Catch22

True but a lot of people also voted for them when they were the main opponent to Lab for precisely the same reason. Not as many i grant you but still more than a few. That's why i am very surprised they did so crap overall as they got tactical votes from both sides.

The shares they bought are just about in profit although maybe not now! The debt issue is the assets that have been insured which will unwind over time to an unknown cost. The primary structural deficit is what will have to be addressed eventually & mainly thru spending cuts. I agree with you though that it is not a Conservative mandate.

I totally agree. Scotland votes so differently from England that any approach pther than independance is undemocratic for one or the other.

That's the overall debt but it is matched with assets on the other side (although some are shit) & will naturally roll off over time. The deficit is a problem not because of where it is now in a downturn but because of its size at the top of an (unsustainable) boom, when it should have been in surplus.

We're going to get the cut in public spending come what may. We do it on our terms or we do it eventually on the IMF's..... You 're right : noone has got a mandate so each alternative is possible.

So a player can be Tory but a fan can't.....?

Most of the players most likely vote Tory due to their tax status with at least 2 ECup winning Captains openly doing so. If it is that big a deal for you, I would think a bit about the millionaires you are giving your support to...... Politics would benefit from being less tribal than sport is. We needed a change in '97 & we need one now.

Heath won 46% of the popular vote (the highest) & was the largest party with 330 seats. He had also won an election which Blair not Brown had previously done. In a similar scenario Brown could have carried on. He hasn't come close to that so he won't (although that doesn't rule out a Lab/Lib pact with another leader)

That's is how Cable has subsequently spun it but doesn't really stand up to any sort of analysis. He warned there was too much debt in the economy as did loads of other people. He didn't have any sort of theoretical model of what would happen: If he had even heard of Minsky before Aug '07 I can't recall him mentioning it. He certainly didn't anticipate the nuts & bolts of the crisis or he would have acted accordingly & made a great deal of money (he could have shorted the UK banks at any spread betting firm) That's not a criticism as very few people did. The ones that did have had their deserved pound of flesh for it but are hardly suitable for UK public office (read Michael Lewis's "The Big Short" for some of them). From a fiscal perspective he was less vocal on the unsustainable rise in public spending than some Tories Michael Howard actually called Brown's 04 budget....""a credit-card Budget from a credit-card Chancellor". He warned: "The country will pay for it later in Labour's third term tax rises." Howard: 'A credit card budget' - Telegraph. That's as good a description of the fiscal state we are in & was delivered 3 years before the credit crisis broke & 18 months before the US housing market had even started turning southwards. Purely on the basis of what the Chancellor's main job is (UK fiscal policy) he should be 1st in line for the job on the basis of predictions & certainly ahead of Vince Cable. That is not to say that Cable would be a bad Chancellor (or even less preferable than Howard) but the idea that he in anyway foresaw what would happen is complete nonsense but has been spun into the public domain & seems to have wrongly become conventional widsom.

Clegg is an obvious shoo-in for foreign secretary. Worked at the EU, speaks a million languages, banging a foreign bird. Offer him that & a big ministerial car & he'll soon put PR demands on hold for a while to form a coalition "for the nation's interests" He's a politician ffs

Brown cant possibly remain as PM having never won a party nor general election & then polling as low as he has. A Lib/Lab coalition is not what i would want but is certainly reasonable if they speak to the Tories 1st as they got most votes AND Brown is dumped. I doubt Lab would have a problem with that as the king-makers will all think they have a personal chance.

Nice one, i was trying to find that info but couldn't & was trying to do it back of the envelope backwards from the Scottish result which i did find. Thanks

Yes, completely. Small businesses have seen an ocean of well-meaning but growth-stunting regulation.

The Tories always do badly when they go with the upper class, public school "1-nation" wing of the party. They do much better when they follow the market-based, lower middle class aspirational wing. We all know the route to prosperity is thru lower government which requires difficult choices. He does not give a fuck about making them as was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. People who did not inherit his wealth & have to work for themselves & their family know that the crucial role of government is to steal as little of that hard-earned as possible. What the fuck was he doing offering "Big Society" nonsense & not promising to reverse the recent income tax rises the day he took office? Labour politicians are inherently more likeable. It is not the Conservative's job to try to compete with them on that basis. Their job is to clear up the mess of over-extended public spending, over-regulation & over-personal taxation that results from implemting the well-meaning but counter-productive measures Labour administrations introduce. He should have run on lower income tax which benefits the voter individually & society collectively thru its impact on incentives. Get the government out of our lives where it does not belong.

I see your point but that will always happen to some extent (ie/ the coast votes differently from the heartland in the US). However Scotland is in many ways (ie/ sport) a seperate country. Moreover the Tories do not do that badly in the North: they got well over 17% this time & they win rural seats: in Scotland they can't even do that. It is not right that they can govern with that score but equally England has decisively voted against the Labour party: incumbent for 13 years & polling low 20's to finish 3rd should not then be imposed due to votes in another country which already has its own Parliament. Labour did win the popular vote in England in '97 & '01 so it would not be moving England to a 1-party state which is always bad.

Yes completely agree. Equally there is no madate for Labour in England when it is polling low 20's & coming 3rd. With the 2 countries having such a differing fundamental view on basic underlying political philosophies full independance is the only answer. It would also rather neatly solve all the glib "Fuck that, i'm going to emigrate" comments that you get from BOTH sides as we share a common language, movement between them is so easy & the underlying politics so different, enabling easy choices if anyone is so concerned.

Just found a quote from the SNP leader & it is bang on: Mr Salmond said: "The story that is emerging is the astonishing political divergence north and south of the Border – and once we have had time to look at the results that is going to be what matters." The SNP leader, speaking at the election count in Aberdeen, said: "South of the Border the Tories are making substantial gains from the Labour Party. North of the Border the Tory vote is doing nothing whatsoever – even going down from its already very depressed condition. And that is going to be probably the dominant issue in Scottish politics and one of the key issues in UK politics in the aftermath of the election." Either Scotland gets a Tory govt. where they got 17% of the vote OR England get 5 more years of a Labour govt. who came third in its polling. Neither is democratically acceptable.

The most important electoral reform is full independance for Scotland. It is absurd that they have their own Parliament but also get to vote in our affairs. It is especially problematic when the 2 countries voting patterns are so completely different.

The Lib Dems are doing terribly which is a cunt as I bought their seats!

Speak English ffs

Gilts are up because the US stock market fell 3% after they shut, nothing to do with the election

Tactical voting starting there in Tooting.

NKorea's that way Gordon. Shut the door on your way out.

Where are all the Monster Raving Loon types? You normally get them at the famous (ie/ sitting PM) seats.....

Scotland & England need to have full independance. They vote so completely differently now that it is totally wrong that 1 of them has the other's preference imposed upon it.