This election like recent votes, will be decided by a mindset that I just don't think people have cottoned on to. Folk who are doing okay for themselves just don't care about anyone else. The old social ties that bound us together began to be dismantled in the 1980s and now that process has come to fruition.
Ironically for a party that stand for traditional values, the Conservatives are benefitting from one of those values being utterly torn up and discarded; that of religion. If anyone attends a religious service in the UK today, chances are they are from a recent immigrant background. Active Christianity is a negligible force in the UK. No one believes in heaven and eternal life. We all know we're here for a one-shot deal on earth and this has contributed to the sensibility of making the most of your one terrestrial spin. People don't care about the future beyond their lifetime. The state of the planet; the preservation of a Welfare State and the NHS in particular (if people can afford private health cover, then they're not bothered about the NHS, despite the fact that it will still bear the onus of treating their cancer or stroke rather than a private hospital); talking about pressing the nuclear button in a way that no one has broached since the 1980s, where's the future in that?
But surely people are concerned with the legacy to pass on to their children you say? Well rather than a class divide, we now have an age divide. As long as you can leave money and or a house to your children, then you credit that is legacy enough. Parental job done. The planet and our welfare can just go and rot, our kids will be buffered by money just as we are. That's why the dementia tax caused such uproar, it threatened financial heirlooms. With rising house values and protected pension locks, the aged have done very well in the 21st Century, despite low interest returns on their savings. Their children and grandchildren on the other hand, have seen the prospect of home ownership disappear, their education cost them dear when their parents probably had the state pay for theirs and a shrinking job market with no jobs for life anymore and all manner of exploitation such as unpaid interns, zero-hours contracts and the like.
People just don't care about anyone other than themselves. That's why they vote Tory who service this sensibility. The sooner you realise that, then you can stop railing ineffectually about media bias and start to think creatively how to combat this.
Showing posts with label Conservatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservatives. Show all posts
Friday, 2 June 2017
Friday, 12 May 2017
None Of The Below - The UK Parliamentary Election, Questions for Candidates
Less than a month to the election and to date I've received two leaflets from the Conservative Party and nothing from any of the other 4 candidates, but that may be due to the leaflets not yet having been printed as the deadline for candidates to announce their standing was only yesterday. The Parliamentary seat I live in is a marginal; in the last 4 elections, two have been won by Labour and two by Conservative. Currently it's number 46 on the Labour target list, which they would need to win a majority at the election. So there's very definitely something to play for in this seat. Yet I suspect the odd leaflet aside, as for the past 4 elections I will not see hair nor hide of any Party court my vote in person. I work part-time, so it's not even a case that I am always out when the canvassers are on the trail. No, this is just the faceless nature of UK politics in the twenty-first century. I've had more visits across the years from jehovah's Witnesses than Parliamentary party candidates. And this is in a competitive seat remember...
So I'm just going to offer you the questions I would pose each candidate from the 5 standing parties were they actually to show their face. I am not going to offer their responses, if they want, their parties or supporters can respond in the comments section. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm not going to proceed along my belief that the election result is a foregone conclusion.
Conservatives
When did you cease being a progressive party? Everything about you is reactionary. It's as if you yearn for a return to a vision of 1950s Britain, certainly your leader seems to come from that age (which is odd as she was only 4 years old when the sixties commenced). Mrs Thatcher was a reaction to the politics and freedoms of the 1960s (as was Ronald Reagan in the US). May seems to be a reaction to 1970s Britain, which no longer exits (not even in Labour Party leader's Jeremy Corbyn's vision for Britain), yet that is the picture the Conservatives are painting of the current Labour leadership. I see no progressive policies or aspirations, other than a vague notion of Britain getting its identity back once Brexit is concluded. But can you define what that identity actually is? The notion of a singular identity in our culturally diverse 21st century nation is obsolescent. Former Conservative Prime Minister John Major's appeal for a return to 'Family Values' was an unmitigated disaster and contributed to his defeat & the Conservatives' exile during the Blair years, partly because no one could define Family Values and moral hypocrisy by Conservative MPs undermined any possible notion of it being instituted.
So what apart from an all out assault on the Welfare State, the NHS, and a reinstitution of selective education do you stand for? A reaction to the post-1945 Labout government which set up the modern Britain in other words. All under your mantra of balancing the books, instead of going after corporations and rich individuals who are not paying their fair share of tax. I think part of the reason for that is you don't want to drive such 'patriots' into tax exile, just in case Brexit turns out to be a disaster for the economy, so your sole response will be to set Britain up as a tax haven, so you need these people to stay onside in the interim.
Labour
You know Jeremy Corbyn's policies such as nuclear disarmament, greater equality of pay, certain re-nationalisations of some failing industries such as rail and energy provision, are ones I could fall into line with very easily. However there is no way I could bring myself to back a man who has palpably shown no leadership qualities and surrounds himself with political cronies of no ability whatsoever, such as John McDonnell and Diane Abbot who hold shadow cabinet briefs in two of the most important positions, the Treasury and Home Office. No matter how visionary (or not) you are, without a great slice of political nous and the powers to persuade not your core voters, but those who are in two minds, your ideas will not take the day. Corbyn showed a complete lack of leadership during the Brexit referendum, Now I understand why Corbyn did this, after the disastrous consequences of the Scottish Independence referendum campaign, where Labour were slaughtered by their supporters for appearing on the same platforms as Conservatives, Corbyn didn't want to be seen making the same mistake for the Brexit vote. But it was a miscalculation; Labour voters were left without any rallying point, allowing UKIP to turn some of them and once you've made such a drastic move once, it's not so difficult a second and third time. Finally, his commitment to allies has seen a lamentable failure to deal with anti-Semitism within some parts of the party, his support of Ken Livingstone being testament to that. Labour has failed to either appreciate, or make clear the differences between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. In doing so, it has managed to alienate one of its steadfast support bases of London Jews who are split down the middle as to their current disposition.
So much for political praxis, what about the ideals of this visionary? In some ways the Conservative Press is right, that the programme is an echo of where Britain stood in the 1970s, which after all was the crucible from which Corbyn's ideas were formed in the field of local politics. So far from revolutionary, Labour too seem to be reactionary and hanker after a past golden age. They want to, not unreasonably in many cases, turn back many of the Conservative policies from the 80s and last seven years. But there is not much forward thinking behind these declarations of intent. I also suspect that the manifesto represents a fairly watered down version of Corbyn's true political vision, which in itself is not a criticism, since it does at least nod its head to the art of the possible and appreciating that winning power first is a key requisite to any radical change. Is Corbyn anti-capitalism? I suspect he is, and his right hand man John McDonnell is a confessed anti-capitalist Marxist. But this manifesto seeks to work within capitalist free market, merely filing off some of its rougher burs. This cuts against Corbyn's impassioned ideals and echoes so much of the failed last campaign of Ed Miliband. I see very little difference between the two and it didn't exactly go well last time round now did it?
Liberal Democrats
What do you actually stand for? The oft asked question of many recent elections. An anachronism, a vestige of a once proud party in the nineteenth century that provided us statesmen like Gladstone and Lloyd-George. Historically the Liberal Party was a rigorous free trade/ free market party, a role subsumed by today's Conservatives. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the definition of Liberalism changed; no longer freedom to do such and such, but freedom from being prevented to be able to do such and such. That is it became reactionary, defending and upholding rights that were under threat. A vital function, but one that has been unable to sustain them as a meaningful party of power. So much so that they jumped into bed with the ideological antipodes of the Conservatives in 2010 to form a coalition, in which their only claim was that they managed to shave off some of the rougher burs of socially punishing austerity measures. The party of putting your finger in the dyke to hold back the flood...
But now as they look to rebuild after their massacre for joining up with the Conservatives, they have eked out a genuine position, the only one of the three parties to commit to reversing the Brexit decision. A reactionary position disguised as a radical one. They want a return to the status quo previous to June 2016. I was a Remainer. I would never vote Liberal on that one policy. First the people have spoken, however misguidedly I credit it to be and it is fundamentally undemocratic to go against their popular will formally expressed in a ballot. Many other feel like me, or just accept that we've got to get on with Brexit and so the numbers do not stack up for the Liberals in their calculations. What else do they stand for? I couldn't tell you and even if I could, their recent record is they could tear it up in an instant if they make a similar political calculation to participate in power sharing through a coalition. Besides, it's never sharing, and the junior partner always gets punished in the following election - either your claimed strength for moderating the majority party's nastier ideas is taken as interfering and preventing the business of strong government, or people just think why vote Liberal, we may as well vote Conservative and get a proper government rather than a half-baked coalition, which is exactly what happened in 2015.
Green Party
I almost voted Green in the last election and in a way they most closely match my personal vision of society. except, like Labour I'm not quite sure how much they do. Are they a fully anti-capitalist party, which in truth is really the only way a genuine environmentalist party can be, or are they plying a gradual transformation to build up support? A genuinely Green economy would be so radical a shift from our current state of affairs, it would be a revolution of values, of employment, of well economy. Have they articulated that end point of their vision at all, let alone the manner of the transition to that? No, is the answer.
UK Independence Party
(They're not getting their party logo, I despise them so).
Now that Brexit has been secured, with the two main parties committed to delivering it, what reason do you have for even existing? None. Your spurious claim that you are needed to steer through a satisfactory vision of Brexit is a) subsumed by the Conservatives who can act without concern for your views and b) would you then just fade away after Brexit is complete in March 2019, no of course you wouldn't, cos unlike the outsider politicians you claim to be, you still lust after hanging on to what moderate power and influence you wield.
This purposelessness is doubly so in London, which being a cosmopolitan, diverse, outward facing city, has consistently rejected your inward, homogenous, chauvinistic values. Then there are the personal beliefs of your leader, who baldly states that the NHS should be privatised, that climate change does not exist, that the endemic sexism expressed by former (ie "sacked) members of the party is also shared by your glorious leader.
So, there you have it, the sort of discussion I might engage in with any party candidate were they to show up at my door. If they did, do you think they'd engage me in a debate of these points? No, me neither. They just want to tick or cross your name on their voting intention list. They're not going to devote/waste twenty minutes it would take to even skirt these issues. Even Jehovah's Witnesses will take the time to engage me in discussion of their beliefs for twenty minutes (in fact it's hard to break off debate with them, but that's my fault for engaging with them in the first place)> So I will most likely spoil my ballot paper by writing "none of the above" across it.
*
Political theory in 153 words blog post
So I'm just going to offer you the questions I would pose each candidate from the 5 standing parties were they actually to show their face. I am not going to offer their responses, if they want, their parties or supporters can respond in the comments section. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm not going to proceed along my belief that the election result is a foregone conclusion.
Conservatives
When did you cease being a progressive party? Everything about you is reactionary. It's as if you yearn for a return to a vision of 1950s Britain, certainly your leader seems to come from that age (which is odd as she was only 4 years old when the sixties commenced). Mrs Thatcher was a reaction to the politics and freedoms of the 1960s (as was Ronald Reagan in the US). May seems to be a reaction to 1970s Britain, which no longer exits (not even in Labour Party leader's Jeremy Corbyn's vision for Britain), yet that is the picture the Conservatives are painting of the current Labour leadership. I see no progressive policies or aspirations, other than a vague notion of Britain getting its identity back once Brexit is concluded. But can you define what that identity actually is? The notion of a singular identity in our culturally diverse 21st century nation is obsolescent. Former Conservative Prime Minister John Major's appeal for a return to 'Family Values' was an unmitigated disaster and contributed to his defeat & the Conservatives' exile during the Blair years, partly because no one could define Family Values and moral hypocrisy by Conservative MPs undermined any possible notion of it being instituted.
So what apart from an all out assault on the Welfare State, the NHS, and a reinstitution of selective education do you stand for? A reaction to the post-1945 Labout government which set up the modern Britain in other words. All under your mantra of balancing the books, instead of going after corporations and rich individuals who are not paying their fair share of tax. I think part of the reason for that is you don't want to drive such 'patriots' into tax exile, just in case Brexit turns out to be a disaster for the economy, so your sole response will be to set Britain up as a tax haven, so you need these people to stay onside in the interim.
Labour
You know Jeremy Corbyn's policies such as nuclear disarmament, greater equality of pay, certain re-nationalisations of some failing industries such as rail and energy provision, are ones I could fall into line with very easily. However there is no way I could bring myself to back a man who has palpably shown no leadership qualities and surrounds himself with political cronies of no ability whatsoever, such as John McDonnell and Diane Abbot who hold shadow cabinet briefs in two of the most important positions, the Treasury and Home Office. No matter how visionary (or not) you are, without a great slice of political nous and the powers to persuade not your core voters, but those who are in two minds, your ideas will not take the day. Corbyn showed a complete lack of leadership during the Brexit referendum, Now I understand why Corbyn did this, after the disastrous consequences of the Scottish Independence referendum campaign, where Labour were slaughtered by their supporters for appearing on the same platforms as Conservatives, Corbyn didn't want to be seen making the same mistake for the Brexit vote. But it was a miscalculation; Labour voters were left without any rallying point, allowing UKIP to turn some of them and once you've made such a drastic move once, it's not so difficult a second and third time. Finally, his commitment to allies has seen a lamentable failure to deal with anti-Semitism within some parts of the party, his support of Ken Livingstone being testament to that. Labour has failed to either appreciate, or make clear the differences between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. In doing so, it has managed to alienate one of its steadfast support bases of London Jews who are split down the middle as to their current disposition.
So much for political praxis, what about the ideals of this visionary? In some ways the Conservative Press is right, that the programme is an echo of where Britain stood in the 1970s, which after all was the crucible from which Corbyn's ideas were formed in the field of local politics. So far from revolutionary, Labour too seem to be reactionary and hanker after a past golden age. They want to, not unreasonably in many cases, turn back many of the Conservative policies from the 80s and last seven years. But there is not much forward thinking behind these declarations of intent. I also suspect that the manifesto represents a fairly watered down version of Corbyn's true political vision, which in itself is not a criticism, since it does at least nod its head to the art of the possible and appreciating that winning power first is a key requisite to any radical change. Is Corbyn anti-capitalism? I suspect he is, and his right hand man John McDonnell is a confessed anti-capitalist Marxist. But this manifesto seeks to work within capitalist free market, merely filing off some of its rougher burs. This cuts against Corbyn's impassioned ideals and echoes so much of the failed last campaign of Ed Miliband. I see very little difference between the two and it didn't exactly go well last time round now did it?
Liberal Democrats
What do you actually stand for? The oft asked question of many recent elections. An anachronism, a vestige of a once proud party in the nineteenth century that provided us statesmen like Gladstone and Lloyd-George. Historically the Liberal Party was a rigorous free trade/ free market party, a role subsumed by today's Conservatives. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the definition of Liberalism changed; no longer freedom to do such and such, but freedom from being prevented to be able to do such and such. That is it became reactionary, defending and upholding rights that were under threat. A vital function, but one that has been unable to sustain them as a meaningful party of power. So much so that they jumped into bed with the ideological antipodes of the Conservatives in 2010 to form a coalition, in which their only claim was that they managed to shave off some of the rougher burs of socially punishing austerity measures. The party of putting your finger in the dyke to hold back the flood...
But now as they look to rebuild after their massacre for joining up with the Conservatives, they have eked out a genuine position, the only one of the three parties to commit to reversing the Brexit decision. A reactionary position disguised as a radical one. They want a return to the status quo previous to June 2016. I was a Remainer. I would never vote Liberal on that one policy. First the people have spoken, however misguidedly I credit it to be and it is fundamentally undemocratic to go against their popular will formally expressed in a ballot. Many other feel like me, or just accept that we've got to get on with Brexit and so the numbers do not stack up for the Liberals in their calculations. What else do they stand for? I couldn't tell you and even if I could, their recent record is they could tear it up in an instant if they make a similar political calculation to participate in power sharing through a coalition. Besides, it's never sharing, and the junior partner always gets punished in the following election - either your claimed strength for moderating the majority party's nastier ideas is taken as interfering and preventing the business of strong government, or people just think why vote Liberal, we may as well vote Conservative and get a proper government rather than a half-baked coalition, which is exactly what happened in 2015.
Green Party
UK Independence Party
(They're not getting their party logo, I despise them so).
Now that Brexit has been secured, with the two main parties committed to delivering it, what reason do you have for even existing? None. Your spurious claim that you are needed to steer through a satisfactory vision of Brexit is a) subsumed by the Conservatives who can act without concern for your views and b) would you then just fade away after Brexit is complete in March 2019, no of course you wouldn't, cos unlike the outsider politicians you claim to be, you still lust after hanging on to what moderate power and influence you wield.
This purposelessness is doubly so in London, which being a cosmopolitan, diverse, outward facing city, has consistently rejected your inward, homogenous, chauvinistic values. Then there are the personal beliefs of your leader, who baldly states that the NHS should be privatised, that climate change does not exist, that the endemic sexism expressed by former (ie "sacked) members of the party is also shared by your glorious leader.
So, there you have it, the sort of discussion I might engage in with any party candidate were they to show up at my door. If they did, do you think they'd engage me in a debate of these points? No, me neither. They just want to tick or cross your name on their voting intention list. They're not going to devote/waste twenty minutes it would take to even skirt these issues. Even Jehovah's Witnesses will take the time to engage me in discussion of their beliefs for twenty minutes (in fact it's hard to break off debate with them, but that's my fault for engaging with them in the first place)> So I will most likely spoil my ballot paper by writing "none of the above" across it.
*
Political theory in 153 words blog post
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Whither The Labour Party?
The Labour Party have just been defeated in the UK election this week. The post-mortems will begin through the medium of a leadership election as the unsuccessful candidate Ed Miliband has resigned in defeat. As usual such a post-mortem will not address the real underlying issues and yield a leader who will in all likelihood be just as unsuccessful as Miliband.
1) Although they won the election, the Conservatives don't have a large majority so they potentially become vulnerable in Parliamentary votes on contentious issues if their own contumacious back-bench MPs decide to flex their own muscles and defy party discipline. Exactly the same as at the start of the last Parliament when the UK had it's first coalition government in 36 years. However, then Labour was so consumed by its own leadership election process that took a year or so, they were unable to apply any pressure on the fledgeling coalition government in its first year and it remained relatively unscathed. Labour has to avoid that this time round and maintain a rigorous opposition.
2) Proper post-mortems do not get conducted through the process of a leadership election. First of all the debate is internal, through MPs, Trade Unions and party members. The aspect of a proper post-mortem that is omitted, is actually consulting with the public. Asking those floating voters why in the end they didn't vote Labour. These are the crucial opinions and they are overlooked. The internal debate is only conducted with an eye to which wing of the party as represented by which leadership candidate will triumph in the final selection voting process.
3) The failure of a vaguely Left-Wing Labour election campaign has been pounced on by Labour centrists as proof that only their way can deliver Labour any future victory. This of course completely overlooks that a Centrist Labour Party has no real reason to exist. Tony Blair as a Centrist was only successful because he came to power in a period of economic boom. This boom was predicted by all economists as the corollary of coming out of the bust of the 1990s, when people were feeling bruised and fed up with the longevity of the Conservatives in power and weary of various scandals that had afflicted that party. They were ready for a change and it coincided with economic growth. But when the country is an a period of economic sluggishness, when savings are needed which implies a level of austerity, people will trust the Conservatives over Labour to deliver these cuts, because Labour are morally torn about cutting welfare and public services. Now you can argue with the narrative of austerity, but a Centrist Labour party's craving to appeal to the middle classes means they will not rock the economic boat of austerity. Yet they cannot outtrump the Conservatives in that sphere. It makes no sense to try and out-Tory the Tories. Austerity with a smiley-face.
4) So the alternative is to be a Left-Wing party, which Ed Miliband was accused of by his opponents with both Labour and Tory circles. He wasn't in many ways, because he accepted the austerity narrative as above. He just wanted to try and ameliorate some of its victims, such as those on zero-hours contracts, those accessing foodbanks and the like. But none of this plays to those in middle England, in the market towns that they desperately need to convince to have any chance of winning a parliamentary majority. England is a conservative (small 'C') nation, of Napoleon's famous shopkeepers and entrepreneurs. Any sniff of a Left-wing government is going to have those people fleeing for the mountains and doing everything they can to 'stop the socialists' gaining power. It's hard without an economic crisis seeing Labour ever regaining government.
5) At present, a left-wing Labour party has no real principles or ideology on which to base itself. The moment Tony Blair succeeded in expunging the 1918 Clause IV as a founding principle (so much so it was printed on every membership card) was not only the moment 'New Labour' replaced (old) labour, but the moment all its history was erased at a stroke. The history of its origins, its principles and what it stood for. Now whether you subscribe to the principle of Clause IV "To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service" is not really the point. The point is it has ceased to stand for anything principled or distinctive, so that even when ed Miliband tries to take the party more leftwards, it's completely without context or focus because it's not based on any bedrock of belief.
6) Looking at the demographics of the Labour Party MPs returned in the election, it has utterly become a party of the cities. All the major conurbations of England are solidly Labour. It has virtually no representation in the smaller urban areas and now nothing in a former heartland Scotland. London is a Labour City, yet London is a very rich (and expensive) city which goes against the grain that Labour can't appeal to the middle classes, although it is also hard to see what inhabitants of Labour constituencies like Hampstead or Islington have in common with inhabitants of Northern constituencies like Stockton and Bury. That makes it slightly schizoid in make-up. Scotland rejected Labour because it wasn't left-wing enough, London votes Labour because they like this cosy left-centrist Labour. London is of course the most ethnically diverse of all cities in the UK and draws much support from these communities, while there is also an element of having the wealth and privilege to desire to share some of that wealth with the less fortunate in a way that Tory voters in say Peterborough or Swindon don't seem to feel. If London becomes more exclusive due to its property prices and hogging of the job market, if more oligarchs from around the globe buy expensive holiday homes, then that natural Labour tendency may evaporate and Labour will lose its second major core of parliamentary seats as it has just done in Scotland. How does it knit together a strategy to represent Northern cities, Scotland, the wealth of Londoners who are already its supporters and then somehow to entice those of small town and middle England to come across from the Tories?
I say it's an impossible job and Labour has no real sense of any identity here in the early 21st Century. Nor will its leadership contest likely to furnish it with one. I don't know about a 1000 year reich of Conservative government, but it's hard to see it being limited to just the next 5, 15 or 25...
1) Although they won the election, the Conservatives don't have a large majority so they potentially become vulnerable in Parliamentary votes on contentious issues if their own contumacious back-bench MPs decide to flex their own muscles and defy party discipline. Exactly the same as at the start of the last Parliament when the UK had it's first coalition government in 36 years. However, then Labour was so consumed by its own leadership election process that took a year or so, they were unable to apply any pressure on the fledgeling coalition government in its first year and it remained relatively unscathed. Labour has to avoid that this time round and maintain a rigorous opposition.
2) Proper post-mortems do not get conducted through the process of a leadership election. First of all the debate is internal, through MPs, Trade Unions and party members. The aspect of a proper post-mortem that is omitted, is actually consulting with the public. Asking those floating voters why in the end they didn't vote Labour. These are the crucial opinions and they are overlooked. The internal debate is only conducted with an eye to which wing of the party as represented by which leadership candidate will triumph in the final selection voting process.
3) The failure of a vaguely Left-Wing Labour election campaign has been pounced on by Labour centrists as proof that only their way can deliver Labour any future victory. This of course completely overlooks that a Centrist Labour Party has no real reason to exist. Tony Blair as a Centrist was only successful because he came to power in a period of economic boom. This boom was predicted by all economists as the corollary of coming out of the bust of the 1990s, when people were feeling bruised and fed up with the longevity of the Conservatives in power and weary of various scandals that had afflicted that party. They were ready for a change and it coincided with economic growth. But when the country is an a period of economic sluggishness, when savings are needed which implies a level of austerity, people will trust the Conservatives over Labour to deliver these cuts, because Labour are morally torn about cutting welfare and public services. Now you can argue with the narrative of austerity, but a Centrist Labour party's craving to appeal to the middle classes means they will not rock the economic boat of austerity. Yet they cannot outtrump the Conservatives in that sphere. It makes no sense to try and out-Tory the Tories. Austerity with a smiley-face.
4) So the alternative is to be a Left-Wing party, which Ed Miliband was accused of by his opponents with both Labour and Tory circles. He wasn't in many ways, because he accepted the austerity narrative as above. He just wanted to try and ameliorate some of its victims, such as those on zero-hours contracts, those accessing foodbanks and the like. But none of this plays to those in middle England, in the market towns that they desperately need to convince to have any chance of winning a parliamentary majority. England is a conservative (small 'C') nation, of Napoleon's famous shopkeepers and entrepreneurs. Any sniff of a Left-wing government is going to have those people fleeing for the mountains and doing everything they can to 'stop the socialists' gaining power. It's hard without an economic crisis seeing Labour ever regaining government.
5) At present, a left-wing Labour party has no real principles or ideology on which to base itself. The moment Tony Blair succeeded in expunging the 1918 Clause IV as a founding principle (so much so it was printed on every membership card) was not only the moment 'New Labour' replaced (old) labour, but the moment all its history was erased at a stroke. The history of its origins, its principles and what it stood for. Now whether you subscribe to the principle of Clause IV "To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service" is not really the point. The point is it has ceased to stand for anything principled or distinctive, so that even when ed Miliband tries to take the party more leftwards, it's completely without context or focus because it's not based on any bedrock of belief.
6) Looking at the demographics of the Labour Party MPs returned in the election, it has utterly become a party of the cities. All the major conurbations of England are solidly Labour. It has virtually no representation in the smaller urban areas and now nothing in a former heartland Scotland. London is a Labour City, yet London is a very rich (and expensive) city which goes against the grain that Labour can't appeal to the middle classes, although it is also hard to see what inhabitants of Labour constituencies like Hampstead or Islington have in common with inhabitants of Northern constituencies like Stockton and Bury. That makes it slightly schizoid in make-up. Scotland rejected Labour because it wasn't left-wing enough, London votes Labour because they like this cosy left-centrist Labour. London is of course the most ethnically diverse of all cities in the UK and draws much support from these communities, while there is also an element of having the wealth and privilege to desire to share some of that wealth with the less fortunate in a way that Tory voters in say Peterborough or Swindon don't seem to feel. If London becomes more exclusive due to its property prices and hogging of the job market, if more oligarchs from around the globe buy expensive holiday homes, then that natural Labour tendency may evaporate and Labour will lose its second major core of parliamentary seats as it has just done in Scotland. How does it knit together a strategy to represent Northern cities, Scotland, the wealth of Londoners who are already its supporters and then somehow to entice those of small town and middle England to come across from the Tories?
I say it's an impossible job and Labour has no real sense of any identity here in the early 21st Century. Nor will its leadership contest likely to furnish it with one. I don't know about a 1000 year reich of Conservative government, but it's hard to see it being limited to just the next 5, 15 or 25...
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Some Thoughts on the UK Election Campaign
Everybody accepts this election is unlikely to deliver an outright winner. That warring parties will have to somehow unite to form a government. So with an emphasis on the need to find what can be joined together, it's highly depressing and yet predictable that it seems to be going the other way; a drive to divide, isolate and scapegoat.
We all knew UKIP would target immigrants and blame them for all our economic woes, but that's extended into a call to refuse access to treatment to those from abroad with HIV.
The SNP are being simultaneously wooed and castigated, with the line skirting quite close to racism in that the Scots are not to be trusted with the fate of the English. We may not like it, but our democracy has thrown up this situation where the SNP are likely to be the power brokers, so to castigate them anti-democratic because they find themselves in this position even though they would rather be independent from Westminster is churlish. They have grown exponentially in the last few years because the Westminster government of whatever stripe has failed to represent their views and requirements.
And all this has further dragged us into disrepute in the week where the tragedies of migration from Africa and the loss of life in the Mediterranean has been front and central in the news, so that the politicians are forced to take time out from their carefully choreographed schedule to address the issue.
For me it highlights the two streams of political thinking, neither which addresses the other in the same terms. On the one hand you can have the kind of country you would envision, one that cares for those less well off, with provision of free health care, a welfare system that allows a dignified quality of life, a country that looks abroad to help and save lives and is welcoming to those who wish to join it by settling within its borders. Against this is ranged the simple counter, that the UK cannot afford to provide this level of rights and benefits. Everything is costed and commodified, not least human life.
Yet despite the cleft between the two, all sides pay lip service to both. Hence we have microscopic focus on each other's budgetary figures and we have accusations of selling the country short on its fundamental values. UKIP make it very clear what sort of values they aspire for the country, a very narrow and exclusive one. The Greens make it clear the values of a society they envision, but for many it is a leap too far and they are attacked for the economics of it all. Labour, Tory and Lib-Dem do have differing policies from each other, but they are all couched in exactly the same narrow terms of the debate.
Like I say, depressing and predictable. And we ain't seen nothing yet, for when the results come in and it's a stalemate, then the really vicious horse trading will start. My prediction? we'll need a second election within a year.
We all knew UKIP would target immigrants and blame them for all our economic woes, but that's extended into a call to refuse access to treatment to those from abroad with HIV.
The SNP are being simultaneously wooed and castigated, with the line skirting quite close to racism in that the Scots are not to be trusted with the fate of the English. We may not like it, but our democracy has thrown up this situation where the SNP are likely to be the power brokers, so to castigate them anti-democratic because they find themselves in this position even though they would rather be independent from Westminster is churlish. They have grown exponentially in the last few years because the Westminster government of whatever stripe has failed to represent their views and requirements.
And all this has further dragged us into disrepute in the week where the tragedies of migration from Africa and the loss of life in the Mediterranean has been front and central in the news, so that the politicians are forced to take time out from their carefully choreographed schedule to address the issue.
For me it highlights the two streams of political thinking, neither which addresses the other in the same terms. On the one hand you can have the kind of country you would envision, one that cares for those less well off, with provision of free health care, a welfare system that allows a dignified quality of life, a country that looks abroad to help and save lives and is welcoming to those who wish to join it by settling within its borders. Against this is ranged the simple counter, that the UK cannot afford to provide this level of rights and benefits. Everything is costed and commodified, not least human life.
Yet despite the cleft between the two, all sides pay lip service to both. Hence we have microscopic focus on each other's budgetary figures and we have accusations of selling the country short on its fundamental values. UKIP make it very clear what sort of values they aspire for the country, a very narrow and exclusive one. The Greens make it clear the values of a society they envision, but for many it is a leap too far and they are attacked for the economics of it all. Labour, Tory and Lib-Dem do have differing policies from each other, but they are all couched in exactly the same narrow terms of the debate.
Like I say, depressing and predictable. And we ain't seen nothing yet, for when the results come in and it's a stalemate, then the really vicious horse trading will start. My prediction? we'll need a second election within a year.
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