Just read this thread for the first time. Some of the posts are predictable, some amusing and some a little worrying at their rather skewed perceptions.
Who-ever is elected has to deal with a massive crisis and it is the fault of our system that they cannot be honest about that with us for if they were we would not vote for them. Having voted both labour and tory I genuinely decide on who I feel will serve the nations interest best, and not necessarily my own. I reject UKIP as having an adenda which is not suited to a modern UK. The BNP should become history asap. We simply don't want that sort of attitude in politics. There is no doubt about the solution to our problems, which must be to cut back on many areas of the public service, whilst raising the overall tax intake. It is too easy to suggest we simply tax the rich. It might make good headlines but the amounts raised are insignificant. The pain will have to be taken by everyone, even though I feel I have not been any part of the problem. I have no debt, not on a mortgage or a credit card. I have savings on which my interest has declined hugely. Add to that the fact that the yield on my pension pot has also declined, and the exchange rate collapse and I feel pretty sore. Nevertheless I accept that I cannot escape further pain. Having been part of the problem, in that they flirted with the city for so long, labour is now in trouble in handling the solution. The only reason I see them postponing dealing with it is to placate Unison, upon whom they rely for much of their funding. It will be Unison members who have to take many of the job losses which will undoubtably occur and they will fight. I guess the BA dispute is merely them practising and firing warning shots at the government. If we get another labour government we may never deal properly with this problem.
Whether a short lived coalition would be able to achieve electoral reform before another election is an open question. If I was confident it would I might well vote LibDem to achieve that for a do feel a root and branch overhaul is needed so that we can remove the tribal elements of British politics. Without that assurance I will be voting tory.
I witness at first hand how some of the public service has become ridiculously overblown, overmanned, overpaid and given un-deserved benefits. There seem to be more people carrying out performance checks, surveys and other tick box activities than doing the front line work. We compete with publically funded organisations who pay their staff 50% more than we do, when there is no need to pay those rates and give great pensions and other benefits. If they were private businesses they would make a loss but those losses are simply picked up by us, the taxpayers. There is a huge opportunity to reduce waste so on this alone I fully support Mr Cameron.
