Let's remind ourselves why we fight the good fight

May I remind you all that we had 18 years of a Tory government STEALING money, STEALING people's livelihoods, STEALING rural and northern communities by pushing them into poverty.

The only way to help Britain was to spend spend spend. The money wasn't there to fix everything, because they'd done so much damage. So they spent more. We went into debt because the country needed every penny to make things work again.
People complain about Brown selling our gold, but he was trying to HELP get rid of the debt - they try and do the right thing and people kick off, the hypocrites.

In 18 years they built no new schools, no new hospitals. They let the country shrivel up and die - which is OK as long as their banker buddies are making a shit load isn't it?

Liberal-Labourcrats

So, as we've seen the Lib-Dem's have received a massive boost in support and critical acclaim from even across seas. Indeed, even yours truly finds himself enticed by their opposition to the Digital Economy Bill and the pledge on reform in the House of Lords. But I'm repelled by their complete lack of policy cohesion and a manifesto of numbers that can't add up.

But what's interesting is that Labour are doing exactly what they need to do: kissing Liberal Democrat arse.
Now of course I want Labour to win the coming election, but like so many I recognise the importance of Labour forming a government rather than winning the election. We know that the more likely scenario is a a hung parliament, and both the Tories as well as Labour are making their alliances with much smaller parties and independents. Clegg's Liberal Democrats were already set to be in a powerful position, but with the first leader debate we see a large swing his way, with many of those first time voters that Cameron has been so keen capture realising that actually, cutting public services and overall spending to the degree the Tories propose isn't something that's in everyone's best interest.
That's right, Nick Clegg has snapped 'the mob' out of it's infatuation with a perfect Tory Britain where
everything is just gosh darn hunky dory. So I applaud him.
But back to the point. Alongside Gordon Brown courting Tory favour last night, Lord Adonis (the transport secretary and ex-liberal democrat) announced he would not tell voters whether to back Labour in Lib Dem-Tory marginals. Some might say it's a little bit like the left-wing consensus in the 1997 election where Liberal Democrats voted Labour purely to unhinge the Tory government. Adonis even went as far as to continually emphasise similarities on key issues such as democratic reform (ie. electoral reform, power of recall and parliamentary reform) as well as tax and how to treat the economy to ensure a swift and safe recovery. During the leaders debate the similarities between Liberal Democrats and Labour was again very astounding.

Leaders Debate Numero Uno!

Well.
I think it's clear that Clegg came out on top.

But this isn't a terrible thing. Let's face it, there's going to a be a hung parliament - and that leaves us with 2 options; another election where almost nobody votes Lib-Dem and we see a clear winner Tory or Labour, OR a coalition government (so that's most likely Lib-Lab).
It felt like Brown was courting the Liberal Democrats from the start. I'm surprised there was no cheesy chat up line in his opening statement 'So Clegg, what's a liberal like you doing in a capitalist market economy like this?' .... *tumble weed*
I honestly felt Brown did his best, and came out second. As the incumbent PM he had the most to lose from the debate and the hardest point to argue, and he laid down down the core principles of the campaign - but more importantly, let's not forget that Gordon is very happy about the Tories campaign posters as they showed him smiling, doing more than any editor had done so he's very pleased the Conservatives and even more with Lord Ashcroft for buying it.
Cameron was weak I thought. He seemed very keen on electioneering, he time and time again repeated himself word for word in responses. People apparently supported Cameron's quota system drastically? I honestly couldn't believe this...mostly because it's the third most ridiculous thing the Tories have said (coming behind 'Broken Britain' and the married couples issue).
Although to 'the mob' (ie. the part of the general public that hears one thing, and interprets it as something else) seemed to think that Mr. Brown did terrible (though I agree Nick Clegg came out on top), anyone with eyes can see he flirted his Scottish arse off. Brown knows that what we're facing is a hung parliament, and he knows he can stay PM if he makes a joint Labour-Liberal Democrat cabinet. Nick pushed back a few advances... but come on, after the mediator handed over the issue of reform over to him Nick blushed, and looked a little caught off guard by such advances.

But this has been massively written about, dozens of bloggers have had a field day dissecting each statement, so I saw little point in analysing each of the question answers here on my blog ( I kind of did that as it went along...although this mostly consisted of 'I'd like you to back up that statement Cameron!' or 'Oh suuure Nick, you say that but really? REALLY?!' As I sometimes get over involved in TV debates...I'm terrible at watching Question Time, I always end up turning on the audience more than anything).

But my conclusion is that polls may give Clegg a temporary boost, but I highly doubt that it will affect to actual polls as much as the panels and 'the mob' seemed to indicate.
I had a half hour long talk with a 'hardcore' floating voter, the minority of the population who a) give a toss and b) know anything of substance about politics. Those kinds of voters are too few and far between though for major politicians to care about - so they fight for the marginals.

We need electoral reform yes? We need a political overhaul yes? Then you can't go Tory, Cameron threw the old "you've had 13 years!" at Brown, but just remember, the Tories had a lot longer, opposed it when Labour goes for it and made no indication they'll support it should they win.
The Liberal Democrats are flawed, it's in their very base code to not actually work... they can't make things add up and they fail to have a single cohesive party, saying one thing on a national level and then another on a local level.
Labour is not just your only real choice, it's also the right choice.

Caught red (or should i say blue) handed.

So the Conservatives have given us their manifesto.
I'm not going to give you a full commentary and examination, as I promise you countless others have at almost every major newspaper (the sun, mirror and daily mail don't count as newspapers - they're what we call b*ll sh*t) in the country.
Now, what I am going to do is do a very very quick bit on some of their statistics.

You know an election has started when politicians produce huge amounts of statistics. It seems David Cameron is no exception.
As you can see in this graph, it appears Labour have failed on their promise to recycle more and we're the laughing stock of Europe with our poor recycling statistics. However they left out a little bit of information...
That there is the original document the Tory party quoted from. They decided that composting doesn't count as recycling, however it is recognised defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

On top of this, the conservatives also failed to mention their statistics were old statistics. Compared to the new official ones we actually measure up quite well. Total waste cut, waste recycled increased, and waste per head decreased. We're constantly improving when the tories would paint the picture we're failing.
And let's not forget that world wide we measure up very well.

If they're prepared to take things drastically out of context in their manifesto - how can we expect any better if they form a government?

Same old song and dance

First I need to apologise for having failed to update my blog in almost a week, but truth be told there wasn't that much I could write about that hadn't already been over written about...
However I felt it was time to look at some of the key aspects of Cameron's campaign.

Cameron calls himself a "progressive'', Mr Compassionate Conservative....like George Bush....But the problem is, that by definition a conservative cannot be a progressive. Cameron claims the title "progressive" because he's a master of PR, he knows whenever one party stays in power for an extended amount of time, that it' easy to offer people the one, massively broad concept of 'change'.
Anyone can offer it, but on it's own it's nothing more than a promise of 'anything that you don't already have'.

Cameron's only real claim to being a "progressive" is progressing Thatcher's ideals. On the surface he's a family guy, rides a bike to be kind to the environment, wants equality.
In reality he wants to;

• Cut SureStart which has helped nearly 500,000 children out of poverty.
• The bulk of his party don't even acknowledge that humans are causing climate change. 
• His shadow Home Secretary opposed protection for gay people.

On top of this, how is a return to the failed economic policies of the 1980's progress? How is sink or swim progress? How is cutting public services, cutting benefits and letting unemployment run rampant progress?

He's already pledged to cut 40,000 public services jobs...can anyone say closure of the mines?
Cameron has time and time again opposed the education reforms which have recently (as seen in improved GCSE grades on average) come into fruition. And his opposition to sex education in schools, which was introduced to help combat Cameron's proclaimed 'Broken Britain', seems self defeating in my eyes.


And since it's in the news: it's worth mentioning that the 68 companies backing the Tories over National Insurance (Labour preferring a rise, Tory party opposing it) are often referred to as being over a million employees opposing the rise. It's funny, because I was under the impression that all 68 were lead from the top, and were not worker co-operatives...so how can they claim they represent the views of their employees? I thought that was the job of trade unions and the like...the majority of which throw their support behind the Labour Party and not the Conservatives...funny how things work out isn't it?