Even without an elected leader, the first thing any incumbent Labour MP or prospective candidate should do is engage with the electorate. Blair ushered in the "professional politician", the PPE graduate who became a SPAD and then went on to be given a party nomination. Sean Woodward should never have been offered a seat anywhere, he should have been told to defend the seat he held before his defection. I reckon the main reason Ed Balls lost was the fact that his opponent sold her house and moved into his constituency two years ago. She was seen far more often in Morley than he was. Greg Mullholland was one of only eight LimpDems to retain his seat and that had much to do with his engagement with his local electorate.

The public's "feeling" is whatever the media chooses. I knew something was fishy the moment UKIP arrived and instead of the press ignoring these fringe cranks it instead embraced them like a cup-winning team just returned from Wembley.

Despite the fact they didn't even have enough followers to outnumber the likes of Socialist Labour they were given wildly disproportionate coverage. If I had the heads of the major media companies here right now I'd ask them - precisely WHY - despite never showing the slightest interest in fringe parties before (other than Martin Bell's silly white suit nonsense) - did you devote so much air space to UKIP early on?

From the outset UKIP had truckloads of cash to spend, but all the money in the world couldn't buy the kind of coverage the BBC was prepared to give Farage. Indeed, the BBC has served as a booster for UKIP throughout this Tory government.

And when the Beeb wasn't obsessing over Farage dunking a pint of bitter in some East End boozer it laid siege to just about every port, rail terminal and airline arrival lounge in expectation of the next breaking "Fuzzy Wuzzies At The Door" story.

The moment the Tories jumped with in the Lib-Gones we've had this self-fueling cycle of UKIP->"Polish Freebooters"->Farage->"Asylum Seeker Benefit Cheats"->UKIP->"Fuzzy Wuzzies Jumping The Fence At Calais"->Farage->...

All through the election week (in two cases immediately after Party Political Broadcasts) we've been inundated with images of France and the issues they are having over there. Now, I'm NOT saying this isn't newsworthy. But what we've seen goes above and beyond reasonable journalistic endeavor.

As I keep saying - UKIP is an election-rigging tool. Used in conjunction with the wholly aligned mainstream media which has sought to heighten the public's fear of immigrants (whether they be legitimate or not) at EVERY OPPORTUNITY it's worked to PERFECTION.

I forgot to add - as well as an election rigging mechanism the UKIP/MSM combination serves to create a social and political climate which provides the Tory Party all the excuses it needs to trample human rights jurisdiction and more importantly - conduct NHS reforms (btw, a "reform" is, by definition, something we are meant to like).

Personally I've always thought the NHS is the primary target. UKIP invariably leads on the issue of foreigners but when you look closely they really do spend an awful lot of time talking about NHS privatization.

Now that UKIP is firmly ingrained on the national psyche I think you'll find they'll gradually begin to tone down the xenophobia whilst cranking up talk on the NHS.

It'll be the old "Good Cop, Bad Cop" routine. First "Bad Cop" - MSM reporting "yet another NHS failure"->UKIP proposes radical solution (which everyone will hate)->MSM reporting "more NHS failure"->UKIP ... another self-fueling cycle. Step forward now, "Good Cop" - David Cameron defending the honour of the NHS whilst denouncing UKIP extremism on healthcare reform - yet all the while inching further and further toward UKIP's position with a series of mini concessions which, whilst not as drastic as UKIP's proposals, ARE AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN THE REAL GOAL.

With the impending arrival of TPP I think the pressure was on from every angle to finally put the NHS to bed. No Labour government could EVER be involved with such reforms and hope to be elected next (or any other) time around. So the party threw in the towel. Once the dirty deed is done it'll "re-invent" itself once more - just in time to save us from those beastly Tories.

After smashing the NHS for good this country won't need too much encouragement to leap into Labour's clutches once again. More than likely it'll be for eight or nine years.

Do I really need to pen this charade out much further?

no.


Shouldn't this stuff be in the "conspiracy theory" thread, rather than the General Election thread?

Indeed. Or perhaps the book thread under 'fiction'.

Odd how he knew about this epic and long-running conspiracy from the beginning yet failed to mention it at any point.

If nothing else, he made me chuckle on a Monday morning. No mean feat.

There isn't a "conspiracy theory" thread.

In any case, browsing the entirity of this thread suggests people have no issues offering their own "conspiratorial" rationalisations. Perhaps you should take this issue up with them?

The latest figures from the OBR show that:
Public sector net borrowing in 2014-15 was £87.3bn (£3bn less than expected in April's budget)
In five years the deficit has come down from £153.5bn that the coalition inherited in 2009-10. This is a drop of 43% or relative to GDP it has fallen from 10.2% to 4.8% by more than half.

These latest figures show the Public sector net debt at the end of March (end of 2014-15 year) was £1,484bn (80% of GDP) up from £956bn at the end of 2009-10. This is a rise of 55% not 100% as you remarked with your repeated "DOUBLED" shout.

If you would like an example of the "doubling" of debt you need look no further than the five years between 2004-5 and 2009-10 when the debt increased from £448bn to £956bn. In fact this was more than "doubling" it was an increase of 113%.

We also now know that "No More Boom and Bust" Brown's supposedly fiscally responsible government was running a structural (or underlying) overall budget deficit of around 5% of GDP in 2007 - before the world economic crash!

So to call call others "thick, economically illiterate" is a tad more than the pan calling the kettle black!

Perhaps it would be more appropriate to change your comic book name from General Zod to the Numskulls - now that would be a 'Beezer"

My understanding is that it is not these rights that will be repealed but rather the Act which means the judgement of the highest court in our land can be overturned by an EU court based on by broad stroke so called human rights. To suggest our country will not honour real human rights is a nonsense. We have a proud and well earned history of justice and the human rights in our country are the envy of the world.

Depends which of the various versions of PR you choose. However one of the biggest arguments against PR is that smaller parties gain too much power. It may seem fairer but are you happy with Ukip having 82 seats? or the economically irresponsible Greens having 24 seats. In any case the 2 right of Centre parties votes would total 324 and the 4 left of Centre votes would total 305 so the majority is still 19 - so how would that make a difference?

Also PR would mean manifestos are totally worthless as coalitions have to compromise on their promises and the LibDem vote shows how well the voters like that idea.

Whilst the UK is not as bad as a lot of places I would suggest that it has and does breach several Articles. By the way, the right to a fair trial should be extended to include the people's right that certain people should not be able to avoid fair trial by virtue of their status within the establishment.