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livSo, can anyone explain to me why people are acting as if a Conservative majority at the upcoming election would be tantamount to the apocalypse? Misogynist ravings about Thatcher don't count as an argument for me, especially given that she hasn't had significant political power for twenty years.
In my opinion, Labour have made a lot of things worse since 1997. Not least causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq, which I really wish were a bigger issue in this election. And somehow, we have a discourse where any time someone criticizes Labour, they add the disclaimer "but of course, the Tories would have been far worse". To me this means that educated, engaged people who might otherwise be swing voters are essentially handing Labour a perpetual mandate, and that worries me.
I'm generally economically right wing and socially liberal, if that helps.
In my opinion, Labour have made a lot of things worse since 1997. Not least causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq, which I really wish were a bigger issue in this election. And somehow, we have a discourse where any time someone criticizes Labour, they add the disclaimer "but of course, the Tories would have been far worse". To me this means that educated, engaged people who might otherwise be swing voters are essentially handing Labour a perpetual mandate, and that worries me.
I'm generally economically right wing and socially liberal, if that helps.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 08:24 pm (UTC)While I trust the Conservatives to stay economically right wing (this is less good in my eyes than in yours, but anyway), I don't trust them to stay socially liberal. Looking at their voting records, they got a lot better on civil liberties once they kicked Michael Howard out, but they stay relatively anti-EU, they had a pretty poor record on gay rights, they're quite anti-immigration (honourable exception of Boris Johnson's proposed amnesty).
I get the idea that the Tories have sorting out climate change as quite a low priority and some reject the idea of doing anything about it at all. All of this isn't really a problem so long as David Cameron is in charge, doing what he's doing now, and holding influence, but another Howard, Hague, or Duncan Smith could be very bad for liberalism, EU integration, and the environment.
The Tories also oppose electoral reform quite strongly.
Most of this isn't a reason to prefer Labour, but it is a reason, as a liberal, to prefer the Liberal Democrats, who don't really have an illiberal wing in the same way as the Conservatives don't have much of a socialist wing.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 10:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:33 am (UTC)Electoral reform, eh, it's not a huge political priority for me. And Labour's idea of electoral reform seems to be about giving more personal power to the PM and Home Secretary, while creating a lot of meaningless plebiscites that are then going to be ignored.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:26 am (UTC)I agree that the euro-scepticism is a problem for me. In terms of the bad old bogeymen coming back, yes, it could happen, but I think the whole political climate is moving away from that. And, well, Labour have actually illiberal ministers right now, and no plans to change that.
In some ways I like Lib Dem policies better than Con, but their economic policy is truly awful. And I'm still very uncertain about their chances. If someone made a party today whose manifesto exactly aligns with all my views on every issue, I wouldn't vote for it, because they would never win an election. And my feeling at the moment is that messing around voting for a hopeless party because they have a shiny manifesto is tantamount to handing Labour yet another term in which to erode civil liberties. Now, Lib Dems aren't quite on that rainbow-unicorn party level, but it's still a concern in how I make my voting decisions. I would rather vote for an acceptable Tory party who will actually break Labour's stranglehold, than a utopian Liberal party who probably won't have any power and if they do, may turn out to be as spineless in England as they were in the Lib-Lab coalition in Scotland.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 09:21 pm (UTC)I mean, Brown wasn't that good a chancellor, mainly because he hid a structural deficit by fiddling around with when he claimed the business cycle began and finished and used more expensive off the books spending through PFIs. Now they're talking about dealing with the budget deficit by selling off state assets, which doesn't actually improve the long term government financial position at all. The worrying thing is that I think the Conservatives would be worse.
To be fair though, I don't think that the Conservatives would be worse than Labour enough for me to vote Labour, even if I were in a Lab/Con marginal.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:43 am (UTC)I am very suspicious of political rhetoric about "the rich" because people who are actually rich can always get away with avoiding taxes one way or another. The people who get defined as "the rich" tend to be those who have slightly better than average finances, meaning that those who have slightly worse than average finances can be whipped up into resenting them. That sort of policy is divisive and unfair and I have yet to see it doing anything to actually address social and economic disparities.
Um, yeah, that's why I define myself as right-wing economically. But even if I believed in redistributive tax and public spending to exit a recession, I would not vote for a party who started their term by fencing off all their tax income in a war-chest and refusing any investment in infrastructure, so that they could make populist tax-cuts just before an election. And ended their term with an astronomical increase in the national deficit, a short-termist bank bailout, and let's not forget financing a horrific war at the expense of health care, education and everything else I care about. I think we're disagreeing because you think that Labour is awful but Con is worse, I think Labour is awful but Con is slightly less awful.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 11:12 am (UTC)I think this is the nub of the issue. I think most people your talk to (including me) instinctively feel they are (or should be) on the left, but the reasons for this are sufficiently economically complex or tribal that the question "what SHOULD you feel" isn't raised directly, and the whole thing is absorbed by the question of "how much does party X represent our views" because the quesiton of "are our views actually the same" is too intimidating.
And because "how much does party X represent our views" is very but less controversial because of how annoyed many people are at at least some issues of the major two/three parties, so people can happily bash labour/tories together and only later realise they were partly bashing for different reasons when they suddenly find a weird disagreement.
This is partly what I meant when I said I had some idea of what I preferred on issue policies (digital economy, gay rights, war in iraq, etc) but that economic questions were at least as important but much more difficult because they're partly "what should you do" and partly "how should you do it", and so while I have instinctive views, I don't know enough to have a really informed decision.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 11:26 am (UTC)Honestly I do think all the major parties are fairly close on economic policy; as I mentioned in another comment, any party is going to give us a mixed economy with an intermediate level of taxation and a decent social safety net, we're just arguing about the fine details. Against that background I prefer somewhat right-of-centre over somewhat left-of-centre, but I don't think (New) Labour's economics makes sense to anyone at all, no matter what their underlying principles.
But yes, economics is really complicated, so I'm as likely to be wrong in my views about how to achieve what I want, as in wanting the wrong things according to some people's principles.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 02:13 pm (UTC)On who is rich, the IFS have a little dooberry which tells you which decile of the income distribution you fall into, taking into account your number of dependents. http://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/ I often find it easy to forget what the income distribution in the UK is really like.
I don't think that my brother, whose a lone parent, would be able to get by if he didn't receive tax credits on top of the money he earns.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 03:03 pm (UTC)But last time we had a "tax the rich" scenario, it ended up taking money out of my grandmother's pension, and it doesn't seem at all fair that she should count as "rich" when she in fact worked herself to the bone raising herself from dire poverty to just about lower-middle class, and was extremely frugal and put a little bit of money aside for her old age. It's very unfair in my view that her little tiny nest-egg should be "redistributed" to people who live way beyond their means.
I'm not against tax credits for single parents, not at all. Just that that kind of thing needs to be paid for by the community as a whole, not by targeting a particular demographic who are perceived as being far more wealthy than they really are.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-23 06:05 am (UTC)I don't support redistributive taxation out of some kind of class war against the rich, I support it because I don't think people should live in poverty and people with higher incomes should contribute more to that because the higher someone's income (taking into account dependants etc.) the more they can afford to pay tax.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 10:37 pm (UTC)They opposed the equality bill/act, and would probably repeal it. They supported the digital economy bill/act, which removes our right to a fair trial when accused, right up until the last minute. They want to cut benefits for those who refuse to work, regardless of the reason. Cameron and his Conservatives know nothing about real people on the streets like me. I fear for what the NHS would be like under a Tory government; it's been hard enough to get the care I need as it is. They're still homophobic (tax break for married couples of men/women variety only, anyone?) and ... for these and countless more reasons, I plan to vote Liberal Democrat. In my mind, both blue and red have a terrible record and someone else needs a chance.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 10:51 pm (UTC)Oh, and the Human Rights Act they want to scrap.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:50 am (UTC)Likewise the Digital Economy bill; it's a bad thing, but I'm not as passionate about it as you are and I don't think it's entirely a party political thing, it comes from a Europe-wide tendency driven by business. Conservatives and Liberals both started off supporting it and ended up with lukewarm opposition, but that's not a very strong reason for me to prefer LibDem over conservative. Sure, if I were voting in Cambridge I would vote for Julian Huppert, but most of the party don't care enough for that to be a differentiating factor.
I like the idea of giving someone else "a chance", but I am not yet entirely convinced that the LibDems actually have a chance. I am considering voting for them, since on issues apart from the economy I align more closely LibDem than Con, but I am afraid that such a vote would land us with another Labour term, perhaps with a slightly smaller majority but that doesn't help, Labour have shown over and over that they don't actually care about the democratic process. Or a hung parliament that will end up with a Lib-Lab coalition where the Liberals will be as useless as they were in Scotland, so essentially that's no better than yet another overwhelming Labour majority because everybody hates the Tories so much.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 10:17 am (UTC)The problem with not voting Lib Dem because we're scared of them not winning is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was going to tactically vote Labour tg avoid the Tories, and then I realised that if I joined the bands of people saying "I won't do it because they won't win" then they'll never win.
They may still lose. I'm okay with that. But I want to say I tried.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 10:00 am (UTC)On the NHS the Conservative policy looks pretty sound to me, and I do think that sorting out the economic problems is the best chance we have to be able to fund the NHS properly. I do work partly for the NHS, and even without that it would be a huge issue. My judgement is that the Conservatives are the best hope for this one, though.
As for knowing about real people on the streets, eh. I probably don't count as "real people on the streets" in that sort of rhetoric. I have multiple degrees and a job that pays me well above the average salary and own my own home. I like the fact that the 80s and 90s Conservative party had ministers and leaders who were chosen on their merits and didn't come from the political classes. Labour have better rhetoric on diversity issues, but a worse practical record, so I perceive the Cons as more actually, realistically egalitarian.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 10:59 pm (UTC)There's very little evidence that the UK conservative party has noticed this. Labour has (plainly) noticed and is (obviously) gibberingly terrified. So in a number of respects the choice, restricted to those two parties, is a choice between obliviousness, interacting with something other than material reality as the basis for decision making, and very bad, frightened responses to material reality being viewed as darkly as possible.
right wing positions on the economy are outright wrong
Date: 2010-04-22 10:11 am (UTC)The supposedly "leftist" (though really I think centre-right would be a fairer description) Labour government of the last 13 years has managed to hugely increase both the wealth gap and the national deficit. They have avoided raising income tax because they're afraid to lose middle-class votes, but have attempted to compensate for that by increasing National Insurance and duty on alcohol and fuel, and raiding pension funds, and things like that, in other words raising money through regressive taxes because income tax is a sacred cow. So even if you convinced me that I should give up my capitalist priorities, I can't see how voting Labour would help to make the country more socialist.
The Conservative party may be oblivious to what you perceive as economic reality, but they have clear priorities to invest in infrastructure and the NHS, and support local organizations including trade unions. They're not proposing anything resembling the Reagan / Bush model.
Re: right wing positions on the economy are outright wrong
Date: 2010-04-22 12:44 pm (UTC)I will suggest that voting for the Conservatives is similarly not a good idea, because they haven't noticed things like the falsification of the efficient markets hypothesis or the guard-economy expenses associated with a high degree of inequality. (Labour certainly has noticed; they've noticed the inevitability of significant social change due to a combination of improved communications, structural change to economies, and the whole post-industrial thing, and have freaked out in authoritarian ways in an attempt to enforce the existing power structure; this does not recommend them in any way other than however "are paying attention to what's actually going on" might manage to do.)
Infrastructure, well, which infrastructure? Petrol dependent roads? Bad idea. Re-nationalizing (because it's clear privatization was "grant me a monopoly" scam), universally electrifying, and building non-fossil-carbon power plants to supply power for, the rail network? Better idea. It matters a lot if "infrastructure" is a customary reflex or a way to get money to traditional supporters or a "oh shit, post-industrial economy, industrial or early industrial infrastructure, need to fix that!" response. (In the case of the NHS, it's not clear from the UK computer trade press that there's anybody available to the NHS who could set up a computer system for them that would actually be a help; such people exist, but it doesn't appear possible for the NHS to hire them to do the work. "Investing in the NHS" has to be evaluated in a context that includes "what's the fix for that peculiar incapacity?", for instance.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-21 11:11 pm (UTC)At the same time, I can't make myself vote for the Conservatives because I absolutely do not trust them on social issues. I see their shadow home secretary stating that he thinks people should feel free to break a law (the he helped vote in) and discriminate against gays, the message I receive is "we don't want people like you in our country". I worry too about things like their obsession on cutting expenditure on benefits, because I worry that my invisible disability isn't going to be sufficient for them.
In short, I worry that the Conservatives would do a very nice job for straight, white, able-bodied, middle class men, and not care about anyone else. They say that they've changed and that they're now all caring and sharing and progressive, but quite frankly, I don't believe them.
I'm contemplating lib dem, on the grounds that they have the best chance of anyone else of mounting any sort of a challenge to Labour or the Conservatives, but in truth, I don't much care for them either. I find them to be disingenuous, think that their "we're the party of no spin" facade is very heavily spun,and dislike how they are two-faced and try to be all things to all people (their successful campaign in Westmorland and Lonsdale last election was close enough to me for me to see some of this ugly side).
I think that one of the problems of this election will be that whoever wins it won't have any sort of a real mandate. The general impression that I get is that an awful lot of people are going to be voting for what they see as the least worst option. I've had numerous conversations with quite different people who have expressed the sentiment that they don't want Labour, but they don't really want Tories either.
I'm starting to feel that I'd really like to see quite sweeping constitutional and electoral reforms. I have some reservations, due to the problems inherent in coalition governments, but I'd like to see a system of proportional representation. The danger of not doing so is that you maintain your perpetual mandate, only instead of giving it to one party, you split it between two of them, which is not much better.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:31 pm (UTC)I agree that the Conservatives tend to attract people who are, well, conservative. Which is to say homophobic and xenophobic and anti-poor and sometimes sexist. But my view is that it's more important to have a party that believes in proper legal protections and not giving any individual too much power, than it is to have good spin-doctoring to make sure nobody gets away with saying anything openly homophobic. Under Labour, the police have almost unlimited powers, and the government holds far too much digital and biological data on everyone, and all those things could far too easily be used against gay (or other marginalized) people. So although the Tories have, to say the least, a mixed track record on progressive issues, I think it's a lot safer to restore the right to a fair trial and keep the politicians from meddling in the judicial process.
I agree that a lot of people are voting for least worst options, and I would really like to see an electable party I could wholeheartedly believe in! And yes, the endless oscillation between two very similar and generally bad parties needs to go, but I don't quite have a handle on what would make the system better.
I share your concerns about the Lib Dems. They are very good at sounding good, but having seen them sharing power in Scotland, in practice they did very little to curb Labour's awfulness. (What happened in Westmorland and Lonsdale, by the way?)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-23 05:09 pm (UTC)The thing was, the message they were selling locally, in the rural and traditionally-conservative-voting constituency, was very different to the message they were selling nationally. And to a degree, I can accept that. Party ideologies are complicated, and it's right to try to promote the parts of your beliefs that are most likely to be appealing to your potential voters.
At the time, though, I was a member of the Lib Dems, as I'd been a strong supporter of them previously and figured I could do worse than putting my money where my mouth was. This meant I got a lot of the internal party literature through the post, encouraging me to travel up to Westmorland and be involved in the campaigning. And the message I got very strongly from this was "let's say whatever it takes and do whatever it takes, so long as we win".
The face of the lib dems is all very much about how they're about honesty and openness and anti-spin and all sorts of other things that are important issues to me. I'd be more inclined to vote for someone who said they were going to do something I disliked a little who I actually believed than someone who said they were going to do something I liked but who I didn't trust at all and worried they might do something I disliked a lot. The problem is that I don't believe that that face of the lib dems is in any way real.
Which is the big problem with this election, really. I don't believe and don't trust any of the three main parties, and that means that everything they're saying and everything that they're putting in their manifestos is essentially meaningless to me.
I think that what I'd really like to see would be some way for manifestos to be made binding. Not that I don't accept that unexpected events come up that makes it necessary to change plans, but that I would like to see the number of promises that politicians make reduced. I'd be much more comfortable with "we intend to do this, but only if that happens, and contingent on the other" than an outright promise of "we will definitely do this". I think that when promises are made, there should be accountability.
I suspect that our concerns about Labour are similar, but coming from different directions. The root cause of the problem that I have is that I see the current government as wanting to control everything. On the one hand, this leads to the erosion of civil liberties and personal rights, as they try to control individuals' lives. On the other hand, it leads to targets and quotas and league tables and doctors and teachers and police spending half their time filling out paperwork. I see the two as very closely related and both extremely undesirable. I want the government to get their noses out of everyone else's business and let people just get on with things.
In both cases, the end result is people obeying the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit. If you treat people like children, they start acting like children. If you treat people like criminals, they start acting like criminals. And that's what I think this government has done.
Of all the remotely plausible results of this election, the one I'm hoping for is a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, with a focus on little government and generally getting the government out of places where it doesn't belong. I think that both parties generally have the right instinct on that sort of thing, and I hope that a Lib Dem influence would help prevent any outright bigotry and prejudice from the Tories.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:04 am (UTC)Civil Partnerships good. Section 28 bad. Same people, just 13 years older.
Vote Lib Dem, but not in Bermondsey.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 06:11 am (UTC)"I would like to say thank you to my local MP, Mr Simon Hughes, and his team who gave me the chance to live and made a miracle happen when he heard that my life was in serious danger and asked the Home Office to suspend my deportation in December 2006. I would not be here if it hadn’t been for his intervention. He was here for me then and he was here for me again when I was eventually sent back to the UK in April this year. I do not know if I would have been granted my refugee status without him."
He inspired a friend of mine to become a human rights lawyer so that she could fight to save people from deportation to their deaths. He is such a wonderful person.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 07:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 08:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:01 am (UTC)It's a shame that it took Simon Hughes 23 years to apologise for the dirtiest Lib Dem trick since Jeremy Thorpe tried to have his ex-lover shot, and that it only happened because the NOTW was about to out him.
The apology quoted in the Pink News is a total cop out: "Mr Hughes told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "I hope that there will never be that sort of campaign again. I have never been comfortable about the whole of that campaign, as Peter knows, and I said that to him in the past . . . Where there were things that were inappropriate or wrong, I apologise for that."
Obviously it was all the campaign's fault! He probably didn't even know about any of it!
The Mirror article is no more wide-ranging: Yesterday Mr Hughes said: "I apologise for any part I wittingly or unwittingly played. Nothing should require people to suffer the sort of abuse and indignity that he did."
Hardly a resounding "I'm sorry, and let me make it up to the community that I helped to stigmatise for more than 20 years".
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:25 am (UTC)I just don't see the point in refusing to vote for an MP who has spent his parliamentary career campaigning for the rights of LGBT people, particularly queer asylum seekers, because of a homophobic campaign which happened before I was born and before they was a single openly gay MP at Westminster.
The 1980s were nasty. A lot of queer people attacked each other to protect themselves and get ahead. I don't think it's very productive to still hold it against each other.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:37 pm (UTC)And yes, I'm against Section 28 (obviously!), but I am not so convinced that Civil Partnerships are good. I want full legal marriage, so that my Jewish community has the same right to marry same-sex as opposite sex couples. And I want what the French have had for 15 years, a civil union that has nothing to do with marriage, and is open to any people who want to combine their finances and be eachother's next-of-kin, without having having to fit into the mid-20th century mould of monogamous, heterosexual, romantic pair-bonding.
I'm seriously contemplating voting Lib Dem, but I do think it's more urgent to restore civil liberties, and I'm not sure whether voting Conservative has a better practical chance of toppling this Labour government.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:43 am (UTC)My impression of the state of the country under Labour is that they have been economically liberal but have centralised everything else. In doing so, they have also demanded (of the sections they do control) that they be financially efficient. This lead to services not geared towards what they should have been doing (for example, repairing a road properly is transportationally efficient and costs less in the long term, but patching it so it's ok is financially more efficient as it costs less now) and huge bureaucracy.
My impression of what the Conservatives are promoting is to decentralise everything. This would have the benefit of solving the bureaucracy issue. However, they haven't indicated how they would solve the problems of the institutions being financially efficient and therefore not geared towards purpose and propose to increase the drive to financial efficiency even further. The most probable outcome is therefore that services will continue to not function or will get worse, but at least they'll be a lot cheaper.
Finally, Thatcher is still very much relevant. Reagan and Thatcher are both attributed with the birth and fostering of neoliberal economic policies (such as those followed by the current government). These are the policies that caused the financial system to melt down and the Credit Crunch is commonly regarded as the final death knell of Thatcher/Reagan and the Washington Consensus model of economics. There are segments of the Conservatives who are still loyal to neoliberal ideas and who think they would still work, as if the Credit Crunch had never happened. I understand that Cameron's rise to power was a direct result of the anti-Thatcher faction gaining control of the Conservatives. Unfortunately, he's probably still having to appeal to the Thatcherites for support, much like McCain appealed to the Reaganites in his party during the United States election by embracing most of W. Bush's policies (even though he was selected because he was a reforming Republican candidate).
I hope that still manages to be clear. I sacrificed clarity for brevity. I can prove the first part semi-mathematically if you would like.
* note: I assume certain externalities. For example, the current price of oil is low and undermines all environmental and climate change initiatives. If the economy recovers, oil shoots up and the recovery falters because it uses oil. But, the price of oil crossing a certain threshold changes the externality, making the free market pro-climate change (as oil becomes too expensive and business adjusts to other sources of energy). At this point, the Conservative policy of decentralisation becomes environmentally friendly and viable as a longer term environmental strategy and will not cause the recovery to falter.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 04:10 pm (UTC)Whether Thatcher caused the Credit Crunch I really don't know. I think you have a good point that Cameron, whose views generally seem to make sense to me, may have to appeal to an "Old Con", ie Thatcherite base. You seem to be fairly aligned with
Your argument in this comment makes me lean more towards taking the risk of voting Lib Dem, and hoping that doesn't just lead to the continuation of Labour dominance.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-23 12:02 am (UTC)Before going further, I need to declare an interest as I am involved in campaigning for the Liberal Democrats (well, ok, I deliver leaflets for my father who is a ward councillor). My economic summary was apolitical and it was not aimed at swaying your vote. However, since you brought it up that I may have contributed to this, I would feel very uncomfortable if I did not mention it at this point.
Regarding voting, I suggest that you should look up the previous results in your constituency from last time. How far behind the party you wish to vote for is compared to the incumbent party represents (to a very shaky first approximation) the level of risk your vote has of not counting towards a result. Also be aware that your MP may have a large personal vote that is immune to local and national tides. As a personal plea I'd ask that if you have local elections as well, don't use the national election as an excuse to decide who to vote for in the local: every party is organised to a greater or lesser extent in each local authority, and every party (yes, every party, including the Lib Dems) has their complete incompetents. Don't let the incompetents run your council.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 09:38 am (UTC)The blame for many things can be laid at the feet of the Labour party (I think they did ok in their first term, and should have been kicked out after their second), but the Iraq war is not, imo, one of them. It is not conceivable that the Tories would not have gone to war, and whilst we might wish that Labour made different decisions, you also have to be realistic about what could have happened.
Of course, what has happened subsequent to the invasion in both Iraq and Afghanistan is an awful mess. I remain sceptical that the Tories would be much better, but your mileage may vary.
Still, my position on this is pragmatic : pick the least worst choice, then decide whether to vote tactically or idealistically to achive your aim.
Reading the manifesto of each party is fundamentally only ammunition to choose which party to trust. It is not, by itself, the deciding factor. All three parties have broken manifesto commitments, and the manifesto contains no weight in law.
I will be voting Lib Dem. Not because I love them as a party - I actually think they have lost some of their cohesion they used to have - but because they are the least worst choice. There is absolutely no way I will give Labour a mandate to continue some of their scary policies. I do not trust the Tories - they're promising anything they can simply to get into power and are (fairly effectively) hiding ingrained attitudes in their party members that I disagree with (the one compliment I will provide to Cameron is that he and his party have managed to keep most of the rank and file 'on message' - this is impressive, even if it is a lie)).
None of the smaller parties deserve encouraging with a vote, in my view.
It is too much to hope that the Lib Dems will get in. An idealised situation is probably a Tory/Lib Dem hung parliament. In this 'ideal' scenario, some of Labour's nastier policies (ID Cards) are killed off, the LDs smooth the edges off some Tory policies, put forward their own, and electoral reform arrives at last.
(the flip side is there is lots of arguing and nothing gets done. Let's hope that doesn't happen).
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 04:17 pm (UTC)Regarding Iraq, I take your point that the Tories have not been a consistently anti-war party. This (and the racism) is pretty much why I was unable to vote for them at the last election, even though at that stage I really wanted Labour out. I do believe that a Conservative government would have respected the wishes of parliament in making a decision whether to go war, and would not have promulgated those appalling lies about weapons of mass destruction.
I do agree with you that a Lib-Con coalition is the least bad outcome. I have written to the Lib candidate here and said, ok, I know Nick Clegg has this big thing about how the LibDems could win the election if only all the fence-sitters and tactical voters would vote for them, but realistically, you're not going to win nationally and you're vanishingly unlikely to win a Labour safe seat. So please tell me a bit more about what plans you have for coalition? If they can give me a satisfactory answer and assure me they won't just be bolstering Labour like they did in Scotland, then I'm willing to vote for them.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-23 09:40 am (UTC)First, it could be spun as an admission that the party is not going to win.
Second, and vastly more important, it depends entirely on the result. A situation where party X is only just able to form a minority government and requires strong support from another party, or where a coalition is the only realistic option (perhaps because no-one can form a minority government), is entirely different from a party that is only just a minority and can squeak by with support from the extreme minority parties.
The current seat total of MPs who aren't from 'the big three' is 38 across 9 parties compared to 63 for the Lib Dems - who will grow their support in the election. The Tories, when John Major was PM and they dropped to a minority government, had to court parties like the Ulster Unionists to push through legislation. Labour has had to do similar with specifically contentious legislation when not all their party voted with them.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-23 06:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 12:47 pm (UTC)I would be unhappy with a (more) right-wing economy, but I don't think it would be the end of the world. On the other hand I think that a Tory government would halt social progress and possibly even reverse it. They have already said that they are going to chuck people off benefits who refuse work (with apparently little regard to illness, especially mental illness) for instance.
Not that I think Labour are grrrrrreat, far from it. But I just don't think the Tory "change" is going to be for the better.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 04:23 pm (UTC)The benefits issue, with the refusing to work stuff and the really nasty disability politics, is probably my biggest reason against voting Conservative. I have written to the Con PPC here asking about it; she's young, female, Asian and a defector from the Liberal party, so I have high hopes for her as a candidate. But if she can't give me a decent answer about the disability issue I think I'll have to vote LibDem and just pray that doesn't strengthen Labour nationally and the BNP locally.
parliamentary reform
Date: 2010-04-22 03:49 pm (UTC)you say you're not really interested in electoral reform and then agonise about whether or not to vote lib dem and risk getting a labour government returned. surely, the glaring problem in uk politics is the ludicrously undemocratic electoral system that forces us all to play this game. if you want to see a liberal democracy we need serious constitutional reform. this means not only some form of electoral reform but also a separation of the executive from the parliament. at the very least we need to remove the prime minister's power of patronage by restricting the size of cabinet and giving more power to the parliament so there is some point in not being in the executive.
Love,
Jacob
Re: parliamentary reform
Date: 2010-04-22 04:02 pm (UTC)What do you mean by ? What would that consist of and how would it help? Less personal power for the PM sounds like a good thing to me, but beyond that I don't know.
Re: parliamentary reform
Date: 2010-04-22 04:49 pm (UTC)The point is without serious reform we have little chance of gaining and keeping liberty and justice. Plus, the present system is unjust and undemocratic and that neither Tories or Labour want to change it is because they are both, whatever they try and say, anti-democratic.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-22 04:07 pm (UTC)I agree that the Conservatives tend to attract people who are, well, conservative. Which is to say homophobic and xenophobic and anti-poor and sometimes sexist. But my view is that it's more important to have a party that believes in proper legal protections and not giving any individual too much power, than it is to have good spin-doctoring to make sure nobody gets away with saying anything openly homophobic. Under Labour, the police have almost unlimited powers, and the government holds far too much digital and biological data on everyone, and all those things could far too easily be used against gay (or other marginalized) people. So although the Tories have, to say the least, a mixed track record on progressive issues, I think it's a lot safer to restore the right to a fair trial and keep the politicians from meddling in the judicial process.
You have a short memory. It was Howard who brought in the 94 criminal justice act which strikes me as the start of the gradual erosion of civil liberties and the hand over of power from the judiciary to the police.
It strikes me that you have confused the conservative party with neo-liberal political thought. Nozick might be all for individual liberty but the tory party certainly aren't and never have been. Even dear old Maggie T had Tebbit in her government and I think it's plausable that she took on the unions not because of any liberal economic stuff but because of good old fashioned british class warfare. Between the end of the second world war and Thatcher the working class interest dominated British politics and Thatcher smashed that power base. I'm sure its more complicated than that but Thatcher is not so obviously a Thatcherite.
Love, Jacob