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

It's been pointed out that there are now just 100 days left until the UK General Election. And already the politicians are poncing around, strutting their stuff and actually answering questions and talking to their constituents, something they're supposed to be doing for their entire term, and the odd discussion has already started to creep onto h2g2.

So, I propose we gather all political talk over here, with proper discussion of the issues and policies rather than having it all over the place with not much more than the odd gossip sound bite.

One thing to start off on, the only party that has so far actually published their policies is the Greens. Every other party is just showcasing snippets that sound good (to them) with nothing to back them up. Personally I think it's better to publish everything, because it lets the voter make up their own mind. But how many voters actually read the manifestos let along party policies?

I had real trouble at the European elections. I had leaflets from the Tories (which I disagreed with on the basis of their hatred of building houses on waste ground), and UKIP (which I disagreed with on the basis of their lunacy).

Nobody else sent a leaflet. Nobody else seemed mithered about my vote.

So I spoiled my ballot. Seemed like the only sane thing to do.

The problem I have with the leaflets that get shoved through the door is the amount of money that's spent on them and their political bias that purports to be news.

So many leaflets these days try and say how great and active the MP (or councillor) is with all these news stories, all carefully worded to not appear overly biased. Pure propaganda.

And it's not cheap either. I worked at a large agency that handled one of the main party's accounts and the costs were massive.

It really does rankle that they're pretty much buying the vote.

I'm not mithered by bias. I expect it in election material, as in all advertising. And they can waste as much as they want - it's the donors paying, not the taxpayer.

I just want to know what they're selling!

Themselves.

Very rarely do you (well me anyway) actually see any properly thought out policies or strategies. If it can't be made into a tabloid headline, it doesn't get bandied about

" I had leaflets from the Tories (which I disagreed with on the basis of their hatred of building houses on waste ground)" [M603]

How bad is this waste ground? The first thing that popped into my mind was that it might be a burial site for toxic waste, which definitely should not have houses built on it. Old dumps and landfills that have been properly capped might be reused for public parks, though building houses on it might require underground pipes that disrupt the underlying landfill.

There're a lot of non-toxic brownfield sites in and around Manchester that are ideal for housing, but rather than actually build on them companies hold onto the land to try and force the price up.

Manchester is a staunch Labour area, but the practice is nationwide. My other half works in the planning industry (archaeological side of things) so we get to see a lot of this happening.

What's really needed is a compulsory purchase order set at a fixed time from land purchase if no development is in progress. With the land then being used to site social housing or auctioned off.

What you say makes sense.

The latest drivel from the media: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31062699


A report has shown that migrant voters, people born overseas who're now resident in the UK and eligible to vote, could swing marginal seats.

So the media is going on about how the Conservatives fear them.

Sorry, the Conservatives fear them? Surely the papers should be focussing on how these voters are likely to keep UKIP out of seats? Surely, the far right party who want to stop immigration should be the focus of the reports on this?

This story caught my eye, because it's trying to make things about politics, that aren't: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31017422

The guy on the bike doesn't do this because of cuts to the police force, he does it because of the attitude of drivers and the police. Whenever it comes down to their word against yours, it's always been the driver that's walked away fine. Yet this piece has tried to turn it into a political dig at the government and the cuts to the number of police. What it doesn't say is that in the mid/early nineties, the number of police started to rise sharply. Until the current government took over, policing levels in the UK were at a historical high. Not just the most employed, but the highest ratio of police to population.

So I'm seeing this as a political propaganda piece, subtly having a go at the government. And I wonder how many more of these types of articles we'll start seeing from a supposedly unbiased media outlet.

And now we're seeing the old (new) favourite of rather than saying how good you'd be, or what you plan to do, instead saying how bad the others will be: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31790067

Any party that starts doing this crud loses points in my esteem. It's almost like admitting you're going to be rubbish, but at least not as rubbish as the others. It's playing on people's fears and worries. That's not politics, that's propaganda.