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I'm asking my fellow Brits, as I left the UK shortly after the Tory/Libdem alliance came to power, how is the regime change?

How is Britain fairing under the new government? Did it fulfill it's election pledges? Are things better than they were under Blair/Brown?

MeanGreenStompa wrote:I'm asking my fellow Brits, as I left the UK shortly after the Tory/Libdem alliance came to power, how is the regime change?

How is Britain fairing under the new government? Did it fulfill it's election pledges? Are things better than they were under Blair/Brown?

As you might have expected, I have not much difference at all in my daily life. I have liked some of the things Dave has tried to do though, for example I liked how the scumbags who went on the riot in London got proper raped in court. No doubt Tony and his red friends would have sent them to Alton Towers for "happiness training" instead.

It's early days yet though.. I reckon you need twice as long as the con/dems before you see a difference.

I mean, It took a good ten years to bankrupt the country and convince everyone they need to beg the government for money all of their lives didn't it?

So help me out. Are conservatives in power now or lefties?

We had a recent change of authoritarians. The use of left/right is meaningless currently.

George Spiggott wrote:We had a recent change of authoritarians. The use of left/right is meaningless currently.

I don't see the Haggis and Woad Party on there. Whats the dealio?

To be fair Frazz, while the UK is living in an era of increasingly centralised poltics (The torys are no longer very right wing and the Labour party are no longer very left wing) we still have a better choice than you guys.

You know, the Dems, or a bunch of proper scary Religious zealots.

They are off the scale.

Who are the Torys? I didn't see them on the chart either.

Tory's are the Conservatives (blue boyo's on the grid)

Well the LibDems aren't very much liked...
I don't think anyone is particularly surprised by what the Tory government has done, good or bad.

The Liberal Democrat position on that graph is very misleading. Currently I would place them somewhere just under the 'n' in conservative. Labour has probably moved slightly down and to the left but not by much. The Tories have probably moved up a notch.

There's a growing rift in all three of the parties. Personally I'm hoping for a reformation of the parties similar in style to the one that occurred in Britain and the US in the mid 19th century. As it stands next election all three parties are pretty much unelectable. British voters are vanishing in their millions and the only beneficiaries of this are extremists.

George Spiggott wrote:There's a growing rift in all three of the parties. Personally I'm hoping for a reformation of the parties similar in style to the one that occurred in Britain and the US in the mid 19th century. As it stands next election all three parties are pretty much unelectable. British voters are vanishing in their millions and the only beneficiaries of this are extremists.

I'd have to agree. None of the main three parties are getting my vote. I'd love to see a group of sane people come together to make up a new party which isn't interested in just messing everything up

It was good to see the fringe extremist parties get less votes (from what I recall) last election, but I think it is going to swing right back again in the next round of elections.

Lately ' Dave ' has been going through a period where he and his Party are demonstrating that he is very out of touch with the everday lives of ordinary struggling people through a series of Public relations disasters . Latest of which is the clueless and utterly incompetent advice to people in advance of a possible upcoming Fuel Tanker drivers Industrial action

The Lie of " we are in this together " ( Austerity measures ) coming from a generally very prosperous and priveliged group of people doesnt sit well .

So far Dave has done more u-turns than the Italian army. He's put large chunks of Britain up for sale (roads, police, NHS) and he somehow failed to win an outright majority against one of the worst PM's that Britain has ever had.

A career politician who stumbled into the levers of power, Dave is symptomatic of all that is wrong with the UK.

Hope that helps

Dynamix wrote:Lately ' Dave ' has been going through a period where he and his Party are demonstrating that he is very out of touch with the everday lives of ordinary struggling people through a series of Public relations disasters.

Yes, this is a line I've heard parroted a lot recently. As if Milliband and Balls were down-to-earth sons of the soil, as opposed to career politicians who were right smack-bang in the heart of the treasury when Brown was making a hash of the economy, helping his path to the top job by briefing against the actual leader of their party.

This whole 'out-of-touch' thing is just class warfare by the back door - the Labour party wants you to hate the middle and upper-middle class and blame them for everything that's wrong with the country, so you'll forget about the last decade, in which they trampled all over your civil rights, operated an open-door immigration policy and almost bankrupted the country. But hey, it's easy to hate the wealthy - or rather, it's easier than facing up to the fact that the Labour party used the working class to claw its way to power and stay there for 13 long years, by telling them that everything wrong with the UK was the fault of those on the higher rungs of society, instead of encouraging you to climb them.

Latest of which is the clueless and utterly incompetent advice to people in advance of a possible upcoming Fuel Tanker drivers Industrial action

Which was? And why aren't you questioning the industrial action, instead of the government's response to the threat of it?

The Lie of " we are in this together " ( Austerity measures ) coming from a generally very prosperous and priveliged group of people doesnt sit well .

And yet, when another, equally prosperous and privileged group of politicians tell you 'it's ok, we can keep spending', even though their jobs would be safe whether they are right or wrong sits absolutely fine? See, this is the problem we're currently facing in this country - after 13 years of spin, people prefer a soft lie to the hard truth.

My answer? Grow up, I guess.

Albatross wrote:

Dynamix wrote:
] Latest of which is the clueless and utterly incompetent advice to people in advance of a possible upcoming Fuel Tanker drivers Industrial action

Which was? And why aren't you questioning the industrial action, instead of the government's response to the threat of it?

The government response to the threat of strike was idiotic and irresponsible.
A government official advised people to 'stock up' and to keep petrol cans/containers in their houses.
This not only caused a rush on petrol across the country which meant a lot of stations ran out of petrol but (as the fire services predicted and tried, in vain, to reverse) helped cause many fires and accidents because people were keeping petrol in their house(where otherwise they might not).
All of this before the talks even happened.

The industrial action may be for a bad/stupid reason (they rarely are IMO) but it has been completely overshadowed by the stupid and irresponsible advice given my the government.

In answer to the OP: Nothing much has changed, except the Left are talking about a double-dip recession as if they actually want it to happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

purplefood wrote:
The government response to the threat of strike was idiotic and irresponsible.
A government official advised people to 'stock up' and to keep petrol cans/containers in their houses.

Actually that ONE official (Francis Maude, if memory serves) said 'maybe keep a jerry-can in the garage', which is a perfectly legal and sensible thing to do. If you're not a fething idiot trying to decant petrol in YOUR KITCHEN.

This not only caused a rush on petrol across the country which meant a lot of stations ran out of petrol but (as the fire services predicted and tried, in vain, to reverse) helped cause many fires and accidents because people were keeping petrol in their house(where otherwise they might not).

Do you actually have sources for any of that? How many stations ran out of petrol? How many fuel related accidents occurred? And it was the fire services union (important distinction) who provided us with the genius advice that petrol was potentially a fire risk. Sorry, but if you don't know that, then you deserve third-degree burns.

http://themediablog.typepad.com/the-media-blog/2012/04/david-cameron-rupert-murdoch-right-wing-media.html

Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold.

It saves on the VAT.

http://www.iaindale.com/posts/wheres-andy-coulson-when-you-need-him

Said woman who received the burns from decanting petrol in her kitchen was also apparently doing it next to or near an 'On' gas hob so I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a Darwin award entry at the very least.

Yes, this is a line I've heard parroted a lot recently. As if Milliband and Balls were down-to-earth sons of the soil, as opposed to career politicians who were right smack-bang in the heart of the treasury when Brown was making a hash of the economy, helping his path to the top job by briefing against the actual leader of their party.

/quote]

The whole lot of them are simply inadequate. The right leaning centerisim that we have had for years, if not decades, is likely to haunt us for a long while yet. Politics in this country is simply ineffective and the main parties are terrified of leaving the middle ground (or somehow being seen as 'anti business')with the result that the status quo just bimbles on.

Personally I can't even be bothered to vote in the next election (I voted Lib Dem last time), after all what would be the point?

TLR the Con/Dems are making an arse of it but then so would Labour.

For the last election I had only just turned legal voting age. My very first vote went to Lib-Dem....


I don't think I'll vote again ...

Things haven't got bad but they look grim as hell. The nhs being privatised!? Are you kidding me Mr. Cameron? I just don't know what to make of the head of our country anymore, it's a mess.......

The NHS isn't being privatised, so no worries there...

Its not being privatised, yet. I am sure that the tories would love to sell it off though.

SilverMK2 wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:There's a growing rift in all three of the parties. Personally I'm hoping for a reformation of the parties similar in style to the one that occurred in Britain and the US in the mid 19th century. As it stands next election all three parties are pretty much unelectable. British voters are vanishing in their millions and the only beneficiaries of this are extremists.

I'd have to agree. None of the main three parties are getting my vote. I'd love to see a group of sane people come together to make up a new party which isn't interested in just messing everything up

It was good to see the fringe extremist parties get less votes (from what I recall) last election, but I think it is going to swing right back again in the next round of elections.

I agree too.

The British Conservatives are somewhat to the left of the US Democrats but they have a serious internal division between the pro- and anti-Europe wings.

Lib-Dem seem to have pissed off a lot of their natural supporters by being too conservative once they got into coalition government.

Labour still suffer from the fallout of the Global Financial Crisis.

IMO the Conservatives have used the GFC as an excuse to make an assault on elements of the welfare state. Whilst some of that is justified and also accepted by the majority of the population -- e.g.the cap on housing benefit -- there are various balls-ups in the details which are starting to piss people off -- the granny tax and the working tax credit reduction being clear examples.

Worse, it is increasingly clear that the Cut Hard, Cut Fast approach has as predicted cut too hard and fast. Compared to the USA, the UK has preserved its AAA bond rating but we aren't using that to borrow for sensible investment. Instead, the pace of cuts has clamped down on economic recovery.

Albatross wrote:The NHS isn't being privatised, so no worries there...

Palindrome wrote:Its not being privatised, yet. I am sure that the tories would love to sell it off though.

Ah I don't see the news enough, cheers for the update

Brother-Captain Scotti wrote:

Ah I don't see the news enough, cheers for the update

Bits of it have been privatised, for example in the Trust I used to work at the GUM clinics and the associated labwork have been 'outsourced' to a private company. That was under the Labour government but the Tories are expanding the involvement of the private sector. The only good thing about this though is that the British public have absolutely no stomach for the deeply flawed US healthcare system so the NHS is highly unlikely to be truly privatised.

Frazzled wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:We had a recent change of authoritarians. The use of left/right is meaningless currently.

I don't see the Haggis and Woad Party on there. Whats the dealio?

That's the Scottish National Party. Centre left.

Palindrome wrote:

Brother-Captain Scotti wrote:

Ah I don't see the news enough, cheers for the update

Bits of it have been privatised, for example in the Trust I used to work at the GUM clinics and the associated labwork have been 'outsourced' to a private company. That was under the Labour government but the Tories are expanding the involvement of the private sector. The only good thing about this though is that the British public have absolutely no stomach for the deeply flawed US healthcare system so the NHS is highly unlikely to be truly privatised.

That's what I didn't want, the same US system, people might not have the money after the insurance policy hits the max. My mum in particular would not be here if the NHS wasn't what it is.

That argument has two sides - there are members of my family that would probably still be here if it wasn't for the the way NHS does business, one could argue.