Yeah I know, Howard's a bit of a Eurosceptic. A lot of the oldboy Tories are. A new, younger look to the Conservatives would do them a world of good.

Don't worry about the 'nerd' stuff, I did politics at A-Level, but most of the stuff I remember is international politics, my whole second year. Miles more interesting than domestic in my opinion, but not the topic right now sadly!

I shook hands with Gordon Brown today! The joys if living in a marginal constituency...

Where are you, fgts, South Dorset?

I go to Uni at Bournemouth, living there each term, so I can register to vote in that constituency I think. Or I'll have to postal vote in my West Sussex poll.

Lib Dems for me; there's no way anyone but the Conservatives will win where my parents live, so it's not a wasted vote for me to show that people will vote Lib Dem. If that makes any sense, that is. If it weren't definite that the Tories will win, I'd vote Labour to do my best to make sure they wouldn't.

Some places recording Labour and Conservatives as neck and neck in random polls.
The outrage!

lol yeah its a bit scary, the observer today gave Labour a 7 point lead amoung likely voters so thats a relief

I'm in Milton Keynes North East, not quite as marginal as Dorset, but in 1997 our Labour MP won by just over 200 votes.

http://www.whoshouldyouvotefor.com/ try that gives you who you should vote for based on yoru answers.

My sister is registered to vote here but is now living up in Manchester. And she's not doing a postal vote.

...I have her polling card. What chances do you think I have of getting away with posing as her?

Just took that test there and i got:

You should vote: Liberal Democrat
The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Maybe I should have a read of the liberals new manifesto, they always just seem a bit wishy washy to me though I never believe them when they come out with socalist policies.

I've just taken this and I've come up Liberal! Conservative was my most against option! How ironic. must be the test is wrong or something....

I just wanted to raise the point about immigration, that the Mail and S*n often helpfully overlook, which is the importance of making a distinction between immigration and Asylum seeking. they're two separate issues, but are often lumped together, and a problem with Immigration ISN'T the same as a problem with Asylum seekers, for example.

Hmm so Howard has callled Blair a liar does it matter?Is it the main issue in the election?Will people vote on public services more than some petty squabble?Or does it go to th heart of the corruption in new labour?

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050428/140/fhhn9.html

The Conservative policy isn't even very extreme. Their basic idea is to put a quota on the number of immigrants. How that is "playing the race card", f*ck only knows?

By making immigration the centrepoint of their campaign, and stressing that it is "out of control" when it simply isnt, is appealing to a lot of dark feeling in the UK. I'm not falling into the trap of saying that its racist to put limits on immigration (I'm fully aware of that being classified as "political correctness gone mad" or some other tabloid epigram), but if the tories are playing on the fact that the a lot of the British public are extremely unimformed about immgration, and extremely subject to scare-mongering, then it is, in a way, playing the race card, or aiming for the racist vote.

A good example of this was the daily express (how I loathe that rag) headline last may, claiming that "1.4 million" roma gypsies were going to swamp our benifits system from eastern europe after the expnasion of the EU. The actual figure that came over was less than 100,000, many of which have been and gone. The number of those that ended up on benifits? 18. EIGHT FUCKING TEEN! I cannot beleive they got away with that.

(all these statistics are on www.refugeecouncil.org.uk)

The treatment of assylum seekers in this country is currently pretty terrible, not only do they have to put up with the sleazebags from the tabloids making their lives hell, but also, (contrary to popular scaremongering) they are not allowed to work until they have claimed full refugee status, and even if they claim benifits they are only allowed 70% of the benifits british people recieve, thus they are forced to live 30% below the poverty line.

I hope that answers your question Barry. Everyone should vote tactically to keep the Tories out, another massive defeat will be a clear message that they should go away and not come back until they are civilised.

Lib Dems all the way. I support them both ideologically and in terms of current policies. I do hope they'll make a breakthrough at some point.

I don't think they're necessarily that wishy-washy/opportunistic. They don't claim to be a socialist party and where their policies overlap with what you might call socialism I think that's chance. The philosophy is one of progressive, sometimes radical, liberalism. I do think, though, that they're possibly more 'left-wing' that New Labour at the moment, but that's the movement of Labour, not their own...but regardless of left-wing or right-wing, their policies are just quite simply better than Labour's.

I think the conduct of Labour and Conservatives in their campaigns has been pathetic - just like bloody schoolkids "yeah but he said this and he's gonna do this".

Despite that, I've still voted Tory in my postal vote. Hey frankie....