[pig]

Originally Posted by Nodrog

I think we've reached the point where anyone who votes Labour in the next election can genuinelly be considered either evil or ignorant beyond words, so I cant imagine what frame of mind youd have to be in to care about who the deputy was going to be.

I will vote Labour.

Coming from a family which all vote Labour it feels as though I will be betraying them somewhat.

That's just a small part of it though. With the voting system being first past the post, it effectively is a two horse race. I view the Liberal Democrats (whilst a viable alternative to Labour for me) to be a wasted vote.

Sure people will go if everyone thought like you they will never get into power. Well that's the problem. Everyone does think like me. Or at least a fair majority.

What do the conservatives offer us that Labour doesn't? The only thing that I can see happening is the conservatives getting into power shaking things up. However will it be good if they get in? I would rather a Labour government than a Conservative government, especially because what the tories did in the 80s.

Going back to Labour. They haven't done that bad a job. Take away Iraq, look at the positives (ignoring the fact they have moved into the centre etc). Northern Ireland has been a roaring sucess. I remember as I am sure many of you do the bombings the IRA used to do, the bomb warnings and in general the whole ****ed up situation in Northern Ireland. I went to NI in the mid 90s and it was a hostile place. Belfast is a changed city now (sure it has issues, but what city doesn't). The people of Northern Ireland are voting in their government and for the first time power sharing is occuring between the two parties (ie Catholics and Protestants coming together to work for one goal, although we will see if this works).

As well as that there is devolution. It has given the Scottish people (and to a certain extent the Welsh and the people of London) more of a say in how they run the country/area. It has allowed them to be more part of politics and bring it back to a local scale. I think devolution is a fantastic idea, and if the idea wasn't rejected by the North East I could see it being pushed out across the rest of the country. I am certainly jealous of the Greater London Authority, as I believe they do a good job. Love him or Loath him, Ken Livingston fights for Londons cause. The West Midlands needs someone like him, the West Midlands needs more control over its money, better integration of transport etc.

It is my belief that politics works best when people who are running it are doing so on a local level. If I was elected say to the West Midlands Authority, and thus as a collective we had more control over a budget than say Whitehall/Westminster, then we as local people are going to give a toss about how we spend it and in turn do the best we can with it. It's a tough cookie, but I believe Devolution is fantastic and allows people to work best at a local level, whilst still giving them a voice nationally.

Lets face it the current local council system can be fairly ineffective (partly down to the restrictions put in place by National Government, ring fenced grants etc) but ironically devolution gives that power back to the localities.

I know this is a bizarre point, and statistics lie, but in general more people are working, less people are unemployed and the country has been enjoying a period of boom for the last ten years. Downside is we are all knee high in debt, and how well the country is doing is down to interpretation.

If we look at Africa, whilst it is not a perfect solution, Blair did a decent job in Sierra Leone and I feel as though the British Government has been fairly proactive and shown interest.

The environment is something that is also encouraging. The UK hasn't been scared to sign agreements and it is moving in the right direction with Europe.

The main problem with the Labour government has been the USA. For me the relationship with the USA has been one which has prevented us from becoming more integrated with Europe and has led us down a bad path towards Iraq. Iraq was a mistake.

BUT. At the end of the day an evil dictator who killed thousands a year was ousted. Now I am not saying that justifies the killing of Iraqis etc to get to that point, but there is a slight silver lining. Not only that some say the Iraq war has been a disaster, I say the price of petrol has gone down. You do the math.

In general I have been pleased to vote for Labour in 2005 and I will vote for them again in 3 years time.

Like T&F says, this whole idea it is undemocratic is bizarre. The Labour MPs were elected. They chose their Leader. First Tony Blair, now Gordon Brown. Also he is right, how many of us choose our boss. We voted in the MPs they are representatives of us.

I believe under Labour we will see a few more decent years.

For the future what I would like to see is more of a challenge by the Lib Dems to the point that they can challenge to become the second party. But ultimately I believe the voting system should change. At the moment it doesn't allow true democracy. We should perhaps have a system like Proportional Representation or another system. Many a review has said that we need to change our electoral system, but of course I doubt it will happen as the government who are elected on the old one are hardly going to hinder their chances of reelection by bringing in a new form of elections.

In the future it would be brilliant if there were more than three parties (I still believe there is only two at the moment, with the Lib Dems being weak) and a vote will really represent the general public. This in turn will hopefully allow more people to vote, as they will feel their vote counts. It would be great in my opinion to have coalitions of say the Green Party, Labour Party etc.

You probably haven't read all of the above, if you have well done. I know there are a lot of flaws in what I have written but it is how I feel on the current state of British Politics.