Who will be PM in hung parliament?

[giggirl]

He has very strange hair. Looks like bearskin hat but shrunk a bit.

[Belle]

I've always thought Ed Miliband looks like his brother after his head's been put in a vice. But i know a lot of women who seem quite taken with one or both of them.

[katie1997]

Beginning to think people should only be allowed to vote if they have been to the hustings and heard their prospective MP speak....

[Judy2]

Its Dave......

[Brendan]

Me mate Dave.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/8/25/1251200709541/Ali-G-stands-outside-10-D-007.jpg

[giggirl]

I'm off to get drunk. God help us all.

[ratty]

giggirl Wrote:

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> I'm off to get drunk. God help us all.

Ditto!

[woofmarkthedog]

Do....

..you know, I have never taken "Heroin"

But tonight I might just get bang on it

By the time I get "focused" a good four years should easily have passed

W**F

[Sue]

giggirl Wrote:

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> I'm off to get drunk. God help us all.

xxxxxxxx

Amazing how everything can suddenly seem depressing. The complete opposite to when Labour got in, when everything suddenly seemed brighter.

:-S

[Marmora Man]

Sue,

You would be referring to the arrival of Tony Blair and Labour in 1997 I take it?

The administration that inherited a growing and balanced economy, no significant deficit and falling interest rates but bequeathes a damaged economy, the highest national debt and fiscal deficit ever.

The man who arrived to an Alastair Campbell manufactured frenzy of fake joy and left in disgrace after taking the country into two major wars - losing the lives of over 500 British servicemen and women.

Who wasted the historic opportunity to tackle public sector service failings and whose "Education, education, education" and Tough on crime, tough on the causes if crime" mantras ring hollow today.

It's not how you start the race but how it finishes that counts. David Cameron has started slowly, quietly and with a warning that it's going to be tough - let's see how he runs the race and where he finishes before you start to write him off.

[woofmarkthedog]

Marmora Man

For once, just ________________ (fill in expletive here)

SOME people didn't vote or want a TORY government

Get it ?

I thank you very much, I do

W**F

Edited so as NOT to cause any (further) offense BUT you know what I said anyway ..na na na na naaaa )

[MrBen]

That was a bit harsh Woof.

[????]

What Mr Ben said

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Don't worry chaps, I'm sure Cameron will reinstate hunting animals.

[SeanMacGabhann]

I was going to post something similar to Mr Ben, but Huguenot posted

this

on another thread and said it much better than me

So I'll just say "what Mr Ben, quids, and Huguenot said" and add that even in character wolfie, we need more people like Marmora Man posting on here not less. Posts like yours earlier don't exactly help (anyone)

[Huguenot]

No Marmora Man, I don't think it's fair to taint Labour's legacy with endless snarls about the things that didn't work.

We know they're there, but it's not all that Labour did.

We're talking about the Labour government that...

1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s

2. Low mortgage rates

3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to ?5.35

4. Record police numbers in England, Scotland and Wales

5. Cut overall crime by 35 per cent

6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools

7. Best-ever primary school results

8. Funding for every pupil in England to double by 2008

9. Employment is at its highest level ever

10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries

11. 85,000 more nurses

12. 32,000 more doctors

13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards

14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament

15. Devolved power to Welsh Assembly

16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time

17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice

18. Gift aid was worth ?625 million to charities last year

19. Restored city-wide government to London

20. Record number of students in higher education

21. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997

22. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households

23. Introduced the Disability Rights Commission

24. ?200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra ?100 for over-80s

25. On course to exceed the Kyoto target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010

26. Negotiated the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland

27. Over 30,000 more teachers in England schools

28. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks? paid holiday

29. A million pensioners lifted out of relative poverty

30. 800,000 children lifted out of relative poverty

31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents

32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships

33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard

34. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales

35. Banned fox hunting

36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since the industrial revolution

37. Free TV licences for over-75s

38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals

39. Waiting times for operations halved

40. Free local bus travel for over-60s

41. New Deal - helped over a million people into work

42. Over 1.5 million child trust funds have been started

43. Free eye test for over 60s

44. Five, six and seven year olds in class sizes of 30 or less

45. Free entry to national museums and galleries

46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled

47. Cancer death rates down by 12 per cent, saving 43,000 lives

48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent

49. Free nursery places for three and four-year-olds in England, Scotland and Wales

50. Free fruit for all four to six-year-olds at school

There's a few in there that are a bit clownish, but there's an awful lot in there that would never have happended under the Tories.

[casper]

The majority of the above sound great and are great if you can afford it. Anyone can spend money and make people feel better. Creating an economy that is sustainable and can maintain these type of benefits is another matter and something that Brown never understood. With a frankly enormous and scary structual budget deficit let alone the rest of the cyclical deficit the above list will mainly turn to ashes over the next 5 years. That will not be politics it will be basic economics and basic maths.

[woofmarkthedog]

To Huguenot

Hats off...

To the others....

My post was meant to be HARSH btw

Also, painful as it is some people do need the odd "rocket" IMHO

Love to all

FLUFFY

XXX

[Huguenot]

True Caspar.

But I don't think you can make it a 'Labour' problem. Here's government debt for the last thirty years:

Year GDP- Public Net Debt % of GDP

1979 199.22 43.61

1980 233.184 42.11

1981 256.279 44.40

1982 281.024 44.55

1983 307.207 43.13

1984 329.913 43.59

1985 361.758 43.45

1986 389.149 41.81

1987 428.665 39.14

1988 478.51 34.98

1989 525.274 29.30

1990 570.283 26.69

1991 598.664 25.27

1992 622.08 26.70

1993 654.196 30.97

1994 692.987 36.05

1995 733.266 39.55

1996 781.726 41.20

1997 830.094 41.92

1998 879.102 40.14

1999 928.73 37.86

2000 976.533 35.37

2001 1021.83 30.57

2002 1075.56 29.33

2003 1139.75 30.45

2004 1200.6 31.88

2005 1252.5 33.85

2006 1321.86 35.03

2007 1400.53 35.70

2008 1442.92 36.38

2009 1396 44.20

It reaches the same giddy heights from time to time irrespective of who's in charge.

It's also true that we're going to have to lose some of these benefits if we're going to move on.

[????]

Which is why it's agood election for Labour to lose - the Tories will be beaten with Cutters once gain and the LDs will be called 'tories'...I notice a sudden refreshed step in the likes of Balls, Milliband, Clarke etc this morning. The wiser and more visionary members of the Labour party know that this is a good election to have lost.

[woofmarkthedog]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Which is why it's agood election for Labour to

> lose - the Tories will be beaten with Cutters once

> gain and the LDs will be called 'tories'...I

> notice a sudden refreshed step in the likes of

> Balls, Milliband, Clarke etc this morning. The

> wiser and more visionary members of the Labour

> party know that this is a good election to have

> lost.

_____________________________________________________

I.....

totally agree ????'s

*sits back & awaits a new labour sun rise *

W**F

[ratty]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Which is why it's agood election for Labour to

> lose - the Tories will be beaten with Cutters once

> gain and the LDs will be called 'tories'...I

> notice a sudden refreshed step in the likes of

> Balls, Milliband, Clarke etc this morning. The

> wiser and more visionary members of the Labour

> party know that this is a good election to have

> lost.

Spot on.

Must pick MM up on one point though? Are you really telling me the Tories would not have gone to war? They LOVE an illegal war! Ahem Falklands! Ahem The Belgrano!

[peckhamboy]

Kind of depends on how they react though - they'll need strong leadership and vision to retake the centre ground. Easy to see scenarios in which either Miliband wins and struggles to keep the loony left engaged so that the party effectively splits, or Balls wins with the support of the unions and makes Brown look popular in comparison, resulting in the party effectively splitting. In the same way as the Conservatives took 13 years to reunite the centre and the right, Labour could take just as long to reunite the centre and the left. The difference is that the Lib Dems could usurp them in the meantime whereas the Conservatives have never had a viable alternative on the right of centre. Interesting times.

[FredMarsh]

Well said MM

[Jeremy]

Marmora Man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> bequeathes a damaged

> economy, the highest national debt and fiscal

> deficit ever.

What would the tories have done differently? There was a world-wide recession, lots of countries are in the same boat. I actually think that GB did an OK job of keeping the economy afloat.

> left in disgrace after taking the country into two major

> wars - losing the lives of over 500 British

> servicemen and women.

The Conservatives supported the war too, though. Only the lib dems were opposed to it, as I recall.

By all means, pull Labour up on their failures - but try to do so objectively...