Subject: British elections

Do not over-exaggerate the extent of British financial "propping up" other European countries. The Germans have taken the brunt of it and British contribution has been equal per capita to that of several other far smaller and poorer countries. But this is a debate about the necessity or extent of cooperation needed to maintain a European Union (unholy as it is) and not about British elections.

However,... now with a looming Con-LD coalition government, what do you think the implications will be on British forces in Afghanistan? British involvement in the sanctions against Iran? British stance on immigration policy or Muslim defiance of Freedom of rights within the UK?

Strange how they are not talking about a Con\Lab coalition....

The result does not reflect the UK......If the Tories won then didn't Labour come second?

Foreign policy is highly unlikely to change much. Labour and Conservatives have been collaborating for years on this, shadow ministers often visit Afghanistan for example, they are mainly led by Nato for most of the foreign policy now anyway. Cleaning up George Bushes' mess will carry on much as before.

Brown wouldn't work under Cameron, that would be seen as a humiliation.

but the libs want the troops home dont they?

I think we're going to be in a general mess for the next couple of months.

I think Mr Clegg has no real choice, but to try and make it work woth the Tories.

He seems a fairly intelligent bloke and has grapsed the precarious position of the economy. So I just can't see how he could rationalise that a Lib/Lab coalition is going to help this.

For the coalition to happen they need both the SNP and Plaid Cymru on board to get a working majority, and both nationalist parties have been extremely vocal about the financial price for their support.

UK plc has got to start cutting costs soon, not adding to the burden by finding hundreds of millions of pounds extra for Wales, Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland. This would hardly be an good advertisement for the benefits of PR and coalition government?

All parties want the troops home. But they will be home when Nato (sorry, that should read America) says they can. because the Afghans have removed corruption from their police force and have a competent army. So never then.

Absolutely - his other problem is that if working with other parties doesn't work out, it's his party that will lose seats in a second election.

The BBC reckon that half the problem will be the "grassroots" - Cameron and Clegg could easily cut a pragmatric short term, say one year deal, but will they be able to sell it to the blokes in arran sweaters and beards (Lib Dems) or the middle class ponces with the ducjk moats ? Idealogically they are oceans apart - one of them could easily lose their leadership over this.

Doomsday for Scotland if the Torres form a government. 1 MP here, even with there biggest swing ever they had a reduction or no change to their vote in most of the seats in Scotland.

If the Lib Dems get in bed with them the smart voter in Scotland (there maybe some!?) might never forgive them either. Which could be bad news for them as Scotland is an important area for their MPs. The Lib Dems campaign in Aberdeen was all anti Tory. Oh the irony of it all!

Labour suck aswell, so as I said before was a no win situation for us anyway.

Its hugely clear England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to be completely divided Politically. Cameron says he wants to bring UK closer together, Aye!
(edited)

Hey Dandy....Its Tories...Not Torres.

As in the verb...I Hate the Tories, but I love Torres.

If anything that should be the exact other way around!
One just scored lots and lots of points and the other couldn't score with even in his local election zone.

1 MP in the UK parliament for the ruling party is a good advert for independance - I'm amazed the SNP are pushing for a Lib-Lab alliance, as getting the Tories in would be the best thing to get what they want, surely ?

Torres, thats a typo. So not into them I can't even take the time to spell them correctly.

Yep should boost the SNP support. We shall see.

Many fair points Rogi but I am not sure a coalition will happen, well not in it's full sense. There are too many differences in key areas for either party to concede too much as they will lose a lot of the party faithful. Whilst I can see the LDs conceding on the conservative emergency budget measures and also their economics policies within reason, they are still miles adrift on environmental issues, immigration, europe and defence.

But if I was in Nick's position, I would try to get stuff done from within rather than spend another 4 years in the outlying benches in parliament.

To answer your questions:

Afghanistan - we might get enough bullets for the troops (both parties agree that supply is a key problem under the existing government)

Iran - scratch this for now. After the initial sabre rattling the economic problems in the two federations will outweigh our foreign policy for the near future. Expect Cameron to try to "do a Maggie" in 18 months time.

Immigration - the Torys so want to sort this out. Rightfully so. But we are stuck. Sorting out "foreigners" is easy(ish) and emmigration need to be at least registered, but the LDs are perfectly correct. It is the Euro based immigration we cannot control and need to sort. I personally think a 5 year cooling off period for the NHS and benefits would be a good idea to help this problem.

Sharia Law - Under Labour they "thought they might be able to accommodate some of the priciples of this" (My Christ!) Under the Torys it really won't be like that if there is any proper Tory left in them. Maggie was just slightly left of the BNP on this issue (a bit like you!)

As for the issue of immigration, I'd like to write one thing, sorry for a bit of disruption of the main subject.

"Australian former anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson is selling up and heading to Britain, according to an interview with an Australian magazine."

Is is possible to be a bigger hypocrite? :)

I saw that too!

re-read it and change anti-immigration to anti-black. I am assuming she won't be living in South London. Since the BNP did exactly as well as they should have, maybe she won't be able to "help" them out.

(although 500,000 people did vote BNP over the whole country)