British General Election - May 6th

[CatInASuit]

Well, it looks like the date has been set for the next British General Election and it is May 6th. It was let slip on live TV by Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces minister.

So, 3 and a bit months before we can kick out the current incompetant administration and try to elect someone who has a clue.

There are at least 4 parties who will play a role.

Labour - The current incompetant incumbents
Conservatives - the party with added Dave.
Liberal Democrats - the "who are they" party.
UKIP - the "EU is Evil" party.

The BNP are also likely to steal votes from Labour as well in some of its heartland, which is frankly disgusting, but also not a surprise any more.

In between, we have the presidential style debate to look forward to between the leaders of the three main parties.

They don't want any open questions from the floor.
They want the floor packed with their supporters.
They want to be shiny.

They don't want to be too honest with the British Public because we might disagree with them and vote for someone else.

We are so screwed....

[ivan astikov]

However incompetent this current Labour govt. is supposed to be, I find it extremely difficult to imagine that the Conservatives would be making a much better job of it all.

As far as I'm concerned, the Labour party are the best of what is always going to be a shitty bunch and there's where my vote is going on May 6th.

[CatInASuit]

However incompetent this current Labour govt. is supposed to be, I find it extremely difficult to imagine that the Conservatives would be making a much better job of it all.

As far as I'm concerned, the Labour party are the best of what is always going to be a shitty bunch and there's where my vote is going on May 6th.

If your comments were about who was best at bankrupting the country, I would agree.

Considering what is being leaked from the Civil Service about the way Gordon Brown is running the country, another four years will leave us bankrupt, both morally and fiscally.

We need a change of government.

[Walker in Eternity]

I agree that the whole New Labour project is morally and financially bankrupt, but don't trust the Tories to do a better job either and the Lib Dems are, frankly, a joke party.

All the Tories will do is cut jobs and services and potentially make the recession worse rather than better. The trouble is Labour don't seem to have a clue as to what they would do.

I almost hope that we get a hung parliament, but then nothing would be done at all. I have lost all faith in the system, I will be at home with a glass of wine avoiding the whole thing if possible. Especially the godamn swingometer.

[What Exit?]

For the UK, weren't things bleaker in the 70s? I think they were in the US. Even with a charismatic leader we still can't get much done here in the US. So hopefully whoever gains the office does not make things worse and rides this out as the economic cycle will turn upwards again.

[Walker in Eternity]

It depends upon what you mean by bleaker. As far as I know the economic situation was worse (3 day week etc), but the current state of the nation as a whole seems to be worse.

We have a population that seems increasingly ignorant (in both meanings of the word) and is certainly not educated to the same standard that people of my generation were at high school (I was in the last year of the old O level system). General civility and politeness seem to be a thing of the past.

Morale is generally low, unemployment is rising, immigration is uncontrolled and even though this government has passed more laws restricting our freedom than any post war government there still seems to be massive amounts of low level crime. The type of crime that doesn't particularly hurt anybody, but increases fear and distrust.

The other thing is that we don't necesarily vote on personality (or shouldn't anyway, but since Blair that has changed). We vote for a party at local level and the leader of that party gets to be PM. Given how bad the parties are maybe we should change the system and go for a more presidential approach, since we seem to be doing that anyway by default because of the media and the cult of personality bullshit legacy of Blair.

I think Winston Chrurchill said it best:

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.