The General Election Thread

[JoeMercer'sWay]

And now the REALLY important shit for you last minute swing voters - what do the parties say on football?

Lib Dems

The football authorities have not heeded the warnings that they needed to reform. The Liberal Democrats support legislation to give fans a veto over the decisions that affect the heritage of their clubs like the name of the team, or the kit colour, or where they play. We would also strengthen the fit and proper test for owners and ensure a proportion of tickets are at an affordable rate.

Labour

We will give fans a voice on the board of every professional club and the right to buy shares up to a cap of 10% when the club changes hands. The proposals that were drawn up between The FA, Premier League and Football League did not address the deficit that exists in grass roots involvement and cemented the power of the professional game at the expense of the rest. We want to see The FA restructure itself so that it becomes more representative of all parts of the football family.

Tories

Despite the tough economic circumstances in the last government, we ensured more money was released for grassroots football through Lottery funding. We have consistently worked with the Premier League to get more support for grassroots sport. And this is no more evident than in our pledge to build 150 sports hubs throughout England and deliver more 3G pitches. We are doing this in partnership with the Football Association and the Premier League,

Greens

At local level we would like to see more done to make business rate relief for amateur and community clubs more uniform across the country and not at the gift of local councils. Within the music industry we have investigated the introduction of what has been nicknamed a Beyonce Tax whereby any music artist playing in a locality will pay a small additional tax sum on concert income to be ring fenced for local arts projects and perhaps the same could be investigated within football. The Green Party believes that tax is a progressive form of funding for local provision and so introducing tax breaks simply reduces overall income for expenditure on facility.

UKIP didn't respond to FCBusiness (who asked the question).

Safe Standing Support:

Tories: Yes
Lib Dems: Yes
Greens: Yes
Labour: No.

PDF here:

<a class="postlink" href="http://fcbusiness.co.uk/cms/thesite/public/uploads/uploadsbank/1429264142_788.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://fcbusiness.co.uk/cms/thesite/pub ... 42_788.pdf</a>

Also, not to influence your vote or anything but John Leech is the Sports Secretary for the Lib Dems. This was his answer to the question of safe standing:

As a 31 year season ticket
holder at Manchester City, and
having stood on the Kippax for
many years before the
introduction of all-seater stadia,
I believe that fans should have
the choice to stand in safe, railseated
terraces. Standing at
football has never gone away,
and never will, but currently
fans are standing in areas that
are designed for seating, which
is less safe than introducing rail
seating and allowing people to
stand.
The Liberal Democrats have a
manifesto commitment to allow
clubs to introduce safe standing
areas. 90% of fans support
having the choice at games, and
fans groups like the FSF and
Supporters Direct support the
move. It would improve the
atmosphere at games, help
reduce prices and improve
safety for fans standing up

Yes but John Leech has been saying that for a while and hasn't achieved anything.

He's also a traitor and going to lose his seat,

 

[without a dream]

The current system is a joke and gives the SNP a far far greater say in the affairs of the UK than is even remotely fair.

Spoiler

The SNP with 4% of the vote compared with UKIP's 13% will get 46 seats to UKIPs 0

And we laughingly call this democracy.

For the article

<a class="postlink" href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/t ... e1jDbYPFgb</a>

It's a shame all the major parties bar Lib Dem are against electoral reform then. Had the Tories not watered down the Lib Dem proposal to AV then campaigned against it Dave might still be in a job in June.

 

[Damocles]

Why don't we use Proportional Representation? It would surely be fairer. Did we all vote for the electoral process we currently use?

PR has its drawbacks. As with referendums PR gives people what they vote for, and that isn't always desirable because usually the people don't know what's best. They are mainly simple souls who don't understand the issues properly and are easily influenced by evil press barons because they take everything in newspapers as the gospel truth.

You're a good example of such.

 

[Damocles]

Yes but John Leech has been saying that for a while and hasn't achieved anything.

He's also a traitor and going to lose his seat,

How is he "a traitor"?

Did he sell secrets to the Saudis or something?

 

[SWP's back]

The current system is a joke and gives the SNP a far far greater say in the affairs of the UK than is even remotely fair.

Spoiler

The SNP with 4% of the vote compared with UKIP's 13% will get 46 seats to UKIPs 0

And we laughingly call this democracy.

For the article

<a class="postlink" href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/t ... e1jDbYPFgb</a>

It's a shame all the major parties bar Lib Dem are against electoral reform then. Had the Tories not watered down the Lib Dem proposal to AV then campaigned against it Dave might still be in a job in June.

You agree we have a shocking system then that allows Scotland a far greater say than it should have?

 

[cibaman]

No.
we can thank him for playing a part in kicking cameron and Osborne out of Downing Street

which would be fucking criminal............ God help us then

I have no doubt that given the chance, Milliband will U turn on his "No coalition with the SNP" statements and we'll be royally fucked then

It's a real worry that people will vote for the pig in a suit, thinking that they are doing their bit for the "have nots" instead of waking up smelling the coffee

worrying, very worrying

He has no need to form a coalition with them. If he puts up a left wing budget they have no choice but to vote it through or they'll get annihilated at the next election. The Tories would support a bill on trident, so he could quite feasibly get everything he needs as a minority government.

Sturgeon has said that if they dont like Labour's budget the SNP will vote against it. Her expectation is that Labour will then come back with something more acceptable. Because that's how it works in Scotland.

 

[Damocles]

The current system is a joke and gives the SNP a far far greater say in the affairs of the UK than is even remotely fair.

Spoiler

The SNP with 4% of the vote compared with UKIP's 13% will get 46 seats to UKIPs 0

And we laughingly call this democracy.

For the article

<a class="postlink" href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/t ... e1jDbYPFgb</a>

It's a shame all the major parties bar Lib Dem are against electoral reform then. Had the Tories not watered down the Lib Dem proposal to AV then campaigned against it Dave might still be in a job in June.

You agree we have a shocking system then that allows Scotland a far greater say than it should have?

What is the correct amount of say that Scottish people should have in who rules them?

 

[urmston]

Why don't we use Proportional Representation? It would surely be fairer. Did we all vote for the electoral process we currently use?

PR has its drawbacks. As with referendums PR gives people what they vote for, and that isn't always desirable because usually the people don't know what's best. They are mainly simple souls who don't understand the issues properly and are easily influenced by evil press barons because they take everything in newspapers as the gospel truth.

You're a good example of such.

Well, we can't all be the clever, altruistic people who strive so tirelessly to protect us from PR and referendums.

 

[without a dream]

The current system is a joke and gives the SNP a far far greater say in the affairs of the UK than is even remotely fair.

Spoiler

The SNP with 4% of the vote compared with UKIP's 13% will get 46 seats to UKIPs 0

And we laughingly call this democracy.

For the article

<a class="postlink" href="http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-case-for-reforming-our-voting-system-in-three-charts--e1jDbYPFgb" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/t ... e1jDbYPFgb</a>

It's a shame all the major parties bar Lib Dem are against electoral reform then. Had the Tories not watered down the Lib Dem proposal to AV then campaigned against it Dave might still be in a job in June.

You agree we have a shocking system then that allows Scotland a far greater say than it should have?

It gives lots of people more say than they 'should' have. FPTP is by it's nature unfair, I couldn't be arsed going back pre-war but the party with the overall majority since 1945 have never had more than 50% of the vote, which is clearly ridiculous, the parties are happy with what we've got though.

 

[kas_tippler]

After close monitoring of this thread I can report that the ccount is 50% victims, 20% bleeding heart liberals, 10% yoghurt knitters and 20% sensible normal down to earth people. Doesn't bode well for the tomorrow I'm sad to say.

 

[SWP's back]

It's a shame all the major parties bar Lib Dem are against electoral reform then. Had the Tories not watered down the Lib Dem proposal to AV then campaigned against it Dave might still be in a job in June.

You agree we have a shocking system then that allows Scotland a far greater say than it should have?

What is the correct amount of say that Scottish people should have in who rules them?

Commensurate with their population would be a decent start.

 

[Bozzie]

The historic arguments against proportional representation have always been that it produces weak, short term, coalition government and Italy is always cited as an example of this. The reality is that now, FPTP is producing coalition government and the outcome of tomorrow's election could throw up a bizarre and unique situation which I believe will result in reform to the electoral system.

 

[peoffrey]

The historic arguments against proportional representation have always been that it produces weak, short term, coalition government and Italy is always cited as an example of this. The reality is that now, FPTP is producing coalition government and the outcome of tomorrow's election could throw up a bizarre and unique situation which I believe will result in reform to the electoral system.

I don't dislike the preference voting system I must have done for Europe or similar. Maybe Council. You choose 1 or more candidates in favour and they need to earn enough initial votes before second come in to play. It'd be interesting to see if potential results could be mocked up for previous elections although I'm unsure how when we don't have the information!

 

[the god Gerry Gow]

It's a shame all the major parties bar Lib Dem are against electoral reform then. Had the Tories not watered down the Lib Dem proposal to AV then campaigned against it Dave might still be in a job in June.

You agree we have a shocking system then that allows Scotland a far greater say than it should have?

What is the correct amount of say that Scottish people should have in who rules them?

100% but unfortunately they voted against that

 

[kaz7]

After close monitoring of this thread I can report that the ccount is 50% victims, 20% bleeding heart liberals, 10% yoghurt knitters and 20% sensible normal down to earth people. Doesn't bode well for the tomorrow I'm sad to say.

Define "victims"

 

[law74]

After close monitoring of this thread I can report that the ccount is 50% victims, 20% bleeding heart liberals, 10% yoghurt knitters and 20% sensible normal down to earth people. Doesn't bode well for the tomorrow I'm sad to say.

Define "victims"

I'm actually amazed that he thinks 20% are on the left (or even centre)

 

[kaz7]

After close monitoring of this thread I can report that the ccount is 50% victims, 20% bleeding heart liberals, 10% yoghurt knitters and 20% sensible normal down to earth people. Doesn't bode well for the tomorrow I'm sad to say.

Define "victims"

I'm actually amazed that he thinks 20% are on the left (or even centre)

So am i,i feel in the minority in here being a labour voter

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

The historic arguments against proportional representation have always been that it produces weak, short term, coalition government and Italy is always cited as an example of this. The reality is that now, FPTP is producing coalition government and the outcome of tomorrow's election could throw up a bizarre and unique situation which I believe will result in reform to the electoral system.

Isn't it funny when citing examples of PR, those who try and defend our current wholly undemocratic, anachronistic and unfit for purpose electoral system, always conveniently forget to mention Germany when doing so - arguably the most stable democracy in the world.

 

[Bluemanc100]

The historic arguments against proportional representation have always been that it produces weak, short term, coalition government and Italy is always cited as an example of this. The reality is that now, FPTP is producing coalition government and the outcome of tomorrow's election could throw up a bizarre and unique situation which I believe will result in reform to the electoral system.

Isn't it funny when citing examples of PR, those who try and defend our current wholly undemocratic, anachronistic and unfit for purpose electoral system, always conveniently forget to mention Germany when doing so - arguably the most stable democracy in the world.

Only because of the lessons learnt during WW2 right? They refuse to put their faith in a single party now and insist on coalition

 

[SWP's back]

Define "victims"

I'm actually amazed that he thinks 20% are on the left (or even centre)

So am i,i feel in the minority in here being a labour voter

You can't be serious surely