h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm claiming JSA so am hardly economically priveledged Red (though I'm still living with parents until I can find a decent job (two interviews next week so fingers crossed)

I've been to university twice so I suppose that puts me in the educationally priveledged bracket does it?

I'm not disputing that reform of public services is important

I think the tories would be ruinious on the NHS but they have a point about getting value for money about the increase in funding Labour have presided over.


But for me the war remains the single biggest betrayal of truth and trust that the government. How, how can i vote for them to be back in office. Why on earth should I trust them again?

I think on the whole Ben said it best above:

"It was very clear to me at the time that we were being lied to, and it was also very clear to me at the time that the legality of the war was dubious."

"I cannot vote for a party which flouts international law."

I also feel let down by the War, I marched in london agianst it, I campaingned, however the war has happened.

It is my contention (and I have outlined this in other threads) that whomever had been in government they would have taken us to war. I fully expect that the Lib Dems would have done the same in power.

For me I am very interested in what direction public policy will take over the next 4 or 5 years. And let us be realistic here it will either be Labours agenda or the Tory agenda.

When I vote, I will decide on that basis.

I think we could well be entering, as the Chinese proverb states, interesting times. All the polls seem to be moving towards a small New Labour majority and it is still early days. Policy will be influenced by the size of the majority.

>> shows just how 'priviledged economically' and educationally most hootoo researchers are

... and your point is?



>> If I was a bit bettter off I might care more about Iraq. But I'm not and I don't.

"Pretty sentiments" yourself.


Though redpeckham does make a point of sorts, even if it is just that the most principled of us can be bought.

Ben

No, not pretty sentiments. I live in a poor part of London. And having discussed stuff with my neighbours I find the war in Iraq never features... unlike on hootoo. What does concern and scare people is public services. Many of us are still recovering from what the Tories did to poorer people for nearly 20 years

I thought I'd go look up just what the third party position is:
Lib Dems got 19% of the vote last General Election (2001), while the Tories got 33% and Labour 43%.

In seats Labour got 413, the Tories got 166 and the Lib Dems 52 out of 659 total.

Hullo again FB. I too marched in London against the war - I think we just have divergent opinions on the merits of voting instrumentaly

It might be the Labour or Tory agenda but they will not succeed in convincing me that their plans in either case deserve my vote, they lost the right to convince me of that when the coluded to go to war I am intent on registering my dissatisfaction with those two parties on that basis.

Fair one Clive... the only thing I am worried about personally is cutting off my nose to spite my face.

IMHO if the Tories get in from my point of view it will be bad. I owuld have considerable worries aobut the future of the NHS. For me that is much *more* important than my views on the war.

I can appreciate however how this might not be the case for others. However the old "carefull what you wish for" adage does indeed spring to mind.

Prime Minsister Howard....

Try it on for size...

I will happily vote Labour again, for the following reasons:

Whether I agree with the war or not, I remember what actually happened rather than the media hype, half-truths and mis-quotes that the population now apparently believe to be "fact".

Also having grown up in the Thatcher years, I would rather chew off my left arm than vote Tory.

I trust TB as much as I would any politician. Once you discount all the media-c**p he has given me no good reason to mistrust him. Every policy and every speech are immediately pounced on, twisted and publicly rubbished. It would be difficult to lie in these circumstances.

The economy. I have family, a job and a house and I do not want to risk losing any of them to another Tory-led recession.

And last but probably most important - the environment. Very few environmental policies are going to be popular with the voting public, who like their cheap holidays and 4x4s. But at least Labour are making a bit of effort in the face this opposition. Clearly they *should* be doing much more, but there is a limit as to how much you can p**s off the public before you just get voted out and replaced by something that merely appeases them. Remember the fuel crisis? The Tories' immediate response was to propose a cut in fuel tax.

Glad were all friends.

I hope I am not doing as you say and cutting my nose to spite my face.

I think all these threads have been enlightening about how and why people vote and everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

IMO, I maintain that a vote for the lib dems is not a wasted vote - that to vote for either labour or tory will be seen as an endorsement of them and I am simply not willing to give them that endorsement.

In my town, we switched from labour to lib dem and will in all likelyhood stay lib dem. I suppose that makes my decision easier - and I don't want to appear complacent for that fact so let me say were I living in Coventry say, or elsehwere I'd still vote the same way. Instrumentality is not the be all and end all of politics.

I do recognise however, that local politics and tactical voting will by necessity play on a lot of peoples minds.

I think how the government has acted in this second term has been inexcusable and I cannot stomach the thought of contributing to returning them to power.

As both you and I know FB - the protests meant nothing to Blair, this is our one and only opportunity to punish him and his party for taking the country to war on the basis of a lie. I've been nurturing this grievence for two years! I am not prepared to let him win the day becasue I am persuaded that the NHS or the railways are safer in Labour control.

They should not be let off the hook. And that's my

I hope I remember what happened too.

Tony stood up in Parliament and said Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction." That was wrong. It was an exageration, a falsehood and a lie. On the basis of his speech, his evidence and his commitment, he caried the vote to commit troops to Iraq.

That decision was completly erroneous. Iraq had no Weapons of Mass Destruction there was, ergo, no threat and the vote was carried on the basis of something that wasn't true.

He has defended that decision up to the hilt, his party have defended it, the Tories were in steadfast agreement with IDS at the helm and now find it impossible to row away from.
Labour fudged Butler so the politcal decison wasn't investigated only the intelligence was and that was found to be lamentable!

When will anyone be held responsible for the decision they took?

This election is my one and only opportunity to make my feelings known.

I don't think it is media cr*p that has brought TB low, it is his own doing. He has given me every reason to misstrust him.

I had high hopes for Labour being environmental - the 10 year transport plan for example. Like so much of TB's second term, a crushing dissapointment.

As for the fuel crisis?? um.. I'm stretching my memory here but wasn't that caused by the treasury hiking prices too high and the truck drivers blockading the depots? How are the tories responsible for that?

My point is decide whatever you want, but no-one has to vote labour or tory, there are alternatives and good reasons for choosing them. (If you want be enviromental, vote Green and maybe help them return an MP to the commons )

I just wonder how all those diaffected Labour voters will feel if the Tories get in! I'll never forget how heartbroken I felt in '92 when Kinnock lost and Major got in. I'm sorry but UNDERSTAMD the Liberals will never get in!

I have to admit I thought the goverenment handled the feul crisis admirably. Giving in (what the conservatives suggested) would have set a ganderous precedent.

Though the intelligence turned out to be wrong I don't thinkBlair would have used that as his reason for backing the war unless there was a reasonable amount of evidence. So our intelligence services were wrong maybe they should have more funding but I doubt TB knew how bad the intelligence was.

I don't buy that the intelligence services screwed up and the politicians are blameless. Blair's offices set the agenda, sought the intelligence, and the intelligence services gave them what they wanted carefully caveated.

NO.10 striped out the caveats, bunged it in a dossier, swung it under the noses of all the MP's saying "see?" and lo' we went to war. In the absence of knowing for certain what the truth was and in defience of international law (and we'd know more if the Attorny General ever explained himself.)

Whatever has come of it (and Hoo started a brilliant discussion on this in the forum not long ago) that decison was wrong, the evidence was wrong, we walked away from further weapons inspections, walked away from a second U.N resolution specifically authorising war for iraq's "breaches" of restrictions on it's "weapons."

On the basis of this evidence and we signed up to join 'the coalition of the willing' and invaded Iraq. This decison has never been scrutinised and no-one has yet been held accountable.

I am livid about this. The Tories incidentally are as much to blame and I am not voting for them either!

It was a great achievement for Labour to gain a second term, if you look at history I believe it was a first..at ;east in recent times, The media allied with the forces of the establishnent always made sure Labour was only in for one term. I think Tony has been rather to the right cos he knew this. He may have sold his soul but there were reasons..........

I am more afraid of landslides, and if Labour got into a spin with such huge majorities maybe the best revenge on Tony Blair is to let him in, in but make him work for his legislation.

This is my main gripe with the First Past the Post system - it creates bad laws and - as demonstrated - bad wars.

Redpeckham, and everyone else who can remember the 1980s, I am sorry if what I said was snide. I was there too, trying to run a business through the biggest recession this country experienced. Not fun for anyone.

And though I hate to concede it, the point about the environment is a good one. Interestingly, apparently Thatcher listened and acted more on environmental issues than any of her contemporaries, the result of her training as a scientist. I got that off the radio though, and never bothered to substantiate it, so I am not even sure if I believe it.

Ben

I am not trying to say the politicans are blameless but:
Removing caveats has been standard procedure.
This is something that should have been called into question earlier.

However there were other good reasons to go to war and I think that had TB seriously doubted the existance of WMDs theese would have been brought forward as well.

For me and from what i've heard from others ~ it doesn't matter how many other good reasons Tony might have had for taking us to war.
The fact is he stood up in parliament and lied to us.(Eithor that or he is so incompetant he didn't know the intelligence was faulty).
He staked his reputation on weapons of mass destruction and is now a liability for his party.We have to be able to trust our prime minister on a personal level and Blair simply no longer appears to be trustworthy.

>> However there were other good reasons to go to war and I think that had TB seriously doubted the existance of WMDs theese would have been brought forward as well.

But there are two separate issues here: Blair's sincerity and his judgement.

What you are saying sigsfried is that you don't doubt his sincerity.

What others of us are saying is that we continue to doubt his judgement.

I think we are right to question his judgement in - for example - his determination to interpret intelligence which the intelligence community itself said was ambiguous in the most expedient political light, and as also demonstrated in the cynicism of the thinking "They'll forget it was illegal once we've one it".

Ben

I question his judgement and his sincerity ~ and not just over the war.
Once a politician breaks trust with the people it is almost impossible to restore it.
How can any politician lead a country and claim to speak for its people if those people do not trust him?