Time for Change? (UK General Election)

[Sureboss]

3-0 Labour.

SSCCHHWINNG!

Already doing better than Sheffield Wednesday have done this season...

 

[Mark T]

I want to stay up and watch the rest but have a busy day tomorrow so need my beauty sleep. Looks very interesting and will provide me with plenty of reading material tomorrow.

Still going for a hung parliament with negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems.

 

[Fastas]

I'm only staying up to watch Charlie Brooker on C4, he's funny.

 

[Stevisiov]

Think I will be staying up all night to watch it, I wouldn't like to speculate as to who will win, but the suggestion is that it may be a labour/liberal coalition.

 

[Jondot]

Well my home constituency just got a fairly unsurprising result, but a nice Lib Dem surge for a change. Shame it'll have no effect.

 

[Touring Mars]

Still going for a hung parliament with negotiations between Labour and the Lib Dems.

It's looking like a disaster for the Lib Dems... Lembit Opik is gone, which is quite amazing, and the Tories are starting to picking up alot of gains - but crucially they seem to be falling short of what they need for an overall majority... but, if the Lib Dem vote collapses (against all the hype and expectation), it might turn out that a Labour - LibDem pact will not be enough for a majority either... looking very good for Cameron at the moment. I've fallen asleep about three times, and I'm probably going to turn in shortly since I have alot of work tomorrow

 

[Sam48]

It's looking like a disaster for the Lib Dems.

I'm don't know much about British politics, but is a liberal democrat in Britain the same as a liberal democrat in the US? (And the same with conservatives?)

 

[Touring Mars]

Not exactly, but there's probably not much in it... The Liberal Democrats in the UK are perhaps most similar to left-leaning Libertarians... they are in a similar position to libertarians in America insomuch as they are attempting to offer an alternative to what is effectively a two-party system, but it looks like they are going to be seriously disappointed.

Interestingly, the UK has for the first time attempted using US-style TV debates prior to today's election, and the Lib Dem leader enjoyed a massive boost in the polls, suggesting that the Lib Dems were now more popular than Labour (the current government). But, as the seats are being announced one by one this morning, it looks like being a very different story!

edit: The Conservatives are closer to Republicans and Labour are closest to Democrats...

As for the Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party, don't ask

the Tories are starting to picking up alot of gains - but crucially they seem to be falling short of what they need for an overall majority... but, if the Lib Dem vote collapses (against all the hype and expectation), it might turn out that a Labour - LibDem pact will not be enough for a majority either...

To add to this, the Tories are in a much better position to make a deal with the Liberals - if Labour and the Lib Dems cannot muster ~320 seats between them, the Liberals may have no choice but to join Cameron if they want to have any real influence at all.

 

[Seismica]

Lib Dems 20% of the votes, only 5% of the seats.

Still waiting to see the result of Stockton South. It's one of the biggest Tory targets in the North East. It's going to be close. Me and my family voted Lib Dem though, as did many people I know. If Labour lose this seat to the Tories by <50 votes i'm going to be pretty annoyed (As realistically, the Lib Dems aren't going to take this seat... I wish we had proportional representation...).

 

[Touring Mars]

Lib Dems 20% of the votes, only 5% of the seats.

They are by far the biggest losers without PR, but then again, the BNP would get 11 seats in parliament with their 1.8 % of the vote under PR, and 0 seats under the current system... so it's not all bad.

Nick Clegg's chief of staff, Danny Alexander, said there had been "premature election speculation"

It sounds like the Lib Dems surge came too soon...

 

[Seismica]

They are by far the biggest losers without PR, but then again, the BNP would get 11 seats in parliament with their 1.8 % of the vote under PR, and 0 seats under the current system... so it's not all bad.


It sounds like the Lib Dems surge came too soon...

But those are primarily protest votes. I know a guy who voted BNP. He didn't want a Labour or Tory government and voting for any other party here is pointless. Most of the BNP votes I feel were for that purpose. Plus, 11 seats is not really anything. They can attempt to put forward legislation but if it is anything radical or extreme it will just get rejected by the other parties.

I ended up flipping a coin, to vote for Lib Dem or Labour . My reason behind that is I don't want the Conservative candidate to win here, and although the Lib Dems are who I want in I know it was unrealistic. I would prefer a Labour government or a Lib-Lab coalition to a Conservative government.

 

[DGiant2000]

Looks like we've dodged one bullet from my point of view, I just hope that the lib dems and labour can form a coalition and make sure the tories don't get in. As someone who works in education, I can assure you a conservative government would be nothing short of a disaster for our schools and education in general.

 

[Famine]

Looks like we've dodged one bullet from my point of view, I just hope that the lib dems and labour can form a coalition and make sure the tories don't get in. As someone who works in education, I can assure you a conservative government would be nothing short of a disaster for our schools and education in general.

Hopefully you don't work in mathematics, because a Lib-Lab pact won't, currently, reach majority either. Right now it's 289 to the Conservatives and 295 to a Lib-Lab pact - majority being 326. If Clegg wants any sort of political recognition, he'll form a Con-Lib pact.

I was in education during the Tory controlled 1979-1997 period and worked in it during the 1997-2010 Labour controlled period. It was considerably better during the former than the latter - I'm not sure why you think the Conservatives would make for a disastrous education system...

They are by far the biggest losers without PR, but then again, the BNP would get 11 seats in parliament with their 1.8 % of the vote under PR, and 0 seats under the current system... so it's not all bad.

I don't think I'd have a fundamental issue with the BNP representing people who'd voted for them - it's more an issue with the people who vote for them than the BNP themselves. It's not like they could achieve anything, really, with 11 seats.

Then again, the whole system confuses me. Why, exactly, do we need 651 MPs to run the country (I was going to say "run the country on our behalf", but I couldn't even type it in jest) when a country the size of, oooooh, the USA has 435 for five times the population and forty times the area?

 

[DGiant2000]

Hopefully you don't work in mathematics, because a Lib-Lab pact won't, currently, reach majority either. Right now it's 289 to the Conservatives and 295 to a Lib-Lab pact - majority being 326. If Clegg wants any sort of political recognition, he'll form a Con-Lib pact.

I was in education during the Tory controlled 1979-1997 period and worked in it during the 1997-2010 Labour controlled period. It was considerably better during the former than the latter - I'm not sure why you think the Conservatives would make for a disastrous education system...

As it happens, I am an advanced skills maths teacher

The conservatives are planning to abandon the national framework for teachers pay and conditions, scrap teachers entitlement to planning and preperation time and stop discontinue investment to improve school buildings and facilities. Also their 'free' schools, set up by groups of parents and other groups will be funded by top-slicing budgets of current schools.

Like them or not (and personally I can't stand Gordon Brown), Labour have put a great deal of resources into our schools and the amount of new buildings around are testament to this. The conservative policies will mean even more poorly funded schools (many of which are already in a deficit budget) and make the recruitment and retention of teachers even more difficult to accomplish which, given there is already a shortage in many subjects, would not bode well in my opinion. That is of course the key, it is my opinion (albeit shared with the majority of secondary school teachers I know), I'm sure other people may think diffferently (higher education workers for example) or may not place education so highly on there list of priorities.

EDIT: Confirmation of what we expected, this really isn't helping me get my work done...

 

[Famine]

As it happens, I am an advanced skills maths teacher

I'd blame it on your education during the Conservative era

The conservatives are planning to abandon the national framework for teachers pay and conditions, scrap teachers entitlement to planning and preperation time and stop discontinue investment to improve school buildings and facilities. Also their 'free' schools, set up by groups of parents and other groups will be funded by top-slicing budgets of current schools.

Like them or not (and personally I can't stand Gordon Brown), Labour have put a great deal of resources into our schools and the amount of new buildings around are testament to this. The conservative policies will mean even more poorly funded schools (many of which are already in a deficit budget) and make the recruitment and retention of teachers even more difficult to accomplish which, given there is already a shortage in many subjects, would not bode well.

Interestingly, I remember a very similar argument against the Labour party in 1992 and 1997. We were told they planned to ban grammar schools and make it difficult for independent schools to survive - but despite 13 years' opportunity, grammars and independents are still going strong and still represent better education and better value education than the public sector (average spent per child per year in the public sector is £5,500 - £65bn of the £88bn education budget spent on schools and an enrollment of 11.7m children - and £11,000 in private schools, with more than double the 5 A*-C GCSE rate and nearly four times the A-level pass rate).

Of course, Labour education policies have also seen a colossal increase in the bureaucracy around schools (which necessitates PPA time ). The influence and remit of OFSTED since 1997 would alarm anyone who took a moment to think about what it was like back then, not to mention the hoop-jumping for exclusion of the unruly, the ideals of inclusion for all no matter of suitability (not just children who'd benefit more from special schools, but the impending requirement for children to stay on to 18 even though they might get nothing at all from academia, but would make a vocational contribution) and, my all-time favourite two, the Agenda for Change and Continuous Professional Development. Agenda for Change requires for all people in the public sector in the same job to be paid the same (except in London, which is different for some reason), discouraging innovators and working beyond your remit and, in the case of teaching, encouraging those career teachers who've taught the same lesson for 20 years and will never change it. CPD means that it's no longer enough to just be good at your job - you have to say what extra skills you'd like to help you do your job, what you're going to do to get them and spend 4 days a year doing it (which is fine for teachers - with PPA time to write your CPD and 4 Inset days a year, job jobbed - but an absolute pain in the arse for support staff).


Fundamentally, the message here is that all the parties occupy the same quadrant of the political compass. We might be lead to believe that our team will do good things and the opposition team will do bad things, but ultimately they'll all make the same changes because they all have roughly the same ideals to within a couple of percent.

 

[DGiant2000]

I'd blame it on your education during the Conservative era

Touche, must have been my lack of milk

You are correct in that the reality is, no one can really be believed or trusted and that's what makes it so difficult for people to decide. Of course for me, their are personal considerations as well, none more so that it is unlikely my job (or part of it) will exist under a conservative government, not to mention a pay freeze, the meddling with my pension (inevitable I know but the longer it can be put off the better!) and an increase in my already considerable workload (let's not pretend that cutting PPA time will cut the ridiculous beauracracy) so my views are indeed clouded. A coalition government could have some merits as it may stop some of the more radical and sweeping changes.

As an aside, the ability of a government to meddle so comprehensively in the structure of the education system is a problem in itself. Effective change takes around 8 years to implement in a school according to research, which is impossible to achieve with the constant changing and moving of the goalposts by a government who can potentially change every 4 years, and who are often very reactive to events and opinions without neccessarily thinking through the long term strategy. Hence all the CPD, paperwork and red tape issues that you mention.

 

[Famine]

As an aside, the ability of a government to meddle so comprehensively in the structure of the education system is a problem in itself. Effective change takes around 8 years to implement in a school according to research

Agreed on both points.

 

[PeterJB]

I' pretty glad tat the Lib Dems won in my constituency, even if they only have 50 seats or so. I was surprised that the BNP got 600 votes in my Town alone. Apparantely Wiltshire is the BNP capital of Britain, and a member of the BNP is on the West Wiltshire District Council.

 

[Scaff]

I' pretty glad tat the Lib Dems won in my constituency, even if they only have 50 seats or so. I was surprised that the BNP got 600 votes in my Town alone. Apparantely Wiltshire is the BNP capital of Britain, and a member of the BNP is on the West Wiltshire District Council.

The BNP have sat on a number of councils. They have never done anything constructive and a few have quit after complaining its to complicated!!!!!

Oh but most did claim every last penny in expenses they could.



Scaff

 

[Touring Mars]

I expect Gordon Brown to behave sensibly now that he is faced with the situation most people predicted, and it looks like he is not going to let his reputation down on this front... he has conceded that Cameron should have the first 'shot' at forming a coalition with the Lib Dems, but has offered the Lib Dems an alternative should they fail to reach an agreement. Under the circumstances, and given the necessity for Brown to stay as PM until such a time as his resignation would not leave the country leader-less, I think he is acting pretty responsibly and appears to have a much tighter grip on reality than some of his party...

 

[Sureboss]

I think Clegg will be hell-bent on wanting electoral reform, especially after the, quite frankly embarrassing statistics of votes to seats. I can't see him getting that from Cameron without the partnership failing quickly, which would prompt another election that Cameron would be confident over winning.

Either way, get ready for 5 more years of rubbish-ness. I'm just glad my new qualification is internationally recognised, I'll be out of this place within 5-7 years if electoral reform doeosn't happen.

 

[Ardius]

Lib Dems will play hard ball, they have everything to lose forming a coalition and they currently hold the ace. Clegg seems open minded about it though, but I think its highly unlikely they will join with the Tories. Whoever holds power will always be seen in a negative light in the coming months, so the Lib Dems will want it to be worth their while. I'm sure Cameron realises this but I'm not sure his party will be easy to negogiate with.
It will be interesting to watch anyway.

 

[DK]

Oh but most did claim every last penny in expenses they could.

I suppose they spent that money on Nazi memorabilia. "And this, Mr. Griffin, is the sign from Auschwitz Concentration Camp." "Hmm...I'll pay £200." "Cash, cheque or credit card?" "Just put it on my expenses bill as a meal in a restaurant." Although if that did happen it would be all over the newspapers the next day, and it would be bye-bye BNP.

I've also been looking over the policies of some of the fourth parties (I couldn't call them third parties, the Lib Dems have that position). The parties I just despise for individual reasons are the Christian Party, the Traditional Unionist Voice party and the aforementioned British Nazi National Party.

Reasons I don't like the Christian Party:

• They support shoving the myth of creationism in its crappily-disguised form of (un)intelligent into the minds of Britain's children.
• They want to ban abortion. I consider myself pro-choice, it's not for me to take away the right to have an abortion when I myself can't have one.
• They also want to basically have an abstinence-only sex education policy, which I think is total BS.
• Force the NHS to contract in private companies to provide health services. Actually, it would probably mean replacing the words "private companies" with "the Church".

Reasons I don't like the Traditional Unionist Voice party:

• If I could put them in an American context, they'd be the KKK. Especially since they support what I call "Orange (after the Orange Order) Supremacists".
• I just can't stand sectarianism. It just seems so stupid.

Reasons I don't like the British Nazi National Party:

• They're racist scumbags.
• They don't give a 🤬 about the environment. Here's the proof.
• They want to force schools to have daily Christian assemblies.
• Did I mention they're Islamophobics (sp?)? I guess they fall under the same category as the TUV, then.

 

[Touring Mars]

Another great election quote, this time from Jo Brand:

"The result of this election is still up in the air, unlike UKIP's plane"

 

[Biggles]

Why do you need a coalition? The Tories should be able to form a minority government, but would need the tacit support of either the Libs or Labour for any legislation being passed. That's basically been the position in Canada for the last few years. It does have some benefits.

 

[ExigeEvan]

They want to force schools to have daily Christian assemblies.

That is actually law already, and up untill Secondary school I did have a religious assembly every day, and this was in a state school.

In Comprehensive it wasn't possible for the entire school to fit in one hall, so each year group only had assembly twice a week, usually containing a prayer.

 

[DGiant2000]

That is actually law already, and up untill Secondary school I did have a religious assembly every day, and this was in a state school.

In Comprehensive it wasn't possible for the entire school to fit in one hall, so each year group only had assembly twice a week, usually containing a prayer.

No it isn't. Church schools may have a daily Christian assembly but normal comprehensive schools do not. In my school, the kids usually have one assembly per week but this is in no means a Christian assembly, maybe once a month when the local church leader comes in to take it but that is the choice of the head, not the law,

 

[ExigeEvan]

No it isn't. Church schools may have a daily Christian assembly but normal comprehensive schools do not. In my school, the kids usually have one assembly per week but this is in no means a Christian assembly, maybe once a month when the local church leader comes in to take it but that is the choice of the head, not the law,

Yes it is law. The reason I know is because my comprehensive school had an amazing Inspector's report, but they slipped in that we don't all have daily prayer. Which is law, but is often ignored by schools.

http://www.humanism.org.uk/education/parents/worship-your-rights

Section 70 of the 1998 Act states that, subject to the parental right of excusal or other special arrangements, "…each pupil in attendance at a community, foundation or voluntary school shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship."

And here's the wikipedia page I followed on from.

In England and Wales, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 states that all pupils in state schools must take part in a daily act of collective worship, unless their parents request that they be excused from attending.[3] The majority of these acts of collective worship are required to be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character",

 

[DGiant2000]

Read it again

Section 70 of the 1998 Act states that, subject to the parental right of excusal or other special arrangements, "&#8230;each pupil in attendance at a community, foundation or voluntary school shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship."

These are not standard state comprehensive schools and have slightly different rules for several things.

In England and Wales, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 states that all pupils in state schools must take part in a daily act of collective worship, unless their parents request that they be excused from attending.[3] The majority of these acts of collective worship are required to be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character",

It doesn't say you must have a Christian assembly every day, it says the majority must be of a broadly christian nature. Most comprehensive schools ignore these guidelines anyway (and I work in several different secondary schools as part of my job) and have no Christian assemblies, as I stated my school certainly does not have any kind of daily collective worship, however we were judged an outstanding school by ofsted in November (under the new framework) and this was not mentioned once in our report.

 

[Touring Mars]

Is it not the case that the law simply makes a provision for schools that want to have such assemblies, but doesn't compel schools to have them? My primary school (albeit not in England & Wales) did have a weekly prayer session (Christian) for which the Muslim kids got an exemption. This fact alone was probably responsible for atleast a few conversions to Islam