Local Elections

[Zechs Merquise]

Explain to me two things.

 

1) Why is it good to have a babbling buffoon with no real policies who just postured to get the position a good thing?

 

2) What exactly is wrong with the transport system in London and how do you see Boris improving it?

 

And exactly what did Ken bring to London, otehr than his ego, a lot more taxes and a gang of corrupt crooks like Jasper? At least Boris isn't as repugnant.

 

Conservatives held my area with 105,162 votes compared with labours 29,925.

 

Boris was also favoured in my area winning 122,052 to Livingstones 40,670.

 

Happy with both results as it's who I voted for.

 

So happy Ken has FINALLY gone! 8 years of living under him in London is enough. Come on Boris!

 

Agreed!

[ipaul]

And exactly what did Ken bring to London, otehr than his ego, a lot more taxes and a gang of corrupt crooks like Jasper? At least Boris isn't as repugnant.

 

The Olympics and thus I think I am right in saying the regeneration of the east end

 

 

I don't like the Conservative party generally for the same reasons as Dan doesn't, but Labour are almost as bad imo. The uni fees thing gets me in particular, it just shows them as a poor mockery of what they should be about. Why triple university fees? You don't tax people because they are/being educated, you tax them because they're rich!

 

I would quite like to see the Lib Dems get voted into power, maybe then we would have a decent government that has true policies and does not change it's mind every 60 seconds =P

[killthenet]

The Oyster Card people, Oy-Ster-Car-D.

 

And any Government is going to disappoint eventually. In terms of economy and quality of living Labour seem to have done a damn sight better than the Tories did previously. Granted I was 10 when Labour came to power so my experience of the Conservatives is far from extensive, but history doesn't lie, at least not any more.

[Jamba]

The Oyster Card people, Oy-Ster-Car-D.

 

And any Government is going to disappoint eventually. In terms of economy and quality of living Labour seem to have done a damn sight better than the Tories did previously. Granted I was 10 when Labour came to power so my experience of the Conservatives is far from extensive, but history doesn't lie, at least not any more.

 

You see, this is another thing that I don't understand. How can people judge the Tories now about what happened during Major and most likely Thatchers time in power? Sure the Thatcher days were a complete shambles and I'm not going to excuse them in any way but politics has changed since then, the parties have changed since then.

 

"History doesn't like" would be a wonderful phrase to use if, firstly, it wasn't a perception rather but a fact and secondly if it even applied in this scenario.

 

 

@Any Pro Labour people - Anybody got any particular views on imigration? I'd like to understand how that fits into the Labour picture.

[MoogleViper]

Immigration needs to be controlled more. Preferably only immigrants with a skill and I think that if they commit crimes then they should be deported.

[Jamba]

Immigration needs to be controlled more. Preferably only immigrants with a skill and I think that if they commit crimes then they should be deported.

 

OK I'll be a bit more specific. How do you see Asylum Seekers fitting into the welfare model? I wonder if supporting these people does add more strain to the system which is already overloaded.

[The fish]

@Any Pro Labour people - Anybody got any particular views on imigration? I'd like to understand how that fits into the Labour picture.

 

Asylum seekers who genuinely need asylum are more than welcome, and people who come to work are of course also appreciated.

 

I'm more pro-Lib Dem than anything, I'm just essentially pro-Labour as I can't stand the Tories, and the Lib Dems have about as much charisma as a dead body, and half the chance of getting into power.

[MoogleViper]

One thing I don't agree with is giving immigrants benefits. There are lost of immigrants who are living here and are qualified for family tax credit and child benefits even though their children don't live in this country.

[Domo Kun]

I read an article in the Guardian that listed some of the things Boris has said over the years, from memory they included (not exact quotes, but they definately give the flavour)-

 

'We shouldn't try to teach children that gay marriage is anything but a terrible copy of the real thing'

 

'When the big white Prime Minister of the UK touches down in the congo every tribesman will rattle his AK47 in awe'

 

and loads more illiberal crap that is not what London is about. For me London is liberal and multicultural. He is a very funny, nice man, but I'm scared. Ken was a liberal post-socialist.

 

Although he's a great comedian, I think he'll try to take our city backwards a few decades. He hates the working class, he hates Liverpool, he's seemingly racist. I'm sad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edit: Found the article-

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/01/boris.livingstone?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews

 

 

Gay marriage can only ever be a ludicrous parody of the real thing."

· Daily Telegraph, 2005

 

"If gay marriage was OK - and I was uncertain on the issue - then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."

· From his book, Friends, Voters, Countrymen, 2001

 

"We don't want our children being taught some rubbish about homosexual marriage being the same as normal marriage, and that is why I am more than happy to support Section 28."

· Daily Telegraph, 2000

 

"The clerics gave us [journalists] a wigging for being so mean to the Church of England ... Why did we draw attention to tricky subjects like homosexuality, aka the Pulpit Poofs issue?"

· The Spectator, 2000

 

"I'm not bisexual so far ... not that I would condemn myself if I later discovered I were."

· Daily Telegraph, 2008

 

On Africa

 

"No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird."

· In 2002, on Tony Blair's visit to the Democratic of Republic of Congo, Daily Telegraph

 

"Right, let's go and look at some more piccaninnies."

· Reported remark, while visiting Uganda, to Swedish Unicef workers and their black driver, the Observer, 2003

 

On the Commonwealth

 

"It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies."

· Daily Telegraph, 2002

 

On failing to recognise his Filipina housekeeper

 

"When our housekeeper appeared on stage in her hot pink strapless number [as a finalist of the Mrs Philippines 2005 contest in London], I failed at first to recognise her, surrounded as she was by 10 other Filipina mums, each shimmering in every shade from fuchsia to Germolene ... Was that Luz, the No 6, the one with the cleavage? Or was she No 5, with the smile? Surely she wasn't No 11, the one with the legs. No: wait - that was her, with her hair up. No 8! 'We want eight,' we screamed, and waved at good old Luz, a woman who has been exposed to the full horror of the Johnson family washing and yet contrived to look little short of $1m.

· The Spectator, 2005

 

On his prospects

 

"My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive."

· The Independent, 2004

 

George Bush and Iraq

 

"He liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me."

· Daily Telegraph, 2004

 

"The Americans were perfectly happy to go ahead and whack Saddam merely on the grounds that he was a bad guy, and that Iraq and the world would be better off without him; and so indeed was I."

· Daily Telegraph, 2003

 

On Islam

 

"The most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers."

· The Spectator, 2005

 

On race

 

"I'm down with the ethnics. You can't out-ethnic me, Nihal ... My children are a quarter Indian, so put that in your pipe and smoke it."

· To Nihal Arthanayake, BBC Asian Network, 2008

 

On cannabis

 

"It was jolly nice. But apparently it is very different these days. Much stronger. I've become very illiberal about it. I don't want my kids to take drugs."

· GQ, 2007

 

On sex

 

"I've slept with far fewer than 1,000."

· On whether he has slept with fewer than 30 women, like Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, Daily Telegraph, 2008

 

"An inverted pyramid of piffle."

· The Mail on Sunday, 2004, on allegations that he had an affair with Petronella Wyatt, later confirmed.

 

On obesity

 

"Nothing but their own fat fault."

 

On transport

 

"I don't believe [using a mobile phone at the wheel] is necessarily any more dangerous than the many other risky things that people do with their free hands while driving - nose-picking, reading the paper, studying the A-Z, beating the children, and so on."

· Daily Telegraph, 2002

 

"The whole county of Hampshire was lying back and opening her well-bred legs to be ravished by the Italian stallion."

· GQ, while in a Ferrari

 

On Liverpool

 

"A society that has become hooked on grief and likes to wallow in a sense of

vicarious victimhood."

· A Spectator editorial, 2004 (Johnson didn't write the editorial, but he approved it)

 

On his arts role

 

"Look, the point is ... er, what is the point? It is a tough job but somebody has got to do it."

· On being appointed Tory Arts spokesman, 2004

 

On stag hunting

 

"I remember the guts streaming, and the stag turds spilling out on to the grass from within the ventral cavity ... This hunting is best for the deer."

· From his book Lend Me Your Ears

 

 

By the way, piccaninnies is an old fashioned racist word for black children. I didn't know that before looking it up just now.

[Athriller]

But this just shows how utterly shit things are, the fact they thought voting in a racist, homophobic moron with floppy hair would actually be better than the current situation.

 

Racist and homophobic, I can deal with that. Wait, what? Floppy hair? My God man, we're fucking doomed!

 

But yeah, a sad way to see London go.

[Jamba]

One thing I don't agree with is giving immigrants benefits. There are lost of immigrants who are living here and are qualified for family tax credit and child benefits even though their children don't live in this country.

 

Thats pretty worrying... the welfare system needs a serious check up and a sort out. And don't let Jaqui Smith anywhere fucking near it... she'll end up giving everyone's details away again.

 

I don't think that I'd be against the benefit if it wasn't shit btw.