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Our party stands for faireness xXedixXx,We believe in a fair welfare and benefits system,other governments have let the welfare and benefits system get in the mess its now in.If we get elected we promise to reform the welfare and benefits system making it so only the genuine claiments who deserve benefits and welfare receive it and those who are frauding the system will be penalised

What has that got to do with what I said?

Reply 181

username841677

Original post by Mr Dangermouse

@Labour

I think you have my favourite manifesto. What is your policy on trident/defence and do you believe your party is competent to govern after the previous term?

Hello! I'm glad you liked our manifesto. We spent a while working on making sure it actually had proposals, rather than simple platitudes. I hope it shows we care about making sure we have substance, rather than making sure ours is the flashiest!

My personal view on Trident renewal is that it simply isn't necessary. Mutually assured destruction holds even if we have no nuclear weapons at all - we're a member of NATO, and were we (in the very unlikely situation) to be attacked, then all of the other NATO members would retaliate for us. I think some level of nuclear capability is probably necessary to justify our position on the Security Council and to act as just a little bit of extra disincentive for any possible aggressors, so I'd steer clear of total disarmament, but the complete renewal of Trident seems totally unnecessary. As Richard Garwin, the US nuclear expert, pointed out, it's just too soon and too expensive when the current nuclear payload system could last until at least 2025. When we reach 2025, and our nuclear systems actually need to updating instead of it simply being a nice thing to do, I'd gladly go ahead, but right now that seems an unreasonable and excessive cost. Our current Trident system works very well, and we don't want to get rid of that at all.

In terms of defence, I'd like to see staggered retreat from Aghanistan. "Hearts and minds" may have worked if it had been mission goal from the very conception, but US and UK forces are simply tainted now. The longer we stay, the more Taliban converts we create. Our only goal now should be to train the current Afghan troops as best we can - they're the future of Afghanistan. In terms of spending, I think we have to recognise we're not the superpower we once were. It seems almost ridiculous that we have the third largest spending of any country on our military, when we're an island nation which hasn't been engaged in homeland combat since 1945. This doesn't mean we cut down on equipment - ideally, I'd like to direct money towards improving the equipment our soldiers have - but actually reducing the size of the army. A smaller, better equipped, better trained army is the direction in which we need to be headed. Right now, we have an inefficient lumbering army which is endangers the soldiers who serve it unnecessarily. We want the best trained, best equipped troops we can get.

I know we had a few ups and downs over the last term. An inactive leader and the retreat of our partners left us all a bit shell-shocked, and it took us a while to get back on our feet. For that, we can only apologise. However, we now have a new leader, and also new, active members (I'm an example! I became an MP midway through this term, at around the time of the leadership contest). Once we had recovered, we rapidly became active again. In the Speaker's Motion Competition, we came joint 1st in terms of activity. Our difficulty in passing bills which the Conservatives are so keen to highlight is for two reasons; the first is that the Socialist party who would often lend support to our bills have been rather inactive, there's not much we've been able to do about that. The second reason is that the Conservative Party has become hyper-partisan. Here at Labour, we like to work with the whole house, like xXedixXx's joint bill with the Libertarians. I myself tried to work with the Conservatives on their Education Bill. We're perfectly willing to vote for another party's bill if we think it has good content. In contrast, the Conservatives have blocked any bills, regardless of content, simply on the grounds of which party it came from. That kind of attitude produces electoral gridlock which makes it unnecessarily hard to do the work you want us to do.

All I can say is that we think we can form a stable and well-functioning government that isn't afraid to work with other parties to get things done.

I hope that answers your questions. :smile:

EDIT: To the various parties saying we've not mentioned Welfare Reform, we think that it is a little difficult to mention every single subject when you're squeezed into 150 words. We think welfare reform is pretty important, we know that £1.2 bn is lost through welfare fraud each year, and that's an issue we want to solve. However, we can think of more important issues, like the tax avoidance which costs HMRC £15 bn each year - and that's the issue we chose to mention.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 182

StatusRed

Original post by Mr Dangermouse

@Labour

I think you have my favourite manifesto. What is your policy on trident/defence and do you believe your party is competent to govern after the previous term?

Thank you for complimenting our manifesto. My personal opinion is that trident is important for the safety of The British people and that our Armed Forces should continue to be the best trained troops in the world. And yes I do believe we're competent to govern, our activity was very high towards the end of the last term and will continue to be high going into the next term.

Reply 183

thunder_chunky

Original post by bun

A tax on all frenchies, plus some sort of legal requirement that they have to have some random object in their car while driving in England, and the specified object should change every day :colone:

to make up for breath test kits and high vis jackets that the frenchies force us to have.

I agree. And they must always wear onions around their necks.

Reply 184

Faland

Original post by Mr Dangermouse

A fine point, however do you not believe there is a happy medium?

I don't believe in extreme taxation, or radical wealth redistribution, and I think that my position in the centre ground is probably as close to a happy medium as you can get. Taxes should pay for the liberty that the state can provide, not social engineering to even off wealth (only opportunity).

Reply 185

Left Hand Drive

Original post by thunder_chunky

Better dead than red :tongue:

Better than being a tories bitch. :tongue:

Reply 186

CyclopsRock

Original post by davidmarsh01

Do you feel the markets will always make the correct decision in what is good to invest in for the good of the people, and the world in general? Companies will only invest in what's good for them, without considering the detriment to society as a whole.

Lets take for example global warming. Most distinguished scientists believe that we should try to reduce our emissions ASAP, how would this be possible without government interference if reducing emissions remained the more expensive option? Sure, companies would make a lot of profit in the cheaper, environmentally harmful business, but at the expense of global and severe climate change, which is in nobody's interest.

Personally I'm unconvinced. A lot of reputable scientists are still not convinced at all (but that's another argument altogether) but let's say it's proved beyond reasonable doubt - then it's entirely proper for the government to get involved. If the actions of a person (or a business) is infringing upon my rights by causing sea levels to rise, acid rain, all this other stuff - then the government has as much right to intervene as if they're harming me in any other way. As a mid-ground example, nuclear fallout - if that occurs as a result of negligence (as opposed to a huge earthquake) then it's entirely proper that the government intervene to limit harm to people and then force compensation where harm has occured.

But that's not what we're talking about, is it? I don't think the markets will always make "the right choice" - betamax should have beat VHS! - but they don't need to. If the government isn't betting on a specific horse, why should it care which one wins. Only the people themselves have the knowledge of what they want, and the businesses that best provide for them (whatever their main method of selection - price, quality etc) are the ones that do the best. Is the market acting "correctly" when Apple becomes the most valued company in the world? Who knows. But people like iPhones a lot, and Apple provide them. Would a company like that exist if the government was in charge of manufacturing phones instead? I doubt it.

Reply 187

username841677

Original post by CyclopsRock

But that's not what we're talking about, is it? I don't think the markets will always make "the right choice" - betamax should have beat VHS! - but they don't need to. If the government isn't betting on a specific horse, why should it care which one wins. Only the people themselves have the knowledge of what they want, and the businesses that best provide for them (whatever their main method of selection - price, quality etc) are the ones that do the best. Is the market acting "correctly" when Apple becomes the most valued company in the world? Who knows. But people like iPhones a lot, and Apple provide them. Would a company like that exist if the government was in charge of manufacturing phones instead? I doubt it.

Would a company like that exist if the EU hadn't taken Microsoft to court over competition laws?

I doubt it. :P

Reply 188

User257034

What ever happend to the BNP guy? (not saying i would vote for them, just curiouse),

Currently tempted by spoint ballot atm, not really any good options.

Reply 189

Moleman1996

Mass PM should get a bit more interest in.

Reply 190

KCosmo

I feel the liberal democrats are shooting themselves in the foot, by not linking there picture properly. I.e. you don't see the picture, just the link to it.

Not that I'm saying the civilised folks of TSR would be swayed by mere pictures.... :tongue:

Reply 191

tufc

Original post by JPKC

Blah blah blah. UKIP plays dirty! I play rough!
(Immature? Yes.)

Thank-you for a policy question.

I reject the premise that my policies are lavish, but I'll try my best here nonetheless. Firstly, I'm in favour of introducing a financial transactions tax, secondly, I'd means-test benefits properly and efficiently, reducing the size of the state's welfare bill. However, it is always important to remember that the state cannot raise money, only business can, so I'd do my best to cut red-tape (though keeping anti-discrimination laws firmly in place). I'd cut the defence budget - Britain should not be pissing about in foreign countries, and we also have no use for genocide weapons - scrap trident etc. Overall I think my policies are fiscally balanced, I just regret not being able to enter into more detail in the manifesto.

It's all well and good saying you would means-test benefits 'properly and efficiently', but how would you do it?

That's a bit like saying one of your policies is to solve the problem in Afghanistan.

Reply 192

Rakas21

Original post by TopHat

I know we had a few ups and downs over the last term. An inactive leader and the retreat of our partners left us all a bit shell-shocked, and it took us a while to get back on our feet. For that, we can only apologise. However, we now have a new leader, and also new, active members (I'm an example! I became an MP midway through this term, at around the time of the leadership contest). Once we had recovered, we rapidly became active again. In the Speaker's Motion Competition, we came joint 1st in terms of activity. Our difficulty in passing bills which the Conservatives are so keen to highlight is for two reasons; the first is that the Socialist party who would often lend support to our bills have been rather inactive, there's not much we've been able to do about that. The second reason is that the Conservative Party has become hyper-partisan. Here at Labour, we like to work with the whole house, like xXedixXx's joint bill with the Libertarians. I myself tried to work with the Conservatives on their Education Bill. We're perfectly willing to vote for another party's bill if we think it has good content. In contrast, the Conservatives have blocked any bills, regardless of content, simply on the grounds of which party it came from. That kind of attitude produces electoral gridlock which makes it unnecessarily hard to do the work you want us to do.

You became active the one week of the VoNC after having a new leader for around 2 months and being the sole party for around one. Yet even by your leaders own admission many of your MPs do not even turn out to vote, let alone participate in bill creation. It took me on the other hand 2-3 weeks to ratify a party constitution, replace MPs and get bills and motions flowing. Not good enough but i do thank you for finally making that apology as several of your MPs will not even acknowledge that, let alone learn from mistakes!

That has not been updated yet, when it does it will show another two motions the week of the VoNC so you came second, Tories came first. I would add that regardless of position this was the only time when you actually came close to 'leading' the house despite having 14/50 of all MPs.

Whilst we reafirmed our values as a party, we would never object to a bill solely because of the party proposing it and i find that comment to be rather crass and offensive. We voted down your salary cap bill for example because it was an invasion of liberty and quite frankly socialist. Your lurch even further left in the later half of the term was very concerning and even a contributory factor in the Lib Dems leaving you as i was told via PM (and no, i shall not name which MP).

The version that went to vote actually included many of your suggestions as Bun acknowledged in the first reading thread. Us Tories are more than happy to work with other parties.

Name one?

Complete and utter rubbish, the electoral gridlock was due to your extremist bills trying to take away liberty.

Reply 193

Morgsie

Original post by KCosmo

I was having difficulty adding the images and I forgot to ask the Speaker to add them.

Reply 194

Rakas21

Original post by ras90

What ever happend to the BNP guy? (not saying i would vote for them, just curiouse),

Currently tempted by spoint ballot atm, not really any good options.

Somebody tried to set one up a few months ago but could not gather the interest required, nor did he stick around.

Reply 195

wizardtop

Original post by KCosmo

I understand your concerns regarding that we havnt managed to place a picture like all other parties however have u taken a few mins of what we stand for in our manifesto KCosmo? or are u more swayed by pretty pictures.

Reply 196

wizardtop

Original post by xXedixXx

What has that got to do with what I said?

okay xXediXxx sorry if i didnt answer your whole question,what do u want to ask me or the liberal democrat party concerning our election manifesto?

Reply 197

DebatingGreg

I was swaying towards Labour, but the accusations of lack of activity still worry me :confused:

Reply 198

KCosmo

Original post by Morgsie

I was having difficulty adding the images and I forgot to ask the Speaker to add them.

No worries!

Original post by wizardtop

Indeed I did read it, and I am speaking as someone who voted for the libs dems in the poll. But I do fear that others are not so conscientious in the way they decide who to vote for.