Biggest plonker vote

[venator]

I can't decide which of the 3 party leaders it is.

Cameron - big talk about standing up to Europe while deathly afraid of the referendum most people want.

Clegg - Fanatically keen on getting into the Euro, gushing out silly ideas - look at this latest -
http://www.telegraph....-be-means-tested.html

Milliband - Probably the worst ever leader, and brain not linked to mouth -
http://www.telegraph....n-bad-businesses.html

I'm putting on my tin hat and digging a trench in the garden...

[jake-the-peg]

I think it's UKIP's Nigel Farage who's so anti- the EU that he boasted obout claiming £2 Million in expenses from him.

He stood down as leader to take on Bercow in the constiuancy where I live.

He then came third behind Bercow and a bloke dressed as a dolphin!

So he had to ask for his old job back!

Now there's a plonker - at least the others can get elected!

[jomifl]

Milliband minor of the 4th remove.

[factor-fiction]

Why is Clegg's latest idea silly? I'm not too keen on the idea of means testing some benefits for pensioners but surely it is worth looking at whether we should be paying winter fuel allowances and giving free TV licences to the most affluent pensioners, some of whom feel embarrassed at getting them. I'd rather use all the money paid in winter fuel allowances, free bus passes and free TV licences to be used to increase the state pension by maybe £10 a week for all pensioners. Okay, better off pensioners would benefit from that too but at least they'll be taxed on the extra income

[venator]

Factor30 - I agree, there may be some savings in means testing pensioners' benefits, but the silliness is that it's electoral suicide.

This will be trotted out at the next election, when the Lib Dems will be booted back into the long grass, hopefully, along with their Eurofanatic ideas.

[jake-the-peg]

Yep - along with the Tories

YouGov/Sun Times – CON 35%, LAB 43%, LD 9%

[rov1100]

Clegg. It is well known that bringing in means testing for pensioners would cost more to implement it than it pays out now.

[joggerjayne]

Milliband, by a mile.

On a day when he should have been dealing with matters of State as leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, the most pressing issue on his agenda was bitching about Jeremy Clarkson.

And this guy has ambitions of leading the country?

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa !!!!!!!!!

[DTCwordfan]

My two: Nick Griffin, never mind ripping the BNP apart, he is a dangerous plonker andNo 2 - Rowan Williams who is a plonker of a leader by his lack of leadership all around - should have stuck to his contemplation of the scriptures and "evangelical" argumentation.

[youngmafbog]

So I take it you like Milliband and would happily have him as PM then Jake?

For me it is Milliband, he has nothing going for him at all. His jumping on the Clarkson bandwagon without even seeing it totally summed him up.

The other two are not far behind him though. Cameron is weak and Clegg is clearly trying to apease the Tories at the same time as pamper to the liberal left

[modeller]

jake #Now there's a plonker - at least the others can get elected! ##

The point is jake he was elected as an MEP , which means several hundred thousand supported his views and far more would if his party could seriously challenge the other three. As it is he took sufficient Tory votes to deny them a working majority.

[New Judge]

Sorry to be pedantic, jomifl, but schools don’t have a “4th Remove”.

Although the practice is now less common, many (mainly independent) schools had a “Remove” form. This was usually the third year of secondary education (i.e. that for 13-14 year olds, current “Year Nine”). It does, however, vary. Westminster School, for example, still has a “Remove”, but this is their Year 13. My own school had a Remove as its third year. It also had an Upper and Lower Fifth, meaning that newcomers (Aged 11) entered the school in the Third Form. Whilst I was there the Upper and Lower Fifth was abolished, but the Remove was maintained, meaning newcomers then started in the Second Form.

I do not know whether the school the Milliband brothers attended (Haverstock Comprehensive School in Chalk Farm, North London) had a remove form whilst they were there. Probably the most famous pupil of a school with a “Remove” was Billy Bunter, “The Fat Owl of The Remove” at the fictional Greyfriars School:

http://www.turnipnet....ren/bunter/bunter.htm

As far as the question goes, all three candidates could lay claim to the title for various reasons: Cameron would be up there for forming a Coalition with the LibDems instead of going it alone, suffering a defeat or two in Parliament and calling a second General Election; Milliband for accepting victory in the Leadership election only by virtue of fourth choice votes; and Clegg for selling the soul of his party for the spare keys to Number 10 (which will only work until the locks are changed whilst they are out).

[DTCwordfan]

Jake - Sunday Tel poll had Libs at 14, Labour at 34, Tories at 36, the Tories on the ascendancy, Libs and Lab down......so let's put thing in perspective - stats lie, especially party or newspaper polls - not least where were the polls conducted?

[ichkeria]

Ed Milliband's problem is that he's probably too "wimpish" and intellectual-sounding for the great British voting public.

Personally, of the three, David Cameron is the one I like most as a person, but I happen not to agree with him politically. I'd hope that if people don't vote labour at the next election it won't be because they don't like the leader. Most opinion polls have nonetheless shown Labour well ahead of the Tories, and that's before the real trouble starts, so presumably a lot of people are prepared to override any misgivings they might have about the sound of the party leader's voice etc. for the sake of concentrating on more important matters.

[Kromovaracun]

"the silliness is that it's electoral suicide. "

I really hate it when people say this. If politicians put out policies that are calculated to be vote-winners/popular, they're deemed to be cynical and manipulatively dishonest. If they stand on an unpopular principal they happen to believe in, they're 'foolish' and 'silly' and 'committing electoral suicide'.

Now, I'm not particularly interested in commenting on the specific issue you were talking about in the above comment - and as I've said several times before I've never had any time for Nick Clegg or really believed in the man's sincerity. But more broadly it just strikes me as an annoying tendency among voters generally.

[factor-fiction]

@rov1000: "Clegg. It is well known that bringing in means testing for pensioners would cost more to implement it than it pays out now."

I agree that it would be expensive if it meant lots of form filling/processing (although we have that already for pension credits), but it might be efficient to simply increase the state pension by £10 a week and remove all the admin of winter fuel payments/free TV licences and then use the existing tax system to collect in the extra tax from the better off. Unless it's already been looked at I think it's worth considering.

[jno]

I can't say I have much time for a PM who ostentatiously cycles to work... while having his work brought in a limo behind him. (Exactly the same is true of Boris Johnson, who pedals off from civic events, goes round the corner and hops into his car.) That's just hypocrisy.

[jackthehat]

I think the Golgafrinchans had the right idea.......

[ichkeria]

I can't believe I'm standing up for a Tory PM(!) but in fairness to DC he couldn't really carry his work with him on the bike, and if he can get a bit of exercise in that way good luck to him.
Boris Johnson, on the other hand I agree, may be on dodgier ground...

[jno]

he did it to demonstrate his greenness, not his fitness.

A BBC friend told me how he'd been in for an interview and was offered a taxi back to town, but just said 'That's all right, I just have to cross the road,' waving in the direction of White City tube station. Needless to say, as delighted hacks watched from their windows, he was picked up outside the station by his limo.

[ichkeria]

"he did it to demonstrate his greenness, not his fitness. "

Nonetheless he's getting a bit of exercise in, which is good. Does he still do it?
If so then I think one can safely say he's now doing it for the latter (to maintain it, rather than demonstrate it), although it can't be much of a journey!