Lib Dems fall behind UKIP

[Puggit]

Martin84 - do your parents understand that if they had never had to live under a Labour government, just how much better off they would be?

[mattnunn]

Puggit said:

Martin84 - do your parents understand that if they had never had to live under a Labour government, just how much better off they would be?

Objection

Leading the witness your honour.

[martin84]

ewenm said:

I'm not disputing that. The only point in that which is relevant to running the country is the bit about "never worked a day in their lives" - which is shared across most MPs of all parties.

I find it interesting that on one hand people are proud of having 2 of the top universities in the world here in the UK, but then disparaging about Oxbridge graduates going on to be leaders (political, corporate, etc).

I think politics is proof that Oxbridge isn't as brilliant as perhaps we all think. If it was brilliant then Whitehall would be full of genius, evidently that is not the case. Yes all parties have this problem but the Cabinet has I think only 5 people in it without an Oxbridge education where as the Oxbridge kids only make up around half of the Shadow Cabinet.

ewenm said:

Being dispassionate about it, I'd like our political leaders to have been educated at the best possible institutions. I'd also like them to have worked in the real world for a bit before becoming politicians. Currently we have the education but not the experience (again, widely true across Libdems and Labour as well as the Conservatives too).

Isn't it interesting how in the UK we vote for posh 'educated' people. In America the centre-right party the Republicans normally put up somebody with military service on their CV and a folksey way of speaking to demonstrate 'anybody can become president.' The Democrats usually have a highly educated well spoken candidate who's viewed by the public as an 'Ivy league liberal' which doesnt appeal as much. Remember how Al Gore was advised to play down his intelligence and education because the public preferred the more 'normal' George W Bush?

ewenm said:

Off topic: I wish we could proudly celebrate excellence in this country rather than celebrating mediocrity. Poverty of aspiration. Don't do your best, don't stand out from the crowd, don't chase achievement. So sad.

I personally don't associate an Oxford education with 'excellence.' They may be excellent schools but the fact we've had several Oxbridge filled Governments all ending in failure you have to question whether or not these schools teach them anything relevent to the job they want to do. I can't help but think a standard qualified accountant could do the job of Chancellor better, he might be an awful public speaker and useless politician but he could do a better job of the accounts.

This country generally though does dislike some forms of success. The smartest kid in the class is the one who's picked on, the one who gets into Oxford is then alienated from his more normal friends because he becomes a toff and anybody with money is deemed a heartless bd. Nobody likes those people.

Oddly thousands will pay lots of money to watch multi-millionaires kick a football every week though.

[ewenm]

Wandering further off-topic but I doubt those we'd class as excellent coming out of Oxbridge go into politics. So many more lucrative/interesting avenues to explore that avoid the media circus that surrounds politics.

If you judge the performance of Oxbridge by looking at our politicians then I'd agree that an Oxbridge education is way over-rated

[Trommel]

martin84 said:

I can't help but think a standard qualified accountant could do the job of Chancellor better, he might be an awful public speaker and useless politician but he could do a better job of the accounts

Hardly as if Osborne will be the one thinking stuff up is it? He's just the one with the name badge, there's a team of (hopefully) far more qualified and knowledgeable people behind him.

Public perception is the difficult bit and something the current lot are useless at managing.

[turbobloke]

martin84 said:

I think politics is proof that Oxbridge isn't as brilliant as perhaps we all think.

Politics is proof that politicians are often self-serving out of touch clueless ideologists.

As to Oxbridge, it's two universities full of people.

Trommel said:

Public perception is the difficult bit and something the current lot are useless at managing.

[martin84]

turbobloke said:

As their preferred Party during its last 13 year long national trainwreck managed to increase almost every measure of poverty known to Polly Toynbee while benefiting the one percent highest earners in the land, presumably you've explained to them that they're so very wide of the mark?

Discussions about politics never usually go well. I have tried in the past to mention things like this but its met with the viewpoint that the last 13 years would've been even worse with Tories in charge. Like I said they're not particularly political people and any attempt to turn them round to the Conservative's is very difficult when the current Conservative Party are making such a mess of things. The Tories are hardly helping my cause at the moment are they?!

[martin84]

turbobloke said:

Trommel said:

Public perception is the difficult bit and something the current lot are useless at managing.

Haven't I been saying that on here for weeks? I get shot down with strawman arguments about how I supposedly think PR is more important than Policy.

[turbobloke]

martin84 said:

turbobloke said:

Trommel said:

Public perception is the difficult bit and something the current lot are useless at managing.

Haven't I been saying that on here for weeks? I get shot down with strawman arguments about how I supposedly think PR is more important than Policy.

Really? Hadn't noticed.

martin84 said:

The Tories are hardly helping my cause at the moment are they?!

No, they're not making it easy, but even so it's still effectively no choice.

[wollowizard]

martin84 said:

The one who gets into Oxford is then alienated from his more normal friends because he becomes a toff and anybody with money is deemed a heartless bd. Nobody likes those people.

Well that's a few of the shadow cabinet fked then including Ed Milliband, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper,Stephen Twigg,Angela Eagle, Rachel Reeves, Maria Eagle, Mary Creagh as they went to oxford.

Andy Burnham must feel left out going to cambridge.

But looking at the education of the entire shadow cabinet there is only one I see that didn't attend university. Not necessarily a bad thing but how would they associate with the "workin man" they claim to stand for?

Douglas Alexander - university
Harriet Harman - paying public school then uni
Sadiq Khan - university
Rosie Winterton - university
Chuka Umunna - university
Jim Murphy - university
Hilary Benn - public school then university
Caroline Flint - university
Tessa Jowell - public school then university
Liam Byrne - university
Jon Trickett - university
Tom Watson - university
Vernon Coaker - university
Margaret Curran - university
Peter Hain - public school then university
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon - university
Lord Bassam of Brighton - university


Ivan Lewis - normal (ish) went to grammar school <<< the odd one out.

[Countdown]

oyster said:

In 2005 the Tories got more votes than Labour in England, but Labour won more seats. And this was evident in 2010 too. And it's not just down to Labour being good in marginals.
Many of the urban seats in Labour heartlands have about 60,000 voters in them, whilst southern rural seats in the Tory heartlands have 80,000+ registered voters. That is simply unfair.

According to Wiki Labour got more votes in total than the Conservatives.

oyster said:

martin84 said:

You're a bit more accurate with the public sector I suppose but is that surprising? The Tories are not friends of the public sector, this is well documented and the NHS is the UK's biggest employer with over 1.4 million people. People are afraid for their jobs at the moment and most people employed in the public sector observing the balance sheet in 2010 would've read Labour - keep job, Conservatives - redundancy.

Its almost amazing people don't vote for becoming unemployed

That's very true but what's important to remember is that Labour swelled that section of society by over 1 million people from 1997 to 2010. As you say they will temd to vote Labour, so that's the best part of a million extra votes Labour bought.

There seems to be a view that Public Sector automatically equals Labour voter. In my limited experience it's not necessarily the case. I voted for Cameron and I know several people who did. There is not the visceral loathing for the Conservatives in the PS as there was in the 80's and 90's

[wollowizard]

The Conservatives won England with 39.6% to Labour’s 28.1% and the Lib Dems 24.2% - a Tory lead of 11.5% - landslide territory – on a respectable swing of 5.6% from Labour to Conservative. This is not quite the humiliation of Labour in England which occurred in 1983 when the party just avoided finishing third: the Tories winning 46.0% to Labour’s 27.0% and Lib/SDP Alliance’s 26.4%.


I omitted scotland and wales for a clearer picture of english voting.

[turbobloke]

More grief for the libdims as their convicted fraudster donor is about to be extradited.

Click