Saintandy666

Not always, a lot of Americans I have met have defined themselves by their state. I.E - 'Californian' or 'Texan' before American. Of course, many others define themselves as American first.

If we keep getting these 'wish-washy' coalitions, electoral reform will come and never again will the labservative cartel be able to rule indefinitely!

That's fair enough. A bit like me and the Conservative party then!

Oh for sure, we are much more pluralist than we once were. 95% of people used to vote for the top two parties, now only 65% do. That is why FPTP is such a shambles.

The Liberal Democrats aren't that bad. They are no worse than the other two parties. They aren't fascist or communist or whatever.

Not really, they are separate issues. In the future, there will probably be a Europe like the USA where each state retains a large degree of say over its laws and economic/social policy, but some stuff like Military etc is devised on a Europe wide basis. To be honest, it wouldn't be that much different from the status quo. For example the UK would never be able to start military action these days without NATO/USA support.

I don't know about that. The conservatives will be in power for a term or two, and then Labour will come back in for a term or two... that's how our democracy works. Nothing changes much in who rules.

Bit of a silly decision. You need to give managers time.

Yes, I am aware of this, but it makes my opinion no less valid, especially as that is the way Europe will go eventually in my opinion.

I think the Conservatives would lose more votes than they gain by adopting UKIP's policies. I think that when it comes down to it, most people want to be in Europe, but perhaps not with the current arrangements. I support more integration though. i makes a good point today saying that those who want us to be in the single market, but not the EU are not considering everything. In we want to remain in the single market, other EU countries would demand we abide by the same rules as them, so in effect not much would change except our influence on the world stage.

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-FabianSociety-EUCoop-050111.pdf Here's the poll by the way.

5% said don't know and 61% said bad thing. (adds up to 99 due to rounding stuff I assume) Still... bad thing does not mean they want out and 15% is a large amount of your support to alienate as the other 61% won't abandon as has been shown over the last 31 years.

15% of conservative voters think EU membership is a good thing. 18% said it was neither good nor bad. I wonder where they would go if the Tories took us out of the EU... they may win UKIP voters put lose their Europhile faction.

Well, if the UK is fed up, they only need vote for someone else... or at least that is theory. I do agree with you, it isn't easy to pick anyone other than the main parties in a FPTP system.

I have. I voted Yes for AV and Liberal Democrat in my locals last year. My local area is always Liberal Democrat by quite some margin, helped by the fact our councillors have very good reputations locally.

But if your family and friends are inside the building, you want to save them first?! Before walking away...

The Championship is a huge league. I can't think of another country that has such a well watched and rich 2nd tier league. The Depth in English football is beyond any other nation.

But you should make sure the fire is sorted before running away... call in the fire-brigade, no?

I am of voting age actually!

UKIP... or start your own party. That's our democracy for you... a bit of a shambles in places, no?

Well, technically we have had a say, because we elect the government to make decisions on our behalf. But yes, we should have a referendum at some point and I will proudly vote yes(to stay in) to avoid us a disaster.

A problem the Left-Wing vote has had for years being split between Lib Dems and Labour.

I wasn't about to even reply! Aren't you worried that if more vote UKIP(and I don't think they will, because when push comes to shove because of FPTP they will vote Tory), that Labour(and maybe Lib Dems in coalition???) will get in because of the split right-wing vote?

Good good. There's been talk about him for a few years now, so will be very interesting to see how he gets on.

In fairness, that was negotiated out in the coalition agreement. I don't understand why people don't want us to be in Europe, influencing the spectrum of our continent as opposed to an irrelevance on the side. Isolationism doesn't work! Look what happened to the US when they tried to pursue that in the 1920's.