What makes you think the alternatives are any more competent?
UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80
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What makes you think the alternatives are any more competent?
Ok thanks for that information, you learn something everyday.
I always thought residency at the time of the election was an issue for anyone voting with dual nationality, in a GE.
Do you know if this only applies if the dual nationality is with countries within the EU, or for example if you had dual nationality with a country outside the EU it would still apply?
It should apply to any country that allows you to have dual nationality but only lasts for 15 years for the UK and as I left in 2007 I wouldn't be able to vote for much longer in the UK.
The others I would vote for wouldn’t be in government so the situations can’t be compared.
2010 is obviously and patently a completely ridiculous point in time to judge spend to GDP % as it was in the midst of a global recession which meant spend to GDP would innately be inflated due to GDP depression.
It would be like using our 70% public spend to GDP ratio during 1945 as a stick to beat Tony Blair with when he was spending half this or like judging City's league campaign last year as awful because they saw a 2% drop in points attained.
Public spend to GDP will alway spikes during recessions, not because spending is significantly depressed, but because GDP is.
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Thanks once again for the info.
I knew there was some restriction and I think it varies with different countries. Over twenty years ago my sister-in-law was married to a Syrian National and lived for a while in that country and I remember her wanting to take out dual nationality but there was some restrictions on how or where she could vote, which amongst other reasons meant she never did go through with it.
But thanks once again for the information, the first time learned something new on RedCafe!
Seems like a cop out. You can compare to who would probably be in government if people dont vote for labour which is Boris.
If you have a proper answer to the question I posed, Id love to hear it.
This kind of thing will make watching the results on Election day even more entertaining than normal. Usually in a 'normal' election when the first early results come in the various political pundits are very careful what they say. However as the results pile up and some sense of the way its going between Tory/Labour is evident (the old Jon Snow 'Swing-o-meter') comes into play and they start to make serious predictions.Now with all the so called 'tactical' voting that's likely to take place, with the 'turning of coats'/ change of parties, the absent 'old Parliamentarians', and leave/remain influences in some critical areas, it should be a very 'Election Night Special' in every sense... cant wait!
My answer would be vote labour anyway because I don't think the other major parties can credibly claim to be more competent on current evidence.
Now you answer mine please.
Of course. If you vote Green or Lib Dem you dont vote for them to be in Government, you vote for them to be a stronger opposition. If you have no faith in Government, having a better opposition is the most you can hope for.
Shock/Horror/Oh Noes. There's an air of desperation about the fact-finding there I'm afraid.
So you don't think Labour would be any better than the Tories at all?
The second stat is also very misleading considering the amount of MP's the Lib Dems have.
It is fun watching people on trying to bat away why they are going to vote for another tory party.
It's nice you're having fun. What I don't get is how you think shouting Tory Tory at everyone ad nauseam is going to get you more votes. I can see it losing you some, without gaining a single one.
Who cares about votes? It's all about being as self righteous as possible, that makes you a real winner.
I think their hearts are in the right place, unlike the Tories. I agree with some of their policies, maybe most. But if I look at the shadow cabinet, then ask myself if they're the right people to undertake one of the most the radical transformations of Goverment in the last 50 years, well, honestly I dont think they have it in them. Quite how it would go wrong I dont know, but I dont feel like I can endorse it.
Im also mindful that I held my nose to vote Labour 2 years ago, because I woke up one day and saw the Tories with a projected 100 seat majority and thought "feck that". But then after the GE I spent the next two years hearing how my vote was interpreted as an explicit endorsement of Labour's position (including on Brexit, which was particularly galling) and of Corbyn's leadership and approach, which it wasn't. If I vote Labour, if they win or lose, I encourage their current direction, which is bad in the long run (in my opinion).
What cuts did the Blair government make?
I agree GDP is a terrible measure i don't dispute that only your assertions.
Health spending grew at an average annual rate of about 3.7% from 1950/51 up to 2016/17, accounting for inflation. Public spending on health usually increases year on year, and there are only a handful of times in the last 60 years when it hasn’t.
The average growth between 2009/10 and 2014/15 under the Coalition government was 1.1% and from then to 2016/17 under the Conservative government was 2.3%.
This is actually pissing me off. You'll happily take another 5 years of the Tories, which you accept are evil and incompetent, because you don't want to be seen as endorsing Labour.
And who would you vote for instead? The Lib Dems - who should take a lot of the blame for the current predicament that we are in by enabling the brutal cuts that austerity brought in. Or the Greens who are pretty close to the direction Labour has been moving in since Corbyn became leader and share a lot of the same problems but to a greater degree (e.g. while Labour have had widely publicised issues with anti-semitism, they have taken significant steps to deal with it, whereas the the Greens outright refused to implement the IHRA definition and have a deputy ).
It's maddening and just shows people who are privileged enough to not care about the suffering that the Tories and their accomplices the Lib Dems have forced on the country, and lazy enough to not put their chosen parties under the same level of scrutiny that they put Labour.
fecking just shoot me already if this is the world I have to live in.
Thanks for your time.
Aaannnd... disengage. Enjoy your stronger opposition, if it's the Lib Dems then I hope you especially enjoy the even stronger resurgence of austerity with their support, after hard Brexit definitely happens under the Conservatives while your ego reassures you that you at least didn't endorse Labour's position on Brexit.
Again your own link illustrates why it's a bizarre viewpoint.
We had an average growth of 6% between 1997 and 2007, but that was during a boom period where GDP growth was rampant. At the end of that period we experienced a huge global recession, so it's a disingenuous comparison. That's why looking at health to GDP is a better metric as it takes into consideration recessions and booms.
The current spend is massive as a numerical figure, massive as a % of tax take and massive as a % of GDP when compared to historic levels. It would be inane to assume that after 13 years of massive global growth whereby increases were massively above normal levels in every metric, that during a global recession increases could continue in the same vein.
I'll reiterate that it's like saying Man City got 66 points 15/16, then 78 points 16/17 (18% increase) and 100 points 17/18 (28% increase) and then berating them in 18/19 for getting 98 points as it's a 2% reduction.
That's before even considering that we're still running a budget deficit... So assuming you believe NHS spending should have increased by an extra 2.5% per annum from 2010 (to maintain 3.5%+) despite the global recession, which department(s) do you think should have a budget that is £30-35b lower this year or do you think every department should have 3.5% increases every year irrespective of the economic situation?
If you're not going to explore the issues and instead all you're going to do is make baseless assumptions and insult me, well, do you expect me to carry on?
Good post, just so you know.
No I don't because I don't think you actually have any actual arguments which is why you are clutching at pearls instead of engaging with any of the points that I have made.
The current spend is one of the smallest gdp spends compared to virtually any other European nation - as is all government spending as a % of national GDP. Also, if %gdp is a more effective measure for assessing spending levels why did you not supply graphs detailing the %gdp relationships between the UK, Italy, Spain and Greece? Is it perhaps because those graphs so closely mirror what you sought to differentiate and in reality demonstrate that each of those countries' governments still spend a greater % of their gdp than does the UK?
Your Man City analogy is just fatuous. A far truer picture would emerge if you mentioned that fifty years ago City had started on 20 points and in common with all other big clubs added 2 points a year ever since - never winning the league and often out of the top ten. Then, since 2010 they lost a couple of points and even more positions while other clubs maintained or advanced their own points tally.
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We're getting away from your point of "i don't know why people even claim austerity" to now saying well they had to have austerity.
I don't believe in underfunding services like the NHS (and such a low growth rate/reducing by gdp % was that) because of a recession. This wasn't a structural issue in the economy that required correction like Greece.
Every department is a straw man and you know it. We could have borrowed whilst rates were low in the same way our chancellor is now proposing we do.
Is she going to take UK citizenship as well if she's going to stay there?
Yes there are various French overseas MPs around the world.
I've not tried it as I've no intention to vote in the UK but one can register to get on the electoral roll online. I presume it's the last registered address as you have to prove your identity and prove that you lived in the UK within the last 15 years.
Don't think so.
The last time we spoke about this sort of stuff, she said that her and son-in-law would probably ' go Canadian ' as that's where they'd most likely go to if the UK goes tits up at some point. For them, France is for holidays, Germany for Christmas and the UK for money and careers.
The UK bit might all change soon, of course, but they seem to be cool about everything so far.....Unlike most of us who post on here.
I think I tried to respond to them. In summary.
* Why hold Labour and Lib Dems/Greens to different standards (such as on competency)? Because one will be in Government the others will be opposition so different standard apply.
* Do I think Labour are any better than the Tories at all? Yes, but i don't believe they'll be able to do what they say they do, because of the point I raised at the outset.
You may think my views are wrong or whatever, but they are at least arguments. I'm happy to discuss them, but I kind of feel like I'll just get more insults tbh, which isn't my bag really.
The removal of free higher education?
If you know so surely that your vote isn't going to a party in power, then you know that it is helping a party which can get power, in this case the Tories. You are comparing your rather vague idea of an unspecified failure of a govt whose ideas you agree with, to the known results of a govt whose ideas you don't agree with. That doesn't make sense. So @Shamwow then wondered how to resolve that contradiction, and the answer was that the known harm done by those policies matter less to you than your (vague) feeling of hypothetical harm done by Labour policies, which led him to a reasonable conclusion.
Never. It's a tradition, like dogs in polling stations and a disenfranchising electoral system.
The logical conclusion of this argument would be that you should only ever vote tactically to keep out the Tories, in all circumstances, irrespective of whether you agree with the policies of the party you're voting for or not. I don't agree with that. My view is that tactical voting has its place (which I did last time), voting for a party you like has its place, voting for a leader you like has its place and sometimes simply drawing a nob on the ballot sheet has its place. A general election has many competing demands, different causes and varying consequences, and you only get one vote to cover them all. In a way, what I'm still figuring out is whether this election is one to vote tactially in, or whether to vote for a party I can actually back.
Labour way ahead in the Caf poll????????? 
FFS!
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