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General Election 2015 - Thoughts/Predictions/Results

How are you voting in the General Election

  • Conservative

    Votes: 25 18.0%
  • Green Party

    Votes: 15 10.8%
  • Labour

    Votes: 45 32.4%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 16 11.5%
  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 3 2.2%
  • Scottish National Party

    Votes: 9 6.5%
  • UK Independence Party

    Votes: 13 9.4%
  • Other: Right Leaning Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other: Left Leaning Party

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • Other: Centrist Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other: Other

    Votes: 2 1.4%
  • Not Voting

    Votes: 7 5.0%
  • Spoiling Ballot

    Votes: 3 2.2%

  • Total voters
    139
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overthewater

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Yes when you input recent polling for the Holyrood elections next year into the calculator you get and additional conservative seat:

http://gyazo.com/952c20d58a73f669610fa700aa33fe89

Can you give links to the election calculators


Having only heard a part of the story, has Harriet Harmon set the wheels in motion of an internal investigation into why the Labour Party performed so poorly in that last General Election?

I can save alot of money:

* Ed Millaband
* UKIP
* The rise of the SNP
* English not like the idea of the SNP having any say,
 
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Butts

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And still I am waiting for a sentient contributor from Pays de Galles to explain how The Conservarives outperformed Plaid Cymru and actually gained seats from Labour :idea:
 

Senex

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I can save a lot of money:

* Ed Millaband
* UKIP
* The rise of the SNP
* English not like the idea of the SNP having any say,

I'd add to that a total failure of Labour to appeal to Middle England outside its traditional industrial heartlands and London. The red/blue map of England that was published just after the election in one of the papers was rather striking. (My own constituency stayed loyal to Labour despite the parachuting in of one of McClusky's representatives on earth (female) to replace a long-serving and widely-respected member who had decided to retire.)
 

pemma

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The Guardian said:
Ed Miliband had prepared a detailed action plan to start to oust David Cameron from Downing Street on the day after the general election, based on the private polling that showed the party ahead in key marginal seats.

The party leader was ready, if necessary, to form a minority Labour government that might later make an offer of a deal with the Liberal Democrats to strengthen his legitimacy, so confident was he of being able to reach No 10.

None of Labour’s election day scenario planning involved the possibility of an overall Tory majority, leaving the deputy leader, Harriet Harman, without a script as she toured the television studios on the night of the party’s election defeat.

The most senior figures in the campaign say the moment the exit poll was released that showed the Tories would be by far the largest party would be seared in their brains for ever. “The shock was just awful,” said one campaign aide.

Miliband’s confidence that he would become prime minister had been bolstered by a final private poll delivered to him a week before the election showing Labour two points ahead among the electorate in the 86 battleground seats and his own favourability ratings nearly matching David Cameron.

The shock of Labour’s inner circle form part of the most complete account of Ed Miliband’s five-year leadership, which culminated in a disastrous election night that saw the party lose 26 seats and achieve 30.4% of the vote, while the Conservatives achieved an overall majority.

The full account, based on extensive interviews with many of Miliband’s closest advisers, also reveals that:

• Labour felt trapped by the relentless Tory and media focus on the possibility of a Labour tie-up with the SNP, leaving a key adviser to bitterly complain in writing about the BBC’s media coverage.

• Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin doctor, played an increasing role in the final weeks of the campaign.

• Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary, unsuccessfully urged Miliband to go on the attack over Cameron’s use of the SNP to sow division in the UK.

• Miliband was so unhappy that he had failed to mention the deficit in his party conference speech he shut himself in his hotel room with his wife and a few close aides.

• The Labour leader was advised on more than one occasion to change course, by making tougher pledges on the economy, but that one crunch meeting in June 2014 failed after Miliband got wind of what was proposed.

Miliband’s own former advisers believe, but do not know for sure, the 8ft-high stone slab that set out his election pledges has been destroyed as planned, as one of its creators, Torsten Henricson-Bell, has ordered.

Marc Stears, one of Miliband’s closest allies, admitted the unexpected scale of the defeat had hurt the former Labour leader: “Although I am sure he is bruised, I am also sure he still believes that unless someone at some point deals with the inequality story, we are in a mess as a country. He still thinks the things he cares about remain the big questions, and even if they have not worked electorally … the country will have to answer them.”

The polling had led Labour to base its thinking around a central scenario that the Tories would take 285 seats and Labour 270. That was believed to be probably just enough to deprive Cameron of an overall majority, even if the Conservatives retained the support of the Lib Dems.

There is frustration in Miliband’s inner circle that the inaccurate polls turned the campaign into a referendum on a minority Labour administration.

But party insiders also admit that the potency of the Tory message about the SNP threat stemmed from pre-existing fears about Labour on the economy, an issue that Miliband did not address.

Labour had also planned the idea of making a broad offer to Clegg that would include an agreement to end the deficit on current account by 2018-19, the timetable proposed by the Liberal Democrats, and to accept the Lib Dems’ plan for £6bn of tax rises on the wealthiest.

But the election result meant that Miliband never had the chance to make the offer, or relocate the “Edstone” to Downing Street.

It was intended to be destroyed, but a previous attempt to break it up had to be called off when the media discovered its location in a south London warehouse.

Another plan for the stone to be broken up like the Berlin Wall, with the pieces sold for charity, was also rejected.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...an-david-cameron-general-election-polls-wrong
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I'd add to that a total failure of Labour to appeal to Middle England outside its traditional industrial heartlands and London. The red/blue map of England that was published just after the election in one of the papers was rather striking. (My own constituency stayed loyal to Labour despite the parachuting in of one of McClusky's representatives on earth (female) to replace a long-serving and widely-respected member who had decided to retire.)

I think really Labour should have recognised a considerable number of people who voted Lib Dem at the last election weren't happy with them forming a coalition with the Conservatives and would have been happier with some kind of deal with Labour. Yet the majority of the seats the Lib Dems lost in England seemed to go to the Tories. A lot of potential Labour voters didn't seem to be converted in to actual votes by their pre-election campaign.
 
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Bodiddly

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And so it begins, swingeing cuts announced by these silly posh boys playing government. Read it and weep people and be under no illusion, we are in for a world of pain.
 

pemma

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And so it begins, swingeing cuts announced by these silly posh boys playing government. Read it and weep people and be under no illusion, we are in for a world of pain.

£3bn of cuts proposed with £1.5bn of further cuts prevented by sale of assets:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-announces-4-billion-of-measures-to-bring-down-debt

Yet apparently they'll be money to up the inheritance tax threshold and to reduce the number of people paying the 40p rate of income tax.
 

table38

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And so it begins, swingeing cuts announced by these silly posh boys playing government. Read it and weep people and be under no illusion, we are in for a world of pain.

Begins? According to the two Eds, I thought we'd already had five years of austerity and swingeing cuts.

Anyway didn't Labour predict massive unemployment, a crime wave caused by poverty, a return to the 1930s and a triple-dip recession? Remind me how those predictions went :)
 

Mojo

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I think really Labour should have recognised a considerable number of people who voted Lib Dem at the last election weren't happy with them forming a coalition with the Conservatives and would have been happier with some kind of deal with Labour. Yet the majority of the seats the Lib Dems lost in England seemed to go to the Tories. A lot of potential Labour voters didn't seem to be converted in to actual votes by their pre-election campaign.
Despite the suggestion in the 2010 election that all the Lib-dems were doing was splitting the left wing vote; most seats held by the Lib-dems were historically Conservative, and if you look at the demographics, should be natural Conservative seats.
 

MidnightFlyer

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Indeed, I don't think it's a clear cut case that a Lib Dem's second choice is Labour. If you look at the West Country, traditionally the Lib Dem's strongest region, there are only really three places that are Labour: Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth; the rest is fairly Conservative, or, until last month, a two-horse race between the Tories and Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems (except for their pro-EU stance ;)) are probably the mainstream party I most closely align to, but my back-up will never be Labour or a party on the Left; I know a couple of other people in the same demographic as me who are the same. It would be interesting to see of the Lib Dem's membership what proportion are centrist or traditional liberal, and what proportion is socialist or another Leftist ideology.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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And so it begins, swingeing cuts announced by these silly posh boys playing government. Read it and weep people and be under no illusion, we are in for a world of pain.

It does not say much for the old-style anti-New Labour presentation that the Labour Party fought the last General Election on, if the "silly posh boys" were able to form a government with an unexpected overall majority, despite the Labour Party warning of such cuts by the Conservatives, but then going into "vague defensive mode" when being questioned as to the level of cuts that they would make should they had been returned to power.
 

Butts

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Despite the suggestion in the 2010 election that all the Lib-dems were doing was splitting the left wing vote; most seats held by the Lib-dems were historically Conservative, and if you look at the demographics, should be natural Conservative seats.

The same could be said about a lot of the SNP seats prior to the recent tsunami :p
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I doubt the LibDem vote that disappeared in Scotland went to Tories.

Some of it certainly did , they came very close in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. But for the SNP surge the Tories would have probably gained this seat.

Border Country (both sides) is natural Conservative territory.
 

St Rollox

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A year ago the Tories were tipped to win up to 4 MPs in Scotland.
That of course was pre the referendum.
The events of last september have changed Scottish politics probably forever.
 

Bodiddly

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Begins? According to the two Eds, I thought we'd already had five years of austerity and swingeing cuts......

Yes it begins.
This Tory government has Carte Blanche to enact all of it's very horrible, evil policies on the most vulnerable in our society. I say begins, because this is the start of a very difficult five years to come for most people in our country. A five years where we are at the mercy of a cabinet and in particular, a chancellor who are/is stinking rich.
In it together? Don't make me laugh!
 

table38

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Yes it begins.
This Tory government has Carte Blanche to enact all of it's very horrible, evil policies on the most vulnerable in our society. I say begins, because this is the start of a very difficult five years to come for most people in our country. A five years where we are at the mercy of a cabinet and in particular, a chancellor who are/is stinking rich.
In it together? Don't make me laugh!

As I said before, Labour said the same thing 5 years ago. In fact, pretty much the whole of Labour's election campaign was despair and scaremongering about what the Tories might do, rather than telling us what Labour would do.

And who gave the Tories "Carte Blanche"? You can't blame the Tories for winning the election, it was Labour's fault for being hopeless and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory again by crying wolf like they did in 2010.

The left can project their self-loathing on to the Tories all they want, but at the end of the day, it's an ineffective opposition and Labour's botched devolution experiment that got us where we are now.
 

Senex

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The left can project their self-loathing on to the Tories all they want, but at the end of the day, it's an ineffective opposition and Labour's botched devolution experiment that got us where we are now.

I wonder if Labour might have done better in England, despite the campaign of crying wolf but not telling us too much about what they might do, if the Blair/Brown devolution arrangements had not been so clearly anti-English, if they had gone for a proper federation and an English parliament.
 

pemma

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Despite the suggestion in the 2010 election that all the Lib-dems were doing was splitting the left wing vote; most seats held by the Lib-dems were historically Conservative, and if you look at the demographics, should be natural Conservative seats.

I'm not looking at every seat but there are a fair number which Labour had. I'm not sure if by most you mean you thinking around 90% or around 55%?

Sheffield Hallam is interesting though. In 1997 the Lib Dems won the seat from the Conservatives with just over 5000 more votes than in 1992. Labour, who were at their peak nationally, lost just under 5000 votes over what they had in 1992 but around 5000 people less turned up to vote. So did Labour voters stay at home in 1997 and the people who previously voted Conservative vote for the Lib Dems, or did the Conservative voters stay at home in 1997 and people who previously voted Labour vote for the Lib Dems. I'd guess at the reality being the Lib Dems gaining voters from both parties but more from Labour, with disgruntled Tories not voting.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
As I said before, Labour said the same thing 5 years ago. In fact, pretty much the whole of Labour's election campaign was despair and scaremongering about what the Tories might do, rather than telling us what Labour would do.

You may not remember when Blair announced he would stand down, PMQs were a complete waste of time because all that happened is Cameron kept arguing if Blair's going to stand down there should be an election and going on to say Labour aren't good enough and we can do better without saying how. There was no need for anyone to turn up, they could have just shown a re-run of the previous week and no-one would have known.

I'm interested to know why we need an Emergency Budget next month when Cameron and Osborne have constantly assured us they have a viable plan which is working.
 

GrimsbyPacer

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The Emergency Budget is so Osbourne can do what he planned for earlier in the year, but that would have lost votes.

The economic recovery stuff the Tories go on about is utter nonsense.
They lost the AAA credit rating, this is the slowest recovery in history, national debt has risen more under Osbourne than all Labour governments in history, inequality between rich and poor has grown massively.

It's well known that much of government spending returns extra money to the government than what was spent. New rail infrastructure is a good example of that.
Cuts do not always equate to more money in the bank nor spending to less money.
 
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table38

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The economic recovery stuff the Tories go on about is utter nonsense.

Yet the facts are that UK growth was twice as fast as Germany and eight times stronger than in France.

Makes you wonder why every day in Calais, dozens of people risk their lives to flee the socialist paradise of France to escape to evil Tory-run Great Britian :)
 

muddythefish

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Yet the facts are that UK growth was twice as fast as Germany and eight times stronger than in France.

Makes you wonder why every day in Calais, dozens of people risk their lives to flee the socialist paradise of France to escape to evil Tory-run Great Britian :)

Yet GDP is still at around the level of 6 years ago and the recovery from the worldwide banking crisis has been the slowest in history - both made worse by an ideologically driven and unnecessary programme of austerity cuts.

FOI, the French economy is starting to pick up, its productivity puts ours (and Germany's) to shame, its economy is bigger than ours and it still has a significant manufacturing base.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
As I said before, Labour said the same thing 5 years ago. In fact, pretty much the whole of Labour's election campaign was despair and scaremongering about what the Tories might do, rather than telling us what Labour would do.

.

The Tory campaign was wholly negative in that it played on voters fears over a possible coalition between Labour and the SNP. Apart from "stability" I still don't know what the Tories were standing for.
 

overthewater

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The Emergency Budget is so Osbourne can do what he planned for earlier in the year, but that would have lost votes.

The economic recovery stuff the Tories go on about is utter nonsense.
They lost the AAA credit rating, this is the slowest recovery in history, national debt has risen more under Osbourne than all Labour governments in history, inequality between rich and poor has grown massively.

It's well known that much of government spending returns extra money to the government than what was spent. New rail infrastructure is a good example of that.
Cuts do not always equate to more money in the bank nor spending to less money.

Well said that man.

Some people make believe this worldwide banking crisis was all planned, if what comes before it is all true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtiOEpOnqtI
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
The Tory campaign was wholly negative in that it played on voters fears over a possible coalition between Labour and the SNP. Apart from "stability" I still don't know what the Tories were standing for.

People never know what the tories were standing for either in 1979 OR 1983.

Worse still the tories should be disgusted with them selfs on how there placed fear about an SNP - Labour. So David wants Scotland to in Union as long as we shut the hell up and have no say in the running?

I think David will be classed as the prime minster who destroy the union.
 

table38

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Worse still the tories should be disgusted with them selfs on how there placed fear about an SNP - Labour. So David wants Scotland to in Union as long as we shut the hell up and have no say in the running?

Yet all the Labour scaremongering about a triple dip recession (when we didn't even have a double dip), Tories will sell off the NHS (when Labour privatised far more than the Tories ever did), unemployment and crime to rocket never came to pass either.

A serious case of "Four legs good, two legs bad" from Labour as usual :)

Yet GDP is still at around the level of 6 years ago and the recovery from the worldwide banking crisis has been the slowest in history - both made worse by an ideologically driven and unnecessary programme of austerity cuts.

But "there was no money left". It is going to take time to sort out the mess Labour always make of the economy. Some of us are old enough to remember the UK going cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout. I wonder which government caused that! (Here;s a clue, it was 1976 and the chancellor was Denis Healey) At least the Tories are trying to do something about the deficit and not trying to borrow their way out of debt like Labour always try to do.

Remember that the government doesn't have any money, at the end f the day it all comes from hard-working taxpayers. Frankly me (and I suspect the millions who decided Labour couldn't be trusted with the economy) are glad that the government are trying to reign in spending rather than just tax and spend and waste our hard-earned cash,
 

muddythefish

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But "there was no money left". It is going to take time to sort out the mess Labour always make of the economy. Some of us are old enough to remember the UK going cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout. I wonder which government caused that! (Here;s a clue, it was 1976 and the chancellor was Denis Healey) At least the Tories are trying to do something about the deficit and not trying to borrow their way out of debt like Labour always try to do.

Remember that the government doesn't have any money, at the end f the day it all comes from hard-working taxpayers. Frankly me (and I suspect the millions who decided Labour couldn't be trusted with the economy) are glad that the government are trying to reign in spending rather than just tax and spend and waste our hard-earned cash,

The Tory "cleaning up Labour's mess" narrative just doesn't stand up to the evidence.

On the two occasions that Labour oversaw increases in the national debt there were the mitigating circumstances of huge global financial crises. The Ramsay MacDonald government of 1929-31 coincided with the Wall Street crash (they left a 12% increase in the debt to GDP ratio), and the Blair-Brown government of 1997-2010 coincided with the 2008 financial sector insolvency crisis (an 11% increase).

The other Labour governments all reduced the scale of the national debt, Clement Attlee's 1945-51 government reduced the national debt by 40% of GDP despite having to rebuild the economy from the ruins of the Second World War. Harold Wilson's 1964-70 government reduced the national debt by 27% of GDP and even the Wilson-Callaghan government of 1974-79 managed to reduce the debt by 4% of GDP.

The majority of Labour governments have ended up reducing the national debt, and the two that didn't coincided with the biggest global financial crisis of the 20th Century and the biggest global financial crisis so far in the 21st Century.

If you look at George Osborne's own record as Chancellor of the Exchequer in his first 3 years he managed to add more to the national debt than the supposedly "profligate and irresponsible" Labour party did in the 13 preceding years.

In fact, in just 4 years George Osborne has increased the national debt in real terms more than every Labour party chancellor in history combined!

You can spout your Daily Mail-inspired economic illiteracy as much as you like, but I'm afraid it doesn't stand scrutiny against the facts.
 
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Mojo

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I'm not looking at every seat but there are a fair number which Labour had. I'm not sure if by most you mean you thinking around 90% or around 55%?

lf you look at the 2010 results, 65% of seats won by the Lib-dems had the Conservatives in second place. 7 of those that weren't were in Scotland and 2 in Wales.

Seats like Bristol West were natural Conservative heartlands until 1997, and will probably now be un-winnable by the Conservatives in the foreseeable future, so that distorts the figures above.
 

overthewater

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The Tory "cleaning up Labour's mess" narrative just doesn't stand up to the evidence.

On the two occasions that Labour oversaw increases in the national debt there were the mitigating circumstances of huge global financial crises. The Ramsay MacDonald government of 1929-31 coincided with the Wall Street crash (they left a 12% increase in the debt to GDP ratio), and the Blair-Brown government of 1997-2010 coincided with the 2008 financial sector insolvency crisis (an 11% increase).

The other Labour governments all reduced the scale of the national debt, Clement Attlee's 1945-51 government reduced the national debt by 40% of GDP despite having to rebuild the economy from the ruins of the Second World War. Harold Wilson's 1964-70 government reduced the national debt by 27% of GDP and even the Wilson-Callaghan government of 1974-79 managed to reduce the debt by 4% of GDP.

The majority of Labour governments have ended up reducing the national debt, and the two that didn't coincided with the biggest global financial crisis of the 20th Century and the biggest global financial crisis so far in the 21st Century.

If you look at George Osborne's own record as Chancellor of the Exchequer. in his first 3 years as Chancellor he managed to add more to the national debt than the supposedly "profligate and irresponsible" Labour party did in the 13 preceding years.

In fact, in just 4 years George Osborne has increased the national debt in real terms more than every Labour party chancellor in history combined!

You can spout your Daily Mail-inspired economic illiteracy as much as you like, but I'm afraid it doesn't stand scrutiny against the facts.

Well said again.

Alot of people do not release that debt was the same level just before the 2008 crash as in 1992 - 1995, the same time the tories were trying to give lots of people lots of Tax cuts. Its alright for debt to give us tax cuts but not public spending?

Also the note that said " there no money left" was first done in 1964 to the incoming labour government....
 

pemma

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Makes you wonder why every day in Calais, dozens of people risk their lives to flee the socialist paradise of France to escape to evil Tory-run Great Britian :)

I wonder if illegal immigrants actually know/care who the current government is, they are happy to try to get in to Britain whether it's a Labour government, a Conservative government or a Coalition government.

I think the actual reason they 'flee France' is simply because France is closer to the African/Asian countries people are escaping so they reach France on the way to their intended destination.
 

overthewater

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I think the actual reason they 'flee France' is simply because France is closer to the African/Asian countries people are escaping so they reach France on the way to their intended destination.

Plus the French treat them like utter crap. Its been well noted what the french police get up to against them.
 

table38

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If you look at George Osborne's own record as Chancellor of the Exchequer in his first 3 years he managed to add more to the national debt than the supposedly "profligate and irresponsible" Labour party did in the 13 preceding years.

In fact, in just 4 years George Osborne has increased the national debt in real terms more than every Labour party chancellor in history combined!

Yup. As I said, cleaning up the mess left by the last government, who as I recall were so financially illiterate they didn't even know the difference between a tax and a subsidy :)

You can spout your Daily Mail-inspired economic illiteracy as much as you like, but I'm afraid it doesn't stand scrutiny against the facts.

More lazy stereotyping from the left. Not intelligent enough to engage with an argument? Easy! Just label someone and move on. Why am I not suprised Labour lost so badly :)
 
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