Labour has not moved significantly to the right since the first term. And in some respects it has moved to the left.

What it has done is moved a great deal further towards the shit.

Dodgy wars, ID cards, police brutality, you name it, are not the sole preserve of the right, any more than running out of money is the preserve of the left.

The Lib Dems do things the other way around, you pass a basic ‘approval’ process, then you can run to be PPC in any English seat. It makes a lot more sense to me, having the local members elect a local candidate, then have the national body reject them, just seems counter-intuitive and daft.

And yes, I’ve never understood the Tory process either.

“Lib Dem candidates are voted for by the entire local party membership, no selection committee. There is a screening process you have to go through before putting yourself forward”

Not sure how this is different from the Labour Party. In both cases you can argue there’s the potential to abuse the screening system. But I agree with the basic point, that the best way of getting an MP you like is to join the party you feel closest to and who stands a chance of winning in your area. (Maybe with the exception of the Tories – I’ve never really understood how their selection process works.)

Hehe, I have my own detachment, but I guess it involves going slightly towards a US system. MPs voted for through STV solely on constituency issues, and a parliamentary house where less MPs are voted for to actually run policy direction on a national basis. I’d scrap the house of lords if this was done to ensure it remained two chamber (anything more is overkill) and ensure that every piece of policy, before it went to constituency MPs for debate and final approval (much as the Lords currently do), filtered through the committee process is actually independently assessed by relevant experts.

On top of this each area (if not constituency) would have some devolved power that allowed them to make decisions on issues relevant areas that only affect that area but are currently too high for the council structure.

One STV set of votes, every two years, for half the countries constituencies each time, and one FPTP vote every 4 years on which of the legal political parties (being parties that have at least half as many MPs to fulfil a cabinet) actually get to guide the country. Proportionally, the parties can then either promote constituency MPs or fill the roles with party members of their choice, I’m not sure which I prefer yet.

The system would also have to go hand in hand with a reform about how back-bench policy is introduced, ensuring greater time for debate and implementation of these motions.

But that’s my own fantasy land, and I’ve not really thought all that much about it, honest!

Essentially, what matters to you priority wise? I set mine out, the civil liberties stuff like ID cards and similar being top, followed by genuine constitutional reform like STV. On those, of the parties that can make a difference, it’s only the Lib Dems that are sound. Pick the party that’s closest to you on the issues you care the most about, worked for me.

If Lee is still looking for real detachment from reality, in my youth I believed that the best route was to ban political parties and force MPs to stand as independents. (That might have been my Christian Anarchist phase.)

Then I went really bonkers and became an activist for the Owen-ite SDP. Ah, the heady thrill of almost upsetting William Hague’s by-election victory in Richmond… My SDP (People’s Front of Judea faction) experience still causes me to be wary of LibDems (splitters!), but I could be persuaded.

I know it sounds like I’m a bit of a broken record, but I joined the Lib Dems in 2006 while living in Torbay—the sitting MP was elected in 1997 with a majority of 12, and won many awards for being the hardest working MP in Parliament. It was he that got me to join the party, and he remains a hard worker. Because his majority, although larger now (he’s built up a personal vote) is still small.

Contrast that with the neighbouring seat, where the sitting Tory has been there since 1983, has paid his daughter £5K a year to do about half an hours work a week, parked his car for a week in a disabled bay in the local train station while in Westminster during recess (and then blamed it on too many bays, despite never having raised this as an issue before) etc.

When I moved to London, I was suddenly in one of the safest Tory seats in the country—absolutely horrible, no activity at all. Now I’m in a three-way marginal, and the difference is palpable, the sitting Labour MP is bloody good (but retiring), the Tory challenger is a git, but working hard, and our PPC is also campaigning all across the area constantly.

Quite refreshing actually. It’s also related to turnout—that “low turnout” myth? Bollocks, in contested seats, turnout remains high. In safe seats, it’s plummeting.

One point though, because, y’know, I do like facts:

your best chances of picking a great MP remain getting onto the selection committee of your local party

Lib Dem candidates are voted for by the entire local party membership, no selection committee. There is a screening process you have to go through before putting yourself forward, but that’s required to screen out loons, incompetents and nutters (which is a problem, unfortunately). Once selected, you’re pretty secure as candidate until the election, unless you do something that could get any member expelled (very unusual, but again essential). Even then, all the groups that assess these things are elected. The biggest criticism of the LibDem process I’ve seen is that it’s too open, too democratic, and too bureacratic. I don’t think that’s a problem myself.

But for the other two parties I agree with you completely, it’s one of the reasons I favour multi-member constituencies, reduce the power of central committees. I definitely dislike AM systems like in Scotland/Wales, because they increase that power, and I don’t like that.

Aaron. Newark. Yeah, um vote Expressively. Or see if you can transfer your registration somewhere else (I was legitimately registered in three seats once, very silly).

More importantly, as voters we need to engage much more. If local hustings were well-attended, if sitting MPs heard more at surgeries and in correspondence, if “real” candidates got more votes, perhaps local parties would feel better able to resist pressure from the centre. Parties need to know that inserting professional party drones into seats is a major turn-off.

(Annoyingly, our old Labour MP was pathetic – inactive in Parliament and uncommunicative in the constituency. The Tory is much better. But I’ll reserve my vote until I’ve checked http://www.theyworkforyou.com thoroughly and done my damnedest to find positive things about the LibDem and Labour candidates!)

I agree with you completely on this, however it is also somewhat crazy. Governments decide on things that affect us all too centrally these days, and to expect people to ignore that in favour of the MP most likely to do best by them when they’re not being blackmailed in to towing the party line is a little out of touch with reality, unfortunately

I think voting for the best MP is probably the right thing to do. Then again, the chances of Newark folk voting out Patrick Mercer are slim indeed.

(I skipped about 15 comments – curb the verbosity, people – so apologies if someone’s made this point already.)

Actually, Don, I was just looking through Fabian history and was surprised that they seemed to plump for Henry George’s radical theories on rent over Marx’s theory of surplus value for quite a while until events shaped the worldwide left in rather more definite direction. Many libertarians have quite a lot of time for Henry George. In fact, it is still reflected in the left-libertarianism of Hillel Steiner. It might also, have been decent for classical liberals to vote for Labour when they appeared to have a better attitude towards civil liberties than the Tories and were not intending to do anything too radical economically.

“So, let’s get the straight. Every old liberal/social democrat I know in the Lib Dems is complaining about the radically ‘libertarian’ direction that Clegg is taking the party, away from the soft social democracy face of CK, but IPJ thinks that the Lib Dems have moved away from liberal/libertarianism?”

You are missing the possibility that the centre has shifted in a more radically statist direction, giving the impression that the LibDems have got more libertarian because they are simply failing to catch up with the other centrists. In fact, they are still moving away from liberty, just more slowly than the other parties, giving the impression of relative radicalism.

Not that that is necessarily case. Reading Charlotte Gore and some other stuff written here, I think some really cool things are happening with the LibDems right now.

Steve Bell had Prescott down for that role years ago.

the question we have to ask is why the private property argument is deployed to justify the exclusion of foreign people, but never deployed to justify the exclusion of foreign goods and services?

Because, and let’s make this clear, people extolling such a contradiction aren’t in any way racist. They just don’t like furriners.

The thing is, the ‘immigrants aren’t allowed on my private property’ argument can be used in favour of any form of protectionism.

“You can’t drive that Japanese junk on my property”
“You can’t drink that french wine on my property”

Etc.

So the question we have to ask is why the private property argument is deployed to justify the exclusion of foreign people, but never deployed to justify the exclusion of foreign goods and services?

isn’t the fact that I have to “look”, part of the problem?

Yup. But what can be done? The media, for the most part, ignores him. Every so often, he’ll get some good coverage (the tax policies did), or get invited onto, say, Woman’s Hour for a good, sympathetic interview on his views on parental leave (in which he largely parroted a policy document Jennie helped write at her first conference).

He got amazing coverage last week, all over the place, over the Gurkha thing, and that’s something he picked up on and started campaigning on ages ago (invited a bunch to attend conference last Autumn, top guys, really liked them, although doing their conference passes was hard work, names were, well, Nepalese).

During the next general election, he’ll get coverage, the media can’t ignore him then. But watch how it’s played—the Daily Mail will play up his tax cuts agenda but play down his raise taxes on wealthy agenda. Why? They sell loads of copies in places like, say, Sheffield, where the Tories are dead in the water, but the Lib Dems are seriously challenging.

I reckon the next GE will be very interesting to watch, lots of unusual 3-way marginals, the vote that’s been Labour since 1992 pretty much all to play for, a bunch of Tory voters coming back to the polls having been staying away for a decade. And the media, overall, won’t know where to jump.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Libertarianism? Been there, done that. I’m a small-state liberal, but I have a visceral hatred for any party that would stem the flow of workers. Libertarianism is, in my view, purely about individual freedom, regardless of geographical origin.

MattGB,

Thanks, seriously.

I’ll look closer at ol’ Nick and the LibDem’s policies (isn’t the fact that I have to “look”, part of the problem?). I probably will vote Lib Dem at the next election, but if the media wont come to Clegg, he needs to make a few noises…

To Aaron in the OP – spectacular post, sir! I have said I will be going for the LibDems – and this from an old socialist like me!

Well done, I was rather inspired by you post. Fair brings a smile to my face.

Results in 2005 in my constituency were as follows.

Labour- 52.6% (virtually impossible to remove)
Conservative 20.0 % (unlikely to get much further than this & I’m surprised they got so many votes at any stage, though admittedly those living in the few middle-class enclaves & that are more likely to turn out).
Liberal Democrat 14.8%
BNP 6.9 % (possibly higher this time)
UKIP 2.3 %
Veritarse 2.2%
Independent 1.1%

I am basically stuck with a choice between Conservative & Lib Dem if I want to make some kind of electoral statement against New Labour, pointless as it obviously will be given their inevitable victory in this seat.

Currently leaning towards LD as they are likely to be an opposition voice in this constituency & nationwide. But when you live in an area like this, you wonder why the fuck you’d bother to vote in the first place. I imagine a lot of youse are in a similar state.

As for the Euro elections, they will be much more interesting!

To take a quote from the Independent:

“We have had over the past decade the largest increase in public spending that has ever taken place in peacetime. It is also the largest increase that has occurred, proportionate to GDP, of any major economy during that period.”

I don’t remember anyone at the time telling me that the Tories would have increaced government spending so much. People stuck with Labour because it threw money at all their favorite causes. Now the money has run out.