General Chat

all i can say is
one lucky party will be getting 5 vote from this house

I totally agree Annx, without, as you say considering the future of the country, this is the reason we find ourselves in such difficulties at the present time.

Farage is British ,he was born in Kent,,,,,,,,,

Brenda that has always surprised and concerned me. I remember when I was old enough to vote I thought it was silly me being able to vote when I didn't know enough about how the country was run or have any experience of what had happened in the past. I felt like a loose canon being able to influence things I knew nothing about! I still feel that some vote for who will give them what they personally want now without considering the future of the country.

I think you are right Ann. We heard all these disparaging remarks about UKIP prior to the European Elections, look what happened there, true a different ball game this time.

I therefore await with interest for the results on Thursday/Friday.

I believe that you can't complain about any policies if you don't vote.,

But a lot of younger people don't seem to take much interest in politics and don't understand,and they're not interested in past performances.

I remember when one of my grandsons went to college a few years ago and was discussing who to vote for in their first election ...and they decided to vote for the party who used their football team colours!!

As for Australia where it is compulsory and voting is usually on a Saturday.my son was fined for not voting as he was away climbing,,,but he says it isn't as good as it seems as there are a lot of spoiled papers and said ....you can vote for Mickey Mouse as long as you vote!!
Will we ever get the system right?

My GGF was Swedish, my granny and my OH French, other members of the family got spliced to people from France, Germany, the Balts., Punjab, Russia, Japan, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Mexico, Oz, New Zealand during the last 120 years.

They have collectively paid any amount of tax to the treasury coffers and shed quite a bit of blood too.

I suppose we have to tolerate even the unspeakable but I really do find the purple UKIP signs offensive (though not as offensive as Mr. Abbott). I guess what I hope most after next Thursday is that UKIP will disappear like a bad dream.

UKIP for all its bonhomie is home to the last refuge of scoundrels, jingoism. If Cameron is truly planning a coalition with UKIP and mad dog Irishmen then god save us all.

Not optimistic.

ive just had a bit of fun with the conservative party
a lady rang said who where we voting for
I said who ever is the best looking and the fittest candidate

she said guess you will be voting for us then
then she burst out laughing
and said well I must think he is fit

he is my boyfriend :-D :-D

Who wants to vote for a misogynistic, homophobic, immirgrant hating bunch of idiots?

Farage is a foreigner, his wife is a foreigner, will they both go back to their homelands? I think not.....

Many of his ridiculous policies will take working laws back years, all that the unions and the suffragettes fought and died for gone.

Fiscal policies whic make little or no senses, and do not even add up!!


Me vote UKIP I would cut my own hands off first...

were they fishmongers?

could be a standard fine no court
like the old parishes used to do :-D

somebody in my family got finned for not going to church 4 Sundays in a row
and also for not marking his pig

I agree with you Sue voting should be made compulsory my daughter and son in law never vote and although I keep my mouth shut I think they should

Think of the political fall out of taking somewhere around 15 million people to court .... not to mention the practical impossibility of doing so. Yeah, it works in Oz, so what? Oz is a far more authoritarian country than the UK has ever been or wanted to be Ms May excepted of course.

Say these 15 M disaffected people were coerced into voting and they mostly voted for The Screaming Loony Raving Monster Party, UKIP or the Greens or just spoiled their paper with anglo-saxon and urdu epithets then what ? Maybe that is how a creep such as Mr Abbott got to power.

So such a rule will never happen even though the rise of the SLRMP would please Mz Winchester.

In any case once minority parties get a sniff of power they are just as bad as all the others - look closely at how the SNP doesn't work for ordinary people in Edinburgh, how all the parties conspire against the common weal in Cardiff or the dubious antics of the Greens in Brighton. And then of course the Cleggies ... UKIP so far have the luxury of never having held office in the UK. Their near total inertia in Brussels (except for claiming expenses ) suggest that in the UK any UKIP MPs will be rare birds at Westminster - no better than the Irish men.

At least we now know what Brian Rix meant by the phrase "Whitehall Farce".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upEBdKFGlPg

I agree with Ann

think of the Revenue fining none votes would generate :-D :-D

After the Referendum, when the result was announced, the Official said

Votes in Favour *****
Votes Against ******
Blank Voting Papers ****
Papers with more than 1 vote *****
Torn Papers ****
Spoilt Papers *****

Total acceptable votes ****


I can't remember the actual figures, but it's the only time I have ever heard it done like that.

Been at local council counts and yes they do spoil ballot papers but why do they bother going to the polling station to do that.

I don't think voting should be compulsory as not everybody agrees with representative democracy preferring for instance communism, fascism, government by caliphate or even anarchy. Quite a lot of people detest politicians of any stripe.

The thinking behind compulsory voting usually has more to do with the govts desire for registration and control than democracy per se. The USA gets on fine without compulsory voting for instance.

I do think we should have write in votes.

For those who do vote it shows they have thought about the matters and have made an effort to shift their backside to vote or send off their postal vote. Regardless of who they vote for , even UKIP, this is to be applauded.

The only wasted votes are votes never made inc. spoiled papers.

I hate the ones that moan after an election about who got into No 10 but they then say they did not vote.

Guinevere I used to do a lot of door step canvassing many years ago and a lot of people said their votes would cancel out their partners but they usually did vote

Voting should be made compulsory like it is in OZ.

Then we would see which is the party that gets the key to No 10.

people who don't vote for a valid reason should be fined