Election debates: Will you be watching?

[bromley mum]

It started a bit slowly but that was to be expected. Brown performed as he was expected to, but Cameron's performance left a lot to be desired. Infact, Brown came across slightly better because no one expected him to set the room alight and as Cameron was thought to be the better communicator the fact that he wasn't on the night meant he lost out. Cameron annoyed me when he alluded to his disabled son (twice) and the fact that his children go to state schools.

[doodles]

As did NC. GB also keeps on and on about his father!

[Chelmsford mum]

I suspect that the same may apply to many of us on this forum because GS survive in areas that are primarily Tory strongholds.

CM, your DD may not be in one of the best schools in the country if it wasn't for DC types. Oh and by the way I bet MY Mr Darcy would have voted Tory!

I unexpectedly had a friend round so will have to watch i- player.
Tipsy , your beloved leader does not approve of grammar schools either despite his ultra privileged upbringing, and fact is, if any party, including my beloved party, had dealt effectively with education, grammar schools would not be needed.
Off topic slightly everyone should vote and it should be made the law to do so.
We live in a truly great democracy and I feel we need to remember many in the world are dying for the right to vote.
Rant over...Gnite

[Looking for help]

DC will need to spruce up his act, GB was pretty much as expected, and NC was always going to win because he is so reasonable.....but that is also why he can never win A hung parliament is looking more and more likely

WRT right to vote :- in a great democracy you can't force anyone to do anything, otherwise it wouldn't be a great democracy, and tbh I think that because there are so many safe seats a lot of people don't vote because there is no point. I always do but know that my vote means nothing in my constituency.

[Chelmsford mum]

WRT right to vote :- in a great democracy you can't force anyone to do anything, otherwise it wouldn't be a great democracy, and tbh I think that because there are so many safe seats a lot of people don't vote because there is no point. I always do but know that my vote means nothing in my constituency.

I think we force people to do lots of things ...like having to obey the law or face consequences or paying taxes etc.There is no point in lots of constituencies as some or totally safe seats, but I still think everyone should be made to participate. With postal voting to don't even have to leave your house (well you do to post it... )

[Looking for help]

Yes everyone has to obey the law and pay tax, because if not our society would end up in meltdown.
Not sure about voting though, I don't think after the debate last night you could really blame folk for their disinterest. There is nothing much to choose between them. Brown is a tiny bit left of centre, Cameron is little bit right of centre and the other one is sitting on a very wide fence in the middle. Not much room for debate

[Chelmsford mum]

Yes everyone has to obey the law and pay tax, because if not our society would end up in meltdown.
Not sure about voting though, I don't think after the debate last night you could really blame folk for their disinterest. There is nothing much to choose between them. Brown is a tiny bit left of centre, Cameron is little bit right of centre and the other one is sitting on a very wide fence in the middle. Not much room for debate

When people don't vote though, we don't have melt down but we do have a totally unrepresentative government.I believe , for example, that voter turnout amongst the under 25s is very low.If there was a compulsion to vote, they would at least be registering a preference , however slight and the parties would have to respond to the needs of that voter group.
We don't have melt down but we do, I believe, have a spiral down in the Government ever being able to address voters' needs.
I don't agree with the tiny bit left of centre.They have been in so long, everyone has forgotten some of there achievements e.g minimum wage reducing class sizes etc.I could go on but will probably be moderated.
I don't trust Tipsy's pin up with the NHS or with the needs /lives of the less than privileged.

I genuinely hope I am wrong about that last bit though as they will undoubtedly form the next government.

[Amber]

We live in a truly great democracy

Do we? Do you really feel you have any genuine say in what happens once they (whoever 'they' are) actually get elected? What about Iraq? Massive public opinion against, but our elected representatives rode roughshod over it and went in regardless.

I sometimes wonder whether we swallow the 'democracy good, third world countries bad' argument rather too uncritically, assuming arrogantly it to be our duty and right to go and 'democratise' other 'less developed' countries along our own model. I genuinely am not convinced we have it entirely right, or are that much worth emulating.

And before I am inundated with the ' you want us to have a dictatorship/communist state?' counter-arguments: no, of course not. I am just not so convinced that we have any real choice in what is happening to our country, or that any of those invested with looking after us all have any particularly altruistic interest in doing so.

[Chelmsford mum]

I do believe that Amber.It is far from perfect but go on the Amnesty website if you are unconvinced that our freedom is something really precious and are ability to participate in democracy something to be prized.
It is the spirit of the age that many people knock everything about this country, without offering alternative solutions or being willing to be part of they change they claim to want.

I may not reply for ages as am in the middle of lesson prep and shouldn't be here at all really...

[Amber]

I do believe that Amber.It is far from perfect but go on the Amnesty website if you are unconvinced that our freedom is something really precious and are ability to participate in democracy something to be prized.
It is the spirit of the age that many people knock everything about this country, without offering alternative solutions or being willing to be part of they change they claim to want.

Looking at extremes of persecution visited upon those who dare to express controversial political views in other parts of the world is of course salutory and I would never be audacious or stupid enough to compare what we have here to some of the atrocities carried out in the names of politics and religion elsewhere.

However, the parlously low participation figures for elections here show that I am not the only one to feel a certain amount of disillusionment with the rosy idea of a universally franchised democracy. Not to be able to offer an alternative is not a reason to sit tight and pretend all is well. The UK lacks a tradition of democratic and intellectual socialism which some more arguably successful societies, notably in Scandinavia, offer. Our Labour party has its roots in trade unionism and our Conservative party its in elitist bourgeois tradition; and the resulting polarisation ('working class' vs 'middle class') with lack of decent intellectual basis is, in my view, not helpful to the democratic process.

I would be very willing to try and take part in an active campaign for change, but I am not well enough informed to do so.