Poll: Which Prime Minister does the UK prefer?

[Mr Wednesday]

Clement Atlee Clement Atlee Clement Atlee.

!

 

[Private Custard]

Under Gordon Brown I received E.M.A.(education maintenance allowance). For a poor family £30 a week is a big deal. Also, my mum was able to land a job teaching at a museum an pay for our bills.


When David Cameron came into power he cut funding to museums and my Mum lost her job, to add insult to injury he also fucked me out of my E.M.A. so now my only source of money is my Saturday job.

DAVID CAMERON IS A FUCKING EVIL BASTARD. HE STEALS FROM THE POOR AND GIVES TO THE RICH

EDIT: I'm not saying Gordon Brown is the best PM we've ever had, he's far from it. But god damn at least he wasn't a Nega-Robin Hood

Whoa! Talk about a labour kid!

Jonesy911, have you ever considered the purpose of EMA or, indeed, why these cuts are needed?

No. Because nobody who hates tories with a passion ever does. (Here's a hint: The reason the tories immediately start cutting everything is because LABOUR SPENDS ALL THE MONEY ON STUPID SHIT LIKE E.M.A. AND BANKRUPTED THE COUNTRY). Everyone is still paying the same amount of tax, nobody is getting a tax break and gov. spending is getting cut. This is not 'Robbing the poor to feed the rich', this is 'Oh shit, we're out of money, cut everything and get hated becaues Labour's economics is 'Spend everyone elses' money until there isn't any left''

Use your damn brain for once.

Exactly.

We're more than ONE TRILLION POUNDS in debt. Is that the Tories fault, fuck no. Do they look bad for cutting everything and screwing everyone, fuck yes. Are they doing a great job, no, they've made some fucking idiotic decisions.

So, the voters hate the cuts, vote back in the party that caused it all because they're too fucking stupid to realise why we're where we are today. New leaders go about undoing everything the previous government did, no decent amount of time is allowed to see if things change and if the cuts worked, seeing as we live in the now now now generation.

Then four years later, the voters get sick of the lack of improvements and so vote in the other guys.......

Anyone see a pattern emerging her?!

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm neither Tory or Labour......or Lib Dem. I think they're all cunts, no matter how good they are at smiling for the cameras and kissing babies.

I voted UKIP. Keep economic ties with Europe, but stop paying them billions to then go and put all of our industries out of business whilst creating law after law after law from their hideaway in the shittiest European city I've ever visited, Brussels!

 

[Mr Wednesday]

Are you blaming Labour for the global economic crisis?

And by "stupid stuff" do you mean vital public services.

Allthough, yes, I concede the need for cuts.

 

[Lethos]

I'm going to make this my last post hopefully and give up. Let's clear some things up first.

Firstly before anything else, to suggest you were a Conservative was a bit below the belt. I regret it and apologise. Now onto your response...

In Political Science Legitimacy is defined simply as 'rightfulness'. The terminology used to describe it may change but the overall definition of it maintains relatively constant.

You're taking the definition of Legitimacy to be Rightfulness. This doesn't make it any less subjective as far as I'm concerned. Also note that all three major parties were promising some kind of electoral reform, suggesting that even they realise there is something wrong with our electoral system. I'd be inclined to agree with this myself, and it was part of the reason I voted for the Lib Dems as I thought they would be most serious about electoral reform.

Even if we were to take the idea that Legitimacy is subjective, I would argue that the overall population of the UK has the same definition as to what Legitimacy of government is. I would also argue that anyone who believes that the Conservatives can't legitimately form a government because 64% didn't vote for them is either a hypocrite or has never accepted any government in modern British history as legitimate.

I do believe the Conservatives can form a legitimate government so I won't comment further on this paragraph. Although you do make an interesting point that I shall return to...

Finally, even if we were to agree that the Conservatives cannot legitimately form a government, it could then be argued that they have the highest claim to legitimacy among all the parties as they received the most votes.

It would be strange if we did agree seeing as neither of us has that opinion.

In essence, you can try and be as pedantic as you want by saying legitimacy is relative and 64% voted for another party, but the coalition government is accepted as legitimate by the overwhelming amount of people in the UK. Even if we were to take your stance that the coalition government is not legitimate they are still more legitimate than a Labour-Lib Dem coalition would be.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! This is not my stance. You are the one with the view that a coalition of Labour/Lib Dems (52% of vote) would be unacceptable compared with the current Conservative/Lib Dems coaltion (59% of vote). It was one of the reasons I quoted you in the first place. I don't agree that to say one majority is illegitimate whilst the other is legitimate. It is perhaps LESS legitimate but it is not unacceptable as you suggest.

Now returning to that point: you said it would be hypocritical to say the Conservatives couldn't form a government because 64% didn't vote for them. I assume then that you should feel the same way for Labour were 71% didn't vote for them. It would seem both hypocritical and biased to say that the Conservatives can but Labour can't when in a coaltion with the Lib Dems they both have a majority government.

Also I would say my figures from this post come from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

I would be interested in discussing further, but I've spent far too long on this topic in order to avoid my coursework. Damned Situation Calculus will be keeping me up most of the night now. Yes even the definition of legitimacy is more entertaining that Situation Calculus. =(

I can actually see where you are coming from now. Perhaps I was a bit brash earlier.
I will stand by my opinion that Conservatives have a higher claim to legitimacy in a coalition than Labour and because of this, if Labour had formed a government instead of the Conservatives then it would of been undemocratic at best.

This is because Labour lost the race (we can't really deny that in our system it is a two horse race) so therefore they lost their claim to legitimacy. Even if they were capable of forming a coalition government with the Lib Dems, this government would of been victim to a loss of legitimacy due to the premise that it's controlling party received less votes than the Conservatives so therefore represents a smaller percentage of voters.

In addition to this, in our political climate, the prime way to punish MP's for their mistakes is to not vote them back in. The electorate, as a whole, decided that it did not want another Labour government. Of course the Tories didn't manage to achieve a majority either, but the fact they received a higher percentage of the votes can be used to argue that more voters wanted a Conservative government than a Labour government so a coalition between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems is more proportionate so therefore more democratic.

Don't blame you for avoiding your Situation Calculus though. That sounds rather painful D:

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

Seeing as cameron is a complete see you next tuesday i had to vote for brown and he had more flaws than the empire state building.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

After hearing something on the 10 o clock show, I'm backing Churchill.

When advised to cut national arts funding to divert more money to the war effort, he simply asked 'but then what would we be fighting for?'

I never saw Churchill as the type to be defending the arts over the army.

 

[Warboss Robgutz]

I despise them all, im all for a revolution, instating a horrible evil dictator who will presumable do something absolutely malicious and evil, defeating him in another revolution five years later, then enjoying unparalelled prosperity and growth for the next seven thousand years....pretty sure all of that is feasable and wont have any repercussions whatsoever...nope...none that i can think of...
at all...
no...

 

[FarleShadow]

Are you blaming Labour for the global economic crisis?

And by "stupid stuff" do you mean vital public services.

Allthough, yes, I concede the need for cuts.

You could argue a more 'conservative' policy with the banks would have limited the damage of the global eco crisis (BA-dum-tish!)

And by stupid stuff, I don't mean 'Vital public services' (NHS/Fire/Police/etc) but the general public services, increased health and safety, more pointless laws, ID cards...

Essentially, it appeared to me that most of the time, the previous Labour government spent everyone else's money trying to do really stupid stuff that anyone with a brain could see was a really really large moneydrain. I would go back and dig up an argument with more evidence, but even the thought of going over every moneysink they've ever made is giving me a headache.

That said, I don't like the Tories that much, but I do prefer the idea of their government than the nannystate-drain that Labour tried to make.

 

[flamingjimmy]

Gordon Brown, because Cameron's government, especially George 'scum' Osbourne are trying to dismantle the state. Not that I'm a big fan of labour, but they are the lesser of two evils by such a long way its ridiculous to me that anyone who's not an investment banker thinks otherwise.

 

[Private Custard]

I despise them all, im all for a revolution, instating a horrible evil dictator who will presumable do something absolutely malicious and evil, defeating him in another revolution five years later, then enjoying unparalelled prosperity and growth for the next seven thousand years....pretty sure all of that is feasable and wont have any repercussions whatsoever...nope...none that i can think of...
at all...
no...

Yeah, that's a plan.

Instead of all these silly ideas about enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, to aid the revolution, why don't we just import Gadaffi? Our politicians seemed to love him until just recently. I'm sure this is all just a minor hiccup, a misunderstanding, as it were!

 

[CardinalPiggles]

can i just say neither...

 

[ReservoirAngel]

David Cameron won a near majority, forming a coalition with Nick Clegg of the Lib Dems *Cough*SELLOUTS*Cough*.

I find the judgement of the Lib Dems joining the coalition government unfair. Doing it was a good move. They didn't get the majority to get themselves in, but the Conservatives need some people and they approach the Lib Dems. Would you really turn down the chance for your party to have SOME kind of say in the government?

OT: I'd say Gordon Brown just based on the fact that David Cameron weirds me out something terrible. Something about him just look unsettling. With Gordon you can call it: he's a glass-jawed one-eyed old Scottish bastard who looks like a mouldy potato. With Cameron it's something more outlandish that's wrong with him, so it weirds me out.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

But the UK voted cameron, and now they deserve it, maybe this will be a good lesson for them about voting tory.

The irony being... we didn't vote him in, we didn't vote anyone in. They just decided amongst themselves that 'hey, LibDems, your leader's pretty good looking, let's get a room.'

'We' didn't 'vote' Cameron to do anything.

Ya know, I'm not the biggest Cameron fan in the world, but this is a really weak argument. No party managed to achieve a majority, but the Conservatives got the highest amount of votes. Labour managing to get into power despite losing against the Conservatives in the election would of been a serious blow to democracy.

The whole thing was a farce, and it's not a week excuse. They really should not be in power. they got in with something like 34% of the vote, that's barley over a third. The ONLY reason that they formed a coalition with the Libs was because they could then legitimize there getting in power and they knew that the Libs wouldn't be able to put up too much of a fight so they could steam role there policy trough. Brown was by no means a perfect as a PM and in some cases down right stupid but under his leadership the country was getting better. The North/South divide was lessening and the quality of life for every one was getting better. Now Cameron and his 'Big Society' has blown that out of the water and the trends are actually reversing. The people that stand to gain the most out of this current situation are the top 1% of the population, and co-incidentally who are the vast majority of this top 1%...yes you guessed it it's the Torys. Now Labor was by no means whiter than white when it came to dodgy finances what with the whole cash for honers issue, but at least that was open to anyone who had the money regardless of who your daddy was. The Torys are out to serve them selves and screw everyone else, Labour was essentially the same however there self serving actually filtered down the chain a bit an provided some benefit to the common man.

What should have happened was that the coalition government that formed after the election and took power then should have set a date for a new election 6 or 12 months down the line.

Personally i cant identify with any of the current political parties. The Libs are spineless, Labour has lost it's way and hasn't got a leader that inspires any confidence and the Torys are the devil incarnate for anyone who is not upper class and rich. The EDL/BNP are a bunch of fascists and racists who prey on fear and ignorance, UKIP are kidding them selves, the Green party don't have any real plan, and the Monster raving loony party are just that.

I dunno maybe i'm just jaded and cynical about the whole thing but to me it seems like theirs this sense of unease/anger simmering away just under the surface in this country at the moment, you can almost feel it in the air. Something's go to give and it wont be pretty when it does. There's a storm coming and i hope to god that it's gonna blow over soon.

~~Edit~~

OT
Brown, he's the lesser of the two evils.

 

[FarleShadow]

After reading the entire thread about this, I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't some weird Internet Router somewhere relaying me an escapist from some completely different dimention.

 

[Jonesy911]

Under Gordon Brown I received E.M.A.(education maintenance allowance). For a poor family £30 a week is a big deal. Also, my mum was able to land a job teaching at a museum an pay for our bills.


When David Cameron came into power he cut funding to museums and my Mum lost her job, to add insult to injury he also fucked me out of my E.M.A. so now my only source of money is my Saturday job.

DAVID CAMERON IS A FUCKING EVIL BASTARD. HE STEALS FROM THE POOR AND GIVES TO THE RICH

EDIT: I'm not saying Gordon Brown is the best PM we've ever had, he's far from it. But god damn at least he wasn't a Nega-Robin Hood

Whoa! Talk about a labour kid!

Jonesy911, have you ever considered the purpose of EMA or, indeed, why these cuts are needed?

No. Because nobody who hates tories with a passion ever does. (Here's a hint: The reason the tories immediately start cutting everything is because LABOUR SPENDS ALL THE MONEY ON STUPID SHIT LIKE E.M.A. AND BANKRUPTED THE COUNTRY). Everyone is still paying the same amount of tax, nobody is getting a tax break and gov. spending is getting cut. This is not 'Robbing the poor to feed the rich', this is 'Oh shit, we're out of money, cut everything and get hated becaues Labour's economics is 'Spend everyone elses' money until there isn't any left''

Use your damn brain for once.

If David Cameron wanted to save money he could have cut it from several other things such as the ministry of defence or her majesty's treasury which are both ridiculously bloated. I'm not an idiot, I know he's not just cutting shit for no reason.

Simply put, my family should not have to be forced to live of our grandparents generosity because the government destroyed all of our sources of income. There's cutting costs and then there's fucking over the working class to keep the middle more comfortable.

Edit: Also, try not to be so condescending to people when you have a difference of opinion. It generally makes you look like a massive ponce.

 

[FarleShadow]

If David Cameron wanted to save money he could have cut it from several other things such as the ministry of defence or her majesty's treasury which are both ridiculously bloated. I'm not an idiot, I know he's not just cutting shit for no reason.

Simply put, my family should not have to be forced to live of our grandparents generosity because the government destroyed all of our sources of income. There's cutting costs and then there's fucking over the working class to keep the middle more comfortable.

Edit: Also, try not to be so condescending to people when you have a difference of opinion. It generally makes you look like a massive ponce.

lol!
Someone obviously isn't in touch with middle class people, because, far from being comfortable, they're lumped with the majority of the burden. Tax increase? Middle classes lose out. Benefits? Middle classes are 'too wealthy' to recieve the 'working classes' benefits, so lose out.

Could you cut the MoD? Yes, they have. HM Treasury? Probably. But the Tories have reduced everything, including killing off Labour schemes like the ridiculous EMA. Perhaps you should consider that the government didn't kill off your source of income, its just getting rid of shit that should never have been in the first place.

So its ok for you to call all tories evil bastards, but not alright for me to call you out on it? lol!

 

[Professor Cubbage]

Brown because I'm Scottish and therefore it's my duty to hate the Conservatives.

 

[Valkyrie101]

Under Gordon Brown I received E.M.A.(education maintenance allowance). For a poor family £30 a week is a big deal. Also, my mum was able to land a job teaching at a museum an pay for our bills.


When David Cameron came into power he cut funding to museums and my Mum lost her job, to add insult to injury he also fucked me out of my E.M.A. so now my only source of money is my Saturday job.

DAVID CAMERON IS A FUCKING EVIL BASTARD. HE STEALS FROM THE POOR AND GIVES TO THE RICH

EDIT: I'm not saying Gordon Brown is the best PM we've ever had, he's far from it. But god damn at least he wasn't a Nega-Robin Hood

Whoa! Talk about a labour kid!

Jonesy911, have you ever considered the purpose of EMA or, indeed, why these cuts are needed?

No. Because nobody who hates tories with a passion ever does. (Here's a hint: The reason the tories immediately start cutting everything is because LABOUR SPENDS ALL THE MONEY ON STUPID SHIT LIKE E.M.A. AND BANKRUPTED THE COUNTRY). Everyone is still paying the same amount of tax, nobody is getting a tax break and gov. spending is getting cut. This is not 'Robbing the poor to feed the rich', this is 'Oh shit, we're out of money, cut everything and get hated becaues Labour's economics is 'Spend everyone elses' money until there isn't any left''

Use your damn brain for once.

One other thing regarding the highlighted phrase (I agree with what you say). Withdrawing benefits is not "robbing the poor", because "robbing" implies that money is being taken away, which is not true. Instead of taking money, the government are simply not giving money which the recipients have no reasonable claim to anyway. And nothing is being given to the rich, either.

 

[Jonesy911]

If David Cameron wanted to save money he could have cut it from several other things such as the ministry of defence or her majesty's treasury which are both ridiculously bloated. I'm not an idiot, I know he's not just cutting shit for no reason.

Simply put, my family should not have to be forced to live of our grandparents generosity because the government destroyed all of our sources of income. There's cutting costs and then there's fucking over the working class to keep the middle more comfortable.

Edit: Also, try not to be so condescending to people when you have a difference of opinion. It generally makes you look like a massive ponce.

lol!
Someone obviously isn't in touch with middle class people, because, far from being comfortable, they're lumped with the majority of the burden. Tax increase? Middle classes lose out. Benefits? Middle classes are 'too wealthy' to recieve the 'working classes' benefits, so lose out.

Could you cut the MoD? Yes, they have. HM Treasury? Probably. But the Tories have reduced everything, including killing off Labour schemes like the ridiculous EMA. Perhaps you should consider that the government didn't kill off your source of income, its just getting rid of shit that should never have been in the first place.

So its ok for you to call all tories evil bastards, but not alright for me to call you out on it? lol!

You can call me out on something if I'm being retarded, no problem. Just don't tell me to "use my brain for once". Also Museums deserve to be well funded by the government, they should not have cut money to those.

Another, better option which Conservatives are scared of? RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH. For fucks sake it's not like they need all that money.

 

[Jonesy911]

Under Gordon Brown I received E.M.A.(education maintenance allowance). For a poor family £30 a week is a big deal. Also, my mum was able to land a job teaching at a museum an pay for our bills.


When David Cameron came into power he cut funding to museums and my Mum lost her job, to add insult to injury he also fucked me out of my E.M.A. so now my only source of money is my Saturday job.

DAVID CAMERON IS A FUCKING EVIL BASTARD. HE STEALS FROM THE POOR AND GIVES TO THE RICH

EDIT: I'm not saying Gordon Brown is the best PM we've ever had, he's far from it. But god damn at least he wasn't a Nega-Robin Hood

Whoa! Talk about a labour kid!

Jonesy911, have you ever considered the purpose of EMA or, indeed, why these cuts are needed?

No. Because nobody who hates tories with a passion ever does. (Here's a hint: The reason the tories immediately start cutting everything is because LABOUR SPENDS ALL THE MONEY ON STUPID SHIT LIKE E.M.A. AND BANKRUPTED THE COUNTRY). Everyone is still paying the same amount of tax, nobody is getting a tax break and gov. spending is getting cut. This is not 'Robbing the poor to feed the rich', this is 'Oh shit, we're out of money, cut everything and get hated becaues Labour's economics is 'Spend everyone elses' money until there isn't any left''

Use your damn brain for once.

One other thing regarding the highlighted phrase (I agree with what you say). Withdrawing benefits is not "robbing the poor", because "robbing" implies that money is being taken away, which is not true. Instead of taking money, the government are simply not giving money which the recipients have no reasonable claim to anyway. And nothing is being given to the rich, either.

What I meant was that while people like me at the bottom of the ladder are getting fucked over due to the cutting of funding to our workplaces, the rich are getting away with VERY lenient taxes. Why not raise taxes on the rich?