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Post by stuart alman on Apr 16, 2010 10:18:36 GMT
well here is my overall view of last nights proceedings i hope Tim will add his views later on.
Today i have read the mail, the independent and the mirror (the right, the centre and the left) and i am dismayed to find that only the mail picked up on Gordon Browns false use of statistics (regarding police, AGAIN!). Nick Clegg was clearly last nights winner but the mirror refused to accept this, the independent ran with it as their headline and the mail begrudgingly accepted it on page 10. The independent also had rather interesting stats including the number of times Gordon Brown desperately tried to link himself with nick clegg, 7 times btw. Also the number of times people "broke the rules" by not stopping talking at the end of their turn : NC : 9, GB :5, DC : 0. So at least David Cameron has manners if he failed to shine in the debate. Overall opinion Nick Clegg way out winner, passionate, clear and right to the point, David Cameron clear second for honesty and sincerity, Gordon Brown dead last for lying and packing an overly aggressive style topped off with a few weak attempts at humour.
Well theres my view please feel free to voice your own opinion but try to keep it to last nights debate. Also if you haven't watched it you can online on the itv website and i strongly recommend it so you can all make up your own minds.
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Post by Ally on Apr 27, 2010 12:44:51 GMT
Seemed the most appropriate thread for this: uk.news.yahoo.com/elections/news/article/protest-over-bnp-election-broadcast/72a38ce81424742e1bc399c66714bbd0I'm really not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I loathe the BNP and everything they stand for, and I would happily join a protest against them. On the other hand, freedom of expression is one of the most important rights we have, and I completely respect the BBC's policy of impartiality - even if this means that they sometimes have to air views that turn my stomach. Besides, Nick Griffin has a history of milking it for all it's worth whenever the BNP are prevented from airing their disgusting views. I dunno, maybe this situation was the most democratic way of dealing with the issue. The BNP have a right to say what they like, and the rest of us have the right to stand behind them saying "By the way, that's racist."
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Post by stokerino on Apr 27, 2010 13:46:31 GMT
Yeah, they should be allowed to have their PPBs. It's not like anyone watches any of them. :-p
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Post by Emily on Apr 27, 2010 15:44:11 GMT
sadly I think they do.
god I keep getting mail from nigel I'm-a-massivehypocritical-douchebag farage through my door. I really wish he'd stop trying to pretend he's a) "local" or b)represents people who want to vote "against the staus quo"
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Post by stokerino on Apr 27, 2010 19:13:22 GMT
I just so happened to catch a PPB from the Tories, so I thought I'd watch it.
It was done as a PPB by the 'Hung Parliament Party' (colour of choice: yellow...not too subtle), telling us about how shit everything will be in a Hung Parliament. It then ended on a still of Gordon Brown standing outside 10 Downing Street, saying this would happen in those circumstances.
So, to paraphrase, it's one of their "We've got nothing to tell you about ourselves, but unless you vote for us in sufficient numbers BRITAIN WILL IMPLODE" messages.
Positive campaigning there, from the Conservative party.
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Post by Ally on Apr 27, 2010 19:46:26 GMT
I'm thinking about sticking a note on my letterbox for my Lib Dem MP, saying "Dear Steve Goddard, you've already got my vote, PLEASE STOP GIVING ME LEAFLETS!" I guess it's good (and unsurprising) that he's making such a massive effort, but I've had about three times as much from him as from any other candidate.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 27, 2010 19:49:48 GMT
That's a good sign. It shows he has funding. >_>
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Post by Ally on Apr 27, 2010 20:55:10 GMT
I like his policies, but the last one just made me burst out laughing - one of his past achievements that he was really proud of was to do with public toilets, and was summarised as "Steve Goddard made Oxford City Council keep 5 out of 7 toilets open!"
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Post by Lu on Apr 28, 2010 18:58:22 GMT
i hate how everytime theres a polititian on tv right now they seem to be rubbishing someone else. How about they say something positive rather than 'vote for us because everyone else is shit'. Im not exactly queen of the happies right now but i swear all this negativity going round is not helping anyone feel better about our country
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Post by Ally on Apr 28, 2010 20:09:58 GMT
That's one of my least favourite things about politics too, but none of the parties are going to be brave enough to be the first to stop.
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Post by Emily on Apr 28, 2010 20:38:31 GMT
outside tesco today was nigel's overdressed-leaflet-wench. She offered me a leaflet and swallowing my obvious distaste I gave her a polite "no thanks, not interested" but was VERY pleased to hear the little old lady behind me lay into her with a "I wouldn't vote for that overstuffed idiot if he was the last man on earth!" hehehe I don't know why but I always think little old ladies are gonna be right wing so it's good to hear one rubbishing him.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 28, 2010 21:02:14 GMT
It's not so much that no party is "brave enough to be first to stop" negative campaigning. Usually they start positive, one of them goes negative and the rest get dragged in.
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Post by stokerino on Apr 29, 2010 8:55:45 GMT
Taken from The Independent: Everything I've been saying recently about the Tory campaign...only wittier.
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Post by Ally on Apr 29, 2010 14:03:19 GMT
It's not so much that no party is "brave enough to be first to stop" negative campaigning. Usually they start positive, one of them goes negative and the rest get dragged in. Maybe I phrased it badly. What I meant was that when several parties are badmouthing each other, it's unlikely that one of them is going to rise above it and stop, because the other parties won't necessarily do the same, and unfortunately a lot of people seem to pay attention to one-line attention-grabbing statements and look no deeper (which has arguably happened this week with the whole Gordon Brown controversy - people are reading "Prime Minister badmouths pensioner" and getting up in arms about it, when all that happened was he voiced a negative (but not discriminatory) opinion about one person and was careless enough to be overheard).
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Post by Lu on Apr 30, 2010 16:45:09 GMT
Lol............ enough said. Ps i voted today thanks to postal voting, no changing my mind now.
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Post by Emily on May 4, 2010 13:15:26 GMT
still haven't persuaded pete to vote... no amount of reason will change him.
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Post by Lu on May 5, 2010 6:57:17 GMT
just as its our right to vote for whomever we see fit, it is his right to to not vote altogether. Lets face it, all of them are telling barefaced lies anyway so really none of the deserve our support, its just some are less awful than others
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Post by stokerino on May 5, 2010 10:00:12 GMT
Personally, I figure that if you can't bring yourself to make a choice and vote (and yes, it's unlikely there will be a perfect candidate to pick, but few things in life provide you with perfection and we spend every day just Making The Best Of What's Available anyway), then you forfeit your right to complain about anything even remotely affected by politics (i.e. virtually everything) for the duration of that parliament. There's always been talk of the balance between the 'rights' of a citizen and the 'responsibilities' of a citizen, and of all the 'responsibilities' that get thrown around (some a lot more ridiculous than others), voting is just the absolute tiniest thing - a mere acknowledgement of your participation. It's just so basic.
And to be honest, if the politicians on offer strike you as unworthy, that's just cause for getting more involved in politics, not shunning it. You can't just cast scorn on something and hope it fixes itself.
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Post by tangent on May 5, 2010 12:10:16 GMT
For several Presidential election runs in the U.S., I found every candidate detestable and unworthy of my vote. So I wrote in my dead brother's name, feeling that even dead, my brother would be a better President than those yahoos.
So Pete can always write in someone's name as a protest vote. ^^
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Post by Ally on May 5, 2010 16:08:32 GMT
And to be honest, if the politicians on offer strike you as unworthy, that's just cause for getting more involved in politics, not shunning it. You can't just cast scorn on something and hope it fixes itself. Like the woman Brown called a bigot. I laughed out loud when I saw the headline saying she wasn't going to vote as a response to the incident - sure, that's an effective way to register your disapproval. As Tim says, there's never going to be a perfect candidate or a perfect party, and if one emerged that looked perfect, I'd be very suspicious. (Garth Ennis wasn't being entirely ridiculous in Transmetropolitan, when he implied that the only way to get a non-corrupt politician would be to grow one in a jar and decant them a couple of weeks before the election). Apathy just makes way for extremism - the angry bigots might be a minority, but they're an active minority, as proved in France a few years ago when their equivalent of the National Front nearly won the election. EDIT: Just read this - muahahahahaha! uk.news.yahoo.com/elections/news/article/bnp-in-turmoil-as-online-chief-sabotages-operation/19759643Serves them right, the wankers.
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