When I started writing at NLE, I wasn’t a member of any particular party; I was fairly disillusioned with the whole process of party politics generally and partizan sniping as a specific. Far too often, politics and politicians seemed to be about what you were opposed to, not what you were in favour of. The more I wrote, and read the thoughts and opinions of others, the more my views and opinions were refined.
Tired of the Govt? (Anyone not already tired of them needs to smell the coffee). We are. Rachel is as well. THE RULES OF THE GAME HAVE CHANGED:
We won’t talk of causes, we’ll talk of effects.
We’ll whip up a horror of radical sects.
(We don’t want to talk about why they are vexed)
The Rules of the Game Have Changed.
When you vote, do you vote Expressively, or Rationally? Most party activists and committed partizans will vote expressively, and assume that voters do likewise. However, many voters will vote rationally, seeking to maximise the impact their vote will have on the result. It is this tendency, that most activists find hard to relate to, that leads to the phenomena referred to as “tactical voting”. Still with me? Good, let me explain…
Do you think that if we ran a publicity campaign to let people know that the left/right distinction is French, then we could rely on latent British Francophobia to finally abort the distinction?
Well, something has to. “The Lib Dems move Right”, “That’s a left-wing policy”. Um, no. It’s neither. left vs right is and ill-defined, misunderstood term that is abused by the commentariat (especially in the MSM) who show little understanding of the history.
Andrew (whose comment I quoted here) comes on board:
Update: changed a few misleading titles, nothing deleted, for honesty’s sake.
So, James and Joe ask a very important question and raise some valid concerns; what is the campaign for. By defining it as purely against Labour, James is correct when he says:
If there is to be a “coalition of the willing” on civil liberties issues, then let it be for real civil liberties, not a handful that Conservatives have deemed electorally useful to cherry-pick. Let it concentrate on individual candidates and politicians, tactically opposing any candidate who doesn’t sign up to X, Y, Z rather than letting individuals off the hook and supporting “best fit” political parties who subsequently will be under no pressure whatsoever to carry out their reforms.
We have to be careful to be in favour of something, not just against something. We need to be campaigning for liberty and reform, not just against the current government, we need to be a positive force, not a negative force.
OK, Unity of Talk Politics has already registered a domain, so part 2 is in progress, completely independently. Link to follow, naturally, when there’s something to link to. He’s also said he’ll post more on the subject over the weekend on his blog, so watch that space as well. Initially, I was put off the name by connotations in modern politics, but then Nosemonkey reminded us all of the title of J.S. Mill’s seminal work, On Liberty.
Well, that’s stage one complete, get peoples attention. Thanks to all the links people.
The New Labour project started as a method of making Labour electable again, by bringing under control their less, shall we say, thoughtful, elements. In government, it has taken that controlling tendency further. It is taking control of our lives.
So, Charles Kennedy announces he will not now run for leader:
it had become clear he did not have strong enough support among MPs and had decided to quit with immediate effect.
Good. Having been reading blogs and comments in many locations, it had become clear to me, as with many others, that, no matter how much we like the bloke, his position was untenable. I wish him well, hope he can recover from his problems and, specifically, hope that he can both remain in politics and return to a frontbench position at some point; talent such as his should not be thrown away. So…
So, Dave wants me to join him does he? I appear to be his target audience, a sometime LibDem who believes it’s more important to defeat NuLab than to continue the old rivalries. He’s saying the right things, I remain to be convinced if he’s doing them. But, well, I’m not convinced that joining his party is for me. Scratch that, I refuse to consider it. He wants an end to petty point scoring in politics? Fine, let’s talk. Openly, honestly, and with a perspective on both history, the future and on how things work.
On a purely entertaining level, I like Boris. On a political level, sometimes I read him and agree with every word, othertimes I disagree vehemently. Sometimes, like today, I chuckle at his attempt to play partizan, and note that he, like many others, completely misses the point:
I am slapping a preservation order on Charlie Kennedy, and listing him as a Grade One landmark of our culture
Are the LibDems left wing? Right wing? In the mythical “centre ground”? Boris thinks that the party having disagreements over policy is evidence of doublethink. No, not really Boris, it’s evidence of the party being a broad church coalition.
So, Dave (or is it DC now, I’ve lost track) wants to make Parliament more representative.:
“Until we’re represented by men and women in the country, regardless of race or creed, we won’t be half the party we could be,” he said in a speech on candidate selection in Leeds.He said his “positive action” plan was not about “crazed political correctness”, but would guarantee more women and ethnic minorities in winnable seats.
Of course he does. In order to do it, he’s going to take control from the centre and govern his pary by diktat. Hmm, hasn’t that been tried before?
There’s a simple way to get more women in Parliament Dave. It’ll get more minorities in there as well. And, added bonus here, it will give the voters real control over who they vote for and who represents them. What’s this Mat, I hear you say, what’s this simple system?
Well, the Tory leadership contest is once again making the news, and we might get an idea about who is in charge at some point before Christmas. Musings from Middle England has aan amusing round up here. The scary thing for me is that I grew up under Thatcher, and I had no doubt whatsoever by the time I was old enough to vote that the Tories were the enemy and must be defeated. It wasn’t, really, the economic policies that bothered me about them, it was the illiberal lock them up, hand ‘em and flog ‘em approach they took to all crime, criminals, people with long hair, young people who like to party, etc.
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