Big Debate #1 – I’m Still a Floater
Debate on ITV
Massive political night. So, after my dinner last night I decided to go to the shop and get some sweets in. We already had plenty of booze in the house. My girlfriend, my two housemates and I all decided to gorge on sweets and drink alcohol whilst sitting around to watch the first of the big debates! Rock!
I’m very keen to get into the politics as this is my generation that we’re in so I want to have my say. I don’t feel that I can have any sort of say unless I know my stuff. It seems that there’s a lot to learn! I’ve been kind of having a crash course in the last couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a complete ignoramus like the majority of the country in the sense that I know what’s going on, I know who’s who and I know what they generally all stand for. What i’m not up to speed with is the nitty-gritty bits. But more worryingly for me, I don’t have a clue who to vote for! This is why I thought the debate would be good.
I had a bad start to the political day yesterday. I’m not all too familiar with the policies of the parties so I decided to use the Vote for Policies site. This is a really simple to use site where you pick at least 4 subject areas, read through a set of policies and then you pick the ones you agree with. The sets of policies aren’t marked so you can’t be swayed by who’s made the policies. I picked all of the subject areas so that I can read as many of the policies as possible. Here’s how I turned out:
- 33% UKIP – Education, Europe, Immigration
- 22% Tory – Environment, Welfare
- 11% Green – Health/NHS
- 11% Labour – Crime
- 11% Lib Dem – Democracy
- 11% BNP – Economy
Brilliant! So that helped. All I know from that is that I’m a bit of a fascist and that I’m definitely a floating voter. I’m 100% not going to vote for UKIP and I don’t see any point in voting Lib Dem and I don’t want a Tory or Labour government really. Surely the debate on TV will help…
The programme started and I have to say I enjoyed it. That said, it really didn’t help that much. The most impressive person on there seemed to be Nick Clegg. He spoke very well and backed up everything he said with constructive answers. Gordon Brown did ok but I tend to agree with what David Cameron said about Labour on Immigration. Gordon Brown said that Immigration levels have been falling for the last 3 years, and he clung on to that stat vigorously but Cameron said something along the lines of “but your party has been in power for 13 years, why is this only being addressed now”. I don’t particularly agree with everything Cameron says but there I do. I don’t mean on simply the Immigration policy I generally mean I think we need change, a feeling that things are going to turn (although they won’t, we’re financially crippled no matter who’s in power).
Nick Clegg was the obvious winner from the start as now a few more people will now know who he is. The real winner of the debate is the General Election. It’s a sad state of affairs but half the country doesn’t know the election’s going to happen or doesn’t care and they certainly don’t know what to think. Unfortunately we need to resort to stunts like this to remind people that this IS happening.
In the cold light of day, watching the 3 leaders squabble until Alistair Stewart interrupted them didn’t give me a great deal of help as to who to vote for. I like a variety of different policies which is why a hung parliament might be a good thing. Take the best that they’ve all got and amalgamate them into one super party! It’ll either be that or they’ll all argue and nothing will be properly done until a party takes control where they’re singing from the same hymn sheet. Decisions, decisions, decisions.
