What are the most important election issues to you?

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This election campaign is reminding me of a old Movie. "The Good" "The Bad" and "The Ugly"

We will hear all the good things we want to hear and who ever gets elected the usual broken promises.

All I want is a honest, ethical and someone that gets us out of the EU.

Honesty, integrity, openness, vision, intelligence, communication, loyalty, decency, wisdom and fairness.

I've seen precious little of it for many years now, and I live in hope rather than expectation for the future. But you did ask...

As for the most important issue.

1) The goverment MUST open its books to the other parties (as the Tories did in 1997) so that they can give us factual cuts / tax rises and not ones based on speculation.

2) Labour must anounce their plans for cuts / tax rises and what their current views on planned departmential budgets BEFORE the election.

i would like to see at least one of them adress the real problems facing the country, instead of the usual slanging match that doesnt do us or them any credibility

Lord Kincok has just stated on radio 4 that it is uterly absurd to attribuite whats happened to the economy in the last 2 years to any of G.Browns policies over the last 13years.

removing house prices from inflation, light touch control of the city, tax breaks for buy to let, all capital expenditure on the never never, and to cap it all annual ON Book spend was 1000-2000 per man woman and child in the country than tax revinews.... apparently had nothing to do with the depth of this ressesion.

This is all nonsense, at the end of the day who will win is he who lies better. At the end we will what we have now, a bunch off theives and liars, where anyone who has the will to do well is beaten down and corrupted by the others into playing the game. In the end they end up like the rest.

Whats the point, nothing will change. This will be a record low turnout dispite the BBC trying to stir up interest. If we just picked people randomly from the electoral register we wouldn't end up with a worse government.

1) Overpopullation. A sensitive, compassionate policy for reduction.
2) Excessively expensive housing. Build council houses.
3) Getting control of our country back from speculators and money-lenders.
4)Nationalise, integrate and subsidise public transport.
5) End Pseudo-privatisation of public services.
6) We need to grow and make more of what we consume.

On Labour's watch local government split into fragments as unitaries own agenda were forced on a largely unwilling public. It doubled the government machinery without any promise of improvement.

Next came regional government which is unelected and unaccountable for the billions it spends, the lack of transparency is Kafka-esque. Unbelievable in this day and age.

Quangos run by private enterprise companies whose main reason for being is to be a quango and not be the public watchdog. Huge cost and no accountability.

And Europe, which makes most of our rules and regulations appears to be beyond our influence.

The tax on petrol is killing me: my car eats better than I do every month. It's not profit for a petrol company - its fuel for Labour to pay for two big wars and 'aid' to countries to run their wars.

In short, Labour has diluted my citizenship and ability to influence locally or regionally what is done to me, nor how much I should pay for living here. Internationally Britain has lost its reputation. We can't even eject illegal immigrants apparently which is a local issue now London overturns our wishes not to build thousands of houses here. Imagine thousands of houses, no jobs for the occupants and no increased local front line services.

Under Labour my Council tax, and taxes generally have gone through the roof - Council tax is my 4th largest bill every month and my partner it is £150 a month for absolutely nothing. His largest bill above even petrol and not even his bins emptied on a regular basis. Nor does the company employed by his council care.

Guess what matters to me? Guess who I'm not voting for?

As I live in a ward where only Labour or Lib Dem can possibly get enough seats to win, the election policies become irrelevant. As with the last election I will vote Lib Dem only to keep Labour out. I do not particularly support Lib Dem but I dislike Labour intensely and it's governance of our country has left it in multicultural PC ruins.

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I would like a ballot paper that has a box saying " NON OF THE ABOVE"

If not that then a party who will take us out of europe so we can govern ourselves without the French and germans meddling in our lives, halt immigration for 10 years, get rid of PC quango's and return discipline where its needed at home and schools.

I will most certainly vote. The two great issues are fiscal competency and what Cameron's described as 'the great ignored'. Since I am one of those taxed more whilst getting far less, one can have little doubt where my sympathies stand. My only regret is that the local Tory candidate is a political professional. I remain hopeful that a credible alternative will stand.

Freedom - The right of free speech and opinion.
England - The right of the English to have fair representation in a democracy
Education - A return to proper eductaion levels, where spelling and grammar are central to communication skills. University free for high achievers and greater competition in schools.
Law - Complete changes in law. A return to responsibility of the individual, greater penalties for repeat offenders, changes to the penal system and penalties for lawyers who abuse the system.
Health - Change the health system so that there is less nannying and more advice. Stop penalising lifestyle choices and persecuting the poor over lifestyle choices.
Politics - I want to see which party is going to genuinely reform the political system to make it more accountable to the public. I also want to see a system where the public themselves can force a General Election

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For me, simple. My vote will go to whichever is most likely to get rid of Labour. Probably Tory in my area. Not because I am a supporter necessarily, but as I see it Labour must be got rid of for the sake of the country.

icewombat wrote:
"Lord Kincok has just stated on radio 4 that it is uterly absurd to attribuite whats happened to the economy in the last 2 years to any of G.Browns policies over the last 13years."

Lord Kinnock never did have any grasp of economics. Sadly for us neither did Gordon Brown.

I made up my mind who to vote for months and months ago. My wish is to see Gordon Brown and his discredited bunch of cohorts thrown out of office. I will not watch or listen to one election broadcast by any politician - and cannot wait for May 7th - to get all this "who-ha" out of the way !

Paramount within my requirements are:
Honesty,
Clarity,
A reduction of the welfare state to subsistence-level only,
A reduction in the ability of the state and its arms to interfere in my private life,
An assumption by the state that people will take personal responsibility for their own safety and well-being,
An assumption that if you borrow money, you musy pay it back; not simply say it'll be too difficult and seek to get it reduced by chicanery. Fail to repay will bring penalty.

How was the BBC first to report the news that Gordon Brown was going to call an election? If you're obtaining inside information then that's anti-competitive and all news organisations should be treated fairly.

It's the same when you report that Labour are set to announce 'blah blah' before they've even announced it.Also all the stories you report on the opposition are generally of the form 'Labour denounces Tory plans to do blah' without you ever reporting what 'blah' was in the first place.

I'm actually a Labour supporter (maybe not for long though) but there is something fishy going on here. the BBC *has* to be impartial but it's quite clearly not.

I want to own my address and post code I already own my house and garden but not it seems my address. What royalties we could earn if we owned our address ( think of all that junk mail from all of those databases. So I will vote for anyone who will give me the ownership to my address.

Create some real jobs instead of public sector jobs that just recycle the money we made on our houses.

Keep criminals locked up, it saves money in the long run.

Make parents responsible for their own children and encourage mums to stay at home with the young ones instead of being subsidised to go to work. being a mother is the most important job in the world, especially for the first 5 years.

Most policies can be reversed. Bad investment in NHS, next party can undo that. Even bad economic performance that can be reversed by a future government. However the one area other than defence if we were invaded that IS irreversible is immigration. Britain is a small and one of the most overcrowded countries in the world. We have high house prices, large mortgages, credit reliance and a credit crunch as a result. We have congestion charging in most cities. Predictions are for population to rise to 70m in the next 20 years. I DON'T WANT THAT ! I'm no racist , disliking someone because of the colour of their skin is as logical as because of their eye colour. However, there has been a PC culture in this country whereby no one will say anything anti immigration for fear of being labelled racist. That is wrong. On population and irreversiblity grounds immigration is the most important issue and as long as the main parties stick with the PC orthodoxy I'll vote for UKIP or BNP who ever is standing in my area.

Instilling a sense of personal responsibility. This country of ours has gone to the depths. For example - just look at the mess in the streets. It doesn't have to be there. But then people don't have the personal responsibility to dispose of their rubbish properly. It is also worrying about the intelligence level of the electorate who think this behaviour is acceptable.

What a joke! This election, like every one I have ever seen before it, will be fought over the 'marginals'. No-one else's vote will make a shred of difference - in my constituency they'd vote for a monkey if someone stuck the right-coloured rosette on it, and it's pretty much the same everywhere else. Until we get a system where the number of votes is important, rather than the number of seats, a high % of the elctorate will feel that they might as well not bother.

You bet i'm going to vote! New Labour refused a referendum on Europe,then gave away our Sovereinty. Opened our borders to mass immigration. Introduced the claimant society. Told us even criminals have rights, if you defend your home and love ones you're the one likely to finish up in court. Peter Manelson had to resign twice because of dodgy dealings, but now back with a cream job because he's an old flat mate of Tony Blair. Jobs for the boys!! Start packing Gordon.

For me living in a Tory safe seat where my vote is lost, I would like to see reform of the electoral system.
I would like to have a party that told the truth to its electorate.
What would truly get my attention would be a party that tackled the banks first before setting out on making the tax payer pay for the mistakes of the financial sector, and I would vote for a party that rid us of an unelected second chamber along with those whitehall mandarins that sit in place no matter who is in power!
In other words total and utter reform of the system.
So I guess that's me not voting this time, This will be the first election I have felt my vote does not count.

Political reform.

If Guy Fawkes was alive today I am sure he would get a resounding majority.

All we have heard so far and will hear up until the election is false promise after false promise.

There is nothing tangible in what they say or do. The Tories say they WON’T put VAT up and will make savings through cuts, what cuts?

Lack of meaningful information before the election is like asking Turkeys to vote for Christmas, it is a joke and all to do will political survival as opposed to doing what is right for this country, and you can be sure that party strong holds will be ignored whilst the parties fight over the marginals and they call that democracy!

The system is a joke and we need to replace it with a system where the people in power have vision and the stability to build the necessary foundations for this country to rise up again.

If you consider the promised improvements that I have heard year upon year, election upon election for over 40 years then why are we heading down hill to become a third world nation?

"What are the most important election issues to you?"

Having to spend a month relentlessly being lied to by a bunch of self-serving crooks - roll on the 7th May, it doesn't matter one jot which conservative party wins.

The crucial issue of the upcoming election will be "Do we want another 5 years of Gordon Brown?" .

1. Companies reporting opinion polls should be required to say if they are campaigning on behalf of one of the parties.
2. The voting system by which the election result is decided in a minority of marginal seats should be scrapped.

I won't be voting on the issues raised many of which, eg. health, education, etc. will only amount to statistics juggling and interference regardless of who is in power.

The way I see it, we have 2 main problems:

1. Parties have come in to power with big majorities and have remained in power for too long, I think in part through fear caused by memories of the last term of the opposition. Unfortunately, I believe this gives both time and power to push just about anything through and ignore public opinion.

2. Tony Blair changed the face of the Labour party with his nu Labour. There is no longer a real contrast between the 2 main parties, we are left with shades of conservatism and I believe this is unhealthy.

While my views are more socialist, I would feel the same way if I felt the 2 main parties offered different shades of old labour. I actually believed Thatcher was needed for just 1 term to restore some balance as I felt things had swung too far to the left.

With 2 parties pulling in different directions and being changed regularly, I believe something resembling a straight line can be achieved. Anything else risks veering more and more strongly to left or right.

Personally, I would like to see proportional representation but in its absence, I'd like to see the Lib Dems (who I will be voting for) become a real challenger. This could be with the current 2 main parties or perhaps nu Labour could disappear completely. IMO, as a supposedly Labour government occupying their centre right position is worse than useless.

Getting rid of Labour would be a fantastic start. Ideally replacing them with UKIP whose sensible policies and push toward withdrawing from the EU while maintaining a trading relationship would save the UK a fortune.

regarding 15 (frankiecrisp) you obviously haven't even tried reading the UKIP manifesto otherwise you would realise that they aren't a racist party. UKIP want a distanced relationship from Europe and for the UK to have control of its own borders. Your ignorance and disinformation doesn't help and is, frankly, alarming.

Reduce our debts now. Which labour is not doing! Reduce fuel tax. Labour has ignored public and profesional advice and continued to pile on even more tax on fuel! These are just two points - but these are enough to lose the election for labour as far as I am concerned.

What I want to hear from each of the parties is quite simply what they are committing to do over the next 5 years.

I don't want this as a comparison to what other parties are committing to, or as a comparison to what has been done over the past so many years, or a comparison to previous parliaments.

Obviously I have worries and concerns about tax rises, job cuts and large government initiatives and want to know how these will be dealt with. I want to know if I'll get a tax-break for being married or if my NI contributions will rise. I want to know if I'll have to carry another ID card around with me or have an undefended country. I want to know what measures will be put in place with respect to schools, hospitals, policing and defence. I want to know where Public Sector cuts are coming, and how much. But I don't want to know what the other party will do wrong or what they did wrong last time. I don't want to hear about previous successes - it's the future that requires attention.

So I believe I will be completely disappointed by the election campaigns that will be run.

The most important elements of the election?

It is irrelevant, a choice between two major parties who are essentially the same except for the colour of their flags. Warring factions who have seldom been so stuck in the same rut of their own making. They are petty squabblers who have absolutely no right to earn any sensible vote.

The Lib Dems at least offer some essential differences in policy and have an astute chancellor in waiting. But do they and their followers actually believe they can get above twenty or thirty seats?

A lot of alternative parties who have much to offer the larger parties by way of at least having a finger on public pulses.

The best way forward is not to vote for anyone, to spoil a ballot paper maybe. Voting is a dangerous habit for anyone who really values democracy and wishes to end the farce our electoral system has become.

Not enough is being said with regards to Gordon Brown HAVING to call the election, he already bottled it a couple of years ago when he could have chosen an election but now he is not calling the election he is being forced into it as he has run out of time.

I personally will vote for whoever offers to remove public sector pensions so that they become contributory and not taxation, 25% of council tax goes on pensions of local government employees, it needs to drop to zero.

Living in south London- Immigration, immigration, immigration. Is it true that Labour have deliberately allowed mass immigration in order to "rub our noses in multi-culturalism"?
Never forget that Labour stand to gain most from the votes of grateful immigrants and asylum seekers.

I think the main issue for me is the worry over this being a 'hung parliament' - will this be a public hanging, or subject to the usual secretive cover up?

Anti-social behaviour
The EU (where is our referendum?)
Immigration
Crime
Public sector job cuts

Y'know, the usual stuff that this government has been ignoring since they've been in power.

address the immigration problem, reduce taxation, reduce public sector pensions, reduce union power and reduction of the equalities laws.

Bearing in mind that :-
1) There is very little to distinguish between the parties,
2) The parties are refusing to disclose details of their future intentions,
3) The parties assume they can dump announced policies once in power,
the only course of action is to hit the government with the largest defeat possible. This would at least put the next government on a warning that they had better start listening to the people or they will be dumped in the same way at the next election.
Democracy should be about MPs representing our views not the party line. One vote for one party cannot represent an individuals view on all subjects.
Even given the chance of dumping Labour I intend to withold my vote as the few MPs I still respect are not in my constituency.

Our surface fleet has halved in size over the past thirteen years since Labour took office. Our Army has had to sacrifice infantry battalions and our air force squadrons over the same period. During this time our armed forces have been on constant operations, in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, dealing with piracy etc., and our worthy prime minister has deprived them of funding despite them having to fight a war on two fronts.

If the first duty of any Government is "defence of the realm", then this one has failed abysmally.

All this was going on while gormless Gordon was building a huge client state of Quangos and busybodies whose sole purpose was to interfere in our daily lives. The safety net of the welfare state has become a fishing net of opportunity for the feckless and the idle. A hundred years ago, just about the only government employee likely to be seen on a day-to-day basis was the postmen, now it is impossible to get through a single day without being spied upon and interfered with. The law-abiding have been criminalised whilst criminals have been regarded as victims to be placated rather than punished.

I would like my country back. I would like to see the end of the democratic deficit in the UK, whereby Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own Parliament/Assemblies, whilst England does not. I would like to see this country return to being a sovereign state with its citizens being master of its own destiny. I doubt I will see any of the above, but more than anything I would like to see decency, honesty and integrity in public life, which means the end of this rotten and corrupt administration.

Who ever gets in I hope they spare at least one thought for Adult Education. I wonder if the populace realise that once you reach the age of 19 free education stops. These days due to lack of Government funding adult education within the further education system is limited to ESOL courses only and due to budget cuts in the Adult and Family learning organisation next year even word processing and computer for beginner courses have been slashed.
I am an ex College Music Technology Lecturer (Third year out of work now) who had the misfortune of being in the same job for over twenty five years and who's department was axed due to Labour government budget cuts. I have since found that the new term for to old for a job is - Sorry but you are over qualified and over experienced for this job!

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To get Labour out of power. Its entrenched government is a poison to the country.

The most important, indeed the only, election issue for me is: When can we have direct democracy and do away with paid unrepresentative representatives?

A cynical gag used to be that "whoever you vote for, the government gets in".The meaning of this has been clealy illustrated by the facts of history.The bottom line is that money actually rules all political decisions.Take the recent atttempts to blackmail the electorate over the strength of sterling if we have a hung parliament.What if the electorate feels that it might be socially valuable to prevent an overall majority for anyone,in hope of forcing politicians to unite for the country's, rather than their party's best interests?Too bad, you can't think like that, you must decide on one party or the other, no matter how disillusioned you are with the two major players, you've got to make up your mind on the basis of protecting our triple A rating, or else!Make no mistake, whoever wins this election, money will govern.That is democracy, folks, the way we chose it!

Education, education, education.

Tough on the causes of crime.

A better deal for those who have chosen not to have families & are sick of being punished for it.

All promises by the Labour government. All failed. Can't wait to vote them out.

I'd like to see manifesto promises kept. I also feel that should a party renege on 3 key manifesto promises that a general election should be called immediately. Labour lied about the European Constitution (renamed Lisbon Treaty and is the same thing barring minor tweaks), they also lied about being tough on crime and improving education.

Whatever Gordon Brown says, he DID push this country into recession with his policies. A prudent chancellor would have put money away for a rainy day when things took a downturn. Did Labour? Did they heck!

Something that scares me is that according to opinion polls, 31% of the population would STILL vote Labour. Are these people insane? No wonder they're pushing for prisoners et al. to be given the right to vote. They have to make this 31% up somehow and only the criminally insane would vote for more of the same!

Two things in particular bother me about Labour:

Economic incompetence: Brown's borrowing & spending which put us in a bad way even before the crisis. Labour's insistence that they know how to spend your money better than you do. And once they have started taking your money, they don't know when to stop.

Creeping & insidious fascism: Databases, ID cards, cctv, etc. It seems we the people cannot be trusted, so we have to be controlled. Labour has overseen increasing size of the State, bureaucracy, regulation, the number of often trivial offences for which we can be locked up, and day to day interference. It seems they would love to map out your life from cradle to grave. The answer to everything is more government. Another 5 years of Labour would confirm what I have long suspected - socialism & fascism are the two sides of the same coin.

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Fortunately I will be out of the country for 2 weeks of the borefest, since it seems the campaign has been ongoing for the last 3 months.

The biggest issue right now is getting the economy going again, and that means encouraging enterprise rather than taking yetmore resources away from the private sector to fill the gaping wound that is the Labour electorate - sorry, the public sector.

"Sue Denim wrote:

Getting rid of Labour would be a fantastic start. Ideally replacing them with UKIP whose sensible policies and push toward withdrawing from the EU while maintaining a trading relationship would save the UK a fortune."

UKIP live in dream world where they think the UK is a world player. We are not. We are an also-ran hanging on the coat tails of the US and EU. We can't even make our own cars anymore - which UKIP members should be well aware of, since they invariably fly the Union flag over their German car, and did so when Rover was still around.

Quite simple, stop giving hand outs to the baby booming work shy layabouts. 100% child benefit for 1st child, 50% for second, zilch for 3,4,5,6,7..... and no free housing paid for by the tax payer. These people are ruining the lives of everyone else.

The 'TRUE' financial situation of our country MUST be made available to all Opposition Parties. The lib. Dems. MUST declare which Party they would support in view of a 'HUNG' Parliament instead of sitting on the fence.

Taxes.
I am afraid if Labour wins again and having no more money left they will put even more tax on working people to pay for those who don't work and for the overgrown public service.

25. At 08:50am on 06 Apr 2010, LippyLippo wrote:
What a joke! This election, like every one I have ever seen before it, will be fought over the 'marginals'. No-one else's vote will make a shred of difference - in my constituency they'd vote for a monkey if someone stuck the right-coloured rosette on it, and it's pretty much the same everywhere else. Until we get a system where the number of votes is important, rather than the number of seats, a high % of the elctorate will feel that they might as well not bother.

What a great post. Exactly what I feel. The election is a con. It's a shame we now have to listen to a further 4 weeks of the rubbish the politicians spout. Shame we can not have the election tomorrow. The parties have effectively been electioneering for months now, and to have a further 4 weeks of more intense electionering!

None of the parties are creditable. Darling says the Employer national insurance rise will not cost jobs. Anybody with any understanding of economics knows it will. He may hope that if the economy is growing by then that this may counteract the effects, but no one knows. Logically any sensible politician would wait and see then if the economy can stand the increase you want to introduce, not announce it two years before. The Tories are equally bad. I agree with their proposal to scrap the employer national insurance increases, but they are promising other tax cuts as well, plus increased spending on drugs. Not really creditable when we all know that spending needs to be cut back. Neither of the big parties have told us where these cuts will come, and won't until after the election.
The Liberals keep coming up with stupid policies. The latest being the £3 billion switch from road to rail investment. We are crying out for a better road infrastructure because of the increasing population and they propose to cut it. Opening new rail lines on old rail track beds will take years. Many of the old tracks no longer exist in their entirity with factories and houses having been built on parts. a lot of the bridges and tunnels would have to be replaced, and some have been turned into cycleways.

The economy!

The electorate needs to remember that despite what our illustrious Government said the following is not in dispute:

1. "I will not let house prices get out of control"
2. "The end to boom and bust" said on a number of occassions
3. "Golden rule to invest the proceeds of growth" which meant spending money above and beyond the tax receipts
4. "British jobs for British people" which is illegal under EU rules
5. "A promise of a vote on the EU" enough said.
6. "Having the deficit within the next Parliament" - with no details of how to achieve it.
7. Almost no border control and allowing the UK to be swamped by foreigners
8. Public services swamped in certain areas of the UK due to the incomers.
9. Schools where English is often the 2nd or 3rd language
10.Unelected Ministers having too much say (in the UK and EU)
11. Fiscal irresponsibility - yes the banks were irresponsible but so were New Labour because they borrowed and spent too much too (or more to the point Gordon Brown)
12. Big, central Government. The UK has gained over 700,000 public sector jobs over the last 13 years. About 15% are nurses and teachers and clearly we need them. That leave 85% of waste!

I could go on....

The pay-for-everything culture.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

Whoever gets in power next time I would like a referendum on profligate overspending on anything Green. No wind power grants that have to be paid for by the taxpayer. Much more assistance for Nuclear power, Clean Coal power, much less for Solar power and all the myths of so called man made global warming to be debunked and for ALL carbon offset trading to be ceased immediately.

Finally a massive cull on Quangos. What a waste of money they are!

The electorate will get what its deserves. The electorate will vote in the party that tells it (the Electorate) what it wants to hear as opposed to what is the unpalatable truth. i.e. That we are broke, have an out of control and unaffordable benefit culture, have a Human Rights Act that makes a mockery of our Criminal Justice system and an Education system that is failing to deliver proper education across the social spectrum. Worse still, correcting all this will take a generation. How can any Politcal party campaign honestly but in such negative terms and hope to win an Election? Politicians' are well aware of this naivety so they serve up what we want to hear. Hence the reactionary changes of Policy and directives. The worry is, helped by years of deliberate social engineering, the New Labour spin machine will now go into overdrive and 'hypnotize' the Electorate to vote it in for a fourth term. If so, then God help us all. If Labour get in again we will get what we deserve for burying our heads in the sand. After 13 years of an incompetent, wasteful and self serving Government it is surely worth giving ANY other party a chance. i.e. A new broom sweeps clean!

To remove this awful regime from power, to see the Lib/Dems where they should be (FORGOTTEN ) and a new government that puts Britain and it's people before all else.

The 500 pound gorilla in the corner no-one, (especially the Beeb), is allowed to talk about is nationalism.
Everyone knows our government can't do diddly with the economy, but we can make a serious impact towards sorting out the social gorilla.
The SNP BNP and UKIP are going to be the big surprises at this election.
Like with Hamas in Gaza these parties will "come out of nowhere" because the media has been strict orders to avoid and ignore this issue and pretend the real issues are elsewhere.

To get the country back in the black requires massive cuts to the public sector, in particular 'middle management', cuts in pay for CEO's etc in the region of at least 50%, 99.9% of 'quango's' need ruthless cuts. Painful in the short term, gainful thereafter. Most of the above cuts are to 'non' jobs anyway!.

Due to the ancient way in which votes are recorded my vote will have NO EFFECT whatever. I find it difficult to become excited, knowing that first past the post, coupled with the Constituency system, will ensure that the sitting MP will again be elected by a minority, to be followed by a minority Government.
The most important issue for me is simply the need for some form of PR, to remove the blockage of two unrepresentative parties, and to allow the minority parties to have a voice. (and that includes several parties I both despise and dislike)
One request to other voters is that on election day they vote for one party in the Parliamentary elections and the opposing one in the Local Elections. The sooner the Party system is overturned the better.

I really don't care how the election is fought as it is beyond my influence. All parties fight dirty anyway, so there is little point hoping that this campaign will be any different.

As for what i want to see changed, my wish list would include the following.

1, An immidiate suspension of the Asylum laws - allowing the next administration to clear the backlog of applications - all failed applicants to return to their nation of origin at their own, or their countries expense.

2, A nationwide clamp down and removal of all illegal immigrants in the UK. No recourse to appeal, they are here illegally after all.

3, A new immigration policy - detailing countries from whom applications will and won't be accepted, listing those nations from where applications for asylum will not be accepted. A rotation system for immigration status needs to be introduced to limit the growing numbers of any one particular nationality - as we have seen, this has fermented devisions within communities, despite this constant espousal of multiculturalism.

4, a referendum on the UK's continued participation of Europe.

5, Welsh and Scottish votes on independance - If they wish to go it alone then they should be entiteld to do so.

6, An end to the disparity between England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as far as health provision and the payment of presription charges.

7, Suspension of the Human Rights Act, until such times as it is brought into equilibrium with the rights of criminals (and legal funding) not heald in higher regard than those of the victims - A basic set of Human Rights to cover those convicted of crimes against others and infringement of the victims Human Rights.

8, The restoration of Corporal punishment in schoold and a return of strict dicipline in schools - the current climate is not working and the results are plain for all to see with gangs of knife weilding kids roaming the country.

9, An end to all ethno-specific government and local authority funding. A provision of service to the wider community should be open to all and not geared at specific groups (gender excluded) based on race or sexual orientation. this has further bred a culture of seperation within various communities and does not aid social cohesion.

10, An end to international funding and aid giving to countries that do not adhere completely to the concepts of democracy. A more suitable approach would be to adopt a poor nation, overseeing the reconstruction of infastructure and ecomonic development with the provision of not just aid, but experienced expat workers and an exchange with an adopted nationing providing education to their brightest with a view to returning them to their country to aid in its progression.

11, A Tax on tabloid newspapers and "glossy" magazines - cover the environmental impact of printing such dross and hopefully reduce the impact of the "celebrity" circus we have had to endure by making it unaffordable.

12, An end to the automatic serving of half a prison sentance. Early release should only be on the basis of good behaviour and academic achievment whilst in prison. A final disertation should be required by all those held in prison, detailing their crime, their motives and what they percieve to have been the impact on their victims and the wider community.

13, A law making it illegal to post junk mail through my door - its driving me nuts!

This would go some way to solving what i percieve are issues

What is most important to me is for the current corrupt government to be heavily defeated.

There is currently so much sceptisism regarding politicians but we need the country to become productive again, to this end the only party that will work towards this is the Conservative Party.

The enormous debt built up by Brown has to be tackled this year, other issues nust also be addressed sooner rather than later with law and order probably being the most important.

Regretably, the election boundaries favour Labour, this again needs addressing in the future.

This is the most important General election in our lifetime, we must get it right for the sake of the country and its people.

Poor ole FrankandTomsDad- no.46. Xmas has gone! No wonder we get the governments we deserve- or perhaps I should say- Labour voters deserve.

My election is for a change in goverment direction.
For the first time in my life I will be voting conservative and I hope they continue what Maggie started and obliterate the unions that threatening to put our great lands on the road to another recession.
As I said, I am going to vote conservative cos a hung parliament will be worse than another labour(who are hock to the unions!)
Hope the queen dosen't have to be unsure who she phones on 7th may!

The single overriding issue for me is that we do not return to Conservative economic and social policy. For all that they can be criticised, Labour has achieved redistribution of wealth, reduction in child poverty, and greater fairness in a whole raft of areas in this country. Even if they talk the talk, the Tories have no depth or conviction in these areas, and will inevitably serve the interests of big business over those of working people. We cannot allow this to happen, we simply cannot.

Immigration,Immigration,Immigration

For me the election is about who I trust with the economy and the public services especially the health service, so the Tories are out of the reckoning for a start (I wouldn't trust them with anything)
People must make a judgement and decide what's best for them.
I personally have been more than happy with the way the government have run the Country over the last 13 years and as an ordinary working class man I have done far better than I did under the previous Tory Government who were only interested on the top few in society. From what I see they haven't changed a bit.

Why I will refuse to vote! This coming General Election is a sham, a con trick! The choice on ‘offer’ is unreal, its based on illusion – The LibLabCON is a game played out by those from the SAME elite groups whose purpose is to enslave the population! Well I ask - Do you think we have had enough yet? Are we waking up to reality? The list of transgressions by those we entrust with our ideals of society, democracy, freedom, liberty and humanity, stretches the elastic of the illusions they create to breaking point! Can we ever have meaningful reasoned debate, real reform of the ‘system’ if we leave it to the fakes, the evaders, the deceivers? Can we have true democracy when those charged with ‘serving’ the public are all the same self serving parasites? Can we ever ‘represent ourselves’? Can we trust these destroyers of reality to mend their ways? This election is not about a ‘Big Choice’, ‘Real Change’ – it’s about the maintenance of the status quo! Economics? We want honesty, integrity, moral fortitude and the restoration of OUR democracy - We were not responsible for the DEBT incurred by Bankers and the Corporate Fascists – And neither do I want to vote for politicians whom are incompetent, morally bankrupt and corrupt! Why are there still individuals sitting in OUR parliament who we all know were content to take public money for personal gain? Why are none of the Political Cliques talking about these issues now? Why is the ‘argument’ framed on assumptions which assume OUR collective responsibility to pay for the debts amassed by the wealthy elites, when those who caused this financial mess are STILL multi-millionaires? Why are there corrupt candidates still on the ballot?

And I will not vote until I recognise real democracy, and witness real justice. I think it is WE, the electorate who must be required to reform our political system, And, it is we who need to look into our own souls to find the answers. And if the antics of our political cliques drive the public to ask the right questions and demand solutions for themselves, there is only one method to achieve any ‘real’, meaningful change and it is not achievable through a vote!

When reality creates a crisis, a disaster by exposing truth, the mystic babbling preachers of the Doctrine of Sacrifice respond with the collective cry;

“ It wasn’t real, was it?” or “it’s a question of confidence!” or

“you don’t understand – its such a complex mater”

To all the heroes hidden in the world, to those held prisoner, not by their evasions of the real, but by their virtues and their desperate courage I determine - In spirit we are all humanity and the time is present to check on your virtues, and on the nature of the enemies of humanity you’re serving. Our enemies hold us by means of our endurance, our generosity, our innocence, our love – endurance that carries their burdens – generosity that respond to fake cries of their despair – innocence that is unable to conceive their evil and gives them the benefit of every doubt, refusing to condemn them without understanding and incapable of understanding such motives as theirs – the love, our love of life, which makes us falsely believe that they are people like us and love life too. But our world today is the world they wanted to create. Freedom to live in a rational world is the object of their distain! That which they have destroyed. Leave them to their worship of the Zero. We must leave them to themselves, isolate them - quarantine them - not exhaust our love of life, the greatness of humanity on achieving the triumph of their evil design.

It is the best within all, these appeals are addressed. Do not continue sacrificing yourself and this world to those who are its worse. In the name of the very values which keep humanity alive, do not let the purest vision of humanity be distorted by those with ugly hearts, cowardly character, those mindless preachers of the Doctrine of Sacrifice, who would deny reality, create an unreal world where the rational mind has no place, where the irrational triumphs over knowledge and truth.

We deny their unreality, where humanity is no longer in possession of rational objective truth and knowledge, where we are forced into distortions, no longer able to acknowledge our proper state, upright posture, intransigent mind and steps that travel unlimited roads. We will never let these fakes extinguish our fire, our spark, our passion for life, in their hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all, because we know we can succeed in the achievements of living and we reject that doctrine of the avoidance of death. We will never allow a warped sense of reality let our souls perish in the frustrations of an irrational brutish dark age, were the concords no longer fly and space shuttles are consigned to history. We have rejected the fake saints and saviours, and fake devils and demons of their design. We refuse to allow would be ‘destroyers’ to create willing ‘guilty victims’ to persecute in socially engineered misery and despair.

Watch, the world we desire is possible. Check the premises, check the roads ahead and be sure of the nature of the battle. Be sure to identify the destroyers of humanity you seek to serve. The world we desire does exist, it is real and possible – it’s our world, our country, our community, our people – not theirs - for it is we who are humanity. But to succeed requires a kind of complete devotion, a total rejection of the fake. An acceptance that humanity is not a sacrificial offering who exists for the ‘pleasures’ of strangers, that concedes control of minds to other, to any gang of brutish thugs or deity or any old irrational pronouncement of faith in the mysticism of scoundrels. Reject belief and faith – only act on real Knowledge!

It is a rational a-priori to fight for the value of yourself, for the virtue of your pride; to fight for your very essence, for the sovereignty of your rational mind. Stand and fight with the radiant certainty and the absolute rectitude of knowing that yours is the morality of life and the battle we fight is for any achievement, any value, any goodness, any joy that exists.

It needs no vote in a fake election, on deceptive political pronouncements, no ideology, no desire to achieve the ‘good’ for others, no politicians, no use of force by the incompetent, morally bankrupt or corrupt of institutions – it only requires the rational mind and willingness to see and pronounce the truth;
I am voting for reality - whoever you choose to vote for in this election you are still a bird in a gilded cage! Its the same cage just a different brand of bird feed! And we will still have the same problems

The issue is no who one chooses to vote for, the issue is 'whom is choosing' who you are voting for? Real freedom, and real democracy is never the same as freedom of choice when someone else is determining all those choices. Just examine the background of the Party leaders - all from the same narrow cliques!

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The most important things I want to hear are: large cuts in immigration; family values instead of the trend to single parenthood, large cuts in benefits to those who won't work or take advantage of our generous country; green energy; large cuts in public spending, and a reduction in cival servants who now seem to outnumber those in the private sector, and therefore are useless to our economy; support for our heritage, culture and faith; house building laws that stop builders providing us with high blocks of flats containing rooms, not large enough to swing a cat in, and a new drive to provide normal family homes; laws against building on our green spaces; honesty from our MPs (not sure that one is possible); and lastly plans to start a procedure that will take us out of the EU.

Getting rid of this incompetent government and the liability that heads it.

Why do we know before Brown has gone to the Palace that today's the day? Yet another example of Labour leaking everything for their perceived advantage, and against the rules of parliament and government. Time for fixed term parliaments and other fundamental reforms in the way the country is run.

To correct #30 the question should be do you want another five years of Gordon Brown? or do you want five years of David Cameron?
Well considering the choices on offer I'll go for Gordon Brown in an instant thank you very much.

Voters should remember that if their is a hung parliament with Lib Dems holding the balance, there will never ever be a Conservative government again. Labour and Lib Dems have already stitched up bringing in the alternative vote as the new voting system for future elections, this will result in any winning candidate who has less than 50% of the vote, being ousted by the lesser voted candidate and their 2nd choice on their ballot paper. As labour have a couple of hundred seats greater than this 50% marker, where seats are so solid, seats where their mother and father voted labour their grandparents voted labour and their pets voted labour this combined with any Lib Dem, a centre left party, likely to give Labour candidate their 2nd ballot paper choice. The Tories have hundreds of seats in the 40%+ but very little greater than 50% meaning the alternative vote will keep them out of power for good.

To get rid of the useless lot in power at the moment. Finger crossed!!

The key election issues for me centre around respect, law and order and the right to be governed within the UK - i.e. European influence.

I feel criminals are not punsihed adequately and there is little fear/respect for authority in the UK anymore - I appreciate this is determined by Euro Human Rights Act, etc that supercedes UK Law; I would like to see a party willing to challenge this to win back more autonomy.

There is too much "sameness" with the Party's policy and we are in a clear centre ground on all parties on the spectrum - to me this creates little real choice and i would welcome clarity of messsage during the campaign.

Why are we having an election?
I would have thought that by now the whole gang of them in both houses would have accepted the idea that I - and most of the citizens of the UK, apparently - want none of them. We want the whole rotten and corrupt system scrapped, and replaced with a truly fair and equitable system.
This means that Brown, Cameron and Clegg and their parties have no further part to play in British politics, so go. Go now.

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To get rid of this Government and give another party a go. If they stuff up too at least it is a change and it can not get any worse than this.

Since when did issues have anything to do with an election? Elections are all about dirty tricks and mudslinging, nothing else.

None of the above, thank you very much. Voting never changes anything anyway.

Honesty and transparency. We need simplification and streamlining so that we can run this country with fewer civil and public standards. We need to improve education standards. We need to invest in the private sector, especially manufacturing. We need to reduce the number not actively employed. More apprenticeships in trades and professions linking work with training. Toughen up on immigration, don't chicken out when someone plays the race card. Make voting compulsary. Get rid of unelected people like Mandelsen and Ashcroft from places of power. Get out of Afghanistan because they don't want democracy.

Council Tax is a big bugbear with me : I pay £200 a month for my property all my neighbours pay £140 and I don't know why : I am classed as a band E but every property around me is band C and my property is no different to anyone else. I have written to valuation dept and they say that the valuation on their books is correct and they have threatened me not to carry on querying the banding. How is the threat carried out. By stating that if I do not stop my query they will look into putting up the banding of all my neighbours. So for me it is Council Tax first and foremost followed by Council Tax and then Council tax. Oh! I want the M.P.'s to tell the truth. FAT CHANCE

What I want from this election, as part of the aptly named "great ignored" is for some basic commonsense to be applied. Specifically, we need to get the deficit down. We need to free ourselves from the shackles of the EU, and revert to trading partner status in the manner of Norway, which has a good business relationship with its neighbours without the burdens and eyewatering costs imposed by unelected Brussels. We need to get out of Afghanistan - now! Another huge saving. We need to stop sending "aid" money overseas to regimes which misuse it, or in fact don't need it at all. We need to put at least a 5 year moritorium on immigration to allow our battered infrastructure to recover a bit. We need to invest in proper border controls and this is the only area of the public sector which needs to be increased, and can be easily funded by the cash freed up by removing our troops from the self inflicted "war on terror".

We need to roll back the state and make people responsible for their own lifestyle choices. If a teen gets pregnant, despite the easy availability of contraception in this country(!), the responsibility for the resulting child lies with her family, not with the taxpayer. Child benefit should only be for the first child, and no-one should be better off on benefits than they would be if working.

Any new govt urgently needs to tackle the energy problems which have been allowed to develop owing to head in the sand policies on building nuclear power stations. Fuel speculators and banks using interest rates to fleece their customers should be tackled head on.

As a law abiding tax payer, I would like to come first for a change!!

I would like to get rid of the"Shameless" society, which gives rights without responsibility and payouts without payback.
Any party placing the core values of honesty and decency and the reward of endeavour, above shallow celebrity will get my vote. Politicians should be prepared to consider issues, such as immigration, which may not be PC, but are of great importance to the electorate and stop concentrating on "smoke screen" issues such as MP's expenses.

Key Issues for me personally:

1. Cut red tape and taxes on SMALL businesses and the self-employed. I live in an area where there are few jobs so self-employment is the olnly option. Under Labour I have struggled to keep up my pension payments and frankly I doubt I will ever be able to retire.

2. Cut Business Rates and Rates in General. I see far too much money being wasted by councils that have high paying executives. They think money is in abundance when it is not they need a reality check.

3. Cap Immigration before it's too late. The current government have not even seen this as a problem until election time. So clearly they will continue business as usual if they are re-elected. Any party we elect should protect our own people and our rights before that of any other but this government has clearly not done this.

4. Help for those on the lowest incomes. Living in the UK is so expensive, the Utility companies are allowed to charge whatever they want without restriction. What is the point of working when household bills rise faster and disproportionately to wages. This single fact dissillusions those that want to work as the system is unfair to the poorest families. We should Police these utility companies strictly.

Without fundamental change to how this country is run, the next election is just going to be about the same old stuff. This is what I will be asking any candidate:

As my Member of Parliament, would you?:

1. Actively support policies that bring about an end to privilege based on inheritance; create a fully democratic parliament fit for the 21st century by replacing the unelected Lords with a fully elected second house; end the farce of an outdated monarchy and replacing it with a Head of State who has a democratic mandate.

2. Actively seek a fairer society that replaces religious privilege with fairness and equality for all regardless of faith or non-faith, gender, colour, sexual orientation or age; support science and reason over myth and superstition; end disparity in access to good education by withdrawing public education funding for faith schools.

3. Actively support policies for tackling climate change, preservation of nature and natural resources; support scientific research into climate change and renewable energy resources; encourage free, open and reasoned debate on climate change issues that do not favour self-interested groups.

#67 - All true, but it'll probably also require tax rises. However the combination is too unpalatable a truth for the majority of voters, so it won't happen and the country will continue as a mess no matter who wins. Labour won't face reality and make the cuts, and the Tories will use it as an excuse to hack away at public services and destroy as much as possible, without even trying to keep their core.

My key Election is

Controlling immigration, preferably a full halt on all immigration until the population reaches pre 1997 levels, key advantages would be a reduction in traffic, pollution, housing costs

NHS – Stop employing people from around the world start training our own people, just today the john Radcliff hospistal in oxford has announce English lessons for staff, surly this just add costs.

Stop Scottish ministers voting on English and Welsh only matters- HOW DID WE END UP WITH AN UNDEOMCRATIC SYSTEM WERE SCOTTISH MINISTERS CAN VOTE ON MATTER THAN DOESN’T EFFECT THEIR CONSITUENTS- This is unlawful.

Promote employment in the wealth generating private sector, this will help our balance of payments and economy, just employing people in public sector and then borrowing money to pay for it is just suicidal.

Stop automatically giving single teenage mothers a council house,

Remove benefit payments for people who refuse jobs

Great rights for fathers in divorce settlements, fathers should have access right to their children not just a financial responsibility, if the mother doesn’t allow the father then fine or remve the children from the mum and make her go to work and pay for the children.

Retirement at the same age i.e. men and women at 65 and not the sexist 65 for men and 60 for women that it currently is.

Remove tax credits and put them on tax free allowances.

Remove inheritance tax up to 1 million,

I believe this General election provides a unique opportunity to the Electorate to get away from our out of date undemocratic electoral. I shall weigh up my vote very carefully and use my vote to bring about a hung parliament that will help to kick the big two where it hurts. Between them they have had over 70 years to create a fair and vibrate society and failed. Now we need a democratic system that makes parliament more accountable than the Executive. The BBC and ITV also have a huge difficult task to ensure we get the true facts and not the glib distorted Party spokesmen comments such as we had this morning, With wordings like job Tax and Death Tax which are just slick PR manipulations of the facts.

I shall also be looking very carefully at our public Broadcasters to ensure we get more balanced reporting than ever before, for we will certainly NOT be able to rely upon the biased Media Press for the truth.

For me its which lot outside the 2 main parties stands up and get my vote.

Labour and Conservative have proved quite conclusively that neither are fit for government, and it is quite staggering that after miserable failure by Labour, so many gullible people think its the tories turn again - or are people just so lazy they can't think outside the box.

As yet I'm undecided, but a population policy, and stopping the rich avoiding tax are 2 things I'll be looking out for.

What I would like out of the election is a hung parliament. Power to be reverted to the Queen for six months to give the policians time to reflect on their position in the scheme of things (i.e. they work for us, we are NOT their property) and the mess they have made of things. Then to have another election based on what they are REALLY going to do rather than telling us what they think we want to hear.

I just can't believe that the Tories have a good chance of gettting in! Can't everyone remember how bad they were before? Most of the problems with Labour are that they simply haven't gone far enough to reverse the Thatcherite policies. As was been amply demonstrated last week the Tories just look after the interests of big business - i.e. all their Eton friends.

I would like to see a party which is genuinely committed to helping ordinary working people and is prepared to take on the vested interests of the well off to do so. This is clearly none of the major parties - no surprise that the minority parties are doing well!

First and foremost I would like to see and end to the consensus between the big parties that the only way to tackle the deficit is to savagely cut public spending. Income tax is the fairest way to raise revenue, particularly the top rates. This has been gradually cut for many years so there is a lot of scope for increases (particularly the top rates). Also the tax havens within the UKs power should be closed down and international agreements sought to close down the rest.

On a more practical note I think it would be a good thing to ban opinion polls in the run up to an election - it might hope to focus peoples minds more on the actual *issues* rather than on the polls.

Most important election issues for me:

1. LAW AND ORDER - i'd like to see a party put the rights of victims before the rights of criminals. And one that comes down hard on criminals - 10 to a cell, hard labour 18 hours a day to pay for their own food and clothing. Taxpayers should not pay a penny towards criminals. Build more prisons and life must mean life. If someone wants to be 'rehabilitated' (which really means let off their prison sentence) then they or the bleeding-heart do-gooders can pay for that 'rehabilitation'. I want to see criminals punished for their crimes. If a burglar enters your house then all bets are off and the householder should be able to do whatever he/she deems necessary to protect themselves and their property.

2. IMMIGRATION - kick out anyone who is here to sponge off the NHS or our benefits. Anyone who commits a crime and doesn't have a British passport gets deported immediately and is never allowed back into our country.

3. EDUCATION - pay teachers more (say £60K as a starting salary) and recruit better teachers. Bring back the cane and stop having children running schools. Treat children like children and not small adults. Smack them if they misbehave. Instill discipline into children. Ban mobile phones from schools. Ensure that kids can read, write and add up by the time they leave school rather than be skilled at operating iPhones to video their teachers and post the videos up on YouTube.

4. FAMILIES - make families responsible for their children. Prosecute them if they fail to bring their children up properly. If you can't support your kids financially then don't expect other taxpayers to pay for them.

5. END POLITICAL CORRECTNESS! Put an end to all the bleeding-heart, politically-correct social engineering experiments of New Labour. Call a spade a spade. There are winners and losers in life. Reward winners. People are not equal and will never be equal. Live with it. After 13 years of political correctness, could our society be more divided? That's how much political correctness has achieved.

6. BENEFITS - cut all benefits other than the very obvious deserving ones. We can't have 9 million people of working age sitting at home all day long claiming some sort of inability to work. The overwhelming majority are likely to be benefits scroungers. Stop all benefits for all children aother than the first child. No council houses for teenage mums.

7. NO MORE GREEN ISSUES PLEASE! End the myth of global warming and stop using it as an excuse to beat up motorists and extort money out of them. Who wants to drive around in a 1.0 litre shopping trolley? Halve the duty on fuel and encourage manufacturers to build nice cars with big engines. And before the lentil-munchers have a go at me consider this: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are putting out more CO2 and damaging the environment more than all of the 4x4s in this country put together. When the government tells you that it is concerned about the environment, remind Gordon Brown how much damage hundreds of tons of ordnance dropped onto innocent civilians does to the environment.

8. ILLEGAL WARS - no more wars fought for America and Israel. The duty of our forces is to 'protect Queen and country'. Period.