Why Plaid/SNP should be at the Leaders’ Debates
contribution by Marcus Warner
I think Plaid/SNP should be present on the Prime Ministerial debates.
This is based on my view that many of the issues discussed are devolved. Not enough so far is done to offer the ‘England Only’ health warning.
‘Free Schools’, ‘Cancer Guarantee’ – are all meaningless to Welsh and Scottish voters.
It’s also worth remembering that:
* That voters in Wales and Scotland are often in seats whereby the fight does not include either Labour, or Tory or both.
* That the BBC has a right to be fair to other parties
* Plaid get 1000 votes in every single seat in Wales. Unlike the three major Westminster parties, who do not.
* We do not have an elected presidency – voters in Wales vote for an MP, and in places like Aberconwy, Ceredigion, Llanelli, Ynys Mon the battle is not between two westminster parties, but Plaid/Lib Dem, Plaid/Labour/Tory.
Secondly, from a liberal left perspective
* English voters hearing about devolved policies is good for understanding the system, but also hearing different ideas. There is a westminster consensus on things, often teetering centre right at times.
* The Lib Dems are being asked about their views on a hung parliament, but it is just as valid for English voters to hear the SNP/Plaid views too.
The opposing arguments are also worth arguing against
* That Plaid/SNP leaders cannot be PM. Nor will Nick Clegg.
* That you open the floodgates to other parties – which is not true, both those parties have elected westminster representatives. UKIP, Greens and the BNP do not.
Voting’s necessary, but it’s more important to get active
contribution by reader ‘planeshift‘
Over the past couple of months LC has carried a series of articles urging its readers to vote for a political party. Each particular party has had one of its supporters set out the case for voting for it, and its record then judged and debated in the comments.
But I can’t help feeling it’s been a waste of time.
The complete over-saturation of election coverage in the MSM , and to a lesser extent on the blogs promotes the idea that voting and elections matter far more than they do.
It promotes the idea of voting as the most important act of civic participation, and privileges political parties as institutions through which people can participate in public life.
One of the more annoying aspects of the farce of party politics is the way in which each loyal party member has to publically pretend only their party can deliver the best future, only they have the correct policies to solve the problems, and only they are deserving of your vote. Only a complete idiot would pretend that this was the case.
In reality every political party has some great ideas that need to be implemented, but each party also has some policies that are stupid, ridiculous and farcical. Similarly when it comes to character, each party has a mixture of crooks, cranks, and the genuinely informed and well-intentioned.
So how should the voter who wants principled, honourable people to run the country in a competent manner vote?
The answer depends on which constituency you live in.
If your current MP has a track record of independent thinking, voting away from the party line, not submitting fraudulent claims, and a track record of genuinely helping the area which they represent, they are worth keeping.
This is frankly obvious.
But there are far more important things you can do that will make a bigger difference towards creating the kind of society you want to live in: don’t wait for your own team to win – get active, do voluntary work, give financial support to charities, and get informed and interested.
All of the above would be far more important than any vote for a party; the levels of knowledge regarding economics, sociology, political philosophy, science etc are shocking (if you think some of the comments on here are stupid and ill informed, just listen to the level of debate that occurs between the tabloid reading people who don’t read blogs or take an interest).
The ignorance is also the reason why politicians who should know better make stupid statements and advocate stupid policies aimed at carrying favour with the Daily Mail rather than doing the right thing.
So donate time and money, because putting a cross next to the lesser evil is just insignificant compared to what a good charity could do with even a fraction of the efforts that go into electioneering.
Why it’s important to just Tweet and be damned!
The furore around @BevaniteEllie has got me thinking. Twitter isn’t really understood very well by a lot of people.
Ellie Gellard is now a public enemy as far as the Mail is concerned and Stuart MacLennan has lost his parliamentary candidacy because of twitter.
Twitter is fundamentally misunderstood by a lot of people.To the Old Media it is something through which to trudge, to dig up filth to smear on those it pleases. Others think that because nothing on twitter matters that twitter doesn’t matter. I think both views of twitter are wrong.
For example, Paul Sagar argues that Twitter is treated as something really important, and that really annoys him.
Twitter is little more than a bunch of idiots expressing half-baked thoughts, joining herds of other stampeding #idiots, and at very best linking their “followers” to other place that aren’t Twitter, where things of substance are actually going on.
There seems little better description of 90% of the human condition, the boring, mildly entertaining, benign, hilarious, passionate, confused, occasionally dull, and almost entirely inconsequential content of most of most of our lives.
I don’t say this to belittle human life – I agree with Brian Cox, human life is the wonder of the solar system – but I want to say that a lot of it, fun though it is, is unimportant. I think that’s an fairly uncontroversial position so long as you are not so self-absorbed that you consider any moment not worthy of record as not worthy of yourself.
99% of the time nothing on Twitter really matters, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for something important, or that the links built on it can’t be transformed into something more. Inconsequential doesn’t mean not worthwhile.
The second way that twitter is “misused” is less of a misunderstanding and more of a clash of formats.
Twitter is in my view an extension of conversation. In a bar you can’t stop someone from talking to you or overhearing your conversation, likewise on twitter you can’t stop someone seeing your tweets. The difference however is important. Tweets are immemorial whereas speech is transitory.
Those who think it is unimportant because it is inconsequential should take another look at how important their day to day conversations are to them – and how important they might be if recorded for all time.
Likewise, those cynically exploiting Twitter for cheap dirt should reconsider how much credence they give to throw away comments when they would be inconsequential in everyday conversation – sooner or later they will end up looking like gossip mongers not investigative journalists.
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A longer version is at Left Outside
We want to expose the contradictions of ‘compassionate conservatism’
contribution by Joe Cox
The wheels are coming off the Compassionate Conservative project. Today we launch www.sameoldtories.co.uk with this video to expose the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of this philosophy.
Yet this project is not just the result of old tribal loyalties, but the culmination of a much larger exploration into the philosophy of Compassionate Conservatism.
Back in 2008 Compass embarked on a project to better understand the politics of New Conservatism. The result of the project was an e-book, written with the journal Soundings, entitled Is the Future Conservative?
It was an attempt by academics and politicians of both the left and right to engage with the communitarian political thinking developing in the Conservative Party and being championed by its leader David Cameron. We re-visited the project in light of the general election and have today released a new pamphlet – Blue Dawn Fades.
These are the main findings:
The themes Cameron was developing of social justice, environmentalism, localism, community and concern over ‘broken Britain’ resonated because the language was warmer and frequently more utopian than the coarse, shrill language being used by Labour ministers.
But the economic crisis revealed the Conservative Party as unyieldingly wedded to neoliberal principles, criticising government intervention at every turn. It is difficult to see how, if followed, the Conservatives’ policies would have anything but a catastrophic effect. The refusal to nationalise banks on the brink of collapse, their promises to cut spending and refusal to support monetary easing would have had the likely effect of triggering a dramatic depression.
The New Conservative vision of the role of the state in tackling poverty and inequality is based ‘on the belief that moral concern, duty and obligation are enough to persuade those with wealth and power to help lift the disadvantaged and marginalised out of deprivation’.
They are not prepared to ensure that the richest pay a proportionally equal amount of taxes to the poor, and, as David Cameron stated, they believe that the size, scope and role of the state is inhibiting the fight against inequality.
David Cameron appears to have understood the feeling of the nation well: “People are just incredibly worried – worried about their families and worried about the future.” He is right. However, fundamentally, he misdiagnoses the cause of insecurity, blaming the state and remaining silent about the effect of neo-liberal economic policies forced on Britain by his own party.
The resulting increase in inequality that would result from the implementation of the Conservative economic and fiscal policies would worsen ‘broken Britain’, undermining the pro-social aspects of New Conservatism.
The over-zealous cutting of the budget deficit combined with public sector pay freezes and a firm commitment to a regressive taxation system – including inheritance tax cuts for millionaires – would increase the Gini co-efficient.
That means shorter, unhappier and unhealthier lives, and increases in obesity, teenage pregnancy, violence and addiction. Every other value that David Cameron holds, including social justice, fraternity, the sacredness of the family unit, and the value of ‘big society’, will ultimately be undermined by this widening of income inequality.
Sign up at: www.sameoldtories.co.uk today.
Hashtag #sameoldtories on Twitter
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Joe Cox works as the campaigns manager for pressure group Compass
Voters want hung parl. than Tory or Labour win
The Times / Populus poll tonight shows the Conservative lead slipping to 3pts. The Tories are at 36%, Labour at% and Libdems on 21%.
More interesting is the general level of annoyance at all three major parties.
The latest poll shows that 32 per cent of the public now hope for a hung parliament (as opposed to expecting one), against 28 per cent wanting a Tory majority and 22 per cent a Labour one. Lib Dem voters prefer a deal with Labour than the Tories in a hung parliament, by 44 to 31 per cent. The public is evenly split 40 to 42 per cent about whether they want Labour or the Tories in either a majority or a minority government.
…
Voters were asked to say which party had proposed eight key manifesto pledges. They wrongly identified four: reducing the increase in national insurance contributions (naming Labour not the Tories); allowing unsuccessful schools, hospitals and the police (the Tories, not Labour); tightening up takeover rules (the Tories not Labour); and requiring foreign workers employed in public services to speak fluent English (the Tories not Labour).
In only one case, the £150-a-year tax break, did more than half of voters (60 per cent) correctly identify the party making the proposal.
Which basically confirms my point that most voters don’t really pay attention to policy pledges.
It looks like there are two policies voters broadly identify with Tories: cutting taxes and cutting immigration. But neither are high enough priorities it seems or their share of the vote would be much higher.
Labour are neck-and-neck with the Conservatives on the economy, by far the biggest issue, which is holding up their vote well. See these details from yesterday.
YouGov polling is expected around 10pm tonight.
Amnesty publishes women’s rights manifesto
Amnesty UK have published a general-elction manifesto that encompasses several areas of human rights including:
- The rights of women in the UK and overseas
- Security and human rights
- The human rights framework in the UK
- Human rights and poverty
- A just and fair asylum system
The briefing for women’s rights says:
All too often women are ignored in the post conflict reconstruction period, with little or no representation on tribunals trying war crimes or working for reconciliation, and neither they nor their issues represented in new constitutions.
The cases of Iraq and Afghanistan are instructive and particular. The UK was a vocal proponent of women’s rights prior to and during the conflict in Afghanistan, yet no women were invited to a conference in London on 28 January 2010 to discuss the future of the nation. If women’s organizations and activists had not forced their way onto the agenda, they would not have been present at all. This is despite UN resolution 1325 which requires parties to a conflict to ensure that in the post conflict regeneration process women are equally involved in decision making and policy implementation.
What we are asking the UK Government to do:
- Improve women’s full participation in processes relating to conflict prevention, conflict resolution and peace-building by the full implementation of UN Security Resolution 1325.- Create a UK National Action Plan that includes objectives and priority actions, timelines, a dedicated budget, indicators, benchmarks, targets and clear lines of responsibility at high political levels
You can download their General Election manifesto from here.
Important questions for the Tory manifesto
None of them are about the location or who introduced David Cameron.
1. Why is a pledge on cutting inheritence tax for millionaires a higher national priority than reducing the deficit or tax cuts for low income single parents?
2. Where will savings in Education budget come from, given you are spending BSF money on setting up “Free Schools”?
3. You have promised to offer referendums on Council Tax. What will you do if a Council loses a referendum, cannot raise funds, so closes vital services to save money, as has happened in California? Will the Government accept Council plans to close schools and sell of parks in such a case?
continue reading… »
Labour boosted as trade-gap shrinks to 4 yr low
Britain’s trade deficit with the rest of the world shrank to its smallest gap in almost four years in February, boosting hopes of economic recovery and handing the Government an election boost.
The Office for National Statistics said today that the February deficit on goods trade narrowed to £6.179 billion after it widened to biggest in more than a year in January, reaching £7.987 billion.
The ONS said it had recorded an increase in exports of 9.5 per cent, its biggest month-on-month percentage rise since January 2003.
It also said that the increase in exports to non-EU countries rose by 15.1 per cent, the largest rise since July 2003.
Why have these prominent Tories gone missing?
Paul Waugh is disappointed that there isn’t a bit more stuntery when senior Tories go into hiding on the campaign trail, a la the great Oliver Letwin man hunt in 2001.
While this is now a much cherished British General Election tradition, the field does seem excessively crowded this time around.
I wonder if bookmakers offered odds on who was seen at the launch of the Tory manifesto today.
In order of most missing ….
1. Not-Lord Ashcroft
Not-Lord Ashcroft has not been seen at all, to my knowledge, though he has a very strong interest in the marginals campaign. Does anybody know if the non-dom deputy party chair is in the UK or Belize (to where he billed his 2005 election polling, to avoid VAT)?
continue reading… »
Could Norwich South be the referendum on New Labour?
contribution by Adam Ramsay
So, I’d better ‘fes up from the start. I am a Green Party activist. I’ve been a party member for nearly a decade. It’s not surprising that I am writing about why one of the top target seats for the party is significant.
The election in Norwich South is unique in England. It is the only place I can think of where a right wing Labour incumbent faces a serious challenge from their left.
The seat has come down to 2 candidates: Green Party deputy leader Adrian Ramsay (no relation); and former Minister now right-wing rebel, Charles Clarke. Greens have the majority of councillors across the seat.
continue reading… »
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