Wes Tender

Yes, it was a Lib Dumb policy and Labour seeing that they would have their support copied it. The LDs expected to raise £1.7 billion with theirs, so unless it has been badly costed Labour could learn something from them. I might be mistaken, but I don't recall LD saying that Labour would have the most votes. They were two million short last time, so that is unlikely. Most commentators conclude that they will cosy up with the SNP and other smaller parties to take them over the line as the biggest grouping. Again, most commentators believe that the LD vote will be substantially reduced, so although they will undoubtedly try and whore themselves to the party that promises them a continued say in the governance of this country, it is doubtful that they will have enough MPs to enable them to be the sole additional party in any alliance other than with the Tories, who may also be able to ally with UKIP. A bit difficult and far too early to claim that anybody has underestimated Milliband, on the basis that he is totally unproven in government. Has he even had a good election? That is a matter of opinion based largely on one's political allegiance, so I'm not surprised that you think he has.

Apology accepted

The solution is simple; when they start singing their version, we all start singing our version over it. If they're stupid enough to sing our song at our gaff and build up the Saints atmosphere, then more fool them.

Go on deluding yourself if it makes you feel all superior. It doesn't bother me.

My tongue was so far in my cheek that it totally escaped your notice and allowed you to get all precious over it. I was parodying the lefties parroting their panacea for solving the funding of the NHS, Education, the Benefits system, etc. by taxing the rich until their pips squeaked.

This must be the Conservatives' equivalent of Labour's Magic Money Tree.

duplicate

Johnny Bognor: I think that despite you not appearing to understand the thrust of what JB had written, you are in fact pushing aganst an open door.

But what is grossly unfair is that those rich bastards only have to pay the same rate as the poor. That can't be right or just. They should be bled dry on everything the own, everything they earn and everything they buy. That'll teach them.

It's an optional choice, but Charities are trivialised by his analogy, which is the point I made.

As shown by the Andrew Neil interview of that Labour Shadow minister Jamie Reed, it seems apparent that Labour are not prepared to tell anybody the details of their Mansion Tax. Whether it will be levied on the whole property value or just the amount over £2 million, what the rate will be, or even who the independent experts are who have told them what it will raise. These details of what the Mansion Tax would entail must be known to Labour, unless those independent experts have not told them how they worked out the figures, but their shadow minister doesn't know the details. I wonder who pulled the plug on him when he was floundering so spectacularly to avoid answering the question?

Congratulations for labelling charities as being like a retail service and that donating to them is like going to Tesco or joining BUPA. Truly a spectacular trivialisation of the service they provide for the needy.

Come on then, give us a list of where Labour will make the cuts and how much, so that we know that you are basing your position on something a bit more concrete other than blind faith and instinct. Whilst you're at it, perhaps you'll speculate on whether Labour will be forced by the SNP to go lighter on cuts to services and benefits than they would otherwise have done, and therefore heavier on punitive taxation of the so-called wealthy, the very few lucky enough to live in "Mansions"? The other side of the coin to the rather simplistic characterisation that you use to disparage the Tories, is that there are equally those who would not trust Labour to govern the country without ruining the economy by their inablity to recognise that their "them, them, them" attitude to the wealthy and the wealth-creators backfires when punitive taxation causes people to avoid paying it, by emigrating or by creative accountancy. I don't need to wait to see whether your trust in Labour is misplaced on the basis of whether their cuts will be fairer, as they are usually only fair to a section of society rather than to everybody.

Thank you The Daily Mirror

Of course there is no mention in their manifesto of their desire to ruin the Country (by which presumably you mean the UK). But that is probably what they would achieve, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Yes, Labour have ruled out a coalition with the SNP, but it is naive in the extreme to believe that as the price for supporting them as the party of government, (when it is almost certain that Labour will not achive that on their own account), the SNP would not exact their pound of flesh in return. In the event that Labour do form a government supported by the SNP and other minor parties, the SNP will operate on a vote by vote basis and their manifesto places them quite a bit to the left of the most left-wing Labour hierarchy for many years. The SNP rejects austerity measures, but thankfully Labour would have the support from the Tories, Lib Dems and UKIP over the need for some austerity measures, so it should not be a problem making cuts to some services. But the SNP will not favour cuts to public services and would prefer to take punitive measures against the wealthy through raising taxation. This is where they are dangerous. The ideal solution would be to let the Scottish Parliament raise their own taxes and an English Parliament could raise taxes in England. Then we could have the wealthy Scots emigrating to England to escape punitive Scottish taxation and to enjoy our fairer tax regime, bringing their wealth with them.

As usual from you, a very fair and well-reasoned response. Having watched the programme, I also read the transcript, just to refresh my memory of it. My overall thoughts remain that the quality of interviewer and the techniques they employ has deteriorated over the years. In the case of Marr as an example, it might have suited him to attempt to rattle Cameron in order to weaken his appeal to the electorate. But surely the purpose of the interview is fundamentally to question the party leaders on their manifesto policies, and there was precious little of that because of the very nature of the interview, which wasn't at all conducive to constructive debate. I accept that Cameron, like all politicians will try and obfuscate his responses, or to get across some positive message outlining the things that they consider they have achieved which are vote winners, but a good interviewer could curtail that tactic by pointing out that the question had not been answered and demanding an answer. What comes across as ruining the debate is the interviewer asking a question and then not having the decency to allow that question to be answered before butting in rudely and combatively, often being arrogant enough as to answer the question himself. As you rightly point out, Prime Minister's questions has become a bear-pit of yah-boo arguments and does not reflect well on any of the parties. The televised debates have followed much the same path towards the sensational and the trivialised sound-bite, so that the emphasis is switched more heavily towards the image of the main protagonists, rather than their abilities. It is as if the media have decided that the ordinary voter is too thick to comprehend the issues, so there is little point in debating them sensibly.

But Marr is biased, always has been. I hate the TV interrogators who ask a question and then refuse to let their interviewee answer it. By all means prevent them indulging in a party election broadcast, but it isn't very good technique to hector people in that way. And Cameron does himself no harm in claiming that Marr didn't hector his other interviewees in the same way, provided that people see that to be the case. Does it make Cameron weak, standing up to an attempt to bully him? Surely he would look weaker letting Marr bulldoze him to his own agenda.

The guidelines for assessing how the boundaries are decided and the system whereby those decisions can be debated locally and then reassessed are laid out here:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Commissions_(United_Kingdom) But I don't see why you ask how you get more Tory voters into Barnsley and conversely Labour voters into Henley. The likelihood is that where there are large cities having several constituencies with smaller numbers of voters in them, that the boundaries will be changed to include the dormitory areas around them, therefore generally increasing the span of votes over more parties. Smaller places like Henley already feature large areas around the town and that surrounding area is largely Conservative anyway, so not any more scope to add Labour voters to the seat than there is to add Tory numbers to the Barnsley area. What happens when population demographics or political leanings shift? Well, the Boundaries Commission is supposed to tweak the boundaries every five years, so the population demographics shouldn't be an issue. As for the shift in political leanings, the constituency boundaries have nothing to do with those. The boundaries should only reflect a more or less even voting age population split for each constituency, to address the current situation whereby large cities would have two MPs representing them as against only one representing a large sparsely populated area. One only has to look at the sometimes huge disparities between the number of voters in the constituencies in the UK to realise that the current system is badly in need of an overhaul. And look at the average size of constituency in England compared to the figures for Scotland and Wales, which also have their own Parliaments but also interfere in English matters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_Parliament_constituencies

Labour had been in power for 13 years under Blair/ Brown, yet there was no clamour from the Conservatives to ditch FPTP. What is scandalous in terms of the lack of a level playing field, is the number of votes which is required to elect a Labour MP compared to that required to elect a Conservative MP. Boundary changes which would have addressed this were due to take place in 2013 with a proposal to cut the number of MPs to 600, but the Lib Dems reneged on it and 2018 is the earliest it can now take place. Naturally as is shown in this article, Labour would stand to lose a number of seats, as would the SNP and Plaid Cymru, so it's unlikely to change any time soon, because it would require a Tory majority to bring it about and the unfair boundaries themselves legislate against the majority being achievable. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19166125

This is the most comprehensive site covering the area. http://www.france-voyage.com/travel-guide/pas-de-calais-departement.htm Watch the Virtual Tour video and excuse the incredibly bad pronunciation of French. Then there is a delightful array of photos of the major places and a good map featuring places to stay, etc.

Or why don't all the UKIP voters move into just 50 marginal constituencies?

But like me, you're in the Eastleigh consituency which is very marginal, so our votes will count for much more than in most constituencies

Why do we need anything new or different?

And then there are all the other ways in which the voting public can appraise themselves of the various party's policies via their manifestos, other interviews in the media, etc. Wishing to see the party leaders debating policy either in a circus environment such as the multi-leader debates or as a Milliband/Cameron head to head, makes it look as if it's a presidential election based purely on how well they come across in the media. Cameron was very astute to avoid anything beyond what he has committed to, as was shown by the last debate, when the minor parties having no other target, ganged up on Milliband, especially the SNP's shrill Sturgeon.

Surely Ronald Koeman wouldn't allow the Skates to make two academy pitches on his land?