Leaders Debate

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Originally Posted by FlyDuo

I mean lets be clear about this. Trident is going to cost us £100,000,000,000. Now just think about how big that Number is. Its over £1600 for every man, woman and child living in Britain. Now if you'd rather see us build redundant Nuclear weapons rather than give everyone in Britain £1600 then you are frankly naive.

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Same old liberal views with same old liberal policys. The problem is that your views are too idealistic, of course in an ideal world we would love to scrap tutition fees, of course we would like to give a tax break to the first £10,000 you earn and of course we would love to scrap trident. Oh, sorry to burst your liberal bubble but that aint going to happen. EVER.

It would cost far too much to scrap tutition fees and if i recall rightly clegg said it would happen over six years?. This is barmi as it would have to take place over TWO parliaments and there is not a cat in hells chance he will be elected anyway. Mr.Clegg even admitted himself when confronted by a student that it was not feasable to scrap tuition fees but has still continued with his miss-matched plan where the figures do not add up.

On the subject of the tax break for the first £10,000 you earn. We can NOT afford to do so and as a result the policy is just NOT feasable. You could say they published more figures in their manifesto?. Im sorry but this means absolutely nothing as you can say whatever figures you want but it doesnt necessarily make them correct.

As for Trident. It is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that we keep it operation 24hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As if we were to scrap trident we would be pretty much defenceless and im 100% sure that the vast majority of people would pay £1600 to ensure that we have a nuclear deterrent so that britain is safe. Of course if the rest of the world didnt pose a threat it should be scrapped, but quite frankly it DOES pose a threat and we need to be protected from it.

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Originally Posted by MattFr

NHS and other key services are pointless if we get attacked by nuclear weapons ;)

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Ah but so would Nuclear weapons themselves, in fact the NHS would be more useful because it could treat those who have been maimed by them. The difference is the NHS is useful when there isn't a Nuclear holocaust going on when in that situation the weapons are redundant.

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Originally Posted by jam666

Same old liberal views with same old liberal policys. The problem is that your views are too idealistic, of course in an ideal world we would love to scrap tutition fees, of course we would like to give a tax break to the first £10,000 you earn and of course we would love to scrap trident. Oh, sorry to burst your liberal bubble but that aint going to happen. EVER.

It would cost far too much to scrap tutition fees and if i recall rightly clegg said it would happen over six years?. This is barmi as it would have to take place over TWO parliaments and there is not a cat in hells chance he will be elected anyway. Mr.Clegg even admitted himself when confronted by a student that it was not feasable to scrap tuition fees but has still continued with his miss-matched plan where the figures do not add up.

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Ok firstly tell me why all of the Liberal Democrats plans are costed in their manifesto if their figures are so wrong? Are the Conservatives figures costed? No. Why? Because they know you can't just say "We will get rid of £6 Billion of waste". It doesn't make sense.

As for Top up fees have you kinda not just shot yourself in the foot there? You are saying that the Liberal Democrats are unrealistic when you have just given a point about how realistic they are. With a budget defecit this large it isn't possible to scrap top up fees so yes, they will have to be phased out over 6 years. Whats so wrong with that?

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Originally Posted by jam666

On the subject of the tax break for the first £10,000 you earn. We can NOT afford to do so and as a result the policy is just NOT feasable. You could say they published more figures in their manifesto?. Im sorry but this means absolutely nothing as you can say whatever figures you want but it doesnt necessarily make them correct.

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If their figures are so wrong then please tell me why even the Thatcherite Norman Tebbit has said that he supports Liberal Democrat tax proposals oh and why Vince Cable is held in higher regard than George Osbourne.

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Originally Posted by jam666

As for Trident. It is ABSOLUTELY VITAL that we keep it operation 24hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. As if we were to scrap trident we would be pretty much defenceless and im 100% sure that the vast majority of people would pay £1600 to ensure that we have a nuclear deterrent so that britain is safe. Of course if the rest of the world didnt pose a threat it should be scrapped, but quite frankly it DOES pose a threat and we need to be protected from it.

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A) Nuclear weapons are not our only form of defence
B) If attacked we wouldn't use them anyway
C) We have allies with over a hundred times as many Nuclear weapons than in Trident
D) There is no major threat to our national security, they are literally redundant

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Originally Posted by FlyDuo

Ah but so would Nuclear weapons themselves, in fact the NHS would be more useful because it could treat those who have been maimed by them. The difference is the NHS is useful when there isn't a Nuclear holocaust going on when in that situation the weapons are redundant.

Ok firstly tell me why all of the Liberal Democrats plans are costed in their manifesto if their figures are so wrong? Are the Conservatives figures costed? No. Why? Because they know you can't just say "We will get rid of £6 Billion of waste". It doesn't make sense.

As for Top up fees have you kinda not just shot yourself in the foot there? You are saying that the Liberal Democrats are unrealistic when you have just given a point about how realistic they are. With a budget defecit this large it isn't possible to scrap top up fees so yes, they will have to be phased out over 6 years. Whats so wrong with that?

If their figures are so wrong then please tell me why even the Thatcherite Norman Tebbit has said that he supports Liberal Democrat tax proposals oh and why Vince Cable is held in higher regard than George Osbourne.

A) Nuclear weapons are not our only form of defence
B) If attacked we wouldn't use them anyway
C) We have allies with over a hundred times as many Nuclear weapons than in Trident
D) There is no major threat to our national security, they are literally redundant

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Nuclear weapons are our main form of defence it has to be said. Nuclear weapons serve as a deterrent if nothing else, we are a member of the UN Security Council and still very influential in international affairs, our military is still found throughout the world. Infact there has been the death of a British soldier abroad, every single year since 1945 other than one year. The reason we have no major problems with other countries or a threat is the fact we have a nuclear deterrent. It is very much a longterm plan and essential to the UK's security, just 25 years ago we were in the midst of the Cold War, no one would of predicted the situation we are in today. And we cannot predict what things will be like in 25 years. Trident cannot be made at the click of fingers, it has to be there serving as a deterrent constantly, who knows what the world will be like in 25 years. I have no doubt the Soviet Union would of attacked Europe had the UK and France not had nuclear weapons. There is a growing threat from China & Iran which is also notable.

I'm afraid the NHS would be useless when we are struck by nuclear weapons, it would only take a few to take out the whole of the UK. The deterrent ensures this will not happen and contributes to the reason there has been so much peace in the world since WWII believe it or not.

Just because Vince Cable might be held in higher regard (In your opinion) it does not mean he is right and George Osbourne is wrong? Thatcher is held in incredibly high regard it doesn't mean that everyone agreed with her.

The £6 Billion waste can be easily saved by stopping things like useless government IT Projects and excessive bureaucracy, and frankly if jobs go too I will be pleased, we are not going to pay off hundreds of billions of pounds of debt if jobs don't go. With the booming business sector under the Tories thanks to the tax cuts for small businesses (and larger ones), and making it attractive for international businesses, these people could easily find new unemployment due to the amount of new jobs created.

Nick Clegg has no idea over scrapping tuition fees, that's why it will take 6 years. He had to compromise with backbenchers who were disappointed to get rid of the "scrapping tuition fees" pledge. Scrapping tuition fees is completely ridiculous anyway, while it is ideal, with plans for 50% of 18 year-olds to go to University and lots taking micky mouse subjects it's unaffordable. Under the old system with polytechnics, it was affordable (I'm not suggesting we go back to this, simply stating it is totally unreasonable to scrap tuition fees for now)

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Originally Posted by alexxxxx

thatll come under international affairs, which is on either SKY or BBC i can't remember. this was for soley domestic issues i believe.

and to answer the immigration and crime bit, we could improve our crime fighting if we were to co-operate more with european police, something that britain is very apprehensive about.

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Well the issue is, they are ignoring the elephant in the room when talking about all of this because domestic affairs are now coming more and more under the control of the European Union. They talk about the economy when a Frenchman is coming to control the City of London and the EU is planning its own set of taxes, they talk about immigration but cannot control it without EU consent which is something they can not change and they talk about crime but cannot take any real action because the justice systems are controlled via Brussels. I'd also like to add, being a big defender of civil liberties on the face of it; why do you support European arrest warrants which defy habius corpos?

The debate itself, Clegg came off the best and Brown destroyed Cameron although be it quite rude. Cameron should of done it back, but if you look at it most are the same in policies and are failing to mention that as British Prime Minister none of them would have any real control as they are subject to what the EU and its unelected Commission and Courts want. The Trident issue with Clegg shows that a lot of people on here have no concept of international affairs and little knowledge that nuclear weapons will become more important. It would be lovely to have no nuclear weapons but you cannot un-invent something. The figure Nick Clegg gave I believe is wrong because the figure for Tridents renewal was at the £25 billion mark I believe and not the £100 billion mark (I have no idea where he got this figure from).

Well I've just finished watching it finally and I'm pleasantly surprised. To conclude there was no winner to this debate, credit to Nick Clegg, he was by far the best speaker and very presentable, he seemed to portray the Lib Dems as a realistic party in with a chance (Although this really isn't the case), while I'm not surprised he won people over so easily by appearing so much better than Cameron & Brown, his policies are abysmal, not like that wasn't already known. Scrapping trident is a ridiculous idea but it's not going to save anywhere near as much money as it sounds, the £100bn figure is based on decades of spending, it's not going to materialise straight away. He didn't outline any other ways of saving money and cutting the debt, despite criticising Cameron for it, then goes on to say he could easily save £17bn from bureaucracy etc yet still cutting lots of taxes. He also faced no opposition over cuts. Then of course there is the fact he opposes nuclear power and wants to take money away from road improvements to reopen railway stations (Reversing the Beeching Cuts). I suspect the Conservatives & Labour will rapidly unravel the Lib Dem policies soon enough and the public will see them as the fools they really are.

Also credit to Brown, he delivered some decent blows to Cameron, sadly Cameron didn't seem to properly attack either Clegg or Brown and that's presumably why he came out of it so badly. Cameron seemed to consistently say the right things and has the best policies especially when it comes to Education & Health, sadly he didn't portray these particularly well but I think if people began questioning which leader they agreed with most, there would be a different outcome to this debate. Another downfall for the Conservatives was reformation of the House of Lords, Brown & Clegg seem to have the right ideas here.

Clegg was passionate, Cameron was overly serious and Brown was too smug.

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Originally Posted by FlyDuo

If their figures are so wrong then please tell me why even the Thatcherite Norman Tebbit has said that he supports Liberal Democrat tax proposals oh and why Vince Cable is held in higher regard than George Osbourne.

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The £10,000 policy - the policy that the Liberal Democrats only just adopted and the one that UKIP have had as policy since 2006?

To those so amazed at Liberal Democrat performance, maybe they should check out their policies;

- Build wind turbines and scrap nuclear power stations despite the fact its been proven as unfeesible.
- Join the euro currency and scrap the pound sterling which means the loss of monetary independence.
- Raise taxes on our brightest and best off which would mean many would leave (a brain drain).
- Scrap our independant nuclear missile system (Trident) despite it being the core of our national security.
- Relax immigration rules and asylum rules allowing an anmesty for asylum seekers here thus adding to our bills.

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Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

The £10,000 policy - the policy that the Liberal Democrats only just adopted and the one that UKIP have had as policy since 2006?

To those so amazed at Liberal Democrat performance, maybe they should check out their policies;

- Build wind turbines and scrap nuclear power stations despite the fact its been proven as unfeesible.
- Join the euro currency and scrap the pound sterling which means the loss of monetary independence.
- Raise taxes on our brightest and best off which would mean many would leave (a brain drain).
- Scrap our independant nuclear missile system (Trident) despite it being the core of our national security.
- Relax immigration rules and asylum rules allowing an anmesty for asylum seekers here thus adding to our bills.

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Exactly. I cant actually understand why so many people were deluded by Nick Clegg. As usual with the left wing liberals (a.k.a labours little brother) they portray idealistic views which CANNOT be implemented. EVER.

The problem is that the vast majority of the public is mis-informed and largely go by what they seen on the debates rather than researching each partys policys. Of course they are free to form their own opinion but they need to be informed better (and unfortuneately it seems to be the younger undecided voters). Which is what i feel will happen over the coming week or so as finally some light has been shed on the liberals policy and people will see them for what they are.

However i honestly dont believe its fair for Nick Clegg to be shown in the same light as GB or DC, afterall there is not a chance in hell of this guy every becoming PM and if there was, god forbid what would happen to the country.

Its also VERY DANGEROUS territory now as it seems that there will be a HUNG PARLIAMENT. This is terrible for the country but of course the liberals will be jumping for joy as they will have a VERY SMALL taste of power because they will ultimately be the king makers. As a result i do honestly hope that there is a slim Conservative majority.

I thought it was quite intresting.

I thought Nick Clegg was amazing. I didn't take the Lib Dems seriously a few years back but i really like them now.

I think Gordon Brown did alright as well and if i could vote i would for vote Labour but the Lib Dems are coming across as a party that should be taken seriously now. It's always been between Labour and Cons for the past 20 years, so yeah, they should be given a chance.

Didn't like Cameron, he's just fake and some of his policy's like taking away 6 Billion away from the ecomony in these times would be very silly. It would effect jobs and would slow our weak current growth.

All through it as well he always said "I met someone in blah blah blah" which i found quite bliming irritating.

Merged by iAdam (Forum Super Moderator); Similar subject.

there's already like 2 threads on this, 1 in spam and 1 in current affairs, pop into current affairs and post this in the thread there because i am sure you'll get a better reaction & discussion :)

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Originally Posted by United-Clowgon

I thought it was quite intresting.

I thought Nick Clegg was amazing. I didn't take the Lib Dems seriously a few years back but i really like them now.

I think Gordon Brown did alright as well and if i could vote i would for vote Labour but the Lib Dems are coming across as a party that should be taken seriously now. It's always been between Labour and Cons for the past 20 years, so yeah, they should be given a chance.

Didn't like Cameron, he's just fake and some of his policy's like taking away 6 Billion away from the ecomony in these times would be very silly. It would effect jobs and would slow our weak current growth.

All through it as well he always said "I met someone in blah blah blah" which i found quite bliming irritating.

Merged by iAdam (Forum Super Moderator); Similar subject.

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Lmao you got completely brainwashed, who says that we can't take 6 Billion out the economy? Gordon Brown and you believed him over everyone else, this is someone who continually lies to the public and Labour broke 27 policies since the last election. Pointlessly spending £6 Billion on bureaucracy and silly projects is going to stop another recession and pay off debts is it lol? If you were to research Lib Dem policies you would realise they are totally unworkable and Labour/Conservative policies are much better.

Also, all three leaders uses the 'I met someone speech', I think Clegg used it more than the others.