Lets hope the backbenchers can stand up to them a bit more and really protest against policies that will be **** for us. I agree Epic, Cameron's got to really think now and move forward keeping all the MPs happy and confident or he'll end up never getting anything passed.
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
I am terrified to be honest. I know a a couple that are set to lose £280 per month in carers allowance under the Tory cuts and that's just for starters. They care for their son who has Down Syndrome and needs 24 hour care (he can't do much for himself at all and has no sense of danger). I honestly thought we would get rid of them last night and I am worried about what the next 5 years will bring.
Yep. No more housing benefit for under 25's. They'll also be getting rid of jobseekers allowance for school leavers I think up to the age of 21 and introducing a different type of benefit that I think has compulsory work schemes to do.
There's rumours that they'll be cutting other benefits too.
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
I know I will get accused of living in "cloud cuckoo land" but I think we need to find some way to turn this around and I'm not sure the ballot box is the way. Really don't know what to do apart from try to support people about to get battered.
I think Scotland will push for another referendum in the near future and I can honestly see the majority of people saying yes. God knows what will happen after that.
Well I'm disappointed that the tories won obviously but SNP well and truly kicked ass last night so now lets see what they can do now that they are a sizable presence in Westminster, also the SNP candidate in my area has had to overcome a lot of MH problems of her own so hopefully she will do more to campaign for the rights of people with MH problems.
Also glad to see that prick George Galloway lose his seat too
I hesitate to post again on a thread where many people will be disappointed at the election result today. But personally I am glad at the result, though sorry for other's disappointment. It means that we'll now have a government which will stand some sort of chance of balancing the books, even though that will require many hard choices. We'd all like to see more money spent on the NHS, schools, etc,etc. But everything has to be paid for, and those who are anti-austerity have to ask themselves just how we would cope with a growing debt and more and more interest payments dragging down the money which might otherwise have been spent on the things they would wish for.
I post this with no sense of triumphalism ('cos I had no part whatever in the result, apart from my vote). And I know that many of the decisions that the Tories will now make will upset me. But hopefully we'll now see some movement towards living within our means ... painful though it may be.
Tony (and let me stress, in no way am I trying to rub anyone's nose in anything - the electorate have spoken openly and freely, and obviously totally regardless of my personal views).
PPS. Don't start me on the future of Scotland - it's going to get knickers in a twist, for those who wear them!
Well I'd say BNP are worse than UKIP and the UKIP votes are just protest votes which would have otherwise gone to the BNP so I suppose that's one thing we can be grateful to UKIP for
We all need to pause after a very long and eventful day. I stayed up until about 1.30 am and decided that it was still far too early to yet expect results, so went to bed until 5.30 when results were beginning to appear. The rest has been very highly eventful and, in my view, significant for the UK.
A great majority of the electorate have voted for financial prudence under the Tories. I believe that they're right because without a stable and growing economy people may wish for whatever they want, but they won't get it unless it's affordable. There has to be reality ...
For those on the site who are disappointed, I would say (and I'm in no way connected to the Tory party) do not believe that the Tories are somehow out to screw you. All they'll be trying to do is to reconcile the insatiable demand from the public for more of everything (at someone else's expense) with the limited budget they have to play with. I don't for one moment think that they're trying to target the young or the disadvantaged in their attempts to balance the books ...
Well Northern Ireland politics is like the longest story ever, but essentially the Alliance Party are non-sectarian (neither Catholic nor Protestant) and stand for bringing Northern Ireland together, aiming to reduce segregation (e.g. not having ALL the separate catholic and Protestant schools), and generally trying to stop everyone spending their entire lives arguing about parades and flags. It's really hard for such a party to win in NI because the main sectarian parties are such polar opposites that a vote for Alliance (a smaller party) may well be a vote that could have been used to keep out the party at whichever end of the sectarian spectrum you cannot tolerate. A little bit like wanting to vote green but knowing you need to vote Tory because you want to keep out UKIP (though UKIP are positively angelic compared to how the DUP and Sinn Fein used to be, though they are both much more peaceful now)
So Alliance winning (their only seat) in Belfast East last time was in my opinion fantastic and a sign of real progress. Sadly they lost this time round to the DUP who have mellowed a lot in terms of their extreme unionism, but are still right wing as well as homophobic and just generally not super-nice.
Sorry that's majorly long and not living in Belfast East I don't know the ins and outs, but that's my take on things anyway!
An interesting comment in today's Times leader pointing out that while about two million voters in Scotland secured 56 Commons seats for the SNP, four million secured just one for UKIP. Surely there must be a change to make things fairer - perhaps Proportional Representation (my comment).
And "full fiscal autonomy, the formula suggested by Ms Sturgeon as a first step towards independence, is not realistic either. It would present a fiscally independent Scotland with a budget shortfall of nearly £8 billion as a result of the abolition of the Barnett Formula used to calculate Scotland's share of public spending."
But because you're averaging the SNP's votes out over the whole country when only what, 4 million, were eligible to vote SNP as opposed to most of the country (67 million) eligible to vote UKIP.
PR would lead to a more divisive government that was weaker and less competent.
I am very sorry to see what the next five year will mean.
It doesn't matter where you come from; it matters where you go.
No-one gets remembered for the things they didn't do.
We won't all be here this time next year,
so while you can take a picture of us.
We're definitely going to hell,
but we'll have all the best stories to tell.
A lot of the people I associate with on FB are v upset about the outcome, they're scared about their independence as many of them have disabilities and cuts have already been present and as of yesterday the Tories put a cap to the Access to Work scheme; there's a debate whether this is the right thing to do. People who claim this are disabled under the Equalities Act 2010 and it allows those to go back to work and supplies them with what they need, often with money from the employer. If these things aren't supplied these people either can't work or can't work as effectively. The other aspect is it could worsen their condition without this help leading to them having to drop out of the workforce. Now, the scheme means more people can work and creates more money for the gov't and NHS in terms of tax/NI, with the scheme reduced it means these people will no longer work and they'll not pay tax/NI and claim ESA (and have potential MH problems as a result of not being able to work etc) meaning the gov't lose out through not provided as robust a scheme. I just worry that they've not looked at it from that perspective and just seen 'that's a benefit of sorts' (they assess people and buy them the things they need as well as can pay for support staff and taxis to get to/ from work if needed, they don't give out money) so let's just reduce it. I personally have decided just to think 'whatever happens, happens and we can do something when we know more' rather than people suddenly thinking Tories, that's a reduction in everything and focussing on it, which never does good.
I don't know if Proportional Representation would be better or not. It would have meant another coalition because the Tories would not have a majority. And it would have made UKIP the third biggest party, probably then triggering a Tory/UKIP coalition which is probably worse than what we have now!
Are there any other voting systems?
Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different…
you once called your brain a hard drive, well say hello to the virus.
There is an End Austerity Now demonstration in London on the 20th June on Queen Victoria street if anyone is interested. Just thought I'd post about it.
I don't know if Proportional Representation would be better or not. It would have meant another coalition because the Tories would not have a majority. And it would have made UKIP the third biggest party, probably then triggering a Tory/UKIP coalition which is probably worse than what we have now!
Are there any other voting systems?
I don't know a lot about it at all, but my instinct is that it mightn't be ideal in a country made up of little countries? I think it's perfectly fair that the SNP (or had things been different, whoever the majority of Scottish people choose) have as many seats as they have otherwise Scotland wouldn't be represented fairly.
I cannot understand just how those preaching against austerity think the country's going to run if they were to have their way. We cannot go on piling up yet more debt without incurring yet more interest payments - money that might otherwise be used for the NHS, schools or what have you.
Nicola Sturgeon is still in full cry but I seriously doubt that an independent Scotland would be nearly as economically viable as it is now. And she and Salmond are still making noises about a further referendum - do they want one every week in the hope that the 55% of Scots who voted to stay as part of the UK might suddenly change their minds? They are utterly self-centred and highly disruptive.
Finally, re-reading this thread, I am concerned that there are some here who seem to imagine that the new government is going to single out the young or the disadvantaged for some sort of especially crippling treatment. I don't believe this for a moment. But the government is somehow going to have to balance the books and no doubt some of the measures they'll take will be painful. Can anyone tell me how else we're going to start to even live within our means? Or whether it's really right to say "to hell with austerity, we'll live for now and future generations can pick up the bill"?
