Joensuu

Cameron isn't a Blairite, but Blair is a Tory. I just wish we could have a REAL choice rather than just the blue Tories vs the red Tories.

Calm down! Blimey did you get out of the wrong side of bed? People to the right of centre often perceive the Indie (and the Beeb for that matter) to be left wing. They are wrong, both media sources attempt to be as neutrally centralist as they can, and only appear to be left of centre in comparision to the where people perceive the centre ground to lie. Just because Blair moved his party so far to the right, doesn't mean he took the centre ground with him. From my own personal perspective the Indie and the Beeb are both far too right wing and authoritarian, just as from your perspective (probably) you see them both as left wing and liberal. In reality they hold the centre ground (and only look left wing in comparision to the majority of the media who are all pandering the the extreme right (Mail, Express, Telegraph, Times, Sun, Sky, ITV etc).

Perhaps they know something we don't. Or perhaps they sense the way the majority of their readership will vote, and want to keep their sales figures high? Gosh, a company acting in their own best interests, whatever next? (Now why was it that the Sun switched alligences again?) Strange how little we have heard from future Baronet Osborne this election campaign. According to the Tories own site he has only made 2 speeches in the past month (does he not realise there is a campaign going on, or is he being kept at arms length from the public?)http://www.conservatives.com/News/SpeechList.aspx?SearchType=NewsAuthor&SearchTerm=e13c8b46-fe2e-47fb-8efd-ff04f9d95f2e

I find myself in wholehearted agreement with your posts, but I don't share your solution. We are in an awful mess, and the decisions of the next parliament will be critical. However the idea of George Osborne having his hand on the treasury tiller fills me with dread. Either one of Grandpa Vince or the android with eyebrows would give me more confidence than George Gideon "Run on the Pound" Deripaska House Flipper Oliver Osborne.

Whenever Dave appears I can't help but stare at his ultra shiny chin with its strangly pubescent stubble. The picture is completed by his lack of tie knotting knowledge, Rupert's rosy cheeks, and the way he so desperately clones himself upon Clegg and Blair. I think Charlie Brooker sums up his strange tendancies, and complete lack of substance perfectly: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/apr/02/comment.conservatives http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/03/charlie-brooker-cameron-brown-clegg

Wes, Scotland, Wales and NI can leave if they want to, but I wouldn't set your hopes up for endless Conservative rule. Quite simply people get annoyed with governments, and every few years have had enough of the current bunch of trough feeders and want to give the other party a fair crack at feathering their nests. Removing Scottish votes would obviously have an impact upon the balance of power in Westminster. With at least 60% of English voters not wanting a Conservative government, the clamour for a fairer voting system would become deafening. NB, it's worth remembering that in 1997 Labour would have won without the support of Scotland, Wales or NI. Your dream of an endless Tory winter wouldn't last for long.

Interestingly recent polls put the Tories as being 9 short of having a majority, while the DUP are predicted to get 9 or perhaps 10 seats. We could wake up to find the Tories have a majority of 1 on Friday morning. As a liberal that would be almost the perfect outcome. The Tories would have a weak government, with the press constantly stirring up divisions with rumours of MPs crossing the floor. There would be plenty of rebels in the votes. The Labour party would be in disarray, but the Liberals would have polled their best result in 85 years, and would be taken as a serious contender (none of this wasted vote nonsense). In addition the Lib Dems won't be tarnished by any of the inevitable cuts the next government will put in place, while the Tories will be very lucky not to become hated for another generation. I feel dirty for thinking it, but I genuinely am looking forward to the Tories getting a tiny majority.

Wes, check out the meaning of the word 'conserve'.

Wrong on both counts TDD. Before the Imperial Falklands Adventure, Maggie was very unpopular and lightly to have been ousted by her own party to prevent her stumbling to an election defeat. All the pomp and circumstance of the Falklands fired up the white van drivers and blue blooded Etonians, and caused her popularity to soar. On your second point, 1.2 million voters deserted Labour in 2005 (of these, 1 million swung to the Lib Dems while c. 200k switched to the Tories). Now there are many reasons why over a million people decided to switch, but a I find it hard to accept that Iraq wasn't high on the list.

Dune, I understand Cameron's idea, I just don't really get why they called it 'big'. What they really mean is 'improve', or 'energise'. Dave seems to want to create a society which is modelled on the activities of the Women's Institute or something. I bet if you stopped 10 people in the street and asked them what 'big society' means you might get 1 person who knows, and nine confused faces or incorrect guesses. My point is, that irrespective of the aim of the policy, the name just simply doesn't convey the meaning. BTW, I don't oppose the policy, it just sounds a bit twee and quaint. It will, no doubt, be all the rage in Tumbridge Wells and Marlbrough, but it's unlikely to get too much interest in Lordshill or Tower Hamlets.

Sorry, but what has 'big' got to do with flowers? What is a 'big society'? I can only assume that it means a society with more members. Are the Tories asking us to have more kids? Or are they wanting to reduce border controls?

Could someone explain to me what 'Big Society' actually means? Surely a soundbite should be named in a self-explanatory way? Bet that only a minority have heard of the 'Big Society', and only a minority of those have any idea what its about. Certainly not a vote winner.

Agreem, that Maycomb chap is always spamming nonsense... but what happend to the other Atticus character who posted on here a few years back, he used to make some good points didn't he (or am I confused?) This fella: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/member.php?u=6172

Having seen inside plenty of government departments I know there is plenty of fat which should be trimmed. One central government department I have contracted in is filled with wastage: it has far too many low grade staff who are paid minimum wage and by and large achieve very little. I guess the government employs them to keep the unemployed numbers down, and hey if they achieve anything it's a bonus right? the department six months ago signed a new 5 year contract with its main IT supplier for 1/2 a billion. I would estimate that if they had the skills in house it would cost at most £30M pa to run the network. the department even has one employee who has a medical sleeping disorder, with a doctors note allowing him to sleep at his desk. He doesn't need to make up for the time asleep, and seems to spend 3-4 hours a day snoring at his desk. I was brought in to identify under utilised computers. The department were being charged per desktop, and only realised they might have a problem when someone pointed out that they were being invoiced for 10,000 more PCs than they had staff. My project easily recouped over £4 million of savings. Having worked in various central and local government departments, it is fairly obvious that some are far more efficient than others. But it is equally obvious that there are massive inefficiencies. Problem is, sacking large numbers of employees might make certain departments work better, but would society be able to cope with even greater unemployment? Is it worse to have large benefit queues with people taking home £12,000 pa in 'housing' and 'child' or to have those same people inefficently paid £14,000 pa to push a bit of paper about and sharpen pencils?

Front Page is no longer supported, but SharePoint Designer is based on Front Page, and does everything it ever could (but now has a real purpose AKA building & managing SharePoint masterpages and page layouts... ) But if you pretend it's still Front Page and ignore the SharePoint bits (Workflow etc) it will do pretty much everything Front Page used to... Oh and it's free to download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BAA3AD86-BFC1-4BD4-9812-D9E710D44F42&displaylang=en

Google is your friend. It has far more information than any course or textbook. If you want to get into web design you need to have a good grip of HTML and CSS. If you don't have this knowledge already, find basic online guides to step you through the learning curve. As a web designer (as opposed to web developer) you will also need to have a good understanding of a image editor (ideally Photoshop), and of course a good eye for design... which is difficult to learn. If you want to be more hands on then even web designers can benefit a lot from learning how to make a page more dynamic, yes you can leave it to the developers, but if you are giving prototypes or even trying to explain your design to developers it would be a good idea to understand some basic scripting, and at least have a theoretical grasp of server side code. I'd recommend that after HTML and CSS you turn to Javascript (or if you're up for a challenge jQuery) to give your basic site a little jazz... The way I learn't was to open up notepad (you don't need any fancy software unless you want to play with server side code), build yourself few basic html pages with css styling, and once you're more comfortable throw some basic script (like mouseover etc) into the mix. Google and getting your hands dirty beat any course I've been on.

Traditionally a large amount of the Tory support has come from pensioners. As the more liberal baby boom generation are starting to retire, are we seeing a reduction in the number of people who would actually consider voting blue? Might the core right-wing support literally be dieing? Might this be one of the last elections that the Tories have a hope of being competative in? And this is despite Camerons desperate appeals to the liberals with his green and friendly retoric...

Are you saying that in the vast majority of seats the FPTP system means that there is currently no point in voting?

Liberals are about as far from Socialists as Tories are. Not sure why you assume the Liberals would throw away what they stand for (i.e. being liberal), and suddenly become both more left wing and a heck of a lot more authoritarian (the very thing they oppose most). Of course we will see extreme parties win seats, but thats not the end of the world scenario you seem to be predicting. That will force the BNP to debate the issues rather than punch straw men, and will give the Greens access to a much wider audience for their critical policies.

Spot the mistake! The Lib Dems are no further to the left than Labour is. They are right of centre and actually not far from being a right wing as the Tories. Also, I think you are looking rather short term, if PR is introduced, many new parties both left, right, centre, liberal and authoritarian will start to appear. The old parties will likewise begin to split. The voter will have more options on who they prefer to elect, and not have to accept 'the best of a bad bunch'. Yes there will be a small increase of the number of extreme MPs in the commons, but only in line with the number of extreme voters. You argue as if PR is a left wing thing, it's not, it's just a fairer system for all, irrespective of your political outlook.

Ay, I'm a sucker for the soundbites... Nah, I voted for Paddy, and Kennedy, but then as the Lib Dems drifted to the right I found myself more closely aligned to the Greens. Which of course is a wasted vote under FPTP (outside of Brighton Pavillion). As such my vote would have been wasted, but a protest. Now that Clegg has gained momentum, he has a realistic chance of winning seats. Now I'd rather vote Green, but the Lib Dems are so much better than the two large parties. As such, I can tactically vote Clegg, and hope a Lib Dem in Brighton will tactically vote Green to balance it out.

Best case: stable, decisive government for years, with fair, representative voting system and the end of heriditary advantage. Worse case: government fractures over the inability of the egos involved to work together. PR is incorrectly blamed, and abandoned in favour of outdated and unfair FPTP system.

Voted Green as a protest last time. Switching back to Lib Dem this time (before Clegg stormed out of nowhere was going to stick with my Green protest vote).

I am worried he has said too much, and should have stayed stum. He buckled under the weight of Tory pressure to reveal his hand, and has revealed the only hand he could. Who knows how it will change the polls, it could work tactically to Clegg’s favour, but I fear it might have been a bit too cavalier.

To be fair VFTT's post was sarcastic (you did make a rather daft blunder), but it wasn't insulting. Some of the statements you have made about race and environment are far more inaccurate and insulting IMO.