General Chat

By ring-fence, they mean cut....just like before ...and that I cannot approve of.

Before they bragged that no party had ever spent more on the NHS than the tories, and that was true, but only because everything cost that much more, and not just through inflation, but under them we had hospitals closing, we lost most of our local hospitals,which just became primary care units, and all main hospitals were centralised miles away from wehre you were. Not good in emergencies really, and there were no specialist units left anywhere. Our orthopaedic hospital in Essex was closed and moved to Chelmsford. The cancer care hospital which treated my aunt in Harold Wood was also closed and moved to Chelmsford.

Even the RAF hospital, in Cambs, was closed, that was an excellent military hospital which took on 38% NHS patients and an excellent burns unit, and could have been used now to treat our boys, but that closed as part of the defence cuts under the tories.

My understanding is that spending on the NHS will be protected?

I wouldn't approve of cutting the NHS spending either.

However I do understand that there are things that will HAVE to be cut whether we like it or not....lots of tough decisions to be made by whoever wins the election xx

That only means they will not cut. They will also not increase spending on it even if we hit good times.

If I was sat in a room with you too.... I would be running round the table as each of you spoke......or maybe stick next to Muffy..lol


Is Europe agood or bad thing? If we hadnt joined them in your opinion what would of happen, thank you btw for everyone's input into this thread I am being educated .

Prosperity won't come before the end of the next Term of Parliament. It's going to take much longer to sort this financial mess out

I'll worry about what happens in prosperity when we get there and vote accordingly then lol.

I happen to think that whoever wins the next election is going to be handed a poisoned chalice. Some of the decisions that will HAVE to be made are going to be so unpopular the ruling party will probably be unelectable for decades.....regardless of the colour of their rosettes !!! xx

Our local government is lib dem and nota big fan of theres.

Ah, but don't you have to look long term? You have to be aware of what each party is going to do long term too, as well as the short term policies to get us out of recession. There is no instant fast solution from any party.

I agree it's going to be the NEXT general election before we see the end of the tunnel with this mess, as it was when labour took over from the tories....there was a huge economic mess to sort out then.

We've spent decades upon decades bouncing from left to right, and all the time there have been boom and bust economies, with both parties. It's about time one of them at least managed to learn something. We still have a boom and bust economy, we will under either party.


No I don't think europe is such a good thing, and has led to a lot of knock-on problems of it's own, but that's a different topic really. Our domestic politics need to be heeded and changed where necessary. We never had a referendum over that either, and that was under the Tories, thanks to Ted Heath.

arggghh But the last Tory government were in power for for 18 yrs by the time labour took over the country was in a good position or was it?

no it wasn't in a good position. OK we were not in recession as such, but we were very very close to it, the whole country was disillusioned with the tories after the wishy washy John Major took over, we'd had black Monday, which nearly crippled us financially, the poll tax debacle, and lots was wrong.

That's why the tories were kicked out of power by the electorate. If the country had been in a good position after 18 years of power, the voters would have kept them in.

But hadnt the polltax been changed then to council tax whch the labour government has kept?

Yes but only under enormous pressure....

Much like Nu Labour now the Tories went off on one at the end lol....sleaze, politicians out of touch with the electorate. I certainly DID NOT vote for them in 1997 as I felt they'd lost touch with real people.

They'd have been better off losing the 1992 election imho. They'd run out of steam by then.

**BUT it's 2010 now...David Cameron isn't John Major...in the same way that Gordon Brown isn't Michael Foot.

Times move on xx

You have talk a lot about the past, but what party do you think will lend us forward in the correct direction or will it always boil down to the class of society we live in?

They would have if they hadn't changed the boundaries to swallow up labour and lib strongholds. lol

By the way are any of you picking up which I MAY sway baring in mind I dont have a clue myself is it left or right but please answer in colours thank you :))))

Hayley, to decide on that, you really have to look to the past and base the decision on experience, and the experience of the politicians that want to lead us forward.

I dont' think any party is capable of leading us forward any further than a mediocre economic growth, perhaps some serious green policies, and some half way decent defence polices maybe. Whichever one gets in , the NHS, the education system, the student grant/loan system, and the welfare system will still be crumbling in their foundation, thanks to the damage that has been done over the last thirty years.

I think you're swaying blue Hayley.

The biggest spoke in the wheel in my opinion is the Iraq war. Where young lads were ripped from their mother’s sides and sent off to fight in what I considered an illegal war. Ok this is my very personal over dramatic view but it turns me completely against Tony Blair. But being the dither I am I do understand that everyone had to make a stance against the terrorists but looking back over the years this country seems to be at some sort of conflict or another since I can remember.

Tony Blair confused the hell out of me at the inquiry by suggesting that their view on Saddam changed in light of 9/11

BUT what on earth did Saddam have to do with that !!! most odd imho

xx

Totally understandable Hayley...and yes there has been little 'peace' in my lifetime, which is longer than yours :( a statistic I heard on the radio this week

"a total of 256 British servicemen and women have now died since the conflict in Afghanistan began in October 2001 - one more than the number who died in the 74-day campaign to retake the Falkland Islands in 1982"

It IS possible that we might not have gone in had the Conservatives been in power.. the only way to come down on one side or other now..is to hear what both parties (all parties) will do about Afghanistan if elected.