My heart is telling me Tory, but my brain is saying, "WTF is dave gonna do to make them so different from Labour?"

This article in today's Telegraph A £1.5 billion tax windfall from bankers’ bonuses has opened up a new rift between Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. highlighted a key point that I have firmly believed for quite a while, and that is that Mr Darling would probably be a very good Chancellor if only Mr Brown would let him.

Point being, is that apart from one-eyes constant strive for power, Hatties women's lib struggle and Mandys constant and never ending drivel about the UK's adoption of the Euro, remove those problems, i.e. those annoying 3 fcuking people and there is not a jot of difference between the two party's.....

You left out "none of the above" so I voted other...

Originally Posted by bovvy

Originally Posted by Markintime

Since that poll was taken in November it'll be ointeresting to see if there has been any swing between then and now.

I can't vote for Duurrzzett's answer to Wolfie Smith on this one. :(

EDIT: Though, seriously, as this is a General Election and this seat is marginal .... and I've met Jim Knight a few times, I will vote for it to remain Labour. I have voted far left once? or twice?, but it must have been in local elections. When I voted in the earlier Arrse poll, I'd forgotten how long it has been (5 years!) since we had a General Election. There is no way that I could live with the thought that I'd helped the Tories.

You obviously have a death wish or need urgent psychiatric help, surely any party but labour after their record for the last 13 years!

Or perhaps you are a fellow traveller with a VESTED interest in maintaining the status quo! Snout in trough?

Originally Posted by ex_colonial

Originally Posted by bovvy

Originally Posted by Markintime

Since that poll was taken in November it'll be ointeresting to see if there has been any swing between then and now.

I can't vote for Duurrzzett's answer to Wolfie Smith on this one. :(

EDIT: Though, seriously, as this is a General Election and this seat is marginal .... and I've met Jim Knight a few times, I will vote for it to remain Labour. I have voted far left once? or twice?, but it must have been in local elections. When I voted in the earlier Arrse poll, I'd forgotten how long it has been (5 years!) since we had a General Election. There is no way that I could live with the thought that I'd helped the Tories.

You obviously have a death wish or need urgent psychiatric help, surely any party but labour after their record for the last 13 years!

Or perhaps you are a fellow traveller with a VESTED interest in maintaining the status quo! Snout in trough?

I don't want to derail the thread, so please feel free to ignore. But, go on, then! Tell me what I should do? But first I'm going to make a few assumptions:

1) The Tories stand for the same values they always have?
2) As Ken Livingstone entitled a book, "If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it" (or something like that).

I'm a socialist and I'd dearly love to see a socialist UK in my lifetime.
From 1980, until whenever it was I got totally p1ssed off with Blair .... 1998? 2000? 2002? 2003? 2004? I was a Labour Party activist (on the left of the party).
I was against the Labour Party's policy of outTorying the Tories prior to the 1997 election, but, if that was what was required ....
Then I naively hoped, once in Parliament, we might have socialist policies.
But, since 1997, we've had Tory policies.
But there are still a few in the Labour Party with socialist ideals?
A far left socialist party won't get anywhere in a south coast constituency.
So I'll vote Labour.

This comment sums up how I feel:
"Maybe I just want the Tories to lose more than I want Labour to win this time round Joe... starting to feel like I haven't really got a dog in this race anymore."

..... from here: http://www.billybragg.co.uk/forums/i...opic=5427&st=0

Originally Posted by bovvy

Originally Posted by ex_colonial

Originally Posted by bovvy

Originally Posted by Markintime

Since that poll was taken in November it'll be ointeresting to see if there has been any swing between then and now.

I can't vote for Duurrzzett's answer to Wolfie Smith on this one. :(

EDIT: Though, seriously, as this is a General Election and this seat is marginal .... and I've met Jim Knight a few times, I will vote for it to remain Labour. I have voted far left once? or twice?, but it must have been in local elections. When I voted in the earlier Arrse poll, I'd forgotten how long it has been (5 years!) since we had a General Election. There is no way that I could live with the thought that I'd helped the Tories.

You obviously have a death wish or need urgent psychiatric help, surely any party but labour after their record for the last 13 years!

Or perhaps you are a fellow traveller with a VESTED interest in maintaining the status quo! Snout in trough?

I don't want to derail the thread, so please feel free to ignore. But, go on, then! Tell me what I should do? But first I'm going to make a few assumptions:

1) The Tories stand for the same values they always have?
2) As Ken Livingstone entitled a book, "If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it" (or something like that).

I'm a socialist and I'd dearly love to see a socialist UK in my lifetime.
From 1980, until whenever it was I got totally p1ssed off with Blair .... 1998? 2000? 2002? 2003? 2004? I was a Labour Party activist (on the left of the party).
I was against the Labour Party's policy of outTorying the Tories prior to the 1997 election, but, if that was what was required ....
Then I naively hoped, once in Parliament, we might have socialist policies.
But, since 1997, we've had Tory policies.
But there are still a few in the Labour Party with socialist ideals?
A far left socialist party won't get anywhere in a south coast constituency.
So I'll vote Labour.

This comment sums up how I feel:
"Maybe I just want the Tories to lose more than I want Labour to win this time round Joe... starting to feel like I haven't really got a dog in this race anymore."

..... from here: http://www.billybragg.co.uk/forums/i...opic=5427&st=0

You are Billy Bragg, I claim my prize

Do UKIP stand any serious kind of chance?

"Another day dawns grey, its enough to make me spit
But we go on our way, just putting up with it
And when I try to make my feelings known to you
You sound like you have changed from red to blue

You're a father now, you see things in different ways
For every parent will gain perspective on their wilder days
But that alone does not explain the changes I see in you
The way you've drifted off from red to blue

Sometimes I think to myself
Should I vote red for my class or green for our children?
But whatever choice I make
I will not forsake

So you bought it all, the best your money could buy
And I watched you sell your soul for their bright shining lie
Where are the principles of the friend I thought I knew
I guess you let them fade from red to blue

I hate the compromises that life forces us to make
We must all bend a little if we are not to break
But the ideals you've opted out of,
I still hold them to be true
I guess they weren't so firmly held by you"

sang former homosexualist, family man Bragg from his Dorset home...

Former "homosexualist"?

Originally Posted by Mr_Deputy

Do UKIP stand any serious kind of chance?

Unlikely to get a single seat - but very likely to take enough right of center "protest" votes from the tories to gift seats to Labour or the limpdems, which will lead to a hung parliment, then the pound will really plummet. Chaos and insecurity will ensue for a couple of years, during which the whole political spectrum will bicker while national debt will rise exponentially and require emergency measures to bring it under control, which will cause outrage, strikes and an exodus of every switched on individual and company before the UK is completely cut adrift as too unstable.....

Of course if you convert the UK into a version of Albania with broadband and widescreen tv - at least the immigration problem will solve itself and the army may get beefed up in case martial law is needed.... :D

Like millions of people from all across the political spectrum, I don't feel I have much of a home in any party anymore. My sympathies lie with the kind of social democracy that used to be promoted by the old right-wing of the Labour Party before they were emasculated first by the loony left and then by New Labour. My vote will still go to Labour as the party that most closely represents what I believe in, but it will be given with about 10% of the enthusiasm than in '97.