The Politics Thread

[hisroyalgingerness]

Top and tail of the debate

Dave will lose some quangos
Nick Will lower taxes and grown all spending simply by scrapping trident
Gordon agrees with Nick
But Nick doesn't actually agree with Gordon
Dave thanks us for existing and we all work really hard

[thebish]

whogetsmyvote.com

Should sort you out

You get to pick your 7 most important policy areas, they then give you the parties policies (without naming the parties) and you pick 'em, then put them in priority order, before it spits out your results...

Allegedly I should vote Lib Dem...

From the policies I picked they told me

Cars - BNP

what's the BNP policy on cars??? send all black cars home??

[Prufrock]

Impressed with Clegg, to a point. Cameron was as expected, Brown was OK in parts, a bit desperate in others. Wish the fecking lot of them would stop prefacing any debate about the NHS or the armed forces with sickly sweet prologues about how they think they are brave or personally thankful to them, trying to come over all pally and one of the people, it's so stomach churning. No-one is suggesting you aren't thankful, or don't think they are brave. I don't know anyone who doesn't think that, if it's OK we'll just assume you aren't complete bastards unless you say so and you can get on with it instead of trying to seem all normal and lovely.

Cameron is so vacuous. 'Rah rah, posh, not posh, kids state school, I love state schools, 40 year old black man, deficit, waste, cut waste, broken hoodie hug a britain'. Closing comments, 'there's been a lot of talk about policy', well I wonder why that could be? It's about values as well. You don't have any, apart from power is good. Of the three men there the one who by far fails to give the impression of caring about the people is Mr Cameron.

Gordon kept trying to get Clegg to gang up on Cameron, or get Cameron to answer a sodding question, neither of which really worked, and his lack of charisma, unim-fecking-portant as it is, again shone through.

Clegg was good for an hour, but his 'aren't they both bastards, we're ace, all we need to do is scrap trident and it will be fine' line got a bit tiresome after that.

Of the three I'd pick him though. Not gonna happen like, but...

[hisroyalgingerness]

Aye well maybe next time someone can ask a question about Europe, and we'll see what folk think of Clegg's policies then...

[Bruce Rioja]

what's the BNP policy on cars??? send all black cars home??

Maybe it's a seperate scrappage scheme for private hire vehicles?

[Prufrock]

Aye well maybe next time someone can ask a question about Europe, and we'll see what folk think of Clegg's policies then...

As long as it's not countered by some hazy bollocks preceded by 'Brussels bureaucrats, the pound the pound oh the pound I read a story in the Mail' maybe we will.

[Prufrock]

what's the BNP policy on cars??? send all black cars home??

Maybe it's a seperate scrappage scheme for private hire vehicles?

A voluntary one of course.

[Bruce Rioja]

what's the BNP policy on cars??? send all black cars home??

Maybe it's a seperate scrappage scheme for private hire vehicles?

A voluntary one of course.

Indeed - 'scheme' carefully chosen instead of 'allowance'.

[BWFC_Insane]

Aye well Clegg was clear miles ahead of the other two. But thats because he actually has some clear policies that make sense.

Brown I thought was solid, you're always onto a loser as PM on these things but he did ok I thought.

Cameron was a complete embarrassment on every level. I can't believe his "I spoke to a black man the other day and even HE is upset by all this immigration" anecdote hasn't been picked up on. Truly horrendous on every single level. I can't imagine why anyone who hasn't had a full frontal lobotomy voting for them I really can't. But sadly I know they will!

[thebish]

I suspect the mood music - however fair - and maybe because Cameron was expected to dazzle and Brown was expected to flop.....

anyway - I suspect people will generally conclude:

Cameron - disappointingly vacuous and a bit limp

Brown - better than expected (and hence scoring points from a low base)

Clegg - ahh - that's who he is - what an interesting novelty (but a very creepy stare into camera in the summing up - were we being hypnotised?)

[keveh]

This was a brilliant quote from Twitter:

Frankly David Cameron doesn't seem to have the time to run a government what with meeting every single person on Earth.

I thought that Clegg would come out on top, he can almost stand back and watch the other two fight with one another then take the lead.

[Tombwfc]

It was pretty much as expected. Brown was always on to a loser (by dint of being in power), Clegg was always on to a winner (by dint of nobody knowing who he is) and Cameron was just... there (by dint of being a robot).

Interesting enough though.

[Bruce Rioja]

I suspect the mood music - however fair - and maybe because Cameron was expected to dazzle and Brown was expected to flop.....

anyway - I suspect people will generally conclude:

Cameron - disappointingly vacuous and a bit limp

Brown - better than expected (and hence scoring points from a low base)

Clegg - ahh - that's who he is - what an interesting novelty (but a very creepy stare into camera in the summing up - were we being hypnotised?)

And I suspect that people will generally conclude: How each one did reinforces my individual poltical viewpoint and my personal view of them as individuals.

[Prufrock]

This was a brilliant quote from Twitter:

Frankly David Cameron doesn't seem to have the time to run a government what with meeting every single person on Earth.

I thought that Clegg would come out on top, he can almost stand back and watch the other two fight with one another then take the lead.

That's ace! Agree with BWFCi the Cameron 'I met a black chap' was cringeworthy, and he is guilty of one of my pet hates folk who could have sent their kids to private schools banging on about how they sent them to state schools. Fair enough, it's a well argued case, but don't go on about it in that smug holier than thou way. Your kids still live in a nicer house, have nicer cars, better food, better clothes, more holidays. You haven't made them equal, I wouldn't mind but you are a flaming Tory! Now, as been said often, the fact you went to Eton should not be a reason either to vote for, or not to vote for you, and similarly irrelevant is where your kids go too. Clegg did it and it's more bandwagon look we're one of you b*llocks.

[Hoboh]

Clegg was good seemed to be most comfortable but
He does not seem like the guy who would tell the Argies to get their bag fat ass off the Falklands type of guy.

Mr C was a bit too wooden and needs to relax a bit more and watch the patronising bits a little, put a bit more substance in there.

Brown? Solid like a petrified tree stump! why not be bold Gordon and say you stand by your record of achievement so far? You are proud aren't you?

Hobo liked Clegg but not the whimpish politics he has to stand on he should say what would replace trident to defend us.

[Athers]

Hobo liked Clegg but not the whimpish politics he has to stand on he should say what would replace trident to defend us.

Contribute to some sort of NATO fund I'm guessing, maybe pay USA a little rent or something, who knows.


You guys have said most of the things I took from it. DC strikes me as trying to be all Obama on us and doing it rather badly. It's almost like he wants to say 'It's our time'. I didn't like the whole 'Joe the Plumber' in the US debates and I didn't care for it tonight either.

Clegg was going to benefit from this, although I did chuckle when he brought out the 4,000 pages from Whitehall statistic with great glee, having already been beaten to it a minute earlier.

[thebish]

Hobo liked Clegg but not the whimpish politics he has to stand on he should say what would replace trident to defend us.

remind me exactly how Trident IS defending us?

[Worthy4England]

Hobo liked Clegg but not the whimpish politics he has to stand on he should say what would replace trident to defend us.

remind me exactly how Trident IS defending us?

We haven't been invaded since we had it?

[Hoboh]

Hobo liked Clegg but not the whimpish politics he has to stand on he should say what would replace trident to defend us.

remind me exactly how Trident IS defending us?

If you came to do me harm with a knife and I had an Uzi, you'd look else where for a target!

[Worthy4England]

Clegg won hands down. He did try and talk policies and the cost of them (even though I don't agree with some of them).

Cameron came across as way more personable than Brown, but the anecdotes and ducking on substantive responses didn't do him any favours. Don't think he did as well as he would have wanted.

Brown was not good - but marginally better than I thought he might have been.

Either way, none of them told me anything to make me think any differently