Who will win the Mass Debate Tonight ?

[seagulls4ever]

Anyone else fed up of the SNP LYING about Labour signing up with the Tories to 30bn of cuts? The Charter for Budget Responsibility which Labour signed up for makes no mention whatsoever so 30bn.

In the words of SNP, 'scaremongering'.

As an aside, according to a Survation snap poll, Ed won the debate: Miliband – 35% Sturgeon – 31% Farage – 27% Bennett – 5% Wood – 2%

 

[jimbob5]

strange that Farage should accuse the audience of a left wing bias when he had previously said that politics is no longer about left and right.

 

[beorhthelm]

What Sturgeon has done is present a pragmatic face to the rest of the UK voters who might sway away from voting Labour because of what the SNP represent. The more the SNP look a reasonable, intelligent party beyond simply independence, the more likely swing voters will not see a vote for Labour as dangerous as they previously thought. Right now, the demon monster hell hath no fury prospect of a Labour/SNP coalition, is not quite so scary to the rest of the left minded electorate (still terrifying to the right of course!).

and terrify the center. and the English. the SNP want to end austerity and spend more. thats fine and dandy when you have a 20% extra budget and blame everything bad on the far away national capital, but its not going to stand up when applied to the nation as a whole. you might like that policy, but the finance for it is unrealistic and it certainly isn't pragmatic.

if the center, and even left of center swing voters grasp this, that and SNP coalition will mean abandoning serious efforts to rectify public deficit, then how is this going to help Labour? even if you believe some deficit is fine, it must be reduced from current levels to be sustained, and long term has to be eliminated to ever cut through the debt pile.

 

[Bold Seagull]

and terrify the center. and the English. the SNP want to end austerity and spend more. thats fine and dandy when you have a 20% extra budget and blame everything bad on the far away national capital, but its not going to stand up when applied to the nation as a whole. you might like that policy, but the finance for it is unrealistic and it certainly isn't pragmatic.

if the center, and even left of center swing voters grasp this, that and SNP coalition will mean abandoning serious efforts to rectify public deficit, then how is this going to help Labour? even if you believe some deficit is fine, it must be reduced from current levels to be sustained, and long term has to be eliminated to ever cut through the debt pile.

You see, even you are now talking about the specifics of the SNP policies. 2 weeks ago it would have been 'the SNP just want to break up the UK', now we are presented with a party that, like their policies or not, have presented to the British public a much deeper set of convictions. In some ways you've confirmed what I was trying to say in your response.

And in answer to terrifying the English, I'm English and I'm not terrified, I don't think the electorate is terrified either because if they were, Labour's vote would collapse, and if anything it has strengthened.

 

[Pavilionaire]

[tweet]588817408384753666[/tweet]

I haven't seen three whores gagging for one bloke like that since Rocco Siffredi's scene on the stairs in 'Ladykiller - Casanova Returns'.

 

[Pavilionaire]

The sight of sturgeon on her knees in a desperate attempt to be kingmaker was not nice.
I am very much in favour of the Scottish, Welsh or Irish not having a say in English matters in the same way the English don't get a say on devolved matters in their countries. The thought of the snp or th Welsh or Irish nationalists having a major say in matters which don't affect them is, in my view, wrong.

The sight of Sturgeon on her knees in any situation is never good (although the same cannot be said for Leanne Wood). Sturgeon's pleas to Ed came as something like a bolt from the blue and was definitely the highpoint of the evening's debate. I don't think she did herself any favours there, I think she's overplayed her hand.

The bottom line is Scotland voted to stay in the union, this is the first time her party has done anything in a UK parliamentary election and they can't give Labour a shoeing on the one hand then beg for coalition on the other.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

The sight of sturgeon on her knees in a desperate attempt to be kingmaker was not nice.
I am very much in favour of the Scottish, Welsh or Irish not having a say in English matters in the same way the English don't get a say on devolved matters in their countries. The thought of the snp or th Welsh or Irish nationalists having a major say in matters which don't affect them is, in my view, wrong.

The UK is an amusing place at times, it's 2015 and it is still struggling with the idea of the union and the idea of Europe.

 

[Soulman]

The sight of sturgeon on her knees in a desperate attempt to be kingmaker was not nice.
I am very much in favour of the Scottish, Welsh or Irish not having a say in English matters in the same way the English don't get a say on devolved matters in their countries. The thought of the snp or th Welsh or Irish nationalists having a major say in matters which don't affect them is, in my view, wrong.

Yep. Unfortunately there are already about 108 Scots NI and Welsh mp's out of the 660 that vote on English issues, if the SNP win loads of seats then things will get worse for the English. We need an English parliament.

 

[London Irish]

Another strong performance from Ed.

If the Tory press didn't exist in this country pumping out their constant lies, Labour would probably be about 15-20% ahead in the polls

 

[Dave the OAP]

Now the most important question of the night.....Nicola Sturgeon...Yes or No?

I vote Yes

 

[penny's harmonica]

Now the most important question of the night.....Nicola Sturgeon...Yes or No?

I vote Yes

Only if she puts on her hat and uniform

 

[Gregory2Smith1]

Now the most important question of the night.....Nicola Sturgeon...Yes or No?

I vote Yes

yes it's true,she has become strangely shaggable

 

[beorhthelm]

You see, even you are now talking about the specifics of the SNP policies. 2 weeks ago it would have been 'the SNP just want to break up the UK', now we are presented with a party that, like their policies or not, have presented to the British public a much deeper set of convictions. In some ways you've confirmed what I was trying to say in your response.

fair point, see what your getting at.

And in answer to terrifying the English, I'm English and I'm not terrified, I don't think the electorate is terrified either because if they were, Labour's vote would collapse, and if anything it has strengthened.

be honest though, if Labour was offering a similar set of policies, their vote would be collapsing. they've taken great efforts to look financially responsible, so that they are electable. if it looks like they'll cede a lot of that policy, as the price of getting full SNP support, then they may well be at risk.

we'll see how it plays out in the coming weeks and months, i reckon we wont see the real effect until after the election if Labour+SNP is the viable government, and even then we may have to wait how it will play in the following election.

 

[Mr Bridger]

yes it's true,she has become strangely shaggable

I see her shoes and think yes if she asked nicely and then this pops in my head

 

[Ferring Marine]

Leanne Wood looks strangely sexy but Natalie Bennett does not. Quite why as an antipodian she's appearing in the first place is beyond me, and she's not even an MP. Her 'party' only has one loony, misguided, waste of time MP.
I'm not a fan but Farage made the others look complete imbeciles with his straight talking to which nobody was capable of giving a straight response. They all looked embarrassed.
Quite why they give airtime to the Welsh (3 million population), SDP (4m drunk loonies) and greens (only one seat and totally mad) is beyond me. They are irrelevant and have no clout.
Dave/Ed Hairband looked totally rattled when asked direct questions but does a great multi-racial gurn and the absence of the Lib Dem/Tory leaders probably did them a favour by not turning up.
Despite the after comments, in truth , most of those who appeared looked totally inept.
Jesus Christ, would you really vote for any of them ?

 

[East Preston Gull]

It actually went much better than I feared for ed m
His answer on Syria presented himself in a good light and the batting away of the rutting calls of the celtic ladies was great to watch. A few hits were landed - his nuclear answer re iris wasn't clear and it was strange to see wood and sturgeon urging him to be more left wing and radical.

What will help him was his raising of the snp propping up the tories earlier in this generation.

He actually supported the Syria bill but then decided at the last minute to oppose it. Can't trust this goon one bit.

 

[Soulman]

Nigel's just lost it. Slagging off the audience isn't the best move. What a moron.

Really. You and others jumped on him when he stated the audience was biased. It has been stated that the audiences are hand picked and biased on QT as well.
Seems he has been proved correct. I suggest the morons are those that can not see the agenda leveled against a party

It earlier emerged that Thursday's debate featuring the leaders of "challenger" parties had an audience where just ONE THIRD leaned towards the political right.

The Ukip leader was booed on the programme when he suggested the make-up of the BBC election debate audience was left wing "even by the left-wing standards of the BBC".

Host David Dimbleby even insisted the audience had been “carefully chosen” by independent polling organisation ICM to represent the balance between all parties.

But when the make-up of audience members was finally revealed it showed that nearly 70 per cent were left wing.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/571294/Nigel-Farage-Ukip-BBC-debate-fixed-Question-Time

 

[Soulman]

I've always thought that people who bang on about Political Correctness and keep banging on about lefties or comparing right wing views as Nazi like were a bit dim. Nige has managed two of these in the debates but is unlikely to get a full house unless he has a complete breakdown.

Maybe "a complete breakdown" is what is needed eh. Who are the "dim" ones now. Thankfully many can see the bias and fixing in these debates, some are just short sighted.

the BBC and ICM finally revealed the make-up of audience members.

ICM used the following audience ratio for those with a party preference:

Conservative 5

Labour 5

Lib Dem 4

Ukip 3

SNP 2

Green 2

Plaid 1.

This meant that just 36% of audience members swung to the right.

In addition one fifth of the audience was made up of ‘undecided voters’ from the local area around Westminster.

Nigel Farage blasted the audience and BBC when he was booed for his views on immigration

He said: "There just seems to be a total lack of comprehension on this panel and indeed this audience, which is a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC."

Today Mr Farage said: "Sometimes these things go wrong, sometimes you get groups who apply to be on programmes who perhaps aren't as truthful on their applications as they could be.

"In this case, the BBC gave the job to a polling company called ICM who are famous for getting everything about Ukip wrong and that I think was the mistake.”

He said it wasn’t the first time a BBC audience had been aggressive towards Ukip. He added: “The night of the by-election that Douglas Carswell won in Clacton with a landslide, there was a Ukip representative - Patrick O'Flynn - on Question Time in Clacton and the audience were deeply hostile to him."

He also repeated claims of a bias audience on Sky News saying: “From the off it was so completely obvious that we did not have an audience reflective of public opinion.

"Regardless of whether you are a Ukip supporter or not, this [immigration] is something that has a huge response in the public."

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/571208/Le...s-audience-WAS-left-leaning-as-Farage-claimed

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Maybe "a complete breakdown" is what is needed eh. Who are the "dim" ones now. Thankfully many can see the bias and fixing in these debates, some are just short sighted.

the BBC and ICM finally revealed the make-up of audience members.

ICM used the following audience ratio for those with a party preference:

Conservative 5

Labour 5

Lib Dem 4

Ukip 3

SNP 2

Green 2

Plaid 1.

This meant that just 36% of audience members swung to the right.

In addition one fifth of the audience was made up of ‘undecided voters’ from the local area around Westminster.

Nigel Farage blasted the audience and BBC when he was booed for his views on immigration

He said: "There just seems to be a total lack of comprehension on this panel and indeed this audience, which is a remarkable audience even by the left-wing standards of the BBC."

Today Mr Farage said: "Sometimes these things go wrong, sometimes you get groups who apply to be on programmes who perhaps aren't as truthful on their applications as they could be.

"In this case, the BBC gave the job to a polling company called ICM who are famous for getting everything about Ukip wrong and that I think was the mistake.”

He said it wasn’t the first time a BBC audience had been aggressive towards Ukip. He added: “The night of the by-election that Douglas Carswell won in Clacton with a landslide, there was a Ukip representative - Patrick O'Flynn - on Question Time in Clacton and the audience were deeply hostile to him."

He also repeated claims of a bias audience on Sky News saying: “From the off it was so completely obvious that we did not have an audience reflective of public opinion.

"Regardless of whether you are a Ukip supporter or not, this [immigration] is something that has a huge response in the public."

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/571208/Le...s-audience-WAS-left-leaning-as-Farage-claimed

This seems about right given current polling. Am I missing something?

 

[Soulman]

This seems about right given current polling. Am I missing something?

It was meant to be a democratic debate, i would not call an audience of 36% and 64% democratic........what has current polling got to do with it.......Watford are up the top does that mean that we field 6 against their 11 next Saturday.