Another 5 years of the Tories

[rexlunae]

The problem is it takes about 10 years before people wake up to it and suddenly realise all their public services have gone...

It's taken us 30, and we're still not totally there.

they call it small government.

Same.

 

[lovemeorhateme]

It's actually just like American Democracy in that regard. First-past-the-post leads to pretty lopsided results like that, although this vote was more competitive in terms of the number of serious parties than most.

It kinda looks like the SNP cannibalized the previous Lib Dem voters. So the dissatisfaction with them may be partly to blame.

Something seems just a bit undemocratic about the first-past-the-post system. The SNP have a large amount of seats considering the number who voted for them, yet UKIP who got three times that number of votes got one seat. I'm not the biggest fan of the SNP or UKIP, but it really doesn't feel right that we have a system which can so distort the results.

 

[lovemeorhateme]

Here in the U.S., it's the "conservative party" that created the gigantic national debt, and now they're busy blaming in on the other side, and trying to make the poor and the working class pay for it all.


Sound familiar?

I do not deny that the government 'bailing out' banks has added to the national debt. Even so, the simple fact remains that the government have been running a budget deficit for years. Economics surely dictate that one cannot keep borrowing and living beyond their means forever. Therefore, the government can either raise taxes, cut spending, or both. That's how I see it, I felt the Conservative Party were the only party who could truly deliver that, and so that's one of many reasons I'm happy they were voted back into power.

 

[rexlunae]

Something seems just a bit undemocratic about the first-past-the-post system. The SNP have a large amount of seats considering the number who voted for them, yet UKIP who got three times that number of votes got one seat. I'm not the biggest fan of the SNP or UKIP, but it really doesn't feel right that we have a system which can so distort the results.

Yeah, that's why I prefer STV. First past the post has a lot of problems, one of which being that it punishes parties that are either too concentrated or too diffuse.

 

[bybee]

And you still can't read, apparently.

...or...perhaps my parochial blinders are as big as yours....

 

[PureX]

I do not deny that the government 'bailing out' banks has added to the national debt. Even so, the simple fact remains that the government have been running a budget deficit for years. Economics surely dictate that one cannot keep borrowing and living beyond their means forever. Therefore, the government can either raise taxes, cut spending, or both. That's how I see it, I felt the Conservative Party were the only party who could truly deliver that, and so that's one of many reasons I'm happy they were voted back into power.

The obvious solution is to raise taxes on the people who have gained the most from all the excessive spending. But in the U. S. those people control the government (hence the excessive spending in the first place), so they have been able to lower their tax share and in many cases even eliminate it, leaving the entire debt on the shoulders of the working classes, who are already stretched to the breaking point. So as a consequence, they're now trying to blame everything on the poor, which plays into people's prejudice, and divides us against each other, but does little to alleviate the debt. But no one really cares so long as there's someone else to blame.