People can just as easily be conned into thinking it would have been better under Labour. That's politics.

Enough for them to warrant an alternative at present or in two years time....

With the probable collapse of the Lib-Dem vote at the next GE a Conservative majority 7/2 is a cracking bet imo.

Shame it contravenes my strict moral code to contemplate putting a wager on them.

People seem to be forgetting a few points when predicting a Tory majority.



1. They couldn't secure one in 2010 when people had nothing to judge Cameron and Osbourne on and when Labour were being blamed for everything and had Brown as leader. They should have had a landslide but failed to get one.



2. UKIP are not going away and neither is European question



3. This government is wreaking the NHS - that alone is vote winner for any opposition



4. The economy is a mess and the its "all Labour's fault" is rapidly running out of steam to the extent people are, I believe, sick of hearing it. They aren't that interested in who's fault it was but why it hasn't been fixed.



5. That have not managed to gerrymander the election by getting the number of constituencies reduced



6. A lot of people are being affected directly in a negative way with kids having to pay tuition fees of £9K or losing housing benefit/tax credits.



7. Back to the economy, its just not going to pick up that much if at all between now and the election so they won't have much success to point to.



What Labour has to do other than relying on all the above negatives about this government is come up with an effective way of mitigating Tory spin. It's been apparent from day 1 that they have a tactic of telling lies often enough so people will believe it. The way in which any discussion on the economy is always predicated by "Clearing up labours mess" is a case in point.

The whole point is, yes you can. Darling was going to make cuts to reduce the debt but not as far or as fast so as not to choke off growth. What he predicted would happen if you cut too far too fast has happened. He as been proved correct, Osborne proved wrong and the loss of the AAA rating is the latest indicator of that.



I am surprised you even posted the above because the economic debate has always been about how far and fast to cut in order to get debt down. Labour has always said you can't just cut your way out of this problem but that you have to grow the economy to increase tax revenues as well. This is not news and neither is the government's opposite view so to post the above suggests you have been on a different planet since 2010.

All decent valid points Dave but through experience I don't have the same confidence in the electorate that you seem to possess.

We haven't had one-term party Government now since the 70's.

I know this is meant to be a coalition, but it's only in name.

I fear the Tories may get the whole gig next time, carte blanche.

The other fascinating thing is the automatic assumption that the LibDem vote will be non-existant the next time around - based on what ?



There is the tuition fee promise of course, played a blinder there did Clegg in an archetypal "I don't care what we said, this gets me five years sitting at the top table", but other than that can anyone think of anything that the LibDems have done or said since 2010 that will cost them in 2015 ?



They have effectively sat on their hands in the same way that Labour have done with the benefit of a few of their members drawing Ministerial salaries and come 2015 you can bet that their PR people will be cherry picking various quotes to show where they were influencial in some of the more beneficial government policies (no I can't think of any off hand but they will when the time comes).



What we have is two posh boys who are now taking all the flak for the Tories and the Lib-Dems hiding behind the curtains but still drawing the salaries - come an election they'll be the party with the blank canvas ready to pitch whatever the hell they like.

We already know you'll be registering for them once again next time round JC.

The scary thing in this country is the amount of people who have actually given up on, or have no interest in, politics.



With the state this country is in and with such an uncertain future, you would think we should have a very high turnout at any upcoming election, yet its highly likely that come any election, we will see a record low turnout....With that in mind, it could be argued that any government are actually there by default, just stumbling along, knowing full well that they can inflict their ill thought out policies without much response, bar the political anoraks in the media.



The sad thing is, there is nobody who appears capable of inspiring people back to the ballot box - Cameron and Osborne are just a pair of upper class chancers, helped by a mainly supportive press, Milliband is unelectable simply because he is totally charisma free and Clegg is a combination of those mentioned.



It comes to something when the country's most popular politician is Boris Johnson, a man who most typifies the bumbling mess that this country has got itself into.....Its almost as if people think he represents best the state of politics today - A joke, and just there for laughs.

the lib dems courted and to a large extent relied upon the student vote in 2010 and Cleggs pledge was a large part of that strategy. The lib dems treachery wont be forgotten on any campus. The lib dems also attracted a large part of the labour vote as a protets against the banking collapse by people who couldn't bring themselves to switch to the toxic tories. A significant proportion of that vote will switch back to labour

The major point being that those who are most affected by the student fees, this years intake, were 14 or 15 years old at the last election, do they hold a grudge, do they recall any of it at all - the students of 2015 will have been 12 or 13 years of age when Clegg made his promise, do you know any 12 year olds with an interest in politics enough to form their allegiences at that age ?



By 2015 student fees will be the norm, no-one blinks even now when signing up for £27,000 worth of education and the idea that the postman should not have to pay for your further education seems to have won over a self-centred electorate.

The LibDems in my area are a set of p1ssheads

Have a look and see what they specialise in when speaking in the HoC, its beer and breweries





I know exactly where to find my MP if I need to speak to him on any Saturday or Sunday, well that is, I can narrow it down to two or three pubs

Labour wouldn't have cut public services as far as this Government has. They wouldn't have tripled University fees. They wouldn't have wasted money on back-to-work schemes that aren't working. They wouldn't have siphoned off vast sums of public money to their mates in the private sector. They wouldn't have public money funding private schools. They wouldn't have a nutjob busy trying to turn education back 50 years. They wouldn't have screwed over the NHS. They wouldn't be contemplating the privatisation of emergency services. They wouldn't have wasted money on elected 'crime commissioners' that nobody wants.



That's just off the top of my head, and just the things affecting 'middle England'. If you add in the disgraceful actions of that scrotum IDS, demonising the disabled and the unemployed, it's hard to see how the majority of people in this country wouldn't be better off.



And I neither voted for the last 2 Labour administrations nor for Labour at the last election.