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.

skihorse wrote: "I couldn't agree with your stance on education more - when are just going to admit (frankly) that some people are just plain thick (that's old skool for academically challenged) and no amount of education/university in the world is going to change that. I love my boyfriend very much, but he's never going to be a rocket-scientist - and that's just the way it is - so fgs stop trying to tell us all that all children deserve a university education."

So, Ok then, on this point - lets get all the rich but extremely thick people at private schools linched out and put in the deserving poor but very intelligent kids.

Your argument totally loses any logic because if the system that you advocate by supporting the tories. If you want a meritocracy, great - try and even the playing field and get those into the best schools and universities that are the most 'intelligent'.........but you and I both know, that will never ever happen - firstly because the rich and privileged cheat the system (private tutors, private schools etc) and push their children on further, so much so that by the age of 7 the difference in economics is already showing in the child's 'intelligence'

In reality, there is a line at which more 'intelligence' makes no difference - once you have an IQ of about 130, it makes no difference to anything much at all. What makes the difference is your chances in life........and that is where the Tories do not believe in a fair playing field and prefer to look out and protect at all costs the illusion that it is they and their children are more 'intelligent'

re universities, I thought it was quite telling that in the webchat last night quite a few people had posted questions about what the point of 50% of people going to university is and doesn't it just end up saddling more people with more debt. Then someone said 'I'm 18 and have never voted before, why should I vote for you?' and GB listed 'we have opened up university education to more people' as one of his top reasons.
just came across as him acting like a stuck record and not listening IMO!

LOL'ing at moaning about Labour closing hospitals

If you think they are bad..........really really really what on earth do you think it will be like with the Tories? Do you think they are going to be building brand new hospitals all over the place?? Do you really?

ladyblablah Au contraire - in days gone past it was those academically brilliant who got to go - AND they got their fees paid AND maintenance grants. I speak as one of those! There's no way in hell my parents could've (would've) paid! I have an IQ of 150 - I didn't need tutors!

You were in the minority and you know it

In which sense?

OP, I am hoping for a Tory win also. (Followed by LibDem win, followed by the hung parliament outcome.)

However, I think you're being overly optimistic about how how much better things will be if they take power. Things are going to be rough in this country for many years. The good times are over for quite a long time.

You are in a minority in 2 ways - if your IQ is over 150 then you are in genius category - that is a very small minority of people who can reach that.

Also, if your parents were poor and you went to a top university in the 80s, early 90s, you would be in a minority too.

o me either, can't wait til my grandparents lose their pension credit and fantastic hospital care, not to mention my children losing their really well funded schools with maximum class sizes, and that big army of do gooder volunteers taking over.
you ready OP - got your 'school starter kit' ready?

also can't wait to have a bunch of posh boy homophobes in power - we'll be the envy of the world!

if you want the tories to win you are either rich or really really stupid.

students from poor backgrounds were in a minority at Oxbridge in the 80s and 90s and they are in an even smaller minority now. The Sutton Trust has done plenty of research on the subject.

i know, that is a problem - but are the tories the solution?!
(laughs hysterically)

Hurray - lots of good sense here!

I will get DD's pom-poms out and join the cheerleading dance.

I don't remotely imagine that any of us have fun times ahead, regardless of what happens on Thursday. However, a Conservative win will in the long run be a jolly sight better than a Labour one. Maybe in the long term the Conservatives will be able to get the country back to the state it was in when Labour inherited it in 1997.

o my god - you want it back to 1997?
WHY?

'jolly sight better'

Anoinette, you sooo give yourself away there

Toodle pip, jolly hockey sticks, jolly good show old chap

x posts, rocknstroll.

"if you want the tories to win you are either rich or really really stupid"

In that case, I must be really stupid.

Would you say that in person, I wonder?

Ditto posh boy homophobes. What an unpleasant little post.

LadyBB: give myself away as what, pray?

A northerner who read a lot of Enid Blyton?

'Would you say that in person, I wonder?'

I certainly wouldn't hesitate to point out the ignorance of anyone who believes taxes are a pay-in, get-out, shop-type system to their face if they made statements to that effect.

And have had no problem calling homophobes on their pathetic views in person, too.

Or racists, misogynists, bigots, etc.

I've called some of my own father's opinions misogynists in front of him.

Because they are.

Remember DC and the Gay Times interview? flustered? Talk is cheap

unpleasant post for an unpleasant tory party - there are people in the tory shadow cabinet who are homophobic, this has (extremely worryingly) not impeded their progress through the party, and even the person who set up the Gay Tory Alliance or whatever it is, has said he is voting Labour as the tories are homophobic! If you find the truth unpleasant, maybe you should rethink your voting intentions.
ANd I'm sorry but if you don't have pots of money to bail out into the private sector when the tories cut £6bn of spending from our public services, which they have pledged to do in a budget that will be published within 50 days of them being elected, then you are really stupdi to vote for them - or do you not need state schools, the NHS, social workers on decent pay, a faling crime rate, well paid emergency service staff, short hospital waiting lists, tax credits, sure start, subsidised child care etc etc.
It is stupid to vote all these things away if you need them. And if you don't need them, it is selfish to vote them away because so many other people need them.
OR do you just really like their inheritance tax cut for the richest people in the country?!

O an yes, I most certainly would say it in person.

And how could we forget Chris Graylings? The man you are advocating as Home Secretary? HOmophobic? Almost certainly

'Anoinette, you sooo give yourself away there

Toodle pip, jolly hockey sticks, jolly good show old chap'

I remember this style of debating from primary school. So persuasive.

'Just about sums up Tory voters really. The attitude of 'I'm voting tory because they will make my life better for me.' As opposed to the majority of Labour voters who vote Labour because they believe they will make life better for the majority of people in our society'.

Jackie, I completely agree with this. My family and I are quite comfortable, not rich by an stretch of the imagination but not on the breadline either. However I will be voting labour because I know that having a Tory government will only benefit the more well off and those less fortunate will suffer. I detest this selfishness of I'm all right Jack, I'll be better off so stuff the rest of you.