Just come across the following article Reading the BBC News website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ ... 626639.stm

Given the rather large jump in the polls that the Lib Dems have seen since the debate, do we actually have a genuine three horse race here?

For the moment it certainly appears that way.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how voter apathy changes things between now and voting day.

Mark

If the Lib Dems manage to get 100+ MPs now I will literally be dancing around the room on May 7th.

I hope so. I'm fed up of both Tory and Labour getting in for several terms and managing to feck everything up.

At the risk of ruining some peoples optimism, does a three horse race actually change anything? My local Lib-Dem claimed £2000 for [LIFTED] and everyone seems to have forgotten that. Not to mention, they're all still politicians. Whatever colour they are.

Your MP being who, Julia Goldsworthy? TBH I thought all of Cornwall's MPs did well in the expenses scandal. My own MP - Matthew Taylor - ranks in the lower 500s (586 IIRC) out of 646 for the amount he claims - and Truro isn't exactly next door to London.

One thing that came out of the debate was that both Brown and Cameron were trying to be relatively nice the Clegg because they both realise that there is a very real possibility that the Lib Dems will have sufficient clout to determine who actually runs the country this time as they are likely to have enough MP's to give a majority if they combine them with one of the other parties. We could end up seeing a coalition government.

I'll say this for the LibDems, Clegg is the only one who has mentioned that the investigation into expenses claims completely missed out the main theiving scum who made huge amounts of cash flipping houses and on capital gains tax. The duck houses and odd grand here or there is a complete smokescreen for the real scandal.

A coalition would be both good for the country and, specifically, for the LibDems. They have good ideas but no experience of Government and a coalition would serve them very well, perhaps moreso than the highly unlikey scenario of them gaining full power themselves.

It was £2000 for a rocking horse from what I remember. I'm not talking about the amount. Her mother taught me at nursery school and she was a pretty straight woman. Julia herself is only a few years older than me and I remember her at school, but I know nothing of her character. Adidan is of course, correct. That's not the real issue. But a lot of people down here were royally pissed off (including my hairdresser, who is voting UKIP, because "they're all bastards, but women chained themselves to railings for me to have the vote so I'm gonna bloody well use it" ) and now seem to be all about it again.

Just goes to re-iterate the disparity between the politics of local candidates and the politics of having your favourite colour run the country. Yellow may be the only vaguely possible alternative to red and blue at a national level, but that doesn't make it the right alternative, or automatically make all their candidates the right people to be MPs for their respective constituencies.

My MP was pretty good in terms of expenses though he did claim the max for food, which is a bit off since no one else gets that perk. He did not vote for the Digital Economy Bill, though that was the crucial vote that changed my mind about supporting labour. I will vote Liberal because even though my candidate is way back in third I do not know how many others will switch to the liberals so I might as well test the waters.

Say for talk's sake the Lib Dems go into a coalition with the Tories, won't we just wind up with laws and policies with no real bite to them if the whole house of cards isn't to fall down?

I think if anything the Lib Dems will fracture internally after getting close to Cameron, and God knows what their natural supporters will make of it

I think that they will have to be careful. While they could ally themselves to the Tories they will need two things from any coalition. One is PR to be first priority and then Vince Cable as Chancellor. The tories could get some key polices through like ID card stopped which the liberals will support, and spending cuts which can be agreed between the parties. It might be harder to pass laws but they would have broader support. Don't forget that Labour passed far more legislation that came straight from the pages of the Daily Mail, which was not all good. It depends on what they get out of the deal. If the party are happy with the deals then it will not harm them. If they get PR then they could end up with more seats than Labour next time. Labour will not have changed enough to get public support.

I'm curious as to why people think the Lib Dems would choose to join up with the conservatives rather than labour.
The LD's have after all already been in a coalition government with Labour in the Scottish parliament before the SNP got in.
Pure opportunism may of course play a part but I'd be rather disappointed if that's what happened.

Would certainly like to see Vince Cable as the Chancellor though.

It is probably to avoid the thought of a lib lab pact. Also Labour are unpopular right now and as such be a poisoned chalice.

And that's different to the way it has been for, oh, 15 years how exactly?

Anti-terror laws, digital economy bill, gun laws, knife laws, tough on crime, etc, etc, etc.

I really think a hung parliament, with no real power, would be a good thing. It would give the legislators time to think about the bad laws that have been forced through. Perhaps, even, time could be given to redrafting bad laws, or removing a ton of crapola from the statute books, so that when a majority government wins next time round they can start afresh.

Maybe.