The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[toffee matt]

You have to appeal to a wide cross section of society to win an election, something none of the party's clearly do.

The two parties do nothing to appeal to anyone outside their core vote currently. Which is why lots of floating voters are turning to alternatives like ukip, snp or the greens.

 

[edge]

Do any of you politics lids with more knowledge on the subject than me agree that the obvious turnaround in the Economy in the UK was no mean feat when you consider the amount of cuts the Tories have made, punishing the lower income classes and not giving a sh*t about the affects on those dependant on benefits and welfare.

We have been the fastest growing Economy in Europe apparently, but that's because other countries would not cut as deep as the Tories did here without due consideration to those it affected, I mean lets just sack half the nurses and police and save even more money, we'll wipe out the deficit, that's all that matters to us millionaire Tories running the show with Bupa subs.

Way I see it, it's easy to turn things round if you cut enough and don't give a flying about who it affects, Labour or the Lib dems in a majority government would have just done it a little slower, because they would try to consider those in need of most help from the state.

When you take out a mortgage, you don't try to pay it off as quickly as possible living on bread and water, you manage it while maintaining a decent standard of living, this idea the Tories have pushed on us that we need to get the deficit down as quickly as possible has just been at a total disregard to consider the vulnerable people it will affect.

The Tories used the global recession to attack the public services and welfare systems they've wanted to trim and cut for years, it's just they would never have got away with it had it not been under the perfect smokescreen that was it's all bad labour's fault, they caused the global recession, that's why we have to bring in a bedroom tax and cuts to public services etc.

Am I in a minority who can see through the Tory bullshit they spin to the masses, because to me it's easy to see what shithouses they are, yet they are neck and neck with Labour in the poles.

the only problem with the so called boom is its built on sand, we are not producing more as a country, tax income is down from workers, the national debt has grown by 56 billion, not lowerd, we are in the upturn of a boom and bust cycle , if the base intrest rate goes up watch it turn to dust,as are country still has a mountain of personal and national debt, its an illusion enjoy it while you can.

 

[The Mighty Quint]

the only problem with the so called boom is its built on sand, we are not producing more as a country, tax income is down from workers, the national debt has grown by 56 billion, not lowerd, we are in the upturn of a boom and bust cycle , if the base intrest rate goes up watch it turn to dust,as are country still has a mountain of personal and national debt, its an illusion enjoy it while you can.

I know mate, it's all spin and smoke and mirrors, the stats may say we are on the up but most people have not seen the benefit yet in the real world of Joe public making his way.

Osbourne made claims he'd reduce the deficit by X and he's got nowhere near his targets.

I think Labour are pretty poor at calling out the Tories on many of their claims, so they can continue to brainwash the public into thinking they've been good for the masses.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

So many other variables are contantly changing that it's impossible to say with any certainty what the exact effects of increased or decreased funding are. Take literacy levels at the end of KS2, for example. There is no doubt that teachers are much more highly trained and skills-focused in the teaching of Literacy than in, say, 1997 and yet the literacy levels only went up a few percent. What isn't taken into account, though, is how much modern life gets in the way of children's acquiring literacy skills. Games consoles, social media, the internet and literally hundreds of TV channels have all meant that children read significantly less at home now than they used to (and it is that home reading which really embeds reading skills and deepens understanding at text and sentence, as well as word, level).

For sure, as I wrote earlier, things nearly always err on the complex side of things rather than the simplistic.

Regarding video games, there are some really nice projects at the moment that not only teach kids about science but allow them to contribute to the actual science itself.

http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/ is a genetics game.

http://eyewire.org/index.php is a neuroscience game

http://nanocrafter.org/landing is a synthetic biology game

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/ is a game about RNA

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sup...ames-from-cancer-research-uk/reverse-the-odds is a cancer game

That's just science. There are quite a few others around non-science related topics, such as http://www.dejobaan.com/elegy/, which helps players better understand poetry and so on.

Kinda cool, in that bottom up kinda way we spoke about yesterday.

 

[Lukaku'sLeftTesticle]

Do any of you politics lids with more knowledge on the subject than me agree that the obvious turnaround in the Economy in the UK was no mean feat when you consider the amount of cuts the Tories have made, punishing the lower income classes and not giving a sh*t about the affects on those dependant on benefits and welfare.

We have been the fastest growing Economy in Europe apparently, but that's because other countries would not cut as deep as the Tories did here without due consideration to those it affected, I mean lets just sack half the nurses and police and save even more money, we'll wipe out the deficit, that's all that matters to us millionaire Tories running the show with Bupa subs.

Way I see it, it's easy to turn things round if you cut enough and don't give a flying about who it affects, Labour or the Lib dems in a majority government would have just done it a little slower, because they would try to consider those in need of most help from the state.

When you take out a mortgage, you don't try to pay it off as quickly as possible living on bread and water, you manage it while maintaining a decent standard of living, this idea the Tories have pushed on us that we need to get the deficit down as quickly as possible has just been at a total disregard to consider the vulnerable people it will affect.

The Tories used the global recession to attack the public services and welfare systems they've wanted to trim and cut for years, it's just they would never have got away with it had it not been under the perfect smokescreen that was it's all bad labour's fault, they caused the global recession, that's why we have to bring in a bedroom tax and cuts to public services etc.

Am I in a minority who can see through the Tory bullshit they spin to the masses, because to me it's easy to see what shithouses they are, yet they are neck and neck with Labour in the poles.

Very true . If people knew what they had done to disabled people in our country there would be 100,000 outside Downing street with pitchforks . The most morally bankrupt scum you could envisage

 

[Clint Planet]

For sure, as I wrote earlier, things nearly always err on the complex side of things rather than the simplistic.

It's just that you seemed to be oversimplifying matters to make your point.

 

[Clint Planet]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/02/michael-sheen-nhs-cuts-speech_n_6783056.html

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Pretty cool seeing a room full of kids coding here at the Google campus. Whole lot of minorities here like. Even the white kids are home schooled.

not that you can read too much into that of course.

 

[Clint Planet]

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rike-gutting-unions-bob-crow?CMP=share_btn_fb

"The Thatcher government's war on the miners – her chancellor Nigel Lawson described preparations for the strike as "like re-arming to face the threat of Hitler" – wasn't just about class revenge for the Tories' humiliating defeats at the hands of the miners in the early 1970s. It was about using the battering ram of state power to break the single greatest obstacle to the transformation of the economy in the interests of corporate privilege and wealth that Margaret Thatcher was determined to carry out. The offensive ushered in the full-blown neoliberal model that has failed to deliver for the majority, generated inequality and insecurity on a huge scale, and imploded with such disastrous consequences five-and-a-half years ago."

 

[Pienaar's gloves]

All ye homeowners of the belief that this government has improved your finances as of five years ago, wait until the Bank of England base interest rate starts to shoot up in ten to eighteen months time. You'll be feeling it then.

 

[Donald Twain]

New party!

 

[The Esk]

For sure, as I wrote earlier, things nearly always err on the complex side of things rather than the simplistic.

I'm not entirely sure that they do.

I think it is often an excuse to leave things as they are.

Politicians should offer the big picture - create an environment where ambition, choice, development, etc, can firstly be acceptable and secondly possible for all.

People have an amazing ability to adapt and create to meet a goal or objective. Often though the inertia argument is so prominent that they never get the opportunity to move forward.

How about if every school year started with the words "we have every resource available to make you a success, the choice is yours?" Of course that requires the funding to do so, and the commitment of teaching staff to achieve - the latter should be (and usually is) a given, the former - heavily dependent upon the party in power.

 

[Seanjd]

Without doubt his brother was the one labour needed, but Ed Milliband is a decent MP who wants to do things fairly and for the good of the many, not the few.

I disagree actually, although David was the more charismatic choice, easier on the eye and more experienced, I think the Iraq war influence would have come back to haunt him. You need to remember that this is the guy who was foreign secretary under Blair when Iraq was invaded. Imagine having that over your head and trying to win an election? Ed was a bit more of a clean break from that. I hope we see more of what he can do between now and May.

 

[Seanjd]

For sure, as I wrote earlier, things nearly always err on the complex side of things rather than the simplistic.

Regarding video games, there are some really nice projects at the moment that not only teach kids about science but allow them to contribute to the actual science itself.

http://phylo.cs.mcgill.ca/ is a genetics game.

http://eyewire.org/index.php is a neuroscience game

http://nanocrafter.org/landing is a synthetic biology game

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/ is a game about RNA

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sup...ames-from-cancer-research-uk/reverse-the-odds is a cancer game

That's just science. There are quite a few others around non-science related topics, such as http://www.dejobaan.com/elegy/, which helps players better understand poetry and so on.

Kinda cool, in that bottom up kinda way we spoke about yesterday.

Most kids want a game where you can blow people up with a bazooka, not match genes or create a poem.

 

[Brennan]

Ed Milliband as prime minister is a laughable image.

Imagine him in a room with Putin ffs lol