Now that politics have focused down on the election, I find myself thoroughly demotivated.
There is a substantial percentage of the population who wish to see a very early withdrawal from the occupation of Afghanistan, who want genuinely firm measures against the casino banking economy, who are very sceptical about the direction the European Union has gone, and who do not want to waste many scores of billions of dollars on a nuclear submarine system which can wipe out half the world’s population instantaneously and the rest shortly thereafter.
Yet the great “leader’s debate” will be between three people who all follow the same pro-bank bailout, pro-Afghan war, pro-EU and pro-Trident consensus. The political differences between them are insignificant – they are engaged in a Mr Smarm contest. They are not even good at that – Brown is an aggressive churl, Cameron is comfortable only working alongside his team of fellow toffs, Nick Clegg seeks to avoid offending the establishment consensus at all costs.
Only in Wales and Scotland do any significant number of people have a hope of electing anybody who stands outside the cosy Westmnister consensus on key issues.
To work, democracy must present the electorate with real choices.
Our democracy does not work.
“You like it when science is wrong; and dislike arguing facts… no wonder you prefer to vote in secret.” – “JimmyGiro”.
Okay, so I’m a sucker. And annoyed.
I do, however, say what I think over the name I was born with, and will vote with, rather than flinging accusations of cowardice from behind a made-up name.
(And, You’re right, dreoilin, the language stuff was a complete digression. Taking all this seriously is beyond my reach just now, I can’t see that the whole sub-subject isn’t a complete digression too).
“I do, however, say what I think over the name I was born with, and will vote with, rather than flinging accusations of cowardice from behind a made-up name.”
So you will renounce secret voting then !?
If Justice should be seen to be done, then shouldn’t democracy? A secret ballot undermines the open integrity of democracy, in the same way that a secret court hearing, undermines the integrity of Justice from the family courts.
Following on from the last thread, and the fact that liberal democrats drop to only 16% in the latest opinion poll, I’m still haunted by the tragedy of Charles Kennedy, and what he is alleged to have said in November 2004.
I watched the debacle that masqueraded for a democratic debate in the House of Commons in March 2003, just before war was declared. Kennedy was continually shouted down by both sides of the house during his speech, and the speaker did little to assist him. How he could have left there thinking this was still a democratic system escaped me then, and escapes me now.
If this election does bring about a hung parliament and a change to our parliamentary system then that in itself is an achievement. But freedom of speech in parliament is surely a cornerstone of democracy, which must be addressed with equal tenacity.
Good post, Glenn. What has happened to the Libdems in recent years is a mystery. Like you, I didn’t renew my membership, and there must be many thousands like us.
We hear all about Tony Blair’s biography… why doesn’t Charles Kennedy tell all – I’m sure he’d have a great story to tell. Oh yes – and why haven’t both he and Ian Duncan-Smith been called to give evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry? They were both “allegedly” misled in parliament…
Cheer up Craig. There’s always something to look forward to, even it means dropping a few things you previously enjoyed. Crazy things will happen tomorrow, like time travellers dropping in from another planet, and you’ll find there’s all sorts of things which will make you laugh and want to go out into the world. We all get a bit droopy sometimes.
Thanks peacewisher…. what I’d suggest is that – if nothing else – one contacts each of the major party candidates soon and express interest in supporting them, if they support your views on an immediate end to our adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tell them you know nobody who wants more blood and treasure spent there, and they have our support if they go on the record to oppose it. If they do not – your vote will go to the candidate that does support your views.
This is the time to do it – they won’t care after the election.
Politicians might estimate that for every person who bothers to contact them, there are probably tens of thousands who agree with the point at hand, but do not bother to contact them. Make your views known, while we still can.
It seems to me that the BNP and its divisive policies is part of the problem for Britain today.
“It seems to me that the BNP and its divisive policies is part of the problem for Britain today.”
Do you mean, Barbara, their proposal for immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan?
Or an English national assembly to match the Welsh, Irish and Scottish legislatures?
Or the intention to devolve power to the lowest appropriate level of government?
Or the plan to end mass immigration as desired, according to polls, by a great majority of the population?
Or the plan to improve the quality of education by focusing on academic disciplines, not social conditioning?
Or is there something else that you find divisive?
“Or is there something else that you find divisive?”
Myself I find it funny that their brethren in the U.S. are disenfranchised white nationalist nutjobs like David Duke.
Seems about right that Griffin and friends are an insurgent force in British politics.
Britain is fucked.
Ha,
Larry the agent provocateur pops up again, with a characteristic non-sequitur.
But considering the point you raise, why do you say Britain is fucked, and who has been doing the fucking? It’s no good talking in vaporous generalizations. If you want an argument, you need to say what you are talking about.
“On not voting at all, because it might only encourage them or somesuch, consider what Tony Benn says on the subject. People died to give us the right to vote, they struggled with getting us the vote, were beaten, starved and imprisoned for it. It’s our duty to vote”.
Yes–and even while he was saying this, the last vestiges of our “community spirit” was ebbing away–usurped by the rush to personal greed.
“And most of us do nothing, leaving the likes of Margeret Becket to claim after the last election that the low turnout was on account of everyone being so happy with Blair/ New Labour, that we didn’t want to change anything”.
Yes–this is what they do–it’s called spin.
Why vote? Try demonstrating first in great numbers, to change the voting system. The democratic process, as it stands, just plays into their hands–and time wears all away.
Craig Murray
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/16/trident-liberal-democrats-nick-clegg
There are of course those in the party who are pushing for full disarmament, too.
As for the banks – the Lib Dems are in favour of a Glass Steagall type Act, a 10% levy on profits (not financial transactions, as that would be regressive), government representatives sitting on the boards of nationalised banks to ensure far better decisions are made about their future, bonuses banned and banks forced to lend to businesses.
We ask a huge amount of our brave servicemen and women. But they have never been properly rewarded with the pay and conditions they deserve. They are sent into conflict without proper equipment, have to put up with sub-standard housing and have been stretched to the limit by two wars. Too much MoD money is frittered away through poor decisions and waste.
Liberal Democrats would make the welfare of the men and women of our armed forces a priority. We would speed up forces’ family housing renovation and ensure that no serviceman or woman was sent into harm’s way on less basic pay than the starting salaries of emergency services personnel. We would spend taxpayers’ money more effectively on equipping our armed forces properly for the military tasks of today and tomorrow.
Labour has let down our Armed Forces. The quality of family housing is disgraceful. They have been stretched them to breaking point through two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and suffer from a lack of equipment. The Conservatives attack Labour, but many problems stem from their time in Government.
According to the Government’s own report, the Ministry of Defence is £36bn in the red. Yet Labour and the Conservatives are in denial about the long-term impact of this problem. The Strategic Defence Review now underway must take a long hard look at Britain’s defence and security priorities.
Britain needs to move away from a Cold War-style posture towards a more relevant armed forces structure. If we are to continue to have the capability to be a force for good in the world we need far greater cooperation with our NATO and EU partners.
Liberal Democrats do not believe that the UK can afford the billions of pounds the Government wants to spend on a like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Full-scale Trident is a cold war system that we no longer need nor can afford. We believe that less expensive alternatives should be considered.
Poor BNP. It must be desperate to so desperately want to sound appealing, and normal; but the skeletons are rattling round like castanets. I’ve always wondered, doesn’t the whole Nazi uniform, Sieg Heil thing bother you? They weren’t the good guys, you know. And they lost.
Keith, if that is so, why does Nick Clegg not come out with it and denounces the trident update as negative, unecessarry and invalid under Lib dem leadership. Why are the Lib dems cow towing to the establishment and the revamped cold war rethorics?
If he stands up and sounds like Bown and Cameron, he will equally rile the public, he is supposed to be in opposition.
If he wants to be pragmatic nd find a party with equal views to his own, why does he not eshew this debate, announce a ten point coalition with the Greens and watch the two main parties tear each other apart with niceties?
The Lib Dems in Scotland have demonstrated that they are simply a life-support system for New Labour. They refused to enter a coalition with the Nats, although there there was much more overlap between Nat & LD manifestoes than between Labour & LD. When it came to the crunch, toeing the establishment line was much more important than fussy little matters of principle. The general LD approach seems to be to strike a position a little different from the Labservatives, but not so terribly different as to incur the wrath of the fourth estate.
Having said that, the best option for anyone living in England is to vote LD. It may be true as RR says, that the Labour conservatives might be less awful than the Tory conservatives, but surely it is unthinkable to give Brown and his ghastly legion anything that they might interpret as an endorsement of their record. There is an outside chance – a very slender outside chance – that a LD balance of power could lead to the introduction of PR. I know that that’s not a lot, but it’s a start and it is possible – didn’t someone once say that politics was the science of the possible?
Concerning race, it is interesting to note that there is more genetic variation among members of the same race than exists between members of different races. Apart from that, I’m hoping that Larry is going to do us a favour and ask canspeccy for his two best pieces of evidence that fascism is good for us. From what I’ve seen of it from our present government, I’m somewhat underwhelmed.
Ingo: corporate sponsorship? Blackmail? Personal lack of knowledge/experience? But of course I don’t know. Has anyone ever asked Nick Clegg why he is failing to speak out? Good plan, by the way.
I think what we need is a panel of sanctimonious, haggard, masturbating bloggers to run the country.
thanks technicolour, he strikes me as being slippery, a sort of European thinking person, who had to adjust his possibilities due to the antiquarian system that has produced such shambolics.
Which paln do you mean, the TV programme that puts the audience in charge called ‘you decide’, or the idea of a Rainbow coalition, something I have been flogging to death during the last few weeks?
It will not work as Lib Dems and Greens have too many local animosities in the cupboards, dare I mention target to win.
Larry
Thanks for using the word insurgent in its proper sense viz. re-surgent.
I look forward to the US reverting to its
original plan to make the Taliban a re-surgent force in Islam, when it suited them to attack USSR.
Alan Campbell
Like you, you mean. Clegg wants personal fame by linking hands with one of the other two in a hung parliament. He can’t do that if he attacks the illegal invasions and trident. So he will lose any support he has accumulated anyway. I think the bloggers are streets ahead of the dumbos in charge.
“I think the bloggers are streets ahead of the dumbos in charge.”
Yeah, it’d be great if a load of Year Zero, social engineers like you were in charge. All these stupid members of the public. We should send them to special re-education camps, shouldn’t we?
Absolutely, march, nothing a benign dictator couldn’t muster. These free thinking men and women need re educating, I mean, who the hell was Thomas Paine anyway, some Norfolk flunky who just happened to have the gift of the gab… bring back Robert kett all is forgiven.
As with all things in life no political group will ever reflect ones personal point of view.You have to seek out the party that ticks most boxes.The most important issue as Craig has stated many times is a fair voting system that can give all parties a chance.The Liberal Democrats are the only main party to support this.
the only way to really make a point at these elections is to vote for independants.
ANything sort of this surely perpetuates the fraud that is UK democracy.
Oh pish to PR. Even Brown is muttering about it again. Holland has it and where has it got them, except into the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ and some crazily legitimised far-right nuttery? Ireland has the STV, and what has it got them, except corrupt politicians and even deeper into bankruptcy?
im sure this group could put together a checlist to pass to politicians to garnish support.
i.e
1) Will you activiley seek that only domiciled citizens may become politicians/lords, or that existing lords who become non domiciled lose the right to attend the house of lords and have no voting rights?
this list would be great, but would exist as some form of contract between voter and local politician.
Ingo: I meant the Green/Lib Dem plan. Sad about petty disputes. Think you’re right about Clegg; disconnected and disempowered as a result. Mind you, scrapping Trident, say, would mean directly challenging the UK’s allegiance to the US, and lose the UK its seat on the Security Council (I’m pretty sure), so it would be big talk from anyone. Maybe during a Lib Dem second term, though.
“a checlist to pass to politicians to garnish support.”
Ya want a bit of floppy lettuce on top of that ?
BNP – “Or is there something else that you find divisive?”
How about the way the courts had to explain to them that it isn’t legal for a political party to have a constution restricting membership to a selected racial grouping ?
I (now) think I was wrong, last night. My thought was, back off a while on the theories of the day before reaching firm drastic conclusions on their application to the rest of the world. But the ‘racial theory’ of the ’30s had several decades behind it, let alone the South African implementation.
“As with all things in life no political group will ever reflect ones personal point of view.You have to seek out the party that ticks most boxes.”
That’s the trouble I have. In isolation, I’ve heard almost all of the parties offering things I might want to vote for. But, to vote for any of those parties would also have to be taken as an endorsement of things I will not endorse. As witness, the BNP stuff above.
How about, vote for several out of a vast list of candidates, each only representing a policy on a single issue ?