.. and so it begins :(

Cameron stands up in Parliament and says that the health service will be better for everyone, in the following local news they announce that my local already overworked hospital is to cut 400 jobs and 6-8 wards are to close?
My wife had 2 appointments booked next month one with the neurological department and one with the eye doctor both to do with her illness, both have been cancelled in the last week.
The hospital had tea and snack bars run by the WRVS (Woman's Royal Volunteer Service) both without any cost to the hospital, and the WRVS raised money for the hospital as well (£80,000 last year) which is given for vital equipment but that is ending as the local tories have decided to kick them out and pay £100,000+ a year for a private contractor to take it over.
After years of trying the wife finally got incapacity benefit last November after they finally agreed to agree with the doctors that she is disabled, but an early announcement from the gruesome twosome is that incapacity benefits will be cut.

Why can't they be honest and point out if your ill they want you to die and not be a drain on resources.

Here We Go Again

So the deal was done, the Liberals have taken their chance to be part of the government for the first and only time this century?
Vote Lib Dem and keep the Tories out was a rallying cry in more than just my local constituency, yeah right that worked didn't it!!
It will be interesting to know if Cameron's "sack your MP" statement can be used by disillusioned Lib/Dem voters who never wanted to be Tories.

Anyway we've had the "love in" on the grass and Clegg seems to have forgiven Cameron calling him a joke, and each of them have forgotten rubbishing each others policies.
Typical two faced politicians, we shouldn't be surprised.
It was interesting to see Vince Cable's face when he was asked about working with George Osborne, I get the feeling that little partnership is going to be strained.
Their is still one seat up for grabs (safe Tory seat Thirsk) and as far as I know the Lib/Dems are still putting up a candidate against the Tory, it might be interesting to see how much the Lib/dem vote declines as it seems totally pointless to vote for them now.

So day one of this new era has been and gone and already cracks have started to appear, the National insurance rise proposed by Labour and condemned by Cameron and Clegg has been approved but for employees only (wouldn't want to upset the Tory bosses) and when challenged on Newsnight the leading Tory was very quick to blame the Lib/Dems for it saying it was needed to subsidise the 10k tax break promised by Clegg and co. No surprise that the NI rise comes into effect within a year but the promised no tax for people earning less than 10 grand will be "phased in" probably meaning it's not going to happen, Indeed almost every awkward question was answered with reference to the Lib/Dems policies being responsible so it seems the Tories have not only got the power they wanted but have a ready made scapegoat for any unpopular policies they are likely to introduce.
A change to the constitution was sneaked in meaning that now 55% of MP's are now needed to vote down a government against the old 51%, and a fixed term of 5 years is now the rule so it looks like you're stuck with this lot for the full term unless the Lib/Dems do the decent thing and break up this coalition.

My early prediction for 2015

Record unemployment, record levels of poverty, and frequent riots.
The tories will of course blame the previous Labour government and the polices forced on them by the Lib/Dems.
Vince Cable will be leading a breakaway version of the Liberals who have distanced themselves from Clegg.

Newer Labour

Brown's gone and Labour are looking for a new leader which in my opinion isn't an easy task as none of the front runners inspire me much.
Ed Balls (with a name like that he's bound to talk bollocks, which he usually does), David Milliband (who as some radio host pointed out isn't even the best politician in his own family), Harriet Harman (have no idea why anyone would put her forward?), Andy Burnham (not much substance but might appeal to all those people who said they voted for Cameron because he was young and a fresh face?) and probably a few other less well known names.
My own preference would be the more talented Milliband brother Edward or old stager Alan Johnson who I don't think will actually stand.
I've got doubts either of those fit the bill though as one is a bit too left wing for "new new" Labour and the other is 60 years old which seems to be a no no these days.

Hope they sort it out soon though because the whirlwind romance of Cameron and Clegg is bound to end in divorce sooner rather than later.

Hang the MP

So it's a hung parliament the Tories leading with 306, Labour 258, Lib Dems 57, Others 28 with 1 still to come.
Percentage wise the Tories (36%) actually beat "none of the above" who only had 35% this time whose share was bolstered by thousands of people who couldn't vote due to being locked out of polling stations after queueing for hours, or by some polling stations running out of voting slips?
OK I'm depressed by this as I don't beleive there are over 10 million millionaires in this country (which would be my only reason for voting Tory), so I assume the Tory biased newspaper and TV coverage have again influenced the result.
"We want change" they kept saying, forgetting that change doesn't always mean "change for the better", this could be as good as it gets and the only way is downhill.
How can "change" mean electing the party who fucked up the country in the Eighties and Nineties and you kicked out with a vengance in 1997, it's the same party with the same ideals only with a new figurehead. They will do the same again and we'll be back here in 5 years saying we want change again.
Of course we could be doing this all over again in 6 months as I still don't think Clegg can possibly support Cameron and expect to keep the support of his party, surely it's commiting political suicide to side with the Tories for the short term gain of a few years in the limelight, I believe a large chunk of the Liberal support are former Labour supporters who would not stand for a leader supporting the Conservatives.
A lot of us fell for the hype that the Liberals were actually a credible third party after Clegg's X-factor win, but the voters when it came down to it ignored him and they did worse than the last election, supporting the Tories now could pretty much wipe them out as a political force in future elections, as the Tories would use that support to point out that there wasn't a credible reason to vote Lib/Dem anymore.

On a different note, as I like playing with figures here is the number of seats that would have been won using proportional representation (figures in brackets are actual seats), assuming 650 seats to play for.
I've used the top ten parties with all others grouped as "others" obviously.

Conservative - 235 (306)
Labour - 189 (258)
Lib/Dem - 150 (57)
UKIP - 20 (0)
BNP - 12 (0)
SNP - 11 (6)
Green - 6 (1)
DUP - 4 (8)
Sinn Fein - 4 (5)
Plaid Cymru - 3 (3)
Others - 16 (5)

Election TV

Actually sat through about 7 hours of the TV election coverage, and have no idea why I bothered.

The choice was the BBC who seem to have spent a fortune of the licence payers money on a huge set, silly high tech graphics and a boat load of minor celebrities.
I do like David Dimbleby who does seem to remain impartial unlike some of his co-presenters, I have no idea why the employ Andrew Neil who must still be getting paid by Murdoch going on the amount of bias for the Tories over the campaign.
The celebrity boat was cringeworthy with the Shredded wheat haired Neil interviewing drunken Z-list celebs who didn't have a clue what was going on.
It doesn't take a political "heavyweight" to guess which way people like Bruce Forsyth are going to vote does it?
Paxman is way past his "sell by" date, as he hasn't got the better of any politician in years, and last night I was just embarrassed for him as he asked the same question over and over of every Labour MP about "how can you form a government when the people have rejected you" and could only pull faces when they obviously refused to answer when at the time only a fraction of the votes had been counted.
Also his opening question to rejected Lib/Dem Lembit Opik was schoolyard stuff asking him if it was down to the Cheeky Girls.
I don't mind Jeremy Vine but why did they give him the job of explaining the election with a collection of CGI dominoes and paving slabs and other gimmicks to would have looked better on Newsround or C-Beebies as they seemed designed so the under fives could follow it, and I'm guessing not many of those had stayed up to watch. Also Emily No-mates operating that giant I-pod thing seemed like they were trying just a bit too hard to impress the younger generation and failing miserably.

The ITV coverage was basic but effective as they seemed to be getting the results about 15 minutes before the BBC for some reason, only spoiled by having "Bride of Frankenstein" Anne Widdecombe as a studio guest which surely must have pleased the BBC as I can only take about a minute of her before changing channels.

Channel 4 decided to have an alternative election special hosted by David Mitchell, Jimmy Carr and Charlie Brooker which sounded like an excellent idea but was pretty disappointing, it could have been done so much better.

So overall another 7 hours of my life wasted, it would have been longer but I fell asleep long before the end and have to thank my Cat for scratching my leg to remind me to let her out otherwise a night in the chair usually leads to a stiff neck next morning.

X Marks The Spot

Well I've done my duty and voted, and once again it'll make as much difference as throwing it in the bin in this Tory safe seat :(
Once again the wife and me were by far the youngest people at the polling station, which considering we're both now over 40 is still surprising.
My kids and their friends although doing things like joining facebook groups and having opinions in support of various parties seem unlikely to bother voting with the most common comment being "it won't make any difference", which seems to be the general opinion of most young people I know.
So we should know which bunch of crooks will have the power sometime in the next 12-16 hours, a 3 way tie would be interesting but I expect the Tories to win although possibly not with an overall majority, I very much doubt that the Lib/Dem's 33% of the vote (according to polls) will translate into 33% of the seats and they will still be the third party, although I could be wrong and usually am.

It would be interesting to know how much the Tories have spent on advertising (campaigning) this time as everywhere I look I see posters of prospective Tory candidates, most web sites I log into have Conservative adverts jumping out at me, campaign leaflets coming through my letterbox every couple of days, and I had to drive to Norwich yesterday and virtually every farmers field I passed had a large placard in support of the area's Tory planted by the side of the road every 50 yards I estimate I saw about 500 in my 2 hour drive (there were 2 for the Liberals as well).

Fingers crossed that smug git Cameron won't be smiling in the morning, but I'm bracing myself for disappointment.

Election Posters

I'm easily pleased so here are a few of the best fake posters I've seen.