Leaders Debate

[coke4]

I see that Labour would win if things stay the way it is.

And i really dont see Britain getting rid of Nuclear Arms would have any Negative effects

[fedfan]

And i really dont see Britain getting rid of Nuclear Arms would have any Negative effects

Maybe not now, or in 5 years or ever, it could be a massive waste of money and never get used but it might be needed. The risk of having no nuclear option in this day and age would be a massive gamble, not something I'd like to see.

[coke4]

And i really dont see Britain getting rid of Nuclear Arms would have any Negative effects

Maybe not now, or in 5 years or ever, it could be a massive waste of money and never get used but it might be needed. The risk of having no nuclear option in this day and age would be a massive gamble, not something I'd like to see.

Britain are part of a Union and strong allies with USA so if Britain were to be under imminant threat they dont need them. Anyway the lasy thing we need is a Nuclear Holocaust, so getting rid of Nukes would be a posotove step. What good would having Nukes be anyway? If someone really wanted to Nuke you or Attack you they would do it regardless of the amount of Nukes you have. And you having Nukes would just enlargen the catastrophy
Any Bio-Warfare is the future.

[beltic caldy]

Youguv/Sun Poll

36% Cameron
32% Clegg
29% Brown

Oh this os who won the debate.

I cant see how anyone though Cameron won, my opinion of him somehow went dowm after this

Couldn't agree more re Cameron NOT winning. Wtf? To me it was quite an accurate portrayal of him - vacuous and generally non-entity...what did the press call him a few years ago....chicken breast...'cos he goes with anything popular at the time.
I thought Brown's opening statement was very good re him not being a spin/polished dude, but if people wanted someone capable of making unpopular decisions...he's the guy - he should have linked back to that several times, which he didn't - also, as it went on, found that while he was better than Cameron, he lost the run of himself a bit.

For my money, having watched the whole thing, Clegg came across as the mature adult and the far far superior speaker/debater/listener - he persistently pulled the discussion back to the originating question and handled stuff from the other two with comfort - interestingly, i felt he was getting more heat from Brown than Cameron - almost like Cameron had been advised to steer clear of attacking him.

Genuine 3-horse race now? Perhaps...perhaps not - the labour-lib dem coalition now seems inevitable - Cameron hasn't a prayer of getting in alone...neither has Brown, and of course neither has Clegg...probably.

Quite exciting this time, no?!?

[DRII]

And i really dont see Britain getting rid of Nuclear Arms would have any Negative effects

Maybe not now, or in 5 years or ever, it could be a massive waste of money and never get used but it might be needed. The risk of having no nuclear option in this day and age would be a massive gamble, not something I'd like to see.

Britain are part of a Union and strong allies with USA so if Britain were to be under imminant threat they dont need them. Anyway the lasy thing we need is a Nuclear Holocaust, so getting rid of Nukes would be a posotove step. What good would having Nukes be anyway? If someone really wanted to Nuke you or Attack you they would do it regardless of the amount of Nukes you have. And you having Nukes would just enlargen the catastrophy
Any Bio-Warfare is the future.

Europe needs to be able to defend itself, you all can not be dependent on the U.S. for your defense because we are experiencing extreme national deficits and eventually military spending will have to be cut here.

And we in the USA are finally expanding our social safety net which will take more funding, at some point we will not be able to be the sole defender of the 'free world'. Europe and Canada need to take more of an expanded role in this arena so the USA is not in it alone.

[AUSSIE_FABS]

BOB DOLE.

[coke4]

And i really dont see Britain getting rid of Nuclear Arms would have any Negative effects

Maybe not now, or in 5 years or ever, it could be a massive waste of money and never get used but it might be needed. The risk of having no nuclear option in this day and age would be a massive gamble, not something I'd like to see.

Britain are part of a Union and strong allies with USA so if Britain were to be under imminant threat they dont need them. Anyway the lasy thing we need is a Nuclear Holocaust, so getting rid of Nukes would be a posotove step. What good would having Nukes be anyway? If someone really wanted to Nuke you or Attack you they would do it regardless of the amount of Nukes you have. And you having Nukes would just enlargen the catastrophy
Any Bio-Warfare is the future.

Europe needs to be able to defend itself, you all can not be dependent on the U.S. for your defense because we are experiencing extreme national deficits and eventually military spending will have to be cut here.

And we in the USA are finally expanding our social safety net which will take more funding, at some point we will not be able to be the sole defender of the 'free world'. Europe and Canada need to take more of an expanded role in this arena so the USA is not in it alone.

And who is going to Nuke Europe?

[beltic caldy]

yeah....this whole 'we better have nukes 'cos the bad guys have 'em' argument. it's genuinely tricky. I grew up in the 70's and remember the ever-present paranoia/fear of nuclear wipeout - of course, that was the whole mutually assured destruction thing - mainly 'cos USA and USSR (then) had so many that a war would likely result in effective global destruction.

Does the same situation exist today? Maybe not to the same scale, but surely it does? Is it perhaps even more dangerous now than 30 years ago? We have Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and China all at various stages in the nuclear weapons programmes - surely without our own effective nuclear arsenal, we would be vulnerable to threat, if not action, in the event of some future conflict?

The idealist in me would love to think all the rubbish is in our past, and I hope it is - but i think we have a ways to go.

I'd like to see a genuine realistic 'World Police' in place (other than the de facto situation with America filling the role right now) - some body or organisation with real power - not a largely toothless organisation like the UN or NATO. Hard to see how it can happen tho - it took WW2 to turn the largely useless League of Nations into the slightly-less-useless United Nations....I had hoped that maybe 9/11 might provoke something like this...instead what did we get? An illegal war in Iraq and the wonderful Patriot Act (which incidentally is near identical to the extraordinary civil-rights-stomping constitutional changes a certain A.Hitler implemented in 30's Germany).

The major problem with this argument of 'we better have them cos they have them' is that every small/mid-size/large nation who doesn't currently have a nuclear arsenal can use it, with legitimacy as grounds to develop their own. And we can't turn around and say 'no', as that's the grounds we use to maintain our own.

Solution? Phased decommission of 90% of remaining US/Russian weapons with plutonium/uranium to be used as fuel (i'd like some stats on how long that would last as fuel.....a few dozen centuries maybe?) - a World Police to be set up without the need for another global disaster who's FIRST course of action is a complete and utter BAN on any further kind of nuclear weapons program - any breach = instant and complete trade sanctions/cessation of monetary/economic aid.

Sigh. Shouldn't be too hard to arrange, right?

[coke4]

Who you guys going to be voting for, IF you are voting?

[beltic caldy]

That's a got-damn secret.....! Lol!!! Clegg for me I suppose - dearth of alternatives....Brown is an embarassment - that Gillian Duffy fiasco....talk about taking a mess and turning it into a debacle.....and Cameron? Jaysis......

[coke4]

That's a got-damn secret.....! Lol!!! Clegg for me I suppose - dearth of alternatives....Brown is an embarassment - that Gillian Duffy fiasco....talk about taking a mess and turning it into a debacle.....and Cameron? Jaysis......

Brown shouldnt have apologized IMO

[SoundfSilence]

Voted today

[coke4]

Voted today

How the heck?

[SoundfSilence]

By post

[coke4]

By post

Aah, you voted for the Teddy Bear Alliance I presume?