tedteague: LOL It works on so many levels I remember getting that phrase almost beaten into me during grammar lessons...

Den: You only have two parties who can seriously compete for the 'big title' so if they co-operated there would be no democracy, just a lot of people agreeing with each other. That was only leads to stagnation and tyranny in a political system

This has only come about for us because we have a third party which is almost, but not quite, big enough to play with the 'big boys'. At present they'd never get elected on thier own steam (though it was close after their leader's performance in the TV debates which depressed me because it implied we only consider politicians now that look good on tele) but they are perfectly placed to tip the balance in favour of one of the major parties.

Had there not been an influx of other, smaller, single issue parties in the past few elections (parties like UKIP, the BNP, The Christian Party and the Common Good party, all of whom are different flavours of nutcase in my opinion...) and I am not mentioning the Monster ravings or the various Zombie parties who all seem to be obsessed with potholes...) then the Libs may have scored a lot better in this election but they lost some of the 'we don't want to vote labour or tory' votes to the single issue parties (not many but enough...).

Though I am pleased that the BNP got roundly defeated. Crazy is fine, crazy with dangerous, discriminatory policies is not. Though the defeat did indicate something about free speech. For years the BNP were not allowed to speak their policies because they were discriminatory. Then (under a load of controversy) they were allowed to speak on Question Time (for the foreigners: its a political show on the BBC where politicians face questions from the audience). It was after this that thier popularity dropped. I think it demonstrates that if you censor something you make it interesting and therefore more popular...

But I will stop ranting now...