguing for these changes (greater regulation, promoting the manufacturing base more strongly, warning of the dangers of relying on financial services) then I would feel far more optimistic about the idea of a Conservative government.

I probably still wouldn't vote for them, because I have fundamentally different beliefs about the importance of equality of outcome in society - but I would have greater optimism about their ability to predict and manage the economy more effectively than Labour.

In practice, what I see (though others may disagree) is that the two parties were pretty much in agreement about deregulation/financial services etc - and that both have had a Damascene conversion following the international crunch.

electra - the don't appear to care about the most vulnerable in society because they don't

People who are Tory think that everyone has the power to 'make something of themselves'.

They don't. Our society has lots of prejudices, still ("even after 13 years of Labour govt' etc etc blah blah blah) - gender prejudice, racial prejudice, prejudice based on class, prejudice based on wealth.............and the argument that people should be able to take control of their lives and become a success is pathetic and proven rubbish. Individualism works to a certain extent but not to the extent that Tories think. It is a special human thing that if we are very successful at something we attribute this success to ourselves and something we personally did 'brilliantly' as opposed to the opportunities or privileges we were given ........and this phenomenon is known as the Fundamental Attribution Error. Please note the ERROR part. It is an error for Tories and privileged people to think that they personally, themselves are responsible for their 'success' - it is luck and opportunity. This is the problem 'lefties' have with Tory philosophy.

So Labour messed up the country in the 70s and in the 80s the Tory's built it up again. LMFAO. Anyone who was an adult in the 80s who doesn't remember it as a living hell unless you were pretty well off and lived in the South, must me mad!

4 million unemployed and it was comfortable for the Tory's to keep them like that. Talk about creating a benefits culture - one we have never recovered from.

The North was decimated by the closure of all major industries which then went abroad because there was no commitment to sustain them by the goverment, despite it meaning jobs and communities would disappear.

Bloody riots on the street because people had sod all and their lives and communities were disintegrating around them. And if you think the Iraq war is madness - please tell me what the flaming Falklands war achieved, apart from giving old Maggie something to crow about.

Ah yes - happy times in the 1980s.

I look forward to coming back to this thread in 6-12 months time to see if everyone is so happy then.

BTW violent crime has actually fallen under the Labour party.

Unions were ther problemn not the conservatives fifitot, they held the country to ransom all the way through the 70's and companies moved abroad because of it.

Viloent crime less under labour - only in yourt imagination and the labour party cooking the figures. Most violent crime is not even reported nowadays.

Whatever fiqures you use - violent crime has fallen.

So unions were sooooooooo powerful that they closed down car making, coal mining, ship building, steel works etc etc etc. I don't think so.

(BTW - shame on them for trying to maintain decent standards of safety, conditions and payscales for their members.)

Still.........we have nice coffee shops and telephone call centres now instead.

And yes, to echo previous posters, I am so happy to be losing tax credits, access to surestart schemes (mainly because I don't live in a 'deprived' area, see free nursery hours cut. Yes it will be great.