I'm afraid that I concur, politics at election time is all about personalities and persuasion and so far Cameron and Osborne are doing a remarkable job at pinning the blame on everything and everyone other than themselves, they are as slippery as greased piglets in a fairground and have consistently failed to be brought to explain themselves without recourse to "its not our fault".

I fear that with Murdochs support over the next two years (expect to see no further action from Leveson) then the wool will be pulled down even further over the electorates eyes and without an effective opposition they could easily win a workable majority - and they don't have an effective opposition at the moment, its like Thatchers realm all over again.

Sadly I'm another who can easily envisage the useless incumbents getting another shot in office.
They've successfully nurtured the devisiveness card, ala Thatcher.
Optimism is at a minimum.
Middle England willl batten down the hatches and look after itself, as much as it deems possible.

So, Moody's downgrade the UK's credit rating. They cite one of the main reasons as being our high levels of debt. People blame the Government.

In other parts of internetshire, or perhaps even on the same messageboard, people are moaning about cuts. Which are ultimately being implemented to try and reduce the national debt. People blame the Government.

You can't really have it both ways, can you?

I'm similarly pessimistic, largely because voters nowadays rely on the media to tell them who to vote for and the broadcast media is relentlessly anti-Labour. And that includes the BBC. They've even managed to turn our loss of our AAA rating into an attack on Ed Balls this morning.


I have news for you. 'Middle England' is also suffering under this bunch of incompetents - it's only 'Upper England' that's benefiting. These folk you think will 'batten down the hatches' were better off under the last Labour Government. Trouble is many of them are too daft to realise it or too ready to believe what the media tells them.

I am not massively impressed with what we have at the moment. But the prospect of an Ed and Ed double act is simply too frightening to make me vote Labour.

It maybe suffering, but I doubt it's suffering enough, [ior,[/i has the appetite for change at present.

Cameron is a far more polished operator that Miliband.
Osbourne is a waste of space.
Balls, like him or loathe him, has far more sustance than Boy George.

I don't even know what they have to offer yet, which is frightening when they have two years maximum in which to make an impression and come up with a plan of action - and possiby just a few months if the coalition ever collapses.

Ed Balls was interviewed for a while on Radio Leeds yesterday, its a fetaure they do every Friday where they drag on a local MP and get his constituents to call in and quiz him - "Ballsy" as he prefers to be know (its his email address) spent half an hour speaking to people about their blocked drains and litter picking on their estates, which is all admirable in a local MP and it sounds like he spends a lot fo time in the constituency but really thats what your local councillor is for, this bloke is "supposed" to be the shadow chancellor FFS, and no-one asked him about his national policies or what he would be doing if he were in government right now, and frankly I don't think he has a plan.

Which will be obvious if the Tories declared an election right now.

How much suffering is enough?

The issue isn't how much suffering is going one. The issue is that people of [iall[/i classes are far too easily conned into thinking it would have been or would be worse under Labour. See TVR's post for an example of the type of knee-jerk response typical of the gullible masses.

People can just as easily be conned into thinking it would have been better under Labour. That's politics.

Enough for them to warrant an alternative at present or in two years time....
With the probable collapse of the Lib-Dem vote at the next GE a Conservative majority 7/2 is a cracking bet imo.
Shame it contravenes my strict moral code to contemplate putting a wager on them.

People seem to be forgetting a few points when predicting a Tory majority.

1. They couldn't secure one in 2010 when people had nothing to judge Cameron and Osbourne on and when Labour were being blamed for everything and had Brown as leader. They should have had a landslide but failed to get one.

2. UKIP are not going away and neither is European question

3. This government is wreaking the NHS - that alone is vote winner for any opposition

4. The economy is a mess and the its "all Labour's fault" is rapidly running out of steam to the extent people are, I believe, sick of hearing it. They aren't that interested in who's fault it was but why it hasn't been fixed.

5. That have not managed to gerrymander the election by getting the number of constituencies reduced

6. A lot of people are being affected directly in a negative way with kids having to pay tuition fees of £9K or losing housing benefit/tax credits.

7. Back to the economy, its just not going to pick up that much if at all between now and the election so they won't have much success to point to.

What Labour has to do other than relying on all the above negatives about this government is come up with an effective way of mitigating Tory spin. It's been apparent from day 1 that they have a tactic of telling lies often enough so people will believe it. The way in which any discussion on the economy is always predicated by "Clearing up labours mess" is a case in point.

The whole point is, yes you can. Darling was going to make cuts to reduce the debt but not as far or as fast so as not to choke off growth. What he predicted would happen if you cut too far too fast has happened. He as been proved correct, Osborne proved wrong and the loss of the AAA rating is the latest indicator of that.

I am surprised you even posted the above because the economic debate has always been about how far and fast to cut in order to get debt down. Labour has always said you can't just cut your way out of this problem but that you have to grow the economy to increase tax revenues as well. This is not news and neither is the government's opposite view so to post the above suggests you have been on a different planet since 2010.

All decent valid points Dave but through experience I don't have the same confidence in the electorate that you seem to possess.
We haven't had one-term party Government now since the 70's.
I know this is meant to be a coalition, but it's only in name.
I fear the Tories may get the whole gig next time, carte blanche.

The other fascinating thing is the automatic assumption that the LibDem vote will be non-existant the next time around - based on what ?

There is the tuition fee promise of course, played a blinder there did Clegg in an archetypal "I don't care what we said, this gets me five years sitting at the top table", but other than that can anyone think of anything that the LibDems have done or said since 2010 that will cost them in 2015 ?

They have effectively sat on their hands in the same way that Labour have done with the benefit of a few of their members drawing Ministerial salaries and come 2015 you can bet that their PR people will be cherry picking various quotes to show where they were influencial in some of the more beneficial government policies (no I can't think of any off hand but they will when the time comes).

What we have is two posh boys who are now taking all the flak for the Tories and the Lib-Dems hiding behind the curtains but still drawing the salaries - come an election they'll be the party with the blank canvas ready to pitch whatever the hell they like.