These peole don't care about statistics. They think that all they have to do is deny the problem and it isn't there anymore. They are living in cloud cuckoo land. They are entirely inept and I suspect that will just carry on denying all the problems instead of solving them. What beats me though, is how the electorate hasn't seen and been aware of the incompetence right from the word go. Or did they see it and because credit was easy to come by, they didn't care? If the latter is the case then serves them right, doesn't it?

judy, Liverpool, England

The conservatives have ruled out cutting taxes if they are elected , can''t find any major political party that is remotely interested in living within the country's means, I think I'll stay at home next time around.

Dave, London, UK

Balls - there are two of them - husband and wife. How we expect a politician of this calibre to perform, I am at a loss to understand, he has never held a real job, these people go throught life living off people who produce wealth - then abuse the privelege. I am sure he would reply - so what !

William, Soton, UK

I simply don't understand where you get your poll sample from. You have somehow managed to find a sufficient number of the gullible to give Labour and the Lib Dems together a majority of voting intentions.

How is it possible to find people who can convince themselves to believe these manifestos in a week where Labour MPs (with a very few honourable exceptions) have proven themselves to be liars, and Illeberal Democrats to be equally liars without even the strength of their convictions -

Mike Bibby, St Albans, ngland -not EU

hurst llama -

get real - it will take at least 4 years to begin to sort out the mess wih the country's finances.
It would be irresponsible to promise any tax cuts until the true scale of the disaster can be realised.
The bottom-line is - this country will have to endure a great deal of fiscal pain before any government can aford to repatriate hard earned pennies to their rightful owner.

Non Dominic, Baghdad, Iraq

The interesting part of the poll was how labour love their public services. Every time a tory talks of tax cuts, labour rattle on about service cuts: the last ten years has seen half a million extra bureaucrats and lots of extra, meaningless red tape. Of course this is not investing in something, it is wasting money on an on-cost, one that will become much worse as these bureaucrats retire on their generous pensions. Cameron's big problem is middle England needs convincing their money buys more services if left in their pockets, with lower taxes, than it does if left to the 'one size fits all' Whitehall waste machine.

Mike, Exeter, England

I'm afraid that those who should say that Labour should cut taxes will be sadly mistaken. Cutting taxes by Labour is about as logical as storing ice cubes in the Sahara Desert.

Michael J Cawood, Wrexham, Wales, UK

I moved to the UK just over 5 years ago and I am absolutely amazed how the cost of goods has gone up in such a short time - My grocery bill use to average around £50/ week and has ballooned to £80/ week - Petrol was 79p/litre and now I'm paying £1.07/litre - Not to mention the increases for basic services water, gas and electrics, and how the providers of all these are recording record profits - Government has not done anything to address this other than offering £50 to pensioners, instead of regulating basic service providers -Services have not improved one bit despite the increases - Darling's bugdet will only make things even more expensive - Taxing citizens to death is not the fixall solution to every problem the government needs to tackle - Frankly speaking, this government has demonstrated it's inability to do it's job - Time for a regime change, sooner rather than later!

WTaylor, London, UK

"Voters turn tax anger on Labour"

"Labour has fallen further behind the Tories than at any time for more than two decades."

So the Conservative Party choose this moment to tell us that they will tax us at the same rate for at least four years after the next election.

You couldn't make it up.

Hurst Llama, West Sussex, England

Gordon Brown could improve the intellectual strength of his front line at a stroke by simply bringing back Prescott to replace Balls!!??

Newbynorm, Scarborough, UK

None of the comments in the media have mentioned the ridiculous ammounts of money we are paying to the EU with very little return and this is to be increased even further as a result of Tony Blair's additional payment to aid his attempt to become president of the EU.

B Smith, Maldon Essex,

I guess that Labour will slip further in the polls when low income people are hit next month with an increase in income tax due to their tax band doubling from 10p to 20p in the £. Very many of those affected will still be ignorant of the Brown Budget's kick in the teeth.

Robert Williams, Halifax, England

We have a comfortable living standard in this country but are a nation of whingers. Maybe if we stopped spending money on fighting other peoples bogus wars and stopped throwing money at consultants and greedy pfi schemes which fleece the taxpayer. And maybe stop treating perpetrators of crimes of dishonesty in a massive scale amongst the business community as some kind of victims. But hey, crackpot ideas like asking some of the richest people in the country to maybe contribute 0.01% of their enormous wealth to the country they reside in is just crazy talk, isn't it.

J.Cadden, Glasgow,

It is simple. Whilst the economy was strong and house prices were rising, people tolerated the ever-increasing tax burdens imposed by a variety of stealth taxes over the past 10 years. Now that the economy is sickly, prices are rising and people worry for their jobs, we want taxes to be cut in a meaningful way. Unless Brown initiates a programme of tax cuts, he will lose the next election. He know this, so I would not be surprised if Labour finish the present parliamentary term with a package of fiscal changes to stimulate the economy next year.

Jonny, London,

The notion that the government has 'invested' in public services should be challenged.

It has borrowed alot of money through PFI etc to invest in capital build / infrastructure, but the bulk of what it has done has been plain old 'spending' - from which there is no real return on investment.

MarkS, Leeds,

Absolutely right, Mike, but "only interested in their own wealth and not what's good for the country?" I thought you were talking about politicians, who have set the very worst possible example in that respect, so, little wonder.......

GB virtually stolen the country Geoff? Given it away more like, all with oily smiles and a master's degree in insincerity, and don't forget Scotland, Wales and NI, (although the devolution/more politicans/jobs for the boys, does obfuscate the issue).

Terry, L'Absie, France

Ed Balls' "So What" response to Cameron pointing out working people are paying far higher taxes will not have helped calm voters down.

Ball is also the idiot who got Brown started on the election that wasn't.

A Williams, Stockton-on-Tees,

Just how far can this man Brown go?? He cannot be so stipid to think that we dont know exactly what he is up to. He's virtually stolen our country. This is England for goodness sake, and he has plundered, or/and blundered his way through all our assets, rights, heritage, independance and all. I am 71 years old, and I worry for my grandchildren. Something must be done to stop this nonsense.

Geoff Stringer, Southend-on-Sea Essex , ENGLAND

Mike, we didn't *all* buy into the credit bubble any more than you or your neighbours have done so in Spain. At least Spain has cut its losses in Iraq, meanwhile Iraq and Afghanistan have helped to bankrupt this country.

Paul, Coventry,

The government has a number of problems as far as I can see . Politically they have been so busy cooking the books, spinning statistics, "managing announcments" etc etc that I no longer believe a word they say or figure that they produce.

Economically whilst I can accept that they do not control global liquidity problems thay have as David Cameron has pointed out and needs to be repeated so mismanaged the economy that they can`t increase government spending (fiscal boost)as George Bush has done as it is there is already an enormous public borrowing requirement. Messers Brown and Darling have already spent our taxes on unreformed public services. My own view is that the risk of a significant recession is high.The chickens are coming home to roost.

F. Luscombe, Plymouth, UK

Unfortunately its a true statement that the electorate is only concerned with one thing and thats their own well being. For two terms now the writing has been on the wall that Labour was taxing and spending in gay abandon and has virtually nothing to show for it. Whilst peoples feeling of wealth increased during the housing boom all those failings were ignored by the public only interested in their own wealth and not whats good for the country. Brown managed to paper over the economic cracks for the last 6 years by subterfuge, moving goal posts and many stunts worthy of crooks like Robert Maxwell or the ex-CEO's of Worldcom and Enron, but its all coming home to roost right now. The pots empty, he's spent all the reserves and all thats left is tax, tax & more tax to carry on funding his Stalinist social engineering policies. Britain is in for a very lean 2 years before Labour are forced out and even with a change of government, it will take many years to repair Browns economic damage.

Mike, Alicante, Spain