Maybe Cameron’s fudging is why his party is experiencing such a drastic fall in membership – you tell me?

I have no idea if he’s fudging statements about other things than ID cards, or how far and why his party membership has fallen!

Although I seem to remember John Redwood mentioning (in an article about party funding) that years ago the Tories used to have around 750,000 members (and £10 from each of these would have been a nice contribution to party coffers). They don’t have anywhere near 750,000 members now.

But I have made notes from a couple of inquiries into political disengagement, as a result from my interest in party funding. There is a sense of distance – people feel that parties are only interested in them at election times – and party members feel they don’t have enough of a say over party policy development. Also people feel that parties require them to commit to too broad a range of policies. These seem to be among the reasons why party membership is falling – the Labour party has lost about half its membership over the past eleven years – even as participation in ‘informal’ politics is rising.

So I’m not sure how greatly fudging contributes to falling membership. I’m inclined to think (but I confess it is no more than speculation) that denial of opportunity to get involved in policy development is a big factor, it fits into this sense that people are only considered at election times and when their subscription money is due. This sense that parties aren’t interested in you once they have your tenner.

(As an aside, on the issue of trust – while there is a lack of trust in politicians in general, people tend to trust their local MPs. So again I think ‘distance’ comes into play here – and it’s an area where the EU is disadvantaged, because it is seen as even more remote from us as individuals than Parliament.)

Paul Nicholls, what’s wrong with the “Human Rights Act and Convention”?

As for any statements Cameron has made he has made plenty of contradictory noises in his attempt to keep his own side together – which doesn’t fill me with trust about anything he is likely to do. I’ll admit at this point that I voted Conservative under Major and I am prepared to consider what they offer, but on this form there doesn’t seem to be much to hang my hat on.

Maybe Cameron’s fudging is why his party is experiencing such a drastic fall in membership – you tell me?

I’m a tax payer too. I’ve lived here for my 40 years and paying such a high amount of tax, I’m sickened to the pit of my stomach. I’m absolutely fed up to the back teeth of governance in this country and am watching the country I love absolutely dying on its arse. I can trace my family back five or six generations to England each side. I’m about as English as you can find, and I’m saddened by recent political events.

I’m a father of four lads, married and entitled to no benefits, never have been, never will. I’ve worked my way up the greasy pole, paying my own way to qualify as a solicitor from the back end of a South Birmingham Council Estate. Nothing was free, nothing comes free and absolutely everything costs – including my education following the dustbin of a comprehensive system that told me I should ‘try to get a job at Rover’ (my careers teacher)

Explain to me will you the idea of ‘fairness’ because folks who don’t want to work,don’t. EU tourists who want to use and abuse the NHS at my expense do so freely. The whole system is screwed. The ‘poor’ are paid for by the ‘rich’. Pull the other one. Poor in this country now means owning a car that’s five years old or older, or scammed through the motability scheme and having only one Sky + box. There are, of course those in real need – but there’s a massive, growing, bulging underclass of people who don’t want to work and want the likes of the author above and I to pay for it. The truth is that immigration policies in the UK are so historically shambolic they’ve caused a serious car crash and we’re mopping up the pieces now.

I hate the EU. I hate the very concept of it. I absolutely abhor the immigration policy we have – in short a free meal ticket for anyone in the EU to come and go as they please. We’re a tiny, tiny island of hard working, mainly working classes ( I speak for myself). The idea of fairness is that we’re allowed to roam and settle in other parts of the EU. Let’s be honest eh? Am I thinking of migrating to Romania or Hungary? Why are we so surprised that so many Eastern Europeans have flocked to the UK? I would, and I don’t blame them… but it’s muggings here who sees little or nothing back and tens and tens of thousands of pounds taxed.

No I’m not ignorant of the EU, I had to study it at graduate and post grad level, and what I learned shocked me to the core. Disparate nations tied under a federal banner. Try doing that with the North and South Americas. The idea is ludicrous. There’s massive widescale fraud throghout the EU (the budget hasn’t been ratofied for 10 years because of it) and the whole crazy idea of a single monetary policy has crippled most of the member states. Laws at are odds with member states and Europe declares itself as sovereign over respective parliaments. What a mess.

Immigration here has been shocking, pitiful and downright unfair on those who pay tax. The UK has turned a blind eye to scores of illegal immigrants – and the emphasis is ‘illegal’ combined with the preposterous idea of a revolving door for EU members. Cory is in that lacuna that is caught by a government desperate to put a salve on the wrongs of the last thirty or so years and that is plainly wrong. There’s been a knee jerk reaction from a government that is yet again ill conceived and poorly thought out.

Alongside the problems we then have the ridiculous Human Rights Act and Convention. Those who have a minority interest continually shout foul. In our free thinking society, the Government is politically correct, the majority have no voice and we encourage xenophobia. I’m fed up about it and everyone seems to worried to even think about mentioning it.

Sadly we do however need to shut the door, tighten up, do something to curb the influx. A line has to be drawn somewhere. There is a massive growing disquiet amongst the ordinary folks who work hard and are consistently shafted. Thank goodness the government are doing something, anything, because the whole thing is outrageously unsustainable, but more thought should be given to the mechanics of change.

In a nutshell then, too little too late, but the UK absolutely has to do something to address the ludicrous problem respective governments have created. The situation is so serious, there could be civil unrest. Don’t hold your breath and think the Government will help. They consistently ignore their own, we’re used to it.

I’m not sure why you think Cameron has been “fudging clear statements” (surely a contradiction in terms), as it seems to me he’s been very clear: his team will scrap the ID card scheme (the ID cards and the National Identity Register) if they form the next Government. I’m not sure how you can get more clear than that.

Now, there does remain some concern about their policies regarding ‘the surveillance society’ and ‘the database state’.

I don’t know what evidence you have for saying the Conservative party is split down the middle. As for the public, the majority isn’t nearly so large as it used to be</a.

As for alarming voters by promising to abandon the scheme, I hope you’re not doing what many people seem to do, which is to lend each issue equal weight. Identity cards just aren’t very important to people relative to say, the economy, or law and order.

john b, nobody (nowadays in Parliament, anyway) seems to be proposing a legal requirement to carry any ID card in any circumstances, but the Government intends we should all eventually be compelled to enrol on their intrusive database (initially de facto, in that our lives will be made more difficult if we are not enrolled, and later de jure), and since it involves fingerprints (which may or may not work) we ourselves will be the identity ‘card’, so the card itself seems somewhat irrelevant in this context.

But absolutely right, suicide seems a bit drastic.

a) in which case she’s a gibbering clown
b) luckily, nobody is proposing a legal requirement to carry any kind of ID card in any circumstances

Cameron has pledged to abandon this ID scheme, not all schemes outright. I’m sure he prefers to leave a favorable impression by fudging clear statements than alienating potential voters on either side – because he needs every vote he can get – he would be insane to rule them out absolutely when the best indications imply that a majority is (as you say) in favour of them and anyway he looks instinctively willing to compromise any principles he’s got to gain power.

Ask members of his party, however, and you’ll find them split right down the middle, so it’s no wonder he wants to marginalise the potential damage this issue could do him if he is pressed on it.

Clearly Labour is for [ID cards] and the LibDems are against, so I’d like to know which way the Conservative leadership would swing. I doubt Cameron would want to upset the establishment and since whatever he chose would split his party I think he would come out in favour of them, albeit with compromises.

Cameron has pledged several times to abandon the ID card scheme, particularly the National Identity Register (the intrusive database behind the sceme). I think there would be some controversy if there was a u-turn on this.

The political problem with ID cards seems twofold:

1. a majority of people continue to support the principle of the introduction of ID cards (but not a specific system);

2. it is way down on the list of things that matter to most people.

…or would I rather there was a shit Labour government where we have to give our time and resources to fighting illiberal legislation, fighting the database state, and infringement on civil liberties, as well as xenophobia and upholding human rights in accordance with the EHCR, only some of which can be done without being labelled a criminal and, potentially, a terrorist?

Given that the first can also, with the right voting patterns, mean that the Lib Dem’s as a party have a stronger chance of taking power in the not too distant future I really know which one I will be reluctantly more happy with, if happy can be the right word.

Clearly Labour is for them and the LibDems are against, so I’d like to know which way the Conservative leadership would swing. I doubt Cameron would want to upset the establishment and since whatever he chose would split his party I think he would come out in favour of them, albeit with compromises.

If a referendum on ID cards could be forced, or the LibDems manage to turn the next election into a referendum on ID (a dangerous tactic from third place) I think we’d see a clear shift in public opinion. It struck me just how much this subject has been underestimated when a friend of mine stated unequivocally this week that she’d go further than risk imprisonment and actually seriously contemplate suicide over the prospect of a legal requirement to carry a biometric RFID card in any circumstances!

I think it would definitely be an epoch defining event if everybody who might but hasn’t voted LibDem because of tactical reasons decided to unify on an issue like ID cards then I think they would cause a radical upset (and I might help them campaign on the issue too).

But as Jennie and others have argued, I simply cannot conscience voting Labour again. The final straw for me was the cancelling of the SFO inquiry into the Al-Yamanah deal; when a party starts blatantly interfering with the rule of law, it’s time for that party to be thrown out of office. The Tories incidentally completely supported that decision. Since I will never vote Conservative, that leaves me in my constituency with the Lib Dems, who are way behind in 3rd place, likely to be a wasted vote. Perhaps the Greens will stand this time round, but they didn’t before. It won’t be our fault if the Tories get in and make things much much worse; it will be Labour’s.

Yup. It would be a perfect opening for Cameron.

“George Osborne has told you what the country needs to do now to pull ourselves out of the mire Labour has pitched us into. These are measures that will need firm leadership of a united country. Our determination must be founded on our national social cohesion. When we have turned this very difficult corner, the Conservatives promise the nation that everyone wil share the benefits. Share through tax cuts and share through making sure that the work of all recieves its reward. I will not name amounts until we again have prosperity to share, but the Conservative Government that you will elect will put in place a floor below which noone’s pay will fall as well as reducing the taxes that all of us have to bear …”

Disraeli’s Toryism was a minority trend within his own party – all the time he led it.

I can just see it now; economic growth is down to nothing, banks are going to the wall quicker than crash test dummies, public borrowing is high….David Cameron girds his loins to face the Party after George Osbourne has just told the faithful the sacred tax cut cow will have to be ritually slaughtered…DC stands up and says comrades, we will be the first Conservative government to institute a minimum wage…..

Ok, so maybe I am being a little sarcastic but maybe you can see my point……I know there is some truth to what you are saying about it being within the remit of a ‘one nation’ Toryism….but the other main factor that mitigates against it is that Cameron’s Conservatism is a minority trend within his own party….,my point throughout this has merely been to say it is wrong to approach Labour voters and say there is no difference between the two parties….

Punkscience. I like the Compass as a tool, I like the way it portrays things. I do wish they’d publish their methodology, as that graph you link to is, I’m sorry to say, complete bollocks. The positioning of the Lib Dems where they are goes against Lib Dem policy positions and the positions of a number of prominent Lib Dems. I hope this link works, but here’s my Facebook profile version:

Political Compass graph showing several Lib Dems

As you might expect given my status as a former (temporary) employee and a fairly prominent activist, a massive chunk of that cloud are Lib Dem members. For example, Julia Goldsworthy, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is number 50 on that layout, at ec:-4.13 soc:-6.21, my local PPC, Hilary Myers, is #15, and at ec:-7.13 soc:-6.72.

I, and the people I specifically mention, are fairly happy with Lib Dem policy overall. If we’re all way to the bottom and distinctly on the left, why does that article put the Lib Dems much further up and to the right? It’s a deeply flawed analysis with no published methodology.

Lib Dem policy platform is left wing and liberal, recent moves at conference have seen a clear leftward shift, the Compass, while a good tool, is talking bollocks.

As for writing to my MP? Didn’t need to, I joined the party after he contacted me after reading my blog, he’s now a regular contact and is completely on board on the issue (although I’ve now moved so am working to get a candidate I really like elected). That’s why I joined the Lib Dems, we need electoral reform and we need to protect our key political freedoms, they’re the only party doing it consistently, so I’m working hard all over the place to get more MPs in the House that are sound on the issues that matter at the moment.

After we’ve got STV? Whole different ball game, but that’s for the future.

A low minimum wage, sketchily enforced, (i.e. just like now) is non-Thatcherite but is a perfect policy measure for building social cohesion (and collecting prole votes) in the Disraelian Tory tradition that Cameron aspires to. If we did not have it already, he would be announcing it at his conference.

punkscience

In relation to the centre, the LibDems are ‘ahead of centre’. The New Tories and New Labour are behind the centre, one a bit to the sunrise side and one a bit to the sunset side. You are right. None of them is to the left or the right.

But as to electoral reform, my Labour MP (Diane Abbot) is no turkey, but even so writing to her to urge her to give up her seat as a Christmas present to the rest of us sems a less useful way to spend my time than supporting Jenny..

Without substantial electoral reform the UK will continue to be a pseudo-democracy and your debate over political alternatives will remain hollow.

Oh, yeah- and who had the daft idea that ANY of the three main parties were in any way ‘Left of centre’?!

http://www.politicalcompass.org/extremeright

Or…one term of Tory government with an inflated majority based on a split LibDem/Labour vote….god, is it 1983 again already?

Every pro-Labour voter is going to end up dealing with this dilemma in their own way in each constituency. There will be no ‘line to take’. There’s are no easy answers. There is no happy place once you’ve made your decision. I would have thought that would have been obvious after the 2005 election, where Blair should have lost to Reg Keys and/or cost Labour its majority. Only fear and tribal loyalty are going to save New Labour – and I suspect they’ve pissed away the latter.

its not irrelevant to the people who have actually benefitted from it is it?

Well no, as one of those people it’s definitely not (I’m talking before I went back to University when I had one job that paid £20 per day for an average 8 hour shift). But in terms of votes at the next election? It’s there, it’s in place, the Conservatives have said they’ll keep it.

So in terms of voting at the next time, it is an irrelevent. The minimum wage will not be abolished by the Tories, thus voting Labour because they introduced it ten years ago is as daft as voting Labour because they introduced the NHS in ’45.

Redpesto:

the Tories could simply fail to raise the minimum wage in line with inflation, or refuse to raise it all. Job done.

True, if they were in office for a long enough time. But they’re going to win the next GE unless Labour does something incredible, which they’ve proven they’re not going to do. One term of Govt, especially on a small majority, wouldn’t do that much damage unless inflation spirals out of control, and if that happens the lowest paid will be in much bigger trouble than the rate of the minimum wage could help.

At the next general election, we have to vote on the problems facing us and the likely position of the parties afterwards. Voting on old policies is utterly daft, supporting Labour because they were good ten years ago is blinkered stupidity.

The current Labour leadership, and most of the Cabinet (Hazel Blears anyone?), simply cannot be trusted on a large number of issues facing us, from ID cards, fearmongering “counter-terrorism”, etc.

Supporting Labour electorally right now is supporting those policies. All the good things they’ve done will be irrelevent if they keep building the illiberal surveillance state they’re planning, especially the cumpolsory ID cards for all that they want to introduce.

Kate: Electoral reform, specifically (re-)introducing the Irish voting system to Westminster was my second biggest reason for my decision to join the Lib Dems, it’s a policy position they’ve had as a central plank since the party was founded.

Dave: At the next GE, Stoate is out unless Cameron really messes up, it’s too close a marginal, Cameron needs to take it in order to simply reduce Labour’s majority. Your next MP will be a Tory regardless of how you vote. If enough people defect from Labour to the Lib Dems, then they could challenge next time, Labour’ll lose the seat, but pushing them into 3rd place? That’ll really send a message to the NEC.

If I lived in a Tory/Labour marginal that I thought Labour could hold, I don’t honestly know how I would vote. But in a seat that Labour have lost even if Brown wins the next GE? I’d vote to punish the bastards to really get the message across.

Until this country realises that the two parties are actually different, that the Tories can say all the guff they like but ultimately they are just like Labour, we are not going to get a better party in power.

The difference between these two evils? If you continue to vote Labour then the changes will be minimal and insignificant, the time it’ll take for politics in this country to turn around will be huge. The continuation of the two party system promotes stagnation and not radical change.

However start voting Lib Dem’s, even in areas where they “can’t win” and something different happens. Yes, maybe the Tories still get in with a good majority, but suddenly it’s no longer the same two horse race, the landscape has changed, and you’ve given a third party more of the integrity they need to lead up to the future.

When the bad time come, and they will come whether red or blue, I’d rather that the general public actually were able to consider the Liberal Democrats, assuming they don’t change their policies drastically, without thinking they are a “wasted vote” than for this situation to continue for decades to come.

Yes Labour will probably be better at the minimum wage but you know what the Tories at least have promised to curb the ID card program. Tories may try and take away the human rights act (not that it changes much in the ECHR scheme of things) but then Labour are happy to keep suspending things such as “innocent until proven guilty” which is pretty fucking anti-human rights anyway.

Have some balls, Labour voters; whether your party is in power or the Tories, we’re fucked for a decade on both liberal and left issues, with both parties managing to trump the other (just) on certain issues. The question you need to ask yourself is whether when the next change comes, whenever that is, you want this situation we’re in now to be the same situation down the line, or if you want there to be a greater opportunity for a truly liberal and “fair” government to take their steps towards power.

I just repeat what I’ve said in many a previous thread, stop kidding yourself that by voting for labour you’re voting for anything less than a propaganda spreading, authoritarian and illiberal party that treats immigrants as second class citizens, takes away the long standing rights of our citizens “for our safety” and pisses our money down the drain with shonky “systems” that barely serve the function they were created for. Stop being so blind that you think that the attitude of “My Lib Dem vote is a vote for the Tories” will actually progress anything in the long run.

People were willing in 1997 & are now. We aren’t half as reactionary as Blair/Brown assumed. We would respect someone who took a stand & we still feel a sense of outrage when a “Labour” government spits in our faces every day.

You can sit here all day saying “it’s not going to happen”. Nothing is ever going to happen unless you make it happen (pun not intended).

So long as people vote for the 2 main parties, nothing will ever happen. We’re only hearing about PR because something like 30% of voters go elsewhere. The answer is to vote Liberal Democrat or Green, thus forcing it onto Labour’s agenda & wiping the smirk off Camoron’s face when he realises how few people share his “vision” of making the poor subsidise his mates through raising the threshold for IHT whilst levying indirect taxes on those who don’t have wealthy parents but are working hard to better themselves without help (don’t right-wingers admire such people? Evidently not).

I will not be cowed into submission by you telling me that Tory bad men will take me away unless I do what you say. I didn’t take it in 2005, still less now. I will not put my name next to ID cards or 42 days, & while I might vote Labour at some stage in the future it won’t be until they’re in opposition & have gone through a long, hard period of soul searching.

Fear seems to be Labour’s weapon of choice. As long as they can keep you afraid of something, whether it’s terrorism, hoodies or the Tories or just basically other people, full stop, then they’ve got your vote.

Personally I find this very sad.

Before Stoate we had Bob Dunn, who iirc was of the pro-life/pro-death variety.

Electoral reform is a good thing. We like it and want it.

To quote, our policy is ;

Urgent legislation to establish the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system for elections to the
House of Commons in the first year of a Liberal Democrat Government.

We are also in favour of a referendum on a writter constitution, lowering the voting age to 16 and fixed term parliaments. Also, completing Lords reform.

Plenty: like using all the lovely toys New Labour have created over the last decade or so, without the pretence of being a caring, sharing government – and then adding, say, abolition of the right to strike in ‘essential public services’ (i..e. most of the public sector). Why would the Tories scrap ID cards for foreign nationals? ‘They’ are an easier and more affordable target for that level of state surveillance than the entire UK population, so ditch them for the natives and make the dole-scrounging migrant bastards pay for it. (I exaggerate, but not by much).

MatGB – the Tories could simply fail to raise the minimum wage in line with inflation, or refuse to raise it all. Job done.

We’re stuck between one bunch of right-wing bastards…and the Tories. This has been apparent for most of the last 10 years (and especially since about 2001). Labour supporters have no intention of voting Tory, but know that voting LibDem under First Past the Post isn’t going to bring about the realignment some would wish for. If New Labour ministers still want to bang on about how we ought to be grateful for the minimum wage, they’ve yet to come up with a justification for policies such as the one Doctorow describes. I suspect a lot of people’s patience has run out, and they are not prepared to try and save the Labour party from New Labour – yet again – by voting for it. Moreover, it doesn’t follow those votes will – or should – go anywhere else simply to stop the baby-eating Tories.