Halfway through: Are the Coalition doing a good or bad job?

[-:Undertaker:-]

Halfway through: Are the Coalition doing a good or bad job?

The year 2013 marked the halfway mark of the Coalition Government between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The Coalition Government, formed back in May 2010, will expire when a General Election is called in May 2015 (thanks to the Fixed-Term Parliament Act) and the Conservatives will be vying to form a majority ministry against Labour whereas the Liberal Democrats will be hoping to hold as many seats as possible to possibly take part in another coalition in the event of a hung parliament.

The Coalition claim that so far, far-reaching reforms on welfare, the NHS, education with the introduction of free schools and scrapping of EMA, net immigration falling, overhaul of the armed forces and reduction of the deficit mean that the coalition have done good for the country so far.

The Labour Party and critics on the left will argue that this government has been especially harsh on the poorest in our country, having introduced a bedroom tax, cut EMA, introduced tuition fee's and claiming that the government is cutting spending back too fast.

Others, mostly on the right in UKIP but also coming from Old Labour will argue that immigration remains at unsustainable levels, the national debt is still rising, foreign aid has been increased and nothing has been done on the European Union/ECHR and the armed forces have been emasculated.

But where do you stand? Do you think that the Coalition has done a good job or a bad job? What areas do you agree with the government on and what areas do you disagree on? And, if you're willing to share - who are you considering at the moment voting?

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The debate is open to you.

[iGenius]

Ha, this is one I tend to have a lot with people.

Lets stop and look at the fact and figures; As you rightly mentioned, EMA, Education, NHS and private and public sectors have all had major cuts. All of them. With a year and a half left until the next election we start already looking ahead at the people who are up for nomination.

Already, Labour have messed up their election drive; "Energy Price Freeze for Two years" - Instantly, this caused and uproar, and yeah Lets face it, how beneficial would it be to reduce the cost of our home heating, and electricity? Every winter the prices for energy in households does increase. This year after Labours announcement energy price rises have sky-rocketed up with some of the top energy companies increasing between 8% and 10%. Now we know they would have increased, but do we think this much if labour hadn't made such a drastic announcement?

If we take a look at the figures for the last quarter; "The UK Economic output rose by 0.8% between July and September" (BBC News, 2013) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24668687 -- Yeah alright it's not 3% or 5% but it is something. It is a start.

I'm not a tory supporter, I've always been a Lib Dem. But this coalition has worked, and is still working. 2015 comes, people will make the wrong choice and vote Labour, mostly because of the drastic cuts this coalition has made.

There are things that have occurred within the Coalition that I've not agreed with overly can't think of them atm, but if it gets our economy back on track, then good. It's what it needs.

[Kardan]

If I look at the one area I'm particularly interested in, education, I don't think they're doing a good job at all. Of course it's pretty unfair to judge them just on one aspect, but when it comes to voting, that's what I'll be voting on.

[-:Undertaker:-]

My two cents is that they are doing as bad a job as the last Labour government because when you think about it and analyse, apart from some tweaking at the edges of education and welfare, it's pretty much business as usual in that we continue to have mass immigration (400,000+ a year coming in), seemingly no way out of the EU and led by a man who is quite content with giving away the few powers we have left to the European Commission, an increase in foreign aid at a time when spending is out of control, a debt that continues to rise as no serious cuts have been made or will be made (see foreign aid), a poor education system as we've had for the past 30 or so years since the grammar schools were abolished, more pointless wars in Libya (and nearly Syria if it wasn't for Labour cynically using it for electoral advantage) ... I could go on but you get the gist.

My family, despite living in Liverpool, have always voted Conservative - the kind of people the Tories needed to secure election victories, of the lower middle class. Thankfully over the past few years we've been woken up to just what a sham the Tory Party is and always has been. At least with Labour you know you'll get all of the things above.

[iGenius]

My two cents is that they are doing as bad a job as the last Labour government because when you think about it and analyse, apart from some tweaking at the edges of education and welfare, it's pretty much business as usual in that we continue to have mass immigration (400,000+ a year coming in), seemingly no way out of the EU and led by a man who is quite content with giving away the few powers we have left to the European Commission, an increase in foreign aid at a time when spending is out of control, a debt that continues to rise as no serious cuts have been made or will be made (see foreign aid), a poor education system as we've had for the past 30 or so years since the grammar schools were abolished, more pointless wars in Libya (and nearly Syria if it wasn't for Labour cynically using it for electoral advantage) ... I could go on but you get the gist.

My family, despite living in Liverpool, have always voted Conservative - the kind of people the Tories needed to secure election victories, of the lower middle class. Thankfully over the past few years we've been woken up to just what a sham the Tory Party is and always has been. At least with Labour you know you'll get all of the things above.

Yeah i get what you're saying here, they haven't done much in general terms but take a further step back and look at all of the parties. (or at least the ones likely to make it into office) None of them will be perfect and none of them will do everything we want the correct way. Someone has to take responsibility for making certian decisions, such as going to war, cutting this, cutting that, cutting the other.

But I've got to disagree in that they're doing as bad a job as the last governement. Our economy has grown, and i accept that this isn't the only part of the country we need to focus on but it is a huge issue and the debt needs sorting, so to suggest there's been a growth is always a good thing.

Ironically in my constituency i vote labour, because the woman who represents the constituency is fantastic and she does an awful lot for the area and her plans continue to get better.