h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

QUOTE
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However, the following list all the difference between the big three

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote...=CON_UK&s2=LAB_UK&s3=LD_UK&x=9&y=11

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An interesting article for me in the US. Sounds like the UK at least has more than two realistic choices. In the US, unfortunately, the two major parties (there is no third choice other than tiny splinters - I think only one member of Congress is neither Democrat nor Republican, out of 500+ total) spend about 75% of their effort (and $$$) trying to slime the other side. The other 25% is spent pandering, posturing, and pork-snorting. IMHO.

One question, many of the issues are listed as "Not devolved" or "devolved in ..." What is that about? My dictionary says it means "passed on to others", but I don't understand the usage here.

Like many others have said all the main 3 parties seem a bad choice.
Labour becuse well the war and detenetion without trial
Conservatives becuase I do belive they will mess up the econemy too much
and the Lib Dems don't in my opinion have a clue how they would run the country being purely reactionary for so long.
I will probably go for Lib Dems though becuse a Labour/Lib Dem coalition would be good I think (Anyone who sayd that it won't happen because Charles Kennedy ruled it out is in my opinion is being very naive).

One question, many of the issues are listed as "Not devolved" or "devolved in ..." What is that about? My dictionary says it means "passed on to others", but I don't understand the usage here.

The United Kingdom is made up of 4 countries England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Whilst Westminster (in London) is the seat of government the Welsh and Scottish assemblies have some authority.( In a similar way US states are free to set gun laws etc.) Northern Ireland currently has no seperate assembly due to the violence there.
The governemnt elected will be able to set the laws for England and any laws for the UK that arn't devolved to the others. They also have the authority to change what is devolved.

I shall probably waste my vote and put an X next to the Conservative candidate.

I cannot support the Labour Party because of The war, pensions, taxation, education, education, education, the economy, and detention.

I cannot support the Liberal Democrats on Europe and local taxation.

I'm all in favour of the Monster Raving Looney Party, but they've never stood in my ward.

>>How are you going to let The War affect your vote?<<

It decided my vote.

I am going to vote against Labour by voting Lib Dem.
I'm not voting for the Conservatives on the same basis.

I will not be swayed by appeals to my better instincts on this. Labour do not deserve my vote and neither do the Tories.

They are not going to get it.

Whilst this is an entirely hypthetical question and one that can never be answered I still wonder about it.

It is if the Lib Dems had either formed a government or looked very likely to form the next one would they still have been against the war?

IMO, I rather suspect that once a party is in Government in the UK it is advised (rightly or wrongly) that Britains *single* most important foreign policy objective is to keep the USA onside. No doubt a sitting Prime Minister has access to lots of information (correct or otherwise) that the likes of us will *never* get to know.

I conclude that if the Lib Dems were in this position then they may well have sung a different tune.

Hypothetical, indeed and perhaps. I frankly don't see that that matters all the much though.

So you or I will never know what the PM might know. So what? He is responsible nonetheless and he may have "apologised" but he has not been taken responsibilty for it. This election is our chance to make him be responsible.

So oppositions tend to sing a different tune in power than out of it. True again, but so what? 2001 has proven that you cannot trust a politcal party to hold to it's manifesto promises (top up fees) and that decision made ex-manifesto (i.e no specific mandate for the policy i.e I.D Cards, detention without trial) are contraverisal at best (lack of parliamentary time to enact them notwithstanding.)

I think it takes the bicuit to lead a nation to war on false pretences, all the while chide everyone for their doubts, to cry wolf over naysayers, to then be exposed and with a wink and grin to say its not really that important, by the way if you vote against me you'll let in the other lot.

Well I'm not voting for you and I'm not voting for them.
I'd abstain but I'm not missing this chance to actively cast my vote aginst this most cretinous of governments and a complicit oposition.

The point I am making is that amongst the UKs main parties the Lib Dems had a priviliged position. They were not going to form either the next government or the next opposition.

Consequntly nothing they say matters that much in terms of public policy only in terms of electoral success.

I contend that if the Libs were in government or likely to be so in the near future they would probably not have been against the war.

Now whilst I can never know that for sure I am confident enough of it not to base my decision on how the country will be governed for 4 or 5 years demestically on what is IMO a hypothetical opposition to war.

I think I fall into this category:
"Iraq is about Iraq"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/issues/4333025.stm

Hmm. Interesting.

I take your point that domesticly, choosing how the goverenment will conduct its business over the next half a decade is important, nay crucial.

I am not convinved by the idea that 'the Lib dems are a threat to no one therefore we shall not take them seriously.' IMO the stance they took on the war, on tuition fees, on Hutton, on Butler, on I.D Cards and the new Terror Laws were correct.

I think taking the hypothetical route is missleading, it diverts attention away from what the parties did do to what we think they might do. How they have acted speaks to me more than how they say they will act in future. I think you can judge a government on its record (backwards looking) which I acknowledge is what I am doing, or you can look at what the parties say they are going to do (forward looking.) But as I said above I have no confidence in what they say they will do either, since reality rarely matches rhetoric.
I am not convinced that goverenments should be let off the hook so lightly. I susbcribe to the idea that you vote Governments OUT rather than vote them IN.

I guesse what I am getting at is that *everything* said by any party that categorically *wont* be putting those policys into practice should be taken with a *very* liberal pinch of salt.

I dont particualrly take the Libs seriously because I do not know what they would stand for if they thought they might actually be held to account for promises they have made.

I dont much like Labour or Tories either but at least you know that they have kind have formulated there policies on the basis that they might actually have to implement some of them.

The Lib Dems are very much in devils advocate mode I feel. Reducing primary school class sizes stands out for me as a good policy, but I have to wonder how they think they'd do it: I thought there was a teacher shortage.

I think in part, that the standpoint that still seems fairly common place of a 'Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote' isn't so relivent as it used to be, I think now we are in a real three party political system, which I don't think we were i 'recent' (I'm young OK?) history. It just seems such an awful travisity that on the day I'm going to be forced into voting for a party who I almost certainly don't agree with on a lot of their policies on the basis that they are not party X or party Y

There are two issues here.

One: How much of a compromise are you willing to make? None of the parties are going to agree with what you want 100%. Not unless you establish one of your own.

Two: Is a Lib Dem Vote still a wasted vote?

Three: If the two party system is dead is that a good thing?

(I thought of issue three whilst I was typing Issue One)

Z - The Scout who Can't Type.

Its true that anyone I'd vote for will have some policies that I don't agree with, but over the past few years ther eseems to have been somethign of a change in teh 'kinds' of policies a lot of the partys are concerning an increasing amount of their time with; 'Stuff; that they are doing 'for your own good', an d I don't like anythign where it is 'them' enforcing policies that are infringing too greatly on individual rights, where they keep blurring the boundry of just how much polititions interfer in an individuals life and exactly what we can and cannot do.... And unfortunately all the political partys (well the main three anyhows), seem to have jumped on this 'bandwaggon', which is a shame as it makes them all more or less idential in the 'theorum' of governence they seem to want to offer us

Good point about the blandness of uniformity between parties. Hadn't though of it in that light before, as a product of authoritarian self-interest. Very interesting

Did I just say somthing sensible in that post then? if I did can I have asknowledgement of it in writing? ) Of course, there has never, to my knowledge been any choice at any election in the UK for as long back as my pathetica history goes: they all offer exactly the same thing; a differnet way of runnign a capitalist society (sorry marxist leanings rearing their head

Ferretbadger to be fair the Liberal's bourgh in most of the electorla reform in the 19th and early 20th century when they were the part of power so this is not necessairly a new thing.

Indeed but there was a very different political atmosphere then.

Firstly there were schisms and cleavages within society that simply dont exist now. A burdgeoning and increasingly activist working class population was begining to start to assert its authority. As that population grew not only did the moral case for giving them the vote become harder to ignore (carrot). The likelheed that they both could and would have done something to change the system (revolution) if reforms didn't happen were very real (stick).

The reforms made in the 19th Were the minimum needed to ensure as much of the status quo as possible remained.

I would say that 21c Britiain is a very different crewature from 20c Britain. I dont think there are new and massive social cleavages that are totally changing the poilitical landscape in a way the system must adapt or die, I also dont think there is likely to be a revolution because the Lib Dems dont get a fair crack of the whip under the FPP system.