X-factor politics?

[observer]

Seems prior to the next election, we're now in for a US style leaders debate on TV; will it make any difference to how you vote?

[Bazj]

Hopefully it will show Brown to be the bumbling, indecisive and uncaring baffoon that he is. His slack jawed drawl will turn voters off in their thousands!!

[observer]

So the cult of personality replaces any attempt to inform the public on respective policies?!

[Bazj]

Well of course it does. Polict has not played a major part for decades.

 

The main reason that the people voted out the corrupt Tory government back in 1997 was just that; corruption and mistrust and also the over riding "it is time for a change" attitude. policies came well down the list as indeed they will this time

[observer]

So it's a bit like changing your car or TV; still functions but fancy a change?! IF the Tories do get in, the only change we'll see, is a continuing increase in the wealth gap, possibly a double dip recession due to the withdrawl of fiscal stimuli, and quite a few public sector workers on the dole. What we won't see, is any change to assylum and immigration, any escape from the EU, and no reduction in PC Human Rights nonesense.

[Evil Sid]

will jeremy kyle be hosting it

 

should be interesting to see what the viewing figures are

[Paul Kennedy]

I guess that the success or otherwise of the three "events" will depend on the interviewer's ability to manage....and of course their own egos. I rather sense that voters want to hear a positive message from leaders not them slagging off their opponents.

[Bazj]

So it's a bit like changing your car or TV; still functions but fancy a change?! IF the Tories do get in, the only change we'll see, is a continuing increase in the wealth gap, possibly a double dip recession due to the withdrawl of fiscal stimuli, and quite a few public sector workers on the dole. What we won't see, is any change to assylum and immigration, any escape from the EU, and no reduction in PC Human Rights nonesense.

 

To your first part; yes.... I change cars whenever I see a nicer one or someone will pay me more than I paid for the current one!

 

Its a bit late to start bleating on about the "poor" Obs, when your lot have screwed them over in a style even the Tories coulodn't have dreamed of over the past decade or more. Public sector workers on the dole? Well I seem to be paying increase after increase in my Poll Tax and seem to get a worse service year on year, so what are all of these tens of thousands of extra bods doing apart from keeping them out of the unemployment statistics?

 

There is no way out of the EU now..... Brown the traitor has sold us down the river so that no doubt he can get himself a nice little EU earner when he gets his ass kicked out of number 10.

 

The PC and huuuman rites nonsense have all been introduced by this incumbant shower and are all part of our EU constitution again there is no escape. The only option is a complete withdrawal and even the tories don't advocate that; they were advocating less power to Brussels, nothing more and now that option has gone.

 

Come the glorious day, Brown will be put up against a wall with Bliar and the pair of them will be shot for treason along with the rest of their minions.... the only one to be spared would be Prescott because he is just an idiot and comes across as Labours answer to Comical Ali!

[observer]

Errm, less of the "your lot" - as I keep saying, ad nauseum, this lot are basically a bunch of tories, but slightly more benign than the real thing. However, I'm pleased to see that you accept that Dave and Co won't make a jot of difference to the issues that I mentioned - so a case of frying pan or fire.

[Peter T]

Too many penpushers anyway and in Warrington also.

I thought most people voted for change.

As last time, the Tories will get in, sort the mess out and reduce the debt, and people will conveniently forget the mess that Lab. got in to (AGAIN) and vote the Tories out because they think Labour are the Party of the people.

 

I bet John Smith's turning in his grave.

[Bazj]

Obs.... whatever shade you try and put over them, they are Labour. They were called Labour and were elected as such. If what you are saying is that they were really the Tories then it just goes to show even more that the people of the country totally reject your sort of Labour ideology.

 

Of course the different story was told when LABOUR had wiped the floor with the Tories in 1997... it was Labour have done this and Labour will do that. Now that the wheels have come off the waggon and we have been plunged into the biggest recession in modern times (not helped by Browns incompetance and Viv Nicholson policies) they are suddenly the "Tories Actually"

 

I assume they would still be reffered to as the :Labour party by you and your chums in the red flag brigade if things had gone well!!

[Geoffrey Settle]

I think it's amazing how quickly Simon Cowell has got the interest of the three parties and started organising the 'Political X-Factor' show.

 

As the Guardian reports

 

Simon Cowell the millionaire mastermind behind The X Factor, is thinking of producing a 'political X Factor', in which hot topics are debated and voted on by the British public.

 

Speaking to BBC Newsnight, he said he has an idea that the public would debate key issues like the British troop presence in Afghanistan and knife crime. He suggested a red phone might be on the stage, allowing No 10 to call in to explain its position.

 

He added: "If you went around the country, it would be five or six big issues which I think are really, really important in people's lives. So I think there could be some kind of referendum type TV show where you can speak on both sides and then open it up to the public to get an instant poll. "

 

He went on: "It would be a good way for me to get involved in politics ? it would be controversial, the public would eventually make the decision

 

However he's now upto speed with all the issues

 

He said it would debate topics such as the UK presence in Afghanistan. "If you actually asked most people in the country why are we there, I couldn't even tell you ... I knew why we were in the Falklands, I don't know why we're over there. So when I see all these people coming back dead, I think we have a right to have a say in something like that. Or knife crime, I don't think that the justice system is working properly at the moment."

 

Cowell said it was a programme that he would like to watch, but he did not envisage anchoring the show himself

 

So maybe Baz or Obs could take the chair?

 

[Geoffrey Settle]

Obs.... whatever shade you try and put over them, they are Labour. They were called Labour and were elected as such. If what you are saying is that they were really the Tories then it just goes to show even more that the people of the country totally reject your sort of Labour ideology.

 

Of course the different story was told when LABOUR had wiped the floor with the Tories in 1997... it was Labour have done this and Labour will do that. Now that the wheels have come off the waggon and we have been plunged into the biggest recession in modern times (not helped by Browns incompetance and Viv Nicholson policies) they are suddenly the "Tories Actually"

 

I assume they would still be reffered to as the :Labour party by you and your chums in the red flag brigade if things had gone well!!

 

You either love him or hate him, maybe he'll stand for the Tories after the endorsement he received from David.

[Peter T]

Baz,

Labour got elected and became the Tories in red and called themselves New Labour. They used Tory policies and rhetoric to appeal to business and middle class. They deserted grass roots "Old Labour", maintained Maggie's policies, but went on a unprecedented spending spree funded originally by raping the pensions.

They also brought in more taxes and new laws than anyone had done before.

IF they were still Labour, they would have done more for the working classes and industry.

 

Not one of the main parties will be able to sell us something new worth voting for because they all think alike.

 

So it will be more of the same, and everyone will get hit really hard in their pocket after the election whoever wins.

[safeway56]

I don't suppose you remember the decrepit slum the Borough General Hospital was in 1997 or the godawful monstrosity which was Warington Tech...Both places now changed beyond recognition. I wonder which government changed these places ?

[wolfie]

I remember that the Tories wanted to close the hospital.

[observer]

They closed Winwick, and gave us "care in the community"; but as Maggie said "there's no such thing as community" and they didn't care! Baz: some of us wern't celebrating in 97, cos having suffered 18 years of Tory rape and pillage, we new we were in for a continuing dose of it. You could have put a donkey up in 97, and it would have won a majority, as the electorate were totally exasperated with the incumbant Tories; just as in 45, no one thought for a second that Churchill would lose, but folk were desperate for change - hence a Socialist Government and the creation of a welfare State.