General Election on May 6th 2010 confirmed.

reply to post by Laurauk

One know it will not.

Exactly. The Tories will always vote. That is why we have had a Tory govt for most of the British parliament.

The trouble with a hung parliament, is it's not what you think it is.

Hang em' high...

Originally posted by tappy The trouble with a hung parliament, is it's not what you think it is. Hang em' high...

Worth noting that the government that got us through WW2 was a coalition. People still cite Winston Churchill as the greatest Prime Minister for that period, but he also changed parties during his career.
We could just call him a cynical power-Whore. We could also acknowledge that the party system didn't used to have as much power over an MPs potential career as it does now.

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
People still cite Winston Churchill as the greatest Prime Minister for that period, but he also changed parties during his career.
We could just call him a cynical power-Whore. We could also acknowledge that the party system didn't used to have as much power over an MPs potential career as it does now.

Perhaps one of the factors was that Churchill had income which was not dependent on his parliamentary seat. In fact, in the Victorian age, before they introduced the Parliamentary salary, this was true of MP's in general. which gave them greater scope for independence. A party which indirectly controls an MP's earnings can control the MP more easily.

reply to post by DISRAELI That's a damn good point. Also, there's not many working people who could afford to risk the deposit to stand for election in the 1st place, without party support. I find some of the talk about reform of party funding a bit alarming too. The suggestions about state funding anyway. I can see that kind of thing being used to make it even more difficult for MPs to be independent.

Here is an interesting link that will show you how much your vote actually counts in the overall scheme of things.

www.voterpower.org.uk...

also shows how many votes mean nothing at all in your constituency.

i would say that this shows the need for real electoral reform.

Canadian here, but I took a look at what the parties over there are offering and I noticed that the Liberal Democrats are the only ones saying it's time to pull out of the middle east. On the whole, do they have much of a chance? I think Nick Clegg heads them up.