Liberal Democrats surge in polls and send alarm bells ringing for the Conservatives

[-:Undertaker:-]

Liberal Democrats surge into first place in the polls..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1266819/Nick-Clegg-nicks-spot-election-race.html


Nick Clegg’s sparkling performance in the TV debate between the three party leaders has enabled the Liberal Democrats to grab the lead in the Election campaign.

And it has boosted Gordon Brown’s hopes of clinging to power by forming a coalition government with the Lib Dems – in return for a seat at the Cabinet table for Mr Clegg. In one of the most astonishing Election turnarounds for a century, a BPIX poll for The Mail on Sunday shows that support for the Lib Dems has soared to 32 per cent, one point ahead of the Conservatives on 31, with Labour trailing third at 28. The result of the poll – the most authoritative conducted since the televised debate – represents an unprecedented 30 per cent rise in the Lib Dems’ ratings in a week.

And it is the first-ever opinion survey that has shown the Liberal Democrats, or their predecessors the Liberals, in first place. The short-lived SDP-Lib Dem Alliance was briefly ahead in the Eighties. But you have to go back to 1906, before opinion polls or television existed, for the last time the Liberals had the most popular support. They won a landslide Election under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and polled nearly 50 per cent of all votes. Polling experts say it is possible the Liberal Democrat lead is a blip that could fade before the Election.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gig4Sa_Dmx0


Alarm bells for the Conservatives as poll slips..



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7599620/General-Election-2010-David-Cameron-to-go-on-attack-over-single-currency.html


http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01618/cameron_1618236c.jpg



The Conservative leader’s focus on Europe will please Right-wing Conservatives, but may lead to accusations that he is moving towards a “core-vote” strategy. It may also turn attention to his decision to abandon a promise to hold a referendum on the EU’s Lisbon Treaty. Labour and the Liberal Democrat's backed the Lisbon Treaty. The Lib Dems also remain in favour of Britain joining the euro. Speaking on his battle-bus, Mr Cameron said: “I think we can take on the other leaders because when it comes to Europe there’s a cosy Lib-Lab consensus saying: 'Let’s say yes to everything that comes out of Brussels.’?”

He added: “We do not want to join the euro. We want to keep the pound as our currency. What the British people want is Britain in Europe but not run by Europe. They do not want a state called Europe." Next week’s televised leadership debate will focus on foreign affairs, and Mr Cameron is likely to try to capitalise on the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s strong support for European integration. Mr Clegg is a former MEP and also worked for the European Commission.Well this is amazing that the Liberal Democrats are now coming first in the polls, the ironic thing is that with this FPTP voting system we have if an election were repeated with these results we would have Labour retaining most seats (despite being third) and the Liberal Democrats having the least seats of the major parties. The issue is though, can Clegg keep this up? - I think though that Cameron has now for sure lost the election no matter what happens now because even before the debate he needed a 6% swing across all marginals and needed to take around half of the Liberal Democrat seats to gain a small majority - that is not going to happen now.

As a conservative myself in my beliefs and so forth, its now ironic almost cyncial that David Cameron and the Conservatives are now crawling back to the Europe issue in an attempt to win back core support they have lost to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). I'd just advise anybody; dont be fooled because it was Cameron who went back on his promise to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty as well as Clegg and Brown. In the words of Nigel Farage on Question Time the other night just after the debate;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STxJigCBoBk


Thoughts - do you think the election can still be salvaged by the Conservatives?

[Fez]

We have no idea. The last two weeks of campaigning are important in any election, and I think the last week will be the most exciting week to be politically active.

[jam666]

Quite frankly, the alarm bells can ring all they want but the fact is that the liberals need to gain over 265 seats to have a majority of 1 which is NOT going to happen. The election of course can be salvaged, infact id say the conservatives are doing absolutely fine. In my view the opinion polls can say what they want but the fact of the matter is that the public will decide on may 6th and not a survey of 1000 people whos answers cannot be a collective view of the countrys voting incentives.

However, Mr Cameron does need to step up slightly in the next two leaders debate and act exactly how he acts in PMQ's.

[alexxxxx]

I think the polls2 will go down after the next debate when clegg is put under more pressure.

[Smits]

I know theres been a big rise in support for the lib dems around here, even though they were pretty well supported anyway, i see more and more lib dem posters and signs in windows.

[Sameer!]

Lib Dems done better as expecte but Labour done much worse then I expected. David Cameron done preety good and I fully agree with Jam.

[MattFr]

Pretty dangerous stuff this. Lib Dems would destroy this country. Bye bye electricity.

[MrPinkPanther]

It truly is an amazing feat, in the space of a weak we have seen a huge Liberal surge. I thought Nick would do the best in the TV debates but wow, I never expected it to make this much of a difference and I doubt even the most hard core of Liberals did. I've noticed this change on a daily basis, when canvassing I've found people a lot more willing to listen to our views and we get less and less people saying "Ah but they won't win".

What I feel needs to happen on this forum and others is "small parties" need to unite. Liberal Democrats and UKIP need to work together to oust Labour and Conservatives, it is only together that we can enforce real change in the form of PR. These opportunities don't come often so please, on May 6th if your party has no hope of winning the constituency then vote Liberal Democrat and we can get rid of this two party system forever!

[jam666]

It truly is an amazing feat, in the space of a weak we have seen a huge Liberal surge. I thought Nick would do the best in the TV debates but wow, I never expected it to make this much of a difference and I doubt even the most hard core of Liberals did. I've noticed this change on a daily basis, when canvassing I've found people a lot more willing to listen to our views and we get less and less people saying "Ah but they won't win".

What I feel needs to happen on this forum and others is "small parties" need to unite. Liberal Democrats and UKIP need to work together to oust Labour and Conservatives, it is only together that we can enforce real change in the form of PR. These opportunities don't come often so please, on May 6th if your party has no hope of winning the constituency then vote Liberal Democrat and we can get rid of this two party system forever!

Are you entirely barking mad?. There is NOT A CHANCE that you will even become the opposition as you need over 265 seats to have a majority of 1. Im telling you now, UKIP or whoever else will not unite with you liberals as you are the complete opposit of what partys like UKIP want to achieve so no it wont happen. The two party system exists as they actually have feesable manifestos so that they can RUN the country and not DESTROY the country like your party would if you ever got into power (which will never happen).

[MrPinkPanther]

Are you entirely barking mad?. There is NOT A CHANCE that you will even become the opposition as you need over 265 seats to have a majority of 1.
Breakthroughs like this have happened in a number of other countries. Liberal Democrats currently have around 30% of the vote. If they continue to grow then they will become the largest party in the house (I never said they would have a majority although it is possible).


Im telling you now, UKIP or whoever else will not unite with you liberals as you are the complete opposit of what partys like UKIP want to achieve so no it wont happen.
Just because UKIP and Liberal Democrats have opposing views on Europe it doesn't mean they are complete opposites. They are both libertarian parties. Anyway, I didn't say they should "unite", all I said is they should put aside their differences and in areas where the party (UKIP in this example) has no chance of winning they should vote Liberal Democrat. Its a means to an end. In the next election they could then vote UKIP and help make large gains but under FPTP it's impossible.


The two party system exists as they actually have feesable manifestos so that they can RUN the country and not DESTROY the country like your party would if you ever got into power (which will never happen).
Hang on. Wait a second. Firstly you are saying the Conservatives manifesto is feesable and then you are saying all other parties ones aren't?!? Boy are you naive!

[Catzsy]

Are you entirely barking mad?. There is NOT A CHANCE that you will even become the opposition as you need over 265 seats to have a majority of 1. Im telling you now, UKIP or whoever else will not unite with you liberals as you are the complete opposit of what partys like UKIP want to achieve so no it wont happen. The two party system exists as they actually have feesable manifestos so that they can RUN the country and not DESTROY the country like your party would if you ever got into power (which will never happen).

Well I can't see the need to join with UKIP tbh - they won't have enough seats but there is no doubt at the moment that Nick Clegg is very popular with the voters. We will have to see how he does on Europe this week. I can forsee a LIb/Lab coalition though.

[MrPinkPanther]

Well I can't see the need to join with UKIP tbh - they won't have enough seats but there is no doubt at the moment that Nick Clegg is very popular with the voters. We will have to see how he does on Europe this week. I can forsee a LIb/Lab coalition though.
I'm not talking about a coalition or any sort of alliance so seats don't come into it. All I am saying is in most areas of the country UKIP won't have a chance of winning a seat whereas the Liberal Democrats do, in which case it would be in their best interests to vote for the Liberals in order to oust Labour and the Conservatives to get Proportional Representation in place.

[jam666]

I'm not talking about a coalition or any sort of alliance so seats don't come into it. All I am saying is in most areas of the country UKIP won't have a chance of winning a seat whereas the Liberal Democrats do, in which case it would be in their best interests to vote for the Liberals in order to oust Labour and the Conservatives to get Proportional Representation in place.

Your very mistaken. Why on earth would UKIP voters who oppose the EU and want to keep the pound sterling as our currency vote for a party that wants to hand over all of our powers to europe and sign up to the euro? The answer is they wont!. If anything UKIP has more in common with the Conservatives as a large proportion of UKIP members are former Conservatives members.

[MrPinkPanther]

Your very mistaken. Why on earth would UKIP voters who oppose the EU and want to keep the pound sterling as our currency vote for a party that wants to hand over all of our powers to europe and sign up to the euro? The answer is they wont!. If anything UKIP has more in common with the Conservatives as a large proportion of UKIP members are former Conservatives members.
As I have said. I'm not saying they would vote Liberal Democrat because they agree with general policy but they would vote for them because they want PR which would lead to massive gains for UKIP in the future. As I've also said it's a "means to an end".

[MattFr]

I don't think anyone planning on banning nuclear power stations can be trusted to run a country.

[Jordy]

It's interesting FlyDuo how you never talk about Lib Dem policy, just about the party? You go on about how great they are but there's hundreds of posts in threads throughout this section which have gone unanswered when we're referring to Lib Dems?

Don't tell me your as confused as Nick Clegg about Lib Dem policies? :P

[MrPinkPanther]

It's interesting FlyDuo how you never talk about Lib Dem policy, just about the party? You go on about how great they are but there's hundreds of posts in threads throughout this section which have gone unanswered when we're referring to Lib Dems?

Don't tell me your as confused as Nick Clegg about Lib Dem policies? :P
Feel free to ask me any short questions here. The problem is things often get rather long winded and I genuinely don't feel that I have time to answer them.

[MattFr]

Feel free to ask me any short questions here. The problem is things often get rather long winded and I genuinely don't feel that I have time to answer them.

How do the Lib Dems plan to power the country when fossil fuels run out?

[Jordy]

What's wrong with nuclear power?

[lazerman]

What's wrong with nuclear power?

Where do you store used nuclear rods?

That the problem.

[MattFr]

Where do you store used nuclear rods?

That the problem.
Vitrification to stabilize it, then long term, secure storage. I'm pretty sure this will be a pretty small concern when we run out of power though.

[lazerman]

At this moment on, its takes thousands of years for nuclear waste to decay.

Nuclear may be the way forward, but we will reach a point where we cannot store many more nuclear waste.

There are other things such as windmill farms ect.

[MrPinkPanther]

As Lazerman has highlighted it produces radioactive waste that is radioactive for long periods of time and if released into the environment could prove catastrophic. The Liberal Democrats are not ruling out Nuclear Power for ever but at the moment it simply isn't safe enough and whilst there are "Greener" alternatives we should take them.

[MattFr]

At this moment on, its takes thousands of years for nuclear waste to decay.

Nuclear may be the way forward, but we will reach a point where we cannot store many more nuclear waste.

There are other things such as windmill farms ect.
Windfarms, brilliant. Good luck powering the nation on them.


As Lazerman has highlighted it produces radioactive waste that is radioactive for long periods of time and if released into the environment could prove catastrophic. The Liberal Democrats are not ruling out Nuclear Power for ever but at the moment it simply isn't safe enough and whilst there are "Greener" alternatives we should take them.

This is why voting Lib Dem is dangerous. Nuclear Power stations need to be build now, not in the future.

[Hitman]

Doesn't the UK also have power plants that turn nuclear waste into energy? One of my teachers was talking about it a while ago...

You will still end up with waste but you do with fossil fuels... eventually we won't have any electricity. Waste is better than having no electricity! Wind turbines are expensive and may not always work.

If the Lib Dems would keep Trident and nuclear energy then they would appeal to many more people. Those are big issues. I do not want to live somewhere that has no nuclear weapon to use as a deterrent... we'd be a sitting duck.

[lazerman]

We can actually,

where does it say wind power cannot power the nation

Sitting duck?

Dude, if we cancelled our nuclear war programme, and japan just deicded to attack us, we have the back up of the whole NATO countries or w.e with nuclear missiles as well as fricking USA.

Country bomb UK = world war 3.

[MattFr]

We can actually,

where does it say wind power cannot power the nation

Sitting duck?

Dude, if we cancelled our nuclear war programme, and japan just deicded to attack us, we have the back up of the whole NATO countries or w.e with nuclear missiles as well as fricking USA.

Country bomb UK = world war 3.

gas – 39.93% (0.05% in 1990)
coal – 33.08% (67.22% in 1990)
nuclear – 19.26% (18.97% in 1990)
renewables – 3.55% (0% in 1990)
hydroelectric – 1.10% (2.55% in 1990)
imports – 1.96% (3.85% in 1990)
oil – 1.12% (6.82% in 1990)

There are about 3,000 Turbines in the UK at the moment. When gas, coal, oil and imports dry up, we need a way to generate the 76% of the UK's energy demand that was serviced by fossil fuels. I can't see renewable sources meeting that target without the use of nuclear, can you?

[Hitman]

We can actually,

where does it say wind power cannot power the nation

Sitting duck?

Dude, if we cancelled our nuclear war programme, and japan just deicded to attack us, we have the back up of the whole NATO countries or w.e with nuclear missiles as well as fricking USA.

Country bomb UK = world war 3.
You'd need a LOT of wind farms, it'd cost quite a lot and would have a low ROI... it takes loads of years to get the turbine to pay for itself.

If a nuke is dropped on the UK we're all dead. The UK is small, a couple of nukes and we'd be all dead. With a nuclear deterrent the country attacking would think twice before launching an attack. It also gives us more weight in negotiations (with Iran, etc.) because we'd have the power and ability to destroy them so they'd listen.

I would love to see a nuclear (bomb) free world but it won't happen.

[MrPinkPanther]

I'd like to point out how "Scrapping Trident" does not equal "Scrapping Nuclear weapons" contrary to popular belief. The Liberal Democrats advocate a cheaper alternative to Trident whereby the UK would have less Nuclear submarines, as I've said £100,000,000,000 is a hell of a lot of money, its needed elsewhere.

As for Nuclear power I'm sorry but "There is no alternative" is not an argument. Considering a typical Nuclear Reactor will produce 20-30 Tons of radioactive material a year that remains fatal until it decays with no known way to dispose of it, I think we need to rule out Nuclear power here and now. Did you know that during the year 2000 alone enough plutonium was created to build over 34,000 Nuclear weapons?

Tomorrows YouGov poll:
Lib Dem: 33; Con: 32; Lab: 26.

[MattFr]

I'd like to point out how "Scrapping Trident" does not equal "Scrapping Nuclear weapons" contrary to popular belief. The Liberal Democrats advocate a cheaper alternative to Trident whereby the UK would have less Nuclear submarines, as I've said £100,000,000,000 is a hell of a lot of money, its needed elsewhere.

As for Nuclear power I'm sorry but "There is no alternative" is not an argument. Considering a typical Nuclear Reactor will produce 20-30 Tons of radioactive material a year that remains fatal until it decays with no known way to dispose of it, I think we need to rule out Nuclear power here and now. Did you know that during the year 2000 alone enough plutonium was created to build over 34,000 Nuclear weapons?

Tomorrows YouGov poll:
Lib Dem: 33; Con: 32; Lab: 26.
Read my above post. "There is no alternative" is a pretty good argument going off that data.

[MrPinkPanther]

Read my above post. "There is no alternative" is a pretty good argument going off that data.
I personally believe safety should be prioritised over everything.

I really want to keep this as brief as possible but alas here we go, heres my steps to success in line with LD policy:


Firstly you need to offer people "Green loans" to help make their homes as efficient as possible which they would then be able to pay back over extended periods of time by the savings that they make. This is a sensible idea, rather than promising "free money" to make green homes (Which lets me honest is never going to happen) they set a reachable policy by offering loans which of course they will get the money back on.

Secondly you need to set a efficiency target for all new homes. Again this is reachable and I believe Labour are setting a similar goal.

Thirdly invest in wave, wind and solar power and offer the public a chance to help own part of that. Schemes such as this have been extremely popular on a small scale in villages where every person pays a small amount towards a wind turbine and then makes part of the money off of it. You're giving people back control over their power.


What the Liberal Democrats want to do is use all of the disused shipyards to start building brand new wind farms. Currently they are built in Germany which is plain stupid when we have both the facilities and the workforce. To me this sounds like a good work scheme that will get people jobs and help move Britain towards a brighter, cleaner future!

[-:Undertaker:-]

You'd need a LOT of wind farms, it'd cost quite a lot and would have a low ROI... it takes loads of years to get the turbine to pay for itself.

If a nuke is dropped on the UK we're all dead. The UK is small, a couple of nukes and we'd be all dead. With a nuclear deterrent the country attacking would think twice before launching an attack. It also gives us more weight in negotiations (with Iran, etc.) because we'd have the power and ability to destroy them so they'd listen.

I would love to see a nuclear (bomb) free world but it won't happen.

Actually I shall add to that, wind farms dont actually pay themselves back and require subsidies. Infact our energy bills are so high because the government and the European Union force energy companies into subsidising these schemes (as well as using taxpayers money to subsidise them) in which the companies which make the wind turbines (many have links with EU and government officals) essentially are being paid by the taxpayer and the billpayer for something which is ineffective and requires an enormous amount of money and effort to power/keep running.


I'd like to point out how "Scrapping Trident" does not equal "Scrapping Nuclear weapons" contrary to popular belief. The Liberal Democrats advocate a cheaper alternative to Trident whereby the UK would have less Nuclear submarines, as I've said £100,000,000,000 is a hell of a lot of money, its needed elsewhere.

As for Nuclear power I'm sorry but "There is no alternative" is not an argument. Considering a typical Nuclear Reactor will produce 20-30 Tons of radioactive material a year that remains fatal until it decays with no known way to dispose of it, I think we need to rule out Nuclear power here and now. Did you know that during the year 2000 alone enough plutonium was created to build over 34,000 Nuclear weapons?

Tomorrows YouGov poll:
Lib Dem: 33; Con: 32; Lab: 26.

Trident does not cost £100 billion, projected costs by the government are at the £20 billion to £30 billion mark. The Liberal Democrats have not said 'lets have less nuclear submarines' to my knowledge, they have said 'lets abolish the independent nuclear deterrent of the United Kingdom' which whether you like it or not, is the core of our defence as a nation. There is a way to dispose of spent nuclear rods and material and its underground; India, China, Japan, the United States and many other countries double or more the size of our population deal with nuclear waste perfectly fine so why is it such a big deal for the United Kingdom?

These rods pose no risk to health as they are stored away from the population, infact natural background radiation in Cornwall poses more of a risk than rods which are nowhere near the population and are thousands of feet underground/in concrete bunkers. You and the Liberal Democrats have fallen for the total scaremongering of the green lobby which means that when our energy crisis hits (which it will unless we build nuclear power plants now) we will be stuck with expensive bills powering the wind turbines, as well as being held hostage by the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia to meet our energy needs which cannot and will not be filled by renewables.


I personally believe safety should be prioritised over everything.

I really want to keep this as brief as possible but alas here we go, heres my steps to success in line with LD policy:



Firstly you need to offer people "Green loans" to help make their homes as efficient as possible which they would then be able to pay back over extended periods of time by the savings that they make. This is a sensible idea, rather than promising "free money" to make green homes (Which lets me honest is never going to happen) they set a reachable policy by offering loans which of course they will get the money back on.
Secondly you need to set a efficiency target for all new homes. Again this is reachable and I believe Labour are setting a similar goal.
Thirdly invest in wave, wind and solar power and offer the public a chance to help own part of that. Schemes such as this have been extremely popular on a small scale in villages where every person pays a small amount towards a wind turbine and then makes part of the money off of it. You're giving people back control over their power.


What the Liberal Democrats want to do is use all of the disused shipyards to start building brand new wind farms. Currently they are built in Germany which is plain stupid when we have both the facilities and the workforce. To me this sounds like a good work scheme that will get people jobs and help move Britain towards a brighter, cleaner future!

The first point shows that when you say a 'green loan' you basically mean 'a grant which is funded by the already over-taxed taxpayer' which means you will cripple the economy building these useless wind turbines. If they prove so great and effective, why do you honestly not think we have no converted to them yet? - because they are ineffective and add an estimated 1/4 to the bills of the taxpayer.

On the second part which I have highlighted, i'm sorry but when will you (the left) understand this? - we are skint. We have no money as a nation and its abhorent that you ask people to pay more and more to fund the waste in this country. No doubt to fund something like this you would have to use force (as per usual) to make people pay for these schemes which do not work and create a drain on the economy. The same old story time and time again.

To add finally to UKIP voters swinging to Liberal Democrats, there would be no Britain left after 5 years of a Liberal 'Democrat' government because it would be all signed away to the European Union. We want proportional representation and as far as I understand it, you haven't fully committed yourselves to that anyway. The UKIP vote already splits the Conservative vote and cost the Conservatives 20 to 30 seats back in 2005 so we are having an effect (and bear in mind that was with a pathetic 2.2% of the vote, this year its expected to be at 5% to 8%).

[MattFr]

Actually I shall add to that, wind farms dont actually pay themselves back and require subsidies. Infact our energy bills are so high because the government and the European Union force energy companies into subsidising these schemes (as well as using taxpayers money to subsidise them) in which the companies which make the wind turbines (many have links with EU and government officals) essentially are being paid by the taxpayer and the billpayer for something which is ineffective and requires an enormous amount of money and effort to power/keep running.



Trident does not cost £100 billion, projected costs by the government are at the £20 billion to £30 billion mark. The Liberal Democrats have not said 'lets have less nuclear submarines' to my knowledge, they have said 'lets abolish the independent nuclear deterrent of the United Kingdom' which whether you like it or not, is the core of our defence as a nation. There is a way to dispose of spent nuclear rods and material and its underground; India, China, Japan, the United States and many other countries double or more the size of our population deal with nuclear waste perfectly fine so why is it such a big deal for the United Kingdom?

These rods pose no risk to health as they are stored away from the population, infact natural background radiation in Cornwall poses more of a risk than rods which are nowhere near the population and are thousands of feet underground/in concrete bunkers. You and the Liberal Democrats have fallen for the total scaremongering of the green lobby which means that when our energy crisis hits (which it will unless we build nuclear power plants now) we will be stuck with expensive bills powering the wind turbines, as well as being held hostage by the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia to meet our energy needs which cannot and will not be filled by renewables.



The first point shows that when you say a 'green loan' you basically mean 'a grant which is funded by the already over-taxed taxpayer' which means you will cripple the economy building these useless wind turbines. If they prove so great and effective, why do you honestly not think we have no converted to them yet? - because they are ineffective and add an estimated 1/4 to the bills of the taxpayer.

On the second part which I have highlighted, i'm sorry but when will you (the left) understand this? - we are skint. We have no money as a nation and its abhorent that you ask people to pay more and more to fund the waste in this country. No doubt to fund something like this you would have to use force (as per usual) to make people pay for these schemes which do not work and create a drain on the economy. The same old story time and time again.

To add finally to UKIP voters swinging to Liberal Democrats, there would be no Britain left after 5 years of a Liberal 'Democrat' government because it would be all signed away to the European Union. We want proportional representation and as far as I understand it, you haven't fully committed yourselves to that anyway. The UKIP vote already splits the Conservative vote and cost the Conservatives 20 to 30 seats back in 2005 so we are having an effect (and bear in mind that was with a pathetic 2.2% of the vote, this year its expected to be at 5% to 8%).

FlyDuo won't reply to this, haha.

Edited by Catzsy (Forum Super Moderator): Please do not make posts that do not contribute positively to the thread and are therefore considered pointless.

[MrPinkPanther]

FlyDuo won't reply to this, haha.

Edited by Catzsy (Forum Super Moderator): Please do not make posts that do not contribute positively to the thread and are therefore considered pointless.
Summarise it in a short paragraph and I will be more than happy to reply. As I keep saying, I don't have time to read long replies or to come up with long answers.

[Inseriousity.]

I saw a recent Lib Dem local leaflet campaign. It was going quite well actually and then it said:

work on fairer pay
work on fairer education

and MOST IMPORTANTLY, protect the environment!

sorry but the list of priorities is wrong there! Maybe it's just the local Lib Dem and I'm sure FlyDuo can shed some light on Lib Dem's priorities. Is the environment a higher priority than fairer pay and education as that is what the leaflet implied.

[MrPinkPanther]

I saw a recent Lib Dem local leaflet campaign. It was going quite well actually and then it said:

work on fairer pay
work on fairer education

and MOST IMPORTANTLY, protect the environment!


sorry but the list of priorities is wrong there! Maybe it's just the local Lib Dem and I'm sure FlyDuo can shed some light on Lib Dem's priorities. Is the environment a higher priority than fairer pay and education as that is what the leaflet implied.

On a national level the priority list is as follows (In order of importance):
1. Fair taxes so essentially fairer pay.
2. Fairer education with smaller class sizes.
3. A greener and more sustainable economy.
4. A fairer politics meaning constitutional reform.

However obviously regionally it varies and on a candidate by candidate basis. I for one know my Local Liberal Democrat candidate is Eurosceptic but broadly agrees with all of the other Liberal Democrat policies.

I hope that helps.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Summarise it in a short paragraph and I will be more than happy to reply. As I keep saying, I don't have time to read long replies or to come up with long answers.

It doesn't require a terribly long answer, you can summarise it yourself in your reply which I eagerly await.

[MrPinkPanther]

It doesn't require a terribly long answer, you can summarise it yourself in your reply which I eagerly await.
As I have said, summarise it in a few questions or lines and I will be more than happy to.

[-:Undertaker:-]

As I have said, summarise it in a few questions or lines and I will be more than happy to.

- Wind Turbines are proven not to work efficently and are uneconomical.
- Nuclear is safe and viable, also the rods pose no threat to health as they are not located near the population.
- Energy bills are higher because of uneconomical 'green schemes' which hit the economy hard.
- Nuclear weapons are the core of our defence policy and cost £20 to 30 billion, not £100 billion as Nick Clegg claims.
- The euro is a disasterous currency and joining it would mean losing our economic and monetary sovereignty.
- Liberal Democrats want the AV system I understand, not the PR system.
- Taxing the richest leads to a brain drain which was proven in the 1970s.

[MrPinkPanther]

Thanks :)


- Wind Turbines are proven not to work efficently and are uneconomical.
I agree they are inefficient however they are "economical" in the sense that they generate more power than they cost. You need to remember that Wind power is just one small area that the Liberal Democrats want in their grand energy plan. For more information visit:
http://www.libdems.org.uk/energy_and_climate_change.aspx


- Nuclear is safe and viable, also the rods pose no threat to health as they are not located near the population.
It's safe as long as they are not located near population, you are correct however where do we put it? I mean dumping it in the sea isn't going to work because it is going to harm its surroundings and you always run the risk of it being rediscovered far into the future. It's not only the waste itself that is the problem because if a Nuclear plant goes wrong, it goes very wrong and as I have said 34,000 Nuclear weapons could be created from the plutonium from one year of Nuclear power production alone.


- Energy bills are higher because of uneconomical 'green schemes' which hit the economy hard.
Energy bills will be higher at first, of course they will be. The green energy structure will prove costly but once it is up and running it is cheap to maintain and more importantly sustainable. It can help to make Britain completely independent so we no longer have to rely on the Middle east for energy.


- Nuclear weapons are the core of our defence policy and cost £20 to 30 billion, not £100 billion as Nick Clegg claims.
Incorrect. Thats what the government are saying however an independent study puts the cost of Trident as high as £130 Billion with the middle estimate being £100 Billion. It is because the governments estimates don't take into account the expansive forces required to support Trident nor the additional instillations that would be required. I mean the two aircraft carriers for Trident alone are likely to cost £5 Billion.


- The euro is a disasterous currency and joining it would mean losing our economic and monetary sovereignty.
A lot of Liberal Democrats are against the Euro and as I have said it isn't current policy. Many of the leading Liberal Democrats have recently said in Public that they don't think the Euro is a good idea.


- Liberal Democrats want the AV system I understand, not the PR system.
The Liberal Democrats propose STV, one of the most proportional electoral systems there is!


- Taxing the richest leads to a brain drain which was proven in the 1970s.
We've been through this. The Winter of discontent was caused by excessive trade union movement and strikes, nothing to do with a "brain drain". Essentially the Unions demanded pay rises above the governments set 5% target which was designed to curb inflation, the government refused and people walked out from work en masse. If you wish me to go into more detail on this point then just ask, I'm quite interested in the Winter of Discontent ^-^.

[MattFr]

It's not only the waste itself that is the problem because if a Nuclear plant goes wrong, it goes very wrong and as I have said 34,000 Nuclear weapons could be created from the plutonium from one year of Nuclear power production alone.
Nuclear has only gone properly wrong when Soviets have done it. I can't remember where I read it, but some study said that proper, modern and developed nuclear power stations are safer than traditional power stations. I'm not sure if you actually have any clue about nuclear waste disposal, but when nuclear waste is turned into glass via vitrification for storage (one method), it becomes stabilize and doesn't react. How do you make weapons from an un-reactable substance?

[alexxxxx]

in my opinion there's nothing wrong with nuclear power, nor even with its disposal, i just think it needs to be incredibly safe whilst in process and the disposal centres MUST be well maintained, plus the cost of building them and decommissioning them is incredibly high.

[MrPinkPanther]

Nuclear has only gone properly wrong when Soviets have done it. I can't remember where I read it, but some study said that proper, modern and developed nuclear power stations are safer than traditional power stations.
Possibly, I'll have to take a look. However as I have said if it goes wrong it goes terribly wrong. Chernobyl cost the Soviet Union over treble what it gained from Nuclear production at every other plant in the USSR and caused Cancer in thousands of people.


I'm not sure if you actually have any clue about nuclear waste disposal, but when nuclear waste is turned into glass via vitrification for storage (one method), it becomes stabilize and doesn't react. How do you make weapons from an un-reactable substance?
The technology that we use to create Nuclear energy we share with other countries right? Well the process that turns raw uranium into low grade uranium can also be applied to create high grade uranium which is perfect for Nuclear weapons. Further more I read somewhere that just 8KG of plutonium is enough for a Nagasaki size bomb.

[MattFr]

Possibly, I'll have to take a look. However as I have said if it goes wrong it goes terribly wrong. Chernobyl cost the Soviet Union over treble what it gained from Nuclear production at every other plant in the USSR and caused Cancer in thousands of people.

In my opinion, Chernobyl cannot be used as an argument against nuclear power. It's reactor has a positive void coefficient meaning the reactivity, by design, increased as the reactor coolant got hotter (which is obviously going to happen in a reactor). That, along with gross misconduct by the staff, is what caused the accident. All reactors in the west have a negative void coefficient which means the reactivity reduces as voids (typically bubbles) are created in the cooling from heating. This makes them passively safe. Positive void coefficient reactors are illegal in most of the west, and there are extremely tight guidelines on the running of plants meaning Chernobyl isn't going to happen again.

Here's some night time reading for you Ozzie babes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Void_coefficient
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power

[-:Undertaker:-]

I agree they are inefficient however they are "economical" in the sense that they generate more power than they cost. You need to remember that Wind power is just one small area that the Liberal Democrats want in their grand energy plan. For more information visit:
http://www.libdems.org.uk/energy_and_climate_change.aspx

They are not economical because the costs of maintaining them do not make a saving, think of how much it costs to maintain them (you need somebody to go up and check which costs more in the sea because you need ships, safety engineers and so forth). Therefore they do not make a profit and create a loss, hence why our energy bills are soaring because of these pointless and useless schemes.


It's safe as long as they are not located near population, you are correct however where do we put it? I mean dumping it in the sea isn't going to work because it is going to harm its surroundings and you always run the risk of it being rediscovered far into the future. It's not only the waste itself that is the problem because if a Nuclear plant goes wrong, it goes very wrong and as I have said 34,000 Nuclear weapons could be created from the plutonium from one year of Nuclear power production alone.

The waste is buried or simply put into storage, again I shall refer back to background radiation in Cornwall which poses more of a threat than spent radioactive rods. The nuclear issue, i've looked deeply into this in the past and was obsessed with Chernobyl at one point however it must be noted above your scaremongering that Chernobyls powerplant was a Soviet (thus poor) creation and is not comparable to western nuclear power stations.


Energy bills will be higher at first, of course they will be. The green energy structure will prove costly but once it is up and running it is cheap to maintain and more importantly sustainable. It can help to make Britain completely independent so we no longer have to rely on the Middle east for energy.

You cannot supply your energy via windfarms, they require subsidies to run and are not economical and never will be. The amount of land/space needed to put these on, coupled with their short lifespan means they cannot be the future and quite frankly you are kidding yourself otherwise if you think they are the way forward. To add ontop of this yet again, they need turning off when the wind is too fast or too slow which again costs money and means they are totally and utterly unrealiable.


Incorrect. Thats what the government are saying however an independent study puts the cost of Trident as high as £130 Billion with the middle estimate being £100 Billion. It is because the governments estimates don't take into account the expansive forces required to support Trident nor the additional instillations that would be required. I mean the two aircraft carriers for Trident alone are likely to cost £5 Billion.

Them costs will be already accounted for within the military budget then, running costs to be frank. I have no idea what you are talking about here, are you making it up(?) - Trident does not include aircraft carriers as it is all submarine based so maybe that is why the figures Nick Clegg is giving are wrong because hes coupling things together to make the costs seem worse than they are. Besides, I have no problems with paying £20 trillion, £100 trillion or £300 trillion for Trident - that is what we pay our taxes for, upmostly being the defence of the nation.


A lot of Liberal Democrats are against the Euro and as I have said it isn't current policy. Many of the leading Liberal Democrats have recently said in Public that they don't think the Euro is a good idea.

Wow, is that a reason to believe you now despite the fact you backtracked on your promise to try and force a referendum for the Lisbon Treaty yet your leader Nick Clegg made sure it made its way through the Commons unopposed. The Labour Party, Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats can not be trusted on Europe and anybody who believes otherwise is foolish at best.


The Liberal Democrats propose STV, one of the most proportional electoral systems there is!

It is not proportional representation still, not in the best form possible which will still keep the 3-party monopoly.


We've been through this. The Winter of discontent was caused by excessive trade union movement and strikes, nothing to do with a "brain drain". Essentially the Unions demanded pay rises above the governments set 5% target which was designed to curb inflation, the government refused and people walked out from work en masse. If you wish me to go into more detail on this point then just ask, I'm quite interested in the Winter of Discontent ^-^.

We are not talking about the Winter of Discontent, we are talking about the gradual decline which occured under the last hard left-wing government which had similar ideals to the Liberal Democrats. If you tax the rich (aka the successful) then you create a braindrain, some of our most talented and best fled this country during the 1970s because of the higher taxes which means that in the end, you end up with less tax. Lower taxation = more revenue for government and people as proven by the Thatcherite-Reaganomics policy in the 80s in both the UK and US.


Possibly, I'll have to take a look. However as I have said if it goes wrong it goes terribly wrong. Chernobyl cost the Soviet Union over treble what it gained from Nuclear production at every other plant in the USSR and caused Cancer in thousands of people.

That was a Soviet powerplant, not a western powerplant which are very safe. I believe the only issue with a western powerplant was the 3-mile island issue which occured in America, nuclear has advanced amazingly and is the only realistic option left in terms of energy security and viability.


The technology that we use to create Nuclear energy we share with other countries right? Well the process that turns raw uranium into low grade uranium can also be applied to create high grade uranium which is perfect for Nuclear weapons. Further more I read somewhere that just 8KG of plutonium is enough for a Nagasaki size bomb.

And..?

If anything, the United Kingdom should be building secure units in which countries like Japan, Germany and others would be paying us to store their waste for them which i'm sure would generate a lot of money for this country. However we cannot do this, thanks to the hyterical, militant green lobby.

[xxMATTGxx]

Could anyone tell me what other plans they wish to do with the "military", I know they want to scrap the trident but is that it?

[Jordy]

Could anyone tell me what other plans they wish to do with the "military", I know they want to scrap the trident but is that it?Well Nick Clegg's against the Anglo-American relationship and also fails to mention NATO in any Lib Dem documents on defence, so there's clearly an issue there.

They appear incredibly vague when it comes to the military (And every other one of their policies) so it's very risky voting for them. They claim they'll review the armed forces so they're more suitable for today and will not renew trident. That's about it really;
http://www.libdems.org.uk/our_manifesto_your_world.aspx

It really is beginning to worry me how vague the Liberal Democrats are, they could be even worse than they already seem :P

[xxMATTGxx]

Well Nick Clegg's against the Anglo-American relationship and also fails to mention NATO in any Lib Dem documents on defence, so there's clearly an issue there.

They appear incredibly vague when it comes to the military (And every other one of their policies) so it's very risky voting for them. They claim they'll review the armed forces so they're more suitable for today and will not renew trident. That's about it really;
http://www.libdems.org.uk/our_manifesto_your_world.aspx

It really is beginning to worry me how vague the Liberal Democrats are, they could be even worse than they already seem :P

Hate them already.

Trident = Need
Nato = Good

They need to release proper information ;/

[alexxxxx]

I think LibDems will have a real test in the next debate. With little to zero experience with foreign policy and not much being said about defence, apart from not supporting a full-scale trident replacement, they could run into problems. It'll be interesting to see.

[Wig44.]

It's unbelievable how many people are voting for the lib dems and don't know the first thing about their policies. It seems people just want any alternative to labour/conservatives and so blindly vote the lib dems in. I've seen evidence of this on television and from people where I live. How many of the people of this forum have parents in the public sector? They will all have pension cuts and pay freezes. Then there is the problem of 'green' energy, which is costly and inefficient and their scheme to bribe people into using green energy. This will cost a hell of a lot of money, and they have not justified where this money is coming from in their manifesto. There are some other changes (e.g income tax) which they have justified (the money comes from here) but it doesn't add up. So as I see it they are promising things that are way too expensive. Then there is the ridiculous policy 'reducing the number of people with short sentences' to save money - indicating therefore that this isn't more long term sentences but less sentences in total. What? You're going to let more people off to save money or have I misunderstood? The latter I hope.

Lib dems are so pro-EU it is unbelievable. They would have us support the unfair EU 'police'. Europol has the right to arrest you with no evidence and detain you for 6 months, no questions asked. What worries me is the chance that the lib dems may take this further and switch to corpus juris. The EU's system of corpus juris is unfair where you are not innocent until proven guilty and can be arrested before any investigation has taken place and detained for months, unlike in Britain where we have common law & Habeas Corpus. Furthermore, whereas a jury is sovereign in our courts, this is very much not so in EU courts. A career judiciary who are the judges and prosecutors replaces the jury and the defence (a group of lawyers) are treated as inferior. Double jeopardy (charged of the same crime twice after the first trial failed to convict) is sadly commonplace in the EU system - not in Britain though. What disgusts me is the Lib Dems assertion that the Lisbon Treaty was good for Britain. Let me be straight with you Nick, you're either deluded or a liar.

I like the fact the Lib Dems will pay more to the front line soldiers, I don't like how they will 'hold a defence review' to sort out what will happen without trident. I assume they mean after being elected in - why can't they formulate something now - got something to hide?

They also don't seem to realise that asylum sekers should go to the nearest safe country for asylum. They sometimes travel through 45 safe countries to reach Britain because of the welfare state and not tough on immigration mentality of the government. We've taken on so many asylum seekers, it's time the 45 countries who the asylum seekers could choose take them in instead, and time we stopped accepting asylum seekers. We have no room and have done more than our fair share. When turkey joins the EU and 75,000,000+ people are free to emmigrate to the UK the lib dems and their ridiculous immigration policy will turn less population dense parts of the country into the splitting at the seems overcrowded scenario that many areas around the country face. Any jobs that we 'need' immigrant workers for should be filled by jobseekers. we have so many people who are unemployed we should not be importing workers to do jobs.

Before I go on I'd like to see what you have to say on these points.

Edit: I noticed you said that some lib dems oppose joning the euro-zone. Nick Clegg has almost explicitly said that in future we will join the euro (if he had his way) and this worries me because the euro is not a stable currency in my eyes and not only this but it would be very hard to leave once joined. This is because all gold and old currency (£) is sent to the ECB. This can only be a ploy by the EU to stop people backing out because that is all it does - stops people from backing out.

[Misawa]

When it comes down to crunch time, I believe Lib Dems will be far behind in third place.

[Fez]

Lib Dems sez they will have a nuclear deterrent, but not the trident.

Is that possible/does it matter?

[dbgtz]

tbh I think nick clegg just played with words in that tv debate.

[alexxxxx]

It's unbelievable how many people are voting for the lib dems and don't know the first thing about their policies. It seems people just want any alternative to labour/conservatives and so blindly vote the lib dems in. I've seen evidence of this on television and from people where I live. How many of the people of this forum have parents in the public sector? They will all have pension cuts and pay freezes. Then there is the problem of 'green' energy, which is costly and inefficient and their scheme to bribe people into using green energy. This will cost a hell of a lot of money, and they have not justified where this money is coming from in their manifesto. There are some other changes (e.g income tax) which they have justified (the money comes from here) but it doesn't add up. So as I see it they are promising things that are way too expensive. Then there is the ridiculous policy 'reducing the number of people with short sentences' to save money - indicating therefore that this isn't more long term sentences but less sentences in total. What? You're going to let more people off to save money or have I misunderstood? The latter I hope.

Both of my parents work in the public or semi-public sector and i think they accept that they will have to accept freezes in their pay, just like thousands of other workers in the private sector. Sure, there are green subsidies, but what makes you think that Nuclear doesn't get any help? The government spends £1.6bn on helping the nuclear industry get rid of its waste. And de-comissioning of these sites costs many billions more. The LibDems claim they have costed it all, not sure how well.



Lib dems are so pro-EU it is unbelievable. They would have us support the unfair EU 'police'. Europol has the right to arrest you with no evidence and detain you for 6 months, no questions asked. What worries me is the chance that the lib dems may take this further and switch to corpus juris. The EU's system of corpus juris is unfair where you are not innocent until proven guilty and can be arrested before any investigation has taken place and detained for months, unlike in Britain where we have common law & Habeas Corpus. Furthermore, whereas a jury is sovereign in our courts, this is very much not so in EU courts. A career judiciary who are the judges and prosecutors replaces the jury and the defence (a group of lawyers) are treated as inferior. Double jeopardy (charged of the same crime twice after the first trial failed to convict) is sadly commonplace in the EU system - not in Britain though. What disgusts me is the Lib Dems assertion that the Lisbon Treaty was good for Britain. Let me be straight with you Nick, you're either deluded or a liar.

There are definate pros of joining up more formally with the rest of europe's police forces and arrest warrants, but trial by jury should never ever leave the UK like it has done in some jurisdictions. Remember, not every EU state has the same way of doing things. Italy, for example does have trial by jury and so does france afaik.


They also don't seem to realise that asylum sekers should go to the nearest safe country for asylum. They sometimes travel through 45 safe countries to reach Britain because of the welfare state and not tough on immigration mentality of the government. We've taken on so many asylum seekers, it's time the 45 countries who the asylum seekers could choose take them in instead, and time we stopped accepting asylum seekers. We have no room and have done more than our fair share. When turkey joins the EU and 75,000,000+ people are free to emmigrate to the UK the lib dems and their ridiculous immigration policy will turn less population dense parts of the country into the splitting at the seems overcrowded scenario that many areas around the country face. Any jobs that we 'need' immigrant workers for should be filled by jobseekers. we have so many people who are unemployed we should not be importing workers to do jobs.

many asylum seekers who make claim asylum when caught in places like dover only do so because they've been caught illegally immigrating. the french are dreadful and should make sure they remove illegal immigrants, infact i'd like to see the EU bring in stronger border controls. the libdem's immigration policy imo is the best. those outside the EU require a job, a sponser and only allowed to work in certain areas and an illegal immigrant amnesty of those who have lived for 10-15 years and have been working and never commited a crime sounds good - they'll now actually pay tax! I think the main problem with the EU at the moment is the accession of Romania and Bulgaria - countries with more problems and economies so bad it's untrue. i think many people have recognised this mistake. I mean for heaven's sake romania gets charity support! we have so many unemployed UNPRODUCTIVE people. the bit in caps is the issue - we need to make them more productive so we can have a more productive economy. If we want british companies to be competitive - then our businesses need the best workers, foreign or not.

Before I go on I'd like to see what you have to say on these points.


Edit: I noticed you said that some lib dems oppose joning the euro-zone. Nick Clegg has almost explicitly said that in future we will join the euro (if he had his way) and this worries me because the euro is not a stable currency in my eyes and not only this but it would be very hard to leave once joined. This is because all gold and old currency (£) is sent to the ECB. This can only be a ploy by the EU to stop people backing out because that is all it does - stops people from backing out.

the euro appears to be going strength to strength and it definately has some benefits and definately some serious drawbacks. a serious national debate based on truths and proper economics would be required before an informed electorate can take a decision. I'm a bit sceptical about joining the euro because i don't think our economy matches the cycles as tightly as france and germany.

[James9519]

Up the Lib Dems!

[-:Undertaker:-]

Both of my parents work in the public or semi-public sector and i think they accept that they will have to accept freezes in their pay, just like thousands of other workers in the private sector. Sure, there are green subsidies, but what makes you think that Nuclear doesn't get any help? The government spends £1.6bn on helping the nuclear industry get rid of its waste. And de-comissioning of these sites costs many billions more. The LibDems claim they have costed it all, not sure how well.

There are definate pros of joining up more formally with the rest of europe's police forces and arrest warrants, but trial by jury should never ever leave the UK like it has done in some jurisdictions. Remember, not every EU state has the same way of doing things. Italy, for example does have trial by jury and so does france afaik.

I am sorry but who gave the European Union the consent to make one European police force?


many asylum seekers who make claim asylum when caught in places like dover only do so because they've been caught illegally immigrating. the french are dreadful and should make sure they remove illegal immigrants, infact i'd like to see the EU bring in stronger border controls. the libdem's immigration policy imo is the best. those outside the EU require a job, a sponser and only allowed to work in certain areas and an illegal immigrant amnesty of those who have lived for 10-15 years and have been working and never commited a crime sounds good - they'll now actually pay tax! I think the main problem with the EU at the moment is the accession of Romania and Bulgaria - countries with more problems and economies so bad it's untrue. i think many people have recognised this mistake. I mean for heaven's sake romania gets charity support! we have so many unemployed UNPRODUCTIVE people. the bit in caps is the issue - we need to make them more productive so we can have a more productive economy. If we want british companies to be competitive - then our businesses need the best workers, foreign or not.

Or how about this; leave the European Union thus securing control of all our borders?

The Liberal Democrats policy cannot be the best when it comes to people coming into the United Kingdom because it does not have any real control over immigration from the European Union, in other words; its a total and utter sham. While people like yourself who support the European Union do not like to debate this point, it needs debating. We have no control of our borders to the European Union which has led to mass immigration into this country which has driven down wages thus making more British people unemployed and also putting enormous strain on this country and its benefits system.


Before I go on I'd like to see what you have to say on these points.

the euro appears to be going strength to strength and it definately has some benefits and definately some serious drawbacks. a serious national debate based on truths and proper economics would be required before an informed electorate can take a decision. I'm a bit sceptical about joining the euro because i don't think our economy matches the cycles as tightly as france and germany.

What you mean here is 'only allow a debate as long as it conforms to my point of view despite the fact i'm in the minority' and refuse point-blank to hold a referendum on our membership of the European Union because you know what the outcome would be. You say the EU isnt a superstate and cannot become a superstate without our consent, but having one currency is the mark of a country and thus you lose your economic & monetary sovereignty.

Something with its own currency, flag, economic regulations, social regulations, President and Commission (in other words, a government) is a superstate no matter how you and the politicians from the three main parties attempt to word it.

[alexxxxx]

I am sorry but who gave the European Union the consent to make one European police force?

The nationally elected governments and europol are directly accountable to EUparl.



Or how about this; leave the European Union thus securing control of all our borders?

We already do, we aren't in the Schengen area.


The Liberal Democrats policy cannot be the best when it comes to people coming into the United Kingdom because it does not have any real control over immigration from the European Union, in other words; its a total and utter sham. While people like yourself who support the European Union do not like to debate this point, it needs debating. We have no control of our borders to the European Union which has led to mass immigration into this country which has driven down wages thus making more British people unemployed and also putting enormous strain on this country and its benefits system.

Have you ever travelled from one european state to the next, IE Germany to France, France to Germany, Belgium to France? I have, and not once do you see a border guard or border post, apart from a sign. We have complete control over our borders, how about you start and say why we don't? Would you prefer the British economy is kept inefficient with shortages? How can you argue that low wages put british people OUT of work? It's completely the opposite.




What you mean here is 'only allow a debate as long as it conforms to my point of view despite the fact i'm in the minority' and refuse point-blank to hold a referendum on our membership of the European Union because you know what the outcome would be. You say the EU isnt a superstate and cannot become a superstate without our consent, but having one currency is the mark of a country and thus you lose your economic & monetary sovereignty.

Something with its own currency, flag, economic regulations, social regulations, President and Commission (in other words, a government) is a superstate no matter how you and the politicians from the three main parties attempt to word it.
Why do you cry on about something that i'm not talking about? Is your turntable ok? you sound like a broken record.

[MattFr]

We already do, we aren't in the Schengen area.

Do we? Is that why we have the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants we have?

[alexxxxx]

Do we? Is that why we have the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants we have?

that's nothing to do with the EU, that's to do with the inefficiencies of our own border force.

[MrPinkPanther]

that's nothing to do with the EU, that's to do with the inefficiencies of our own border force.
True story.

We have 2.5 Million illegal immigrants in this country that it will cost £10 Billion to find, that's £10 Billion that we don't have. Instead the Liberal Democrats accept that they are here and rather than just leaving them hidden they propose an amnesty where those who have been here for over 10 years and have assimilated with the population can stay. It's a good idea because it's near impossible to find them hence the £10 Billion figure and whilst they are illegals they are not paying tax. I mean at the end of the day, we can't find these people so the very least we can do is tax them and therefore ensure that high standards of welfare for the people who are here legally.

[Smits]

The MP for lib dems, conservative and labour came into our college and elts just say, it was clear that the lib dem ws the most popular.

Somebody asked the conservative: ' if your from bury why are you here, did nobody want you there? why would we vote in your party which is full of middle class scum who act and talk funny like you' Lets say he wernt impressed.

[-:Undertaker:-]

The nationally elected governments and europol are directly accountable to EUparl.

We already do, we aren't in the Schengen area.

Have you ever travelled from one european state to the next, IE Germany to France, France to Germany, Belgium to France? I have, and not once do you see a border guard or border post, apart from a sign. We have complete control over our borders, how about you start and say why we don't? Would you prefer the British economy is kept inefficient with shortages? How can you argue that low wages put british people OUT of work? It's completely the opposite.

Why do you cry on about something that i'm not talking about? Is your turntable ok? you sound like a broken record.

We do not have control over our borders with the European Union, listen alex its either a open-borders policy the European Union has in place (which you say is a good thing) or its not there at all and its been invented by the European Union. By regaining control over our own borders we are not hurting the economy, infact we are helping it. If you have controlled borders (includes EU-nations) then you allow those you who need/want to come in thus benefitting the economy. With open borders, people can come from the EU/gain access to the European Union and then have free access to the United Kingdom which attracts people because of its lax asylum laws and benefits system.

The low wages issue is an issue, many do not bother to work because they would be worse off both because of the benefits system and the taxation system. The workers coming into the United Kingdom drive down the costs thus many British people do not work. Granted, many are lazy but that adds to my point that we do not need more lazy people coming into this country from abroad which only makes the problem worse.


that's nothing to do with the EU, that's to do with the inefficiencies of our own border force.

People from the European Union have free movement and the rest of it, it is to do with the open-borders policy of the European Union hence why its so much of a problem, it has not been invented.


True story.

We have 2.5 Million illegal immigrants in this country that it will cost £10 Billion to find, that's £10 Billion that we don't have. Instead the Liberal Democrats accept that they are here and rather than just leaving them hidden they propose an amnesty where those who have been here for over 10 years and have assimilated with the population can stay. It's a good idea because it's near impossible to find them hence the £10 Billion figure and whilst they are illegals they are not paying tax. I mean at the end of the day, we can't find these people so the very least we can do is tax them and therefore ensure that high standards of welfare for the people who are here legally.

The figure I am sure stands at just under 1 million and is not at the figure yourself and the Liberal Democrats have given which is 2.5 million to justify your lax policy. A large proportion of these people are most likely involved in crime and do not work and have no intentions of working, hence why they are illegal immigrants. I do not want our NHS, benefits system and so forth to continue to be abused by these people and their children until they die hence why I and the vast majority of people want them deported.


The MP for lib dems, conservative and labour came into our college and elts just say, it was clear that the lib dem ws the most popular.

Somebody asked the conservative: ' if your from bury why are you here, did nobody want you there? why would we vote in your party which is full of middle class scum who act and talk funny like you' Lets say he wernt impressed. The part about the shoutout is quite sad really and no doubt the kid thought he was a right smart arse with repeating what his parents have no doubt told him whilst reading their Daily Mirror. What I am eager to know is, does that child (who I assume supports the Liberal Democrats) know that Nick Clegg is from a background which is as posh and affluent as the one which David Cameron came from?

I'd place my money on no. :P

[Smits]

We do not have control over our borders with the European Union, listen alex its either a open-borders policy the European Union has in place (which you say is a good thing) or its not there at all and its been invented by the European Union. By regaining control over our own borders we are not hurting the economy, infact we are helping it. If you have controlled borders (includes EU-nations) then you allow those you who need/want to come in thus benefitting the economy. With open borders, people can come from the EU/gain access to the European Union and then have free access to the United Kingdom which attracts people because of its lax asylum laws and benefits system.

The low wages issue is an issue, many do not bother to work because they would be worse off both because of the benefits system and the taxation system. The workers coming into the United Kingdom drive down the costs thus many British people do not work. Granted, many are lazy but that adds to my point that we do not need more lazy people coming into this country from abroad which only makes the problem worse.



People from the European Union have free movement and the rest of it, it is to do with the open-borders policy of the European Union hence why its so much of a problem, it has not been invented.



The figure I am sure stands at just under 1 million and is not at the figure yourself and the Liberal Democrats have given which is 2.5 million to justify your lax policy. A large proportion of these people are most likely involved in crime and do not work and have no intentions of working, hence why they are illegal immigrants. I do not want our NHS, benefits system and so forth to continue to be abused by these people and their children until they die hence why I and the vast majority of people want them deported.

The part about the shoutout is quite sad really and no doubt the kid thought he was a right smart arse with repeating what his parents have no doubt told him whilst reading their Daily Mirror. What I am eager to know is, does that child (who I assume supports the Liberal Democrats) know that Nick Clegg is from a background which is as posh and affluent as the one which David Cameron came from?

I'd place my money on no. :P

Nah he did sound a bit stupid. Dont get me wrong the tory did talk weird and moved his hands a lot, but he was from a farm in bury and was not middle class at all. He answered quite well, saying he was offended and he may use his arms but he's no actor & that he doesnt judge people by class, got a decent clap for it.

Most people in the room cant even vote so it was a bit pointless, some decent points raised and questions answered regarding local things anyway. I'd have to say judging by that talk i'd say lib dems, followed by conservatives, followed by labour. For the MP representing burnley anyway.

[Fez]

The surge is a bubble that could be so easily burst tomorrow. Just one quick line, a slip of the tongue. All eyes are on Clegg.

[jam666]

True story.

We have approximately 1 Million illegal immigrants in this country that it will cost £10 Billion to find, that's £10 Billion that we don't have. Instead the Liberal Democrats accept that they are here and rather than just leaving them hidden they propose an amnesty where those who have been here for over 10 years and have assimilated with the population can stay. It's a good idea because it's near impossible to find them hence the £10 Billion figure and whilst they are illegals they are not paying tax. I mean at the end of the day, we can't find these people so the very least we can do is tax them and therefore ensure that high standards of welfare for the people who are here legally.

Sorry but this policy is a complete joke and in no way you can possibly support this. here are the problems with it.

1) The 1 million illegals are a drain on resources and are therefore a strain on the system and should be kicked out once we find them.

2) If we let the 1 million stay, then new illegal immigrants will say the "well they stayed so i should"

3) They could of been criminals before they came to our country. Would you want 1 million criminals roaming the streets?

4) There is no way to prove that they have been here for over 10 years and that they have not committed any criminal activitys whilst here.

Therefore this policy by the liberals is an utter shambles and anyone who would want to impliment such a stupid policy is quite frankly stupid themselves.

[Sameer!]

I think tonights debate will be a great chance for the Conservatives to stay on top and increase their lead. Then again, Lib Dems are excpected to do preety good too..

[Rapidshare]

I think tonights debate will be a great chance for the Conservatives to stay on top and increase their lead. Then again, Lib Dems are excpected to do preety good too..

What channel and what the programme called?

[Jordy]

What channel and what the programme called?Sky News Channel, Sky 3 and BBC News 24 at 8pm-9:30pm. Sadly it's on no terrestrial channels but News 24 can be watched online; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7459669.stm