Amadeus102

What do you think of having Cameron as the PM? I like it, but that's because I'm right-wing.

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TheHunter360

Congrats to the Conservatives! Since I'm not a British citizen I could care less. What was so bad about Brown?

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Alphabuster187

I don't know anything about British politics, could you please give us Americans a quick version of the basics of British politics?

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Prestige: 10 / Rank: 70 / Kills: 97,285 / KDR: 2.68

Platy

See what happens. People are already getting angry about it, but I think its fair to give them a chance.

Brown, well, I didn't like him becoming PM by default. Labour weren't the best of governments imo, but neither were the Tories during the 90's.

All as bad as each other. I doubt my life is drastically going to change because of it.

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Bawbag

Ayee great. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Shows how much the country wants them in, that they can't even win the majority vote after labour made an absolute arse of the place. Fuck the tories.

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TheHunter360

So who were you guys going for in the election? Labour? Conservative? Lib Dem? Or did you sense the Irish in you and vote for Sinn Féin?

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Bawbag

Labour where the best of a bad bunch. I would have voted Sinn Fein if I could have haha

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Tatemylightning

Doesn't matter who gets in, we are screwed if any of them get in, we are in dire need of a complete parlimentary reform, and a change to the voting system.

people got turned away at voting stations, this election was total crap. the debates shown on T.V. could have been argued by a couple of 5 year olds. at least that is what it seemed like, it was just utter gibberish for the most part.

i think my dog could do a better job than any of the candidates in this election.

Skuh

Do you mean the electoral system , how they win power, how we vote for Party and not a leader. Or more general as in the parties and what they stand for, right wing, left wing etc.

Amadeus102

Conservatives = Republicans
Labour or Liberal Democrats = Democrats

Basically what happens is they elect new representatives in the House of Commons (their version of the House of Representatives), and if at least 326 members of one party are in the House of Commons, they have a majority and their candidate will become Prime Minister. If there isn't a majority, they have to try to form a coalition government between two parties. There wasn't a majority this year. Gordon Brown (Labour) stepped down as Leader of the Labour Party, and the Queen appointed David Cameron (Conservative) as the Prime Minister. They also have sort of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, as Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) is Deputy Prime Minister. So that's pretty much it, although I may have made a few mistakes. Funniest thing about this is that I'm American, although I'd rather be British.

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TheHunter360

So the Lib Dems a liberal party formed a coalition with The Conservatives. This won't end well.

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Amadeus102

Well, he said he was going to drive an eco-friendly car, but he didn't.

I also believe that a children's programme made fun of him.

He called some lady a bigot.

The Labour Party introduced ID cards.

People just were waiting for a new Prime Minister.

Weren't the smilies great?

If I'm wrong about any of this, please feel free to correct me!

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Dante

Not exactly. Our mainstream right wing party, that is, the Conservatives, are still to the left of the Republicans as far as I can tell.

I voted Conservative, but I wasn't really a strong supporter of any of the parties. I'm pleased that Cameron got it, but I wouldn't have been too disappointed if we'd ended up with a Labour government again.

I'd trade places if I could.

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TheHunter360

So what makes the Conservatives more qualified than Labour?

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Amadeus102

Yeah, that's my only problem with the UK. It's socialist. I'd love to become a politician there and express my views, (I believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defence.) but I'm worried that some insane left-wing extremist group would kill me.

That's a difficult question to answer because it's generally based upon personal opinion. It's hard for me to answer most questions without my bias.

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Skuh

Nothing, it is a personal choice.
To me this election was about replacing labour because of their failings in things like, pensions. Gordon Brown as chancellor raped my private pension. Sold Gold off at a ridiculously low price (against advise of everybody else outside labour, i.e independent financial experts) and created the PFI schemes. Paying 2.5 billion for a hospital that cost 750 million is not astute business (this was done over and over). Then had the gall to tell everybody he had ended boom and bust. Until of course he went bust.
labour may have had success but these issues are why I decided labour needed to be ousted. I originally voted labour in 97. May be a long time before I vote for them again.

Tatemylightning

but now we are getting a VAT rise, way to get us back into the hole we were just emerging from Cameron.

tbh, our govournment is in tatters and will probably just sting us for it in the end.

VAT may rise to 20% by the end of the year, the queen wants a frikkin pay rise (how about she gets to keep her head), they are going to limit the amount of migrants to an annual cap (not a bad thing but they don't even Know how many are here let alone how to find them).

all its going to do is make the rich people richer and the poor even poorer.

we should have all taken a stand and just not voted. or better yet just wiped our bums with the ballot paper.

Platy

The VAT rise isn't until the end of 2011 and is a rumour. Nothing is comfirmed but the country is in massive debt, something needs to be done. They can't just leave it and expect everything to return to normal. Unfortunately, it's the easiest way to make some money back on what Labour lost in the recession. You can hate them for it, but it's not like they're going to war for no reason.

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WeAre138

What are the differences between the Labour and Lib Dems?

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TheHunter360

Labour seems more socialist than the Lib Dems.

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BradTonks

Cameron can go get fucked tbh. at end of day nothing good is going to happen and its all bullshit imo. i wont say who i support and will vote for when im legal as i dont want to offend anyone

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Platy

You'll grow out of it, everyone has a stage like that.

BradTonks

lol ofcourse. i know quite abit about this shit and tbh non of its any good :/

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Platy

Every party is the same. It's not like the whole country will change in 5 years.

The way I look at it, I'm going to live my life the exact same way I did before the election and will continue living it the exact same way after every election I'm a part of in the future. My taxes will change, but so will the economy. Unless the NHS is sold off and we're made to pay, similar to the USA, then I'll be mad. Other than that, I'm not really bothered.

jamesmsv

This is spot on.
I'm glad it's a coalition because my gut feeling was for the Lib dems but they haven't really got enough experience or strength in depth to run a country on their own. At least mixed with the Tories they can police eachother and come up with some good middle ground.
I'm disappointed about Vince Cable - damn that man should have been made chancellor. He's probably the only MP that actually knows what he's talking about - you don't become chief economics officer of an oil company by not knowing how the financial markets work. He also came up squeaky-clean in the expenses scandal (and turned down a payrise) so it looks like he's also the only honest one, another rarity.