The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )

[Joey66]

TBH thinking about that debate it was two hours of drivel - you might as well had seven different football fans arguing why their team were best ove the last 20 years.
The media should have never given in to DC , and had a head to head with either EM v Cameron or Clegg

 

[chewee]

Tomorrow's Scum and Torygraph front pages are laughable, headlines clearly wrote prior to the debate.

 

[Clint Planet]

Scottish nationalists are left wing, Welsh nationalists are left wing, Northern Irish nationalists are left wing, yet English nationalists are ultra right wing. Why is this?

Great question.

 

[Milk]

After all that debating, I can only draw one possible conclusion .................









......................... Ms Etchingham is a bit of a babe (& a natural blonde to boot)

 

[The Mighty Quint]

TBH thinking about that debate it was two hours of drivel - you might as well had seven different football fans arguing why their team were best ove the last 20 years.
The media should have never given in to DC , and had a head to head with either EM v Cameron or Clegg

And empty chaired Cameron if he failed to turn up...

 

[summerisle]

Call me Susan, but I don't think foreign affairs were mentioned once last night, apart from the ramblings of Farage. Russia,Iran,Syria, Southern European countries' debt mountain, the barbarians of ISIS. It's like there was an impenetrable fog around the UK.
You can bet your bottom dollar though that Cameron will use any opportunity to project a 'leadership' demeanour if a foreign crisis further develops closer to polling day.

 

[Jxg]

Scottish nationalists are left wing, Welsh nationalists are left wing, Northern Irish nationalists are left wing, yet English nationalists are ultra right wing. Why is this?

Tbh I don't know why any nationalist party is accepted. The BNP are hounded and with good reason, why not the SNP? They've only got the interests of the Scottish people at heart, they don't give a toss about the Northern Irish, English or Welsh.

 

[Eggs]

.....I like politics but I deliberately chose not to watch the debate. I'm not surprised to hear Nicola Sturgeon impressed. Whatever the political colour I'm fed up of hearing London centric, public schoolboys arrogantly talk about 'what people want is...'

Sturgeon and Salmond are more rounded individuals, I might not agree with their politics but as politicians they knock spots off Miliband and Cameron. It's no surprise Sturgeon had more appeal and our major parties need to understand 'what people really want'.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It comes down to living standards.

Here's the electoral map:

You will notice that the purple (should be blue ffs) are mostly in affluent areas of the country in comparison to the rest.

The most telling part is in Greater London, where the poorer areas are generally Labour, and the richer areas are Tory.

Something to consider with London is that 37% of the people who live here were not born here, so may well not be eligible to vote, unless they've married a Brit and have become nationalised. None of the immigrants I know, for instance, are eligible. Of course, they may all have voted Labour anyway, but it's worth remembering.

The left side of politics believe in fairness for society as a whole, increasing living standards through intervention for the middle- and lower-classes, in the belief that everyone in society will benefit from a more affluent nation as a whole.

The right generally believe in laissez-faire towards business, in particular the City in London, allowing the very rich to get richer and then believing that such high end prosperity will result in a "trickle down" effect that will in time benefit the middle- and lower-classes. Basically, the super rich eat at the top table, and the more food there is, the more scraps there will be to throw down.

It might sound like I'm being harsh on the right there, but if you're looking at how the real world works, then the right wing vision is a lot more viable than the left, because for the left wing method to work, you need money to do it, and that money comes from the very top. That is why rampant socialism is an all out failure, because it doesn't have the perpetual motion required for it to work. Money feeds everything.

The problem with the right wing, however, is that the trickle down effect rarely works - once the rich get money, they then want all the money, so you see things like zero hour contracts and low wages, despite high employment, because the rich want a cheap workforce that is disposable so they can make more money.

I think you're selling things a bit short here by focusing purely on economics, for there is also a disconnect between who should be providing the service. The left seem to believe that the state is not only the best group of people to provide a service, but should be the only group of people to provide a service, which is just as elitist as this notion of 'trickle down'.

It's also increasingly out of step with the modern world. There's a saying in innovation circles - "whoever you work for, the smartest people will work for someone else". In other words, it's madness to assume that only you have the answers to a particular challenge, because it's inevitable that if you open up your thinking, and increasingly your service, there are better options out there.

Take, for example, the most rapidly expanding technology the world has ever seen - the smartphone (most of which are powered by UK brains incidentally). I'm not going to sell the hardware short, because the average smartphone is a wonderful bit of kit, without a shadow of doubt. The real value in the smartphone however comes from the apps that are created for it.

Whilst there are some apps that are produced by Apple and Samsung, Google and Microsoft, the vast majority are not. Millions of people from around the world have developed add-on services to turn what is a useful bit of hardware into the most versatile device known to man. The modern smartphone can do everything from conduct medical procedures to monitor air pollution, all because of the ingenuity of people that have nothing to do with the manufacturers themselves.

So, if you look at the 5 Year Plan for the NHS (which predictably barely any of them referred to when scaremongering about privatisation), that is exactly what they're talking about. It's admitting that government doesn't have all of the answers, and shouldn't claim to, and that by opening up the process, it will almost certainly produce better services for less money.

 

[GwladysBlue]

Cameron came out top again according to the Tory media, thank God we have them to inform the nation with no bias at all...

 

[Clint Planet]

I think you're selling things a bit short here by focusing purely on economics, for there is also a disconnect between who should be providing the service. The left seem to believe that the state is not only the best group of people to provide a service, but should be the only group of people to provide a service, which is just as elitist as this notion of 'trickle down'.

Bit of an outrageous statement, there. Central control of public services is as elitist as the mythical trickle down. Hmmm.

I take your point about phone apps but, like many, am understandably suspicious of applying that model to the NHS. One of the most striking differences between Apple and Android software, of course, is that Apple directly control any availability of apps. Android, on the other hand, is an unregulated marketplace and so there are lots of crap apps out there amongst the good ones. Interesting.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Bit of an outrageous statement, there. Central control of public services is as elitist as the mythical trickle down. Hmmm.

I take your point about phone apps but, like many, am understandably suspicious of applying that model to the NHS. One of the most striking differences between Apple and Android software, of course, is that Apple directly control any availability of apps. Android, on the other hand, is an unregulated marketplace and so there are lots of crap apps out there amongst the good ones. Interesting.

I linked this a number of pages back. It was written when the Gov.uk platform was launched

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2012/10/17/why-gov-uk-matters/

It's clearly a direction they're aiming at.

 

[Eggs]

Cameron came out top again according to the Tory media, thank God we have them to inform the nation with no bias at all...

.......everything is so wonderful, amazing that the polls don't reflect that.

 

[The Esk]

Something to consider with London is that 37% of the people who live here were not born here, so may well not be eligible to vote, unless they've married a Brit and have become nationalised. None of the immigrants I know, for instance, are eligible. Of course, they may all have voted Labour anyway, but it's worth remembering.



I think you're selling things a bit short here by focusing purely on economics, for there is also a disconnect between who should be providing the service. The left seem to believe that the state is not only the best group of people to provide a service, but should be the only group of people to provide a service, which is just as elitist as this notion of 'trickle down'.

It's also increasingly out of step with the modern world. There's a saying in innovation circles - "whoever you work for, the smartest people will work for someone else". In other words, it's madness to assume that only you have the answers to a particular challenge, because it's inevitable that if you open up your thinking, and increasingly your service, there are better options out there.

Take, for example, the most rapidly expanding technology the world has ever seen - the smartphone (most of which are powered by UK brains incidentally). I'm not going to sell the hardware short, because the average smartphone is a wonderful bit of kit, without a shadow of doubt. The real value in the smartphone however comes from the apps that are created for it.

Whilst there are some apps that are produced by Apple and Samsung, Google and Microsoft, the vast majority are not. Millions of people from around the world have developed add-on services to turn what is a useful bit of hardware into the most versatile device known to man. The modern smartphone can do everything from conduct medical procedures to monitor air pollution, all because of the ingenuity of people that have nothing to do with the manufacturers themselves.

So, if you look at the 5 Year Plan for the NHS (which predictably barely any of them referred to when scaremongering about privatisation), that is exactly what they're talking about. It's admitting that government doesn't have all of the answers, and shouldn't claim to, and that by opening up the process, it will almost certainly produce better services for less money.

Innovation by its very nature is disruptive and unproven. I like innovation in business as it creates real opportunities to enter or expand existing markets. However a lot of innovation fails, that's just its nature.

I think this is the principal concern as far as the NHS is concerned, and you will know better than me.

How do you introduce innovation that if it fails will not materially effect the health and lives of those requiring health services?

 

[Groucho]

.......everything is so wonderful, amazing that the polls don't reflect that.

Don't forget all these wonderful food banks we have.

Although bankers must shoulder blame for that.