Election 2015: The Questions

1. We keep being told past performance is no predictor of future performance, but the last government has gone a long way to rectifying the wreck left by the previous Labour administration, which spent vast sums of money the nation didn’t have. On the basis that leopards don’t change their spots, should I trust a government that got things half right or one that got it totally wrong?
2. How can I trust a man who says his party is the only one that will save the NHS from its funding crisis when his party in government set up unaffordable PFI contracts that have caused much of the problem, and his party’s administration in Wales has made more cuts in the NHS than have occurred in any other part of the UK?
3. How can I, a pensioner, take seriously a man who talks only of giving a better deal to working people, when he has barely done an honest day’s work in a proper job all his life?
4. Why should I, in England with a population of 56 million people, be beholden to a Stalinist clique in Scotland that represents only 4 million and wants to be independent while holding the whip hand over its larger neighbour?
5. If Scotland votes for independence in another referendum, should we not wave them a happy farewell, and watch them sink as the oil revenues fail to match their grandiose plans?
6. If all men are equal (and women too, of course) why should they be taxed at different rates? This seems to be contrary to human rights.  After all on a flat income tax rate the rich pay more anyway.  It’s maths, stupid
7. Being old enough to remember the revolting spectacle of gloating union leaders holding a government to ransom over tea and cakes in Downing Street, why should I wish to repeat the experience
8. Why does business, big and small, panic at the prospect of a Labour government? Presumably not from some whim or the toss of a coin, but from genuine fear

I run my own finances, and do so in a responsible way.  As one political commentator put it, the Labour Party seems intent on maxing out on a platinum credit card with no idea of how it will pay off its debt. Responsible?  No.

So Lib Dems should vote Conservative if it will keep Labour out.  Conservatives should vote Lib Dem, or UKIP, if it will keep Labour out.  UKIPs should vote UKIP, or Conservative, if it will keep Labour out.  Tactical voting has never been more important.

Of course this is all a bad dream, and bears no resemblance to the real world… but that pledge stone – the Ed stone – looks awfully like a tombstone to me.