To traditional Labour voters and those that care about workers rights and the NHS who have voted Labour in the past and are planning to vote Conservative at the 2010 general election.
I don’t think Labour’s done a particularly good job in many areas of government, but they do have their successes as well like the NHS and national minimum wage. I accept they could and should have done a much better job.
However, what’s the alternative, an uncaring Tory government! Imagine we’d have never removed the last Tory government and the Conservatives were still in power:
What would the NHS look like today under the Tories after another decade plus of under investment?
Would we have anything like a national minimum wage or would we still be aiming for sweatshop Britain trying to compete on price not quality?
Would barbaric blood sports like fox hunting be banned?
Would we have any House of Lords reform?
Would the MPs expenses ever have been brought to the light of day (Labour passed the legislation to open the books so to speak)?
Would we have something like Sure Start and so many Sure Start Children’s Centres?
Would we have guaranteed job/training place for 18-24 year olds unemployed for 6+ months under a Tory government or would we be loosing another generation to long term unemployment like we had in the 1990s?
Would we have winter fuel payments of £400 for pensioners over 80 and £250 to the over 60s?
Would we have increased child tax credit, would we even have something like child and working tax credits under the Conservatives?
Would we have been the first country to adopt legally binding long term targets for reducing our greenhouse emissions, do you really see the Conservatives as a green party?
Would we have offshore wind farms that provide the electricity for 2 million homes?
Would the Conservatives have helped insulate over 5 million British homes through a Warm Front like scheme?
Would we have legal civil partnerships (same sex marriage) giving same sex couples the same legal rights as married men/women?
Would the Conservatives have signed the Social Chapter resulting in worker rights like a right to four weeks paid holiday, a right to parental leave, extended maternity leave, a right to request flexible working hours and the same protection for part-time workers as full-time workers?
Would the Conservatives worked with the rest of the world to provide a coordinated response to the economic downturn to help families and businesses through difficult times? Remember the Tories were against the economic stimulus package, they wanted to let the recession run it’s course (mass unemployment and massive public sector service cuts).
Would our rivers, beaches and water be the cleanest they have ever been (part due to EU laws)?
Would NHS waiting lists be half a million lower than in 1997?
Would the Conservatives have guaranteed an under 18 week wait for hospital treatment?
Would the Tories guarantee that if your GP suspects you may have cancer, you will see a specialist within two weeks?
Would the Conservatives aim for a wait in A&E to be no longer than 4 hours? Remember the stories of ill people on waiting room trolleys for over 12 hours because the NHS was so under funded under the Tories.
Would the Conservatives increased NHS doctors by 44,000 and over 89,000 more NHS nurses since 1997?
Would the Tories investment in the NHS be nearly three times what it was in 1997?
Would the Conservatives have brought in a smoking ban in public places?
Would the Tories have given free off peak travel on local buses anywhere in England for the over-60s and eligible disabled people?
I can not understand how anyone who would consider themselves a Labour voter would seriously consider risking the country to the Conservatives for 5 years!
David
Ok, let me turn that around for you and explain why I would never vote Labour even if my life depended on it…
My Father was a shop steward, my mother stood for Labour in Wanstead and Woodford (Churchills Constituency) because they BELIEVED in the Hype that the Labour Party stood up for and worked for the Working Class people of the UK… BOLLOCKS!
I watched my mother and father work themselves to an early grave, the last my father voted was for Mrs. Thatcher in the 1979 Election when he understood that the years of believing in Labour and their policies were no more than a social engineering party that want to control everything and everybody and each time they were in power, they brought the country to its knees in Debt, Lies and Strikes.
Even my God Daughter knows and understands that if you have spent all the money in the Piggy Bank, you cannot expect to keep getting people to fill it back up again and again and again… or as Charles Dickens wrote, “If you earn Two Shillings and you spend Two Shillings and Tuppence, then something is wrong.
You cannot as Country, Party, or Individual spend more than you earn, it is unsustainable and will always end in tears when you can no longer Rob Peter to pay Paul and it is about time people learn to stand on their own two feet instead of thinking the rest of the Tay Paying Public work simple to pay their bills…
As for the Lib Dems, they can say what they like, they will not be leading the Government so will have to deliver on nothing….!!!
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Bravo!
What a load of propaganda and rubbish, there is no way to tell what would have happened at any event reagrdless of government. The Labour party have failed. No excuses or fancy wording, they have just failed. So now change beckons and the old way of Labour is dead. New Labour (Liberal Democrats) broke away from Labour with fresh ideas but no real plan and so have generally taken a backseat. Lets face it, Labour will not win and the best they can hiope for is a hung parliment which will let them have some say in the countries running, which is completely selfish!! why jepordise an entire country for the sake of a rivalry? Tactical voting? That is ignorance of the highest order. Please do not think that this is a hate message because while I do respect your opinions please note this is for the initial post. I’m sure the average voter has realised that Labour have dug themselves a huge hole and Lib Dems have just copied an old Manifesto (and please look it up before you respond because you will find they have just recycled old politics and manifesto. I have waited until the end to say conservative is the way forward so you could see an unbiased rebuttle to this outrageous selfishness in respect to the labour party. if you leave emails i will respond to all responses that regard my post. Thank you.
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The Labour party is finished. Us young voters do NOT want a nanny state. Look where it has got us!
I think that is right, we don’t wish a nanny state, which fundimentally is Labour’s concept of Government.
Although, the Conservatives are not perfect, the alternatives are much much worse.
Another 5 years of Brown and we will be calling in the IMF, AGAIN!
A vote for Lib Dems is a vote for a Coalition with Labour.
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It seems to me that almost everyone here with the few that have bothered to do some research have just fallen for a Sun fuelled media frenzy.
How wreckless are you to let tabloid media play a major part in your decission making process when it comes to voting your new government.
This election has never realy been about the issues, its just been about who the british public think they’d rather go for a pint with and this is why media savy Cameron and Clegg have been thriving.
It makes me sick to my stomach and very ashamed to be Brittish when I see how American we have become in our ideals towards celebrity and politicians, that we would vote for style over substance.
A vote for the Conservatives is a message to Cameron saying that as long as he keeps pulling out the glossy adds and overly groomed TV appearances we’ll happily go along with what ever he decides.
I think a vote for Labour is a vote for honesty, substance and above all sensibility.
In a race a Jockey dosent change horse half way through. The UK is in a crisis, would it be wise to change leader half way through? I dont think so, let them see out the crisis then take a hard look as to who we want running the country.
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People who refere to Cameron as a Conservsative are dead wrong. Conservatism died following the death of Conservative leader, Ted Heath.
What we have had since the 80’s is right wing facist Torysm. And we still have it, and them.
YO!!!!
Voting is a load ofr bollocks.
good bye.
Voting Conservative can only mean progression, we live in a capitalist society, thus we need a capitalist government with no left wing communist socialism trash anymore. Thanks to Labour, we have a poor education scheme with the comprehensive system, which closed down the true Grammar School tradition. Any Tom Dick and Harry can venture off to University gaining useless degrees and still end up unemployed, more to the point, spend most of their time at University, boozing and behaving outrageously. I’m not saying that voting Conservative is just for us middle classes but if the working classes pulled themselves together, learnt how to approach Britain without embarrassing the state with their common and poor attitudes to life, then we would progress.
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#### you to all you stupid posh wankers out there who voted tory, they will be the death of this country, labour did bad by us, but they aint responsible for everything that went wrong, most of which being GLOBAL ISSUES, so sod off back to your snobby mansions and bum the maid for all I care, cus u r well catered for under tory rule, us working class folk will just end up worse off
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There is no real distinction between middle class and working class. Both have to prostitute there labour for a living wage.
Why you feel so superior to a plumber, electrician, builder etc is a curiosity that even Narcisus would blush at!!!
The Labour Party is just the red Conservatives
ile never vote conservative and my three grown daughters will not ither