Aerothorn on 12/11/2006 at 17:35

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I don't get that myself - I mean Britain has a parliamentary system, so voting third-party isn't necessarilly a total waste as it is in the USA.

Myoldnamebroke on 12/11/2006 at 21:09

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1) We have a parliamentary system so you vote for the individual members. There are many fantastic Labour MPs that do good work, voting against them because of Blair would be a mistake

2) The 'third party' vote is usually still a 'waste' - most constituencies are fought between two parties, depending on the region. Sometimes it's Lab / Con, sometimes it's Lib / Lab, sometimes it's Lib / Con, but very rarely all three.

3) One vote, many issues. It doesn't matter what Blair + co get up to, there's no way I'm voting for the Tories. Cameron's current bunch are one of the worst we've had in a long time - at least Howard had the guts to admit he was a scary right-winger, Dave is dressing it up behind a friendly face. The Lib Dems, having briefly positioned themselves as a genuine alternative to Labour under Kennedy, are moving back to becoming a proper Liberal party. It's still progressive, but many people want to vote for the party they identify with philosophically - you might have thought Blair lied about Iraq but that doesn't mean you automatically want to vote Lib Dem.

It might be sickening, but it's the reality of a representative democracy - for people that really care about politics, it's hard to actively put a check on your party at the general election. It's the impression vaguely interested swing voters form from the media that determines elections. Everyone else has to engage with their party internally to shift the bits you don't like, but at the ballot box there's little option but to support them.

If that was how it was really done, politics would probably be in a more healthy state - when everyone gets too focused on voting at the expensive of the greater involvement a proper democracy requires, you start to see the general disengagement from the established channels of politics that we're experiencing at the moment. People are politically concerned but we've reduced our system to pitching up every 4 or 5 years - it's no wonder everyone says 'they're all the same blah blah blah'. It's not just up to the 'parties' as some kind of nebulous entity to change to suit 'the people' - people need to actually get involved and make their parties what they want them to be. Rather than just grumping, expecting some kind of magical, personally tailored to you manifesto, realise that parties can be and are broad churches of ideas and vehicles to foster debate rather than just something to look at every now and again and shrug as if they don't concern you.

Bah!

Chimpy Chompy on 13/11/2006 at 00:40

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Hmm are you guys really thinking Cameron's suddenly going to cast off his cloak of +2 niceness and bust out propsoals for massive spending cuts? Seems unlikely.



Haven't read into that one yet, but I'd want to know if his own answer was "let charity help with it" or "certain bodes should spend the money they've already got more efficiently".

Or possibly he is in fact an evil bastard and will turn into some kind of TORY MUM-RAA floating around closing hospitals to poor people and shooting unemployment beams from his eyes. Or something. I'm not going to be put off voting for his guys just cos of people crying REMEMBER THATCHER, but I'm not yet sure what he actually stands for. Hugs and helpfulness, or an aguywhoplaysthief utopia? We will see!

Paz on 13/11/2006 at 00:51

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Obviously this is an opinion piece (and an Indie one at that), but it's where I picked up the "NO YOUTH CLUBS, GRR" tip - (http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=998)

Not entirely clear on Cameron's "angle", granted.

However, I think he hardly needs to throw off a disguise as he's pretty blatantly an uber-Tory. His actions say as much.

Are you thinking what we're thinking? Yeah Dave, I'm thinking you wrote the flimsiest election manifesto of recent times; one which appealed purely to the instincts of fear, greed and selfishness and I think you should be called out on it. Daily.

Paz on 13/11/2006 at 01:15

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He wrote the 2005 Tory Party manifesto. That was about as Tory as it gets.

You're quite right that there isn't much to go on, so that's basically what I'm taking my cue from. It's the closest thing I've seen to a written document outlining his ideas. Of course it's not perfect, because he was no doubt writing-to-order at least partially. Still, he didn't object to the content much, did he?

Confusingly, his (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/david_cameron/witney) voting record has him as a moderate-to-lefty ... although you have to take into account the overwhelming "well I have to vote against the government, I'm leader of the opposition" factor there.

Essentially, I think his true views would lean much closer to the manifesto (the document for potential government) than his current vagueness. He's just hanging in there for an election or two until people are so bored of Labour that the Tories get back in almost automatically, regardless of what they think, do or say - which to be honest is probably a fairly solid tactic.

Unless someone can turn the Labour ship around in a fairly substantial way. Although they're a bit screwed because people like me are going "oh woe, they've become horrible righties!" and voices from the other side are saying "they're so weak on crime and politically correct and they love Europe too much, the damn lefties!" so, uh, what to do, eh?

I think once you've hung on to power for over a decade, you're dead in the water whatever you try.