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

<> unfortunately it's one of those rather grim facts of life that war is good for the economy, pretty much any economy.

Niff

Which is precisely why I hedged my bets something awful

"I'm not certain", "hypothetically" "its not impossible"

<"hypothetically" "its not impossible"> just the words I use in my essays! I also like 'It seems likely' and 'There is some evidence for'. What a depressing place we might be living in. Still, it's a sunny day outside, ho hum...

Niff

Going back to Clive's comment "how dogmatic am I to think that my vote matters when in my darker moods I'm not sure that it does".

My instinctive response to a friend who grumpily stated that he wasn't going to vote because it was pointless - "they're all as bad as each other" - I believe were his exact words, was that if you don't bother to vote you have no right to bitch about the resulting parliament.

In my (very humble and politically naive) opinion, you vote for the party that offers a manifesto with the closest match to your own wish-list.

If your chosen party is not elected into office you have a legitimate right to be unhappy with the result; and if your party is elected you also have a right to kick up a stink when their election promises are broken, as inevitably they tend to be.

My personal politics are in favour of the LibDems. My only worry is that they have not been tested in office and that the principled stand they make as Britain's third party may be compromised by the grant of real political power. One can only hope that this would not be the case, and can only really find out by giving them a chance at the job.

To comment on the original point of the thread, I personally don't see how the proposed system would make any difference. The only people that would update their preferences on a regular basis are those that have a real interest in politics which, as demonstrated by voter apathy during elections proper, is not the majority population.

Just my two-penn'orth.
Ancrene

Hello Ancrene

I am anything but an idle voter.

I fully intend to cast my vote in this election, as in other elections. I do not believe not voting is a valid form of protest.

To the point about the Lib Dems never having been in Government - neither had any of the New Labour front bench in 1997.

That's hardly an endorsement but neither is it I believe detrimental to their campaign. Its part of the limiting belief that we can only have two parties in this country with is missleading and false.
I too hope they are able to remain as principled and honest if they are ever able to achieve office.

Clive.

"I too hope they are able to remain as principled and honest if they are ever able to achieve office"

I’m not sure that’s how I would describe the Lib Dems now.

The parliamentary Liberal Democrat party say what they believe will get them the most votes (which are things that I sometimes agree with - yet not for the same reasons as I rarely have the need for any votes...) yet their local parties, who have the majority in the council where I live, are some of the most corrupt right-wing people in any form of government in the country. The Lib Dem campaign leaflets are even coming wrapped in a council newsletter and by brought the same person. Is that even legal???

I’ve also just never believed they can be an alternative as they seem to lack any ideology or beliefs of any kind. This can probably be true of the much of the other two now but at least I know what they are meant to stand for and there are still some in each one who believe it (one for business and rich people and the other for... some of the people who aren’t rich)

Well I cannot speak for local councils.

We've got a lib dem council too and one thing that has happened is that the rate for shops rent has gone up, and a number of places have closed. Thats worrying, but at the same time we've had a shed load of improvements to local services like the new bus centre on Burlington Street, they've demolished the old and delapidated coach station and a new one is in the process of being built, the Train station has been practically rebuilt and totally modernised.

I think the strategy of targetting the entry points into my town is a sensible and worthwhile one to raise my town's profile and general ammenabilty, espeically since I use public transport quite extensively.

My point is, local issues are just that entirely local - my experience of the lib dem council will mean about as much to you as yours does to me (sorry to be so blunt.) Likewise I don't see how the actions of any one council refer up the ladder to the parliamentary parties themselves. For instance, as much as I'd like to believe that Labour Parliamentary Party are all bunch of vote-rigging crooks - the sad truth is that they are not.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4410743.stm

As regards Ideology: - its probably true we've seen the last of strident ideoloigcal divisions in parliament for now such as roared through the 70's and 80's. (As the death of Rover in Birmingham perversely proves - a triumph of the Thatcherite legacy of market reforms you might say that there was barely a whisper of disquet amongst the MP's who aren't in a mood to subsidise a failing business on the eve of a General Election, and the unions spoke not of revolt but retraining. Save but for a state visit from Blair and Brown, and a bit of murmering on the Tory side which amounts to not very much, I think ideology in parliament is pretty much dead.)

And as for not having any beliefs - the one thing that has impressed me about the Lib Dems in particular is their willingness to oppose Government, this has been especially true when the offical opposition has colluded with the government. I think Kennedy's stance against over authoritarian legislation from Government has been correct and important - and I think that does speak volumes about 'what they stand for.'

The Labour and Tory statregists would probably be horrifiied to have themselves characterised as only for the poor and for the rich - its precisely the model they've been trying to move away from so as to secure wider appeal.

In conclusion let me revise my former unqualified remark because it is a bit sweeping .

"I too think they are more principled and more honest than most and I too hope I am not wrong about that."

I agree with much of what you say, there are both good and bad labour and the lib dem councils.

However I’m not sure I understand how you can say that ‘ideology in parliament is pretty much dead’ and at the same time celebrate that of the lib dems as standing against labours authoritarianism. To me they have seemed fundamentally divided ever since the SDP and the Liberal Party merged and this can still be seen today in that they’re not quite sure which party’s support base they should be going after. I’d use the phrase ‘trying to have your cake and eat it’ but to be honest I’ve never really understood it. I like to eat my cake.

The Tory strategists may be horrified to hear that all they stand for is the rich and business but it is the truth. Labour strategists would proabably be equally horrified to hear that I think they should stand the poor and those that need help... (after all it’s not exactly what they do these days). Both of them might be trying to appear to move away from these models but that doesn’t disguise the fact that one of them should be done

Thanks for the welcome.

I live in an area where the local council swings regularly between the Tories and Labour, neither of whom seem to have the slightest interest in regeneration of a small town that has been hit very hard by the development of an out-of-town mega-mall over the last 20 years.

Nor is public transport high on their agenda... or provision of better facilities for schools... or care for the sick and elderly... in all, I can't think of anything worthwhile that rates / poll tax / council tax (in the order that I have paid them for who knows how long!) have been used for, apart from new ring roads and overblown works of art to decorate them.

I am all in favour of community pride - which is why I like Europe so much in comparison to the USA! - but not when it is purely superficial.

It does concern me that LibDem councils are seen as right-wing, since this is the last place in the political spectrum that I would have expected to find them.

Personally, I don't think that New Labour stand for the poorer sectors of society; they seem more Tory than the Tories in my eyes.

> The Lib Dem campaign leaflets are even coming wrapped in a council newsletter and by brought the same person. Is that even legal??? <

If your local council is paying for distribution of a newsletter, then that's what it's paying for, not the distribution of election campaign literature. Complain to the Chief Executive's office. This is sleaze in the first degree. Your council tax can be used to distribute information published by the council, it can be used to encourage you to vote, but it can't be used to encourage you to vote in support of a particular candidate.

If the person doing the delivering was a volunteer, that's still extremely iffy, at best.

Make sure you are correct though. What looks like the official council newsletter may in fact be the official newsletter of the LibDem party on the council. Check who published it.

Mol

Sound advice from Mol.

I have a job interview at my local council chief executive office on Wednesday, so maybe in future I can be as knowledgable!

Good luck, Clive. Please share your insights on local government with the rest of us when you're in place!

>>I’m not sure I understand how you can say that ‘ideology in parliament is pretty much dead’ and at the same time celebrate that of the lib dems as standing against labours authoritarianism.<<

I am a recent convert to Liberalism, that is to say since I've been able to vote I've voted liberal (and succeeded in electing a Lib Dem MP, I'm happy to say ) and that's only in the last 6 years so only in this last parliament have I been able to contribute democratically to the politcal landscape of this country althoguh I became politcally aware somewhere around 1992, when Maggie was beign ousted, Major was coming in and everyone was beign ridiculously parodied on Spitting Image ()

So the history of the Liberal Democrast such as it is, I know is a mixture of the some disparate elements, the original gang of four and so on.

Interestingly I heard Andrew Marr remark the other week that he'd asked some new voters (just 18) who were students at the school were the PM last announced the General Election in 2001, who they thought John Major and Magaret Thatcher were. They replied that they knew the names but didn't know who the people were. (you may gasp now) My point is, the tactic which is pretty prevalant in the campaign generally and I've noticed it and here on h2g2 in some debates I've taken part in, which is to cry not voting labour will bring back the tories. there will be a number of people for whom that is an empty threat as there is a new generation of voters (a constiuancy of opinion that can only increase with time) for whom that phrase will mean less and less.

The link, if I can make it finally , is I feel pretty much the same way about the Liberals. Whilst I am at 24, distantly aware of in a somewhat hazy fashion of the history of that political party, I can remember no-one leading them before Paddy Ashdown. To be honest the idea that the mix of SDP and Liberals is a disruptive element in the party means very little to me, in the same way as there are generations of voters growing up who don't remember the Tories.


Why is this important? Because it means I (and I suspect I am not alone in this) in being politcally aware as I am, against the trend of apathy, tend to take the parties as I find them.

I remember with distaste the Tories from 1992 onwards (Michael Howard as Home Secretary ) I remember the optimism of Labour in 1997 (I wasn't old enough to vote but I sensed a new beginning the old lot were going and someone new was coming in - this was going to be good.) I voted Liberal in 2001 in a local dispute. Our local Labour MP was retiring (the venerable Tony Benn) and there was a groundswell fo support for a change to the Lib Dem to keep out 'new' Labour and the Tories. Since then my opinions have only solidified and have come clearer into focus over the Iraq war - where as I am painstakingly setting out in other threads on this election page - I do not find the positions of the other two parties credible or worthy of my vote.

Which is why I argued above that their reaction to authoritarian legislation shows "where they stand" (as you had formally said you did not think they stood for anything )

How is this different from Ideology?

Damn good question! I had to scurry over to the dictionary to double check what ideology specifically referred to and got the following:

1.) "The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture."

2. "A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system."

Sticking with option 2 as it relates to political systems the point I was trying to make about what I called the death of ideology was in relation to market economics, whilst the parties all differ on specific policies, and it is a genuine mistake to say that all the parties are essentially the same - broadly there is a consensus on the running of the economy. There may be dissagreements over say public and private financing or the rate of tax, but that is the level the debate operates at now. It is not driven by a societal vision of state control or battling to introduce free market philosophy into a strongly unionised workforce. And this is significant because the point I was making in relation to Rover specifically was that rightly or wrongly, the free market philosophy appears to be dominant and no-one on any of the political parties was much contesting that **as the might have done in the past** when ideological discussion was more prevelant.


(I'm almost done )

Gettign back to the lib dems opposing authoritarian legislation - if this is a consistent stance they take; an attiude say which informs their policies and their arguments - is that the same thign as operating from the basis of an ideology? Is it a doctrinal belief of Liberal democrat faith that "Liberal" is the byword of legislation?

I don't really have an answer for that. (in short, Discuss. )

If it is an ideology, its one I am broadly in agreement with.

and Thank You Ancrene. Very Kind of you.

This article hints at what meant about thr broad consensus between today's political parties.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4424227.stm

as does this newer story - but what I wonder does Howard mean by "sensible"?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4429663.stm

I’m 19 and so this will be the first time I’ll have voted in a general election so I guess you could call me part of a ‘new generation of voters’ and I have no lack of hatred for either Thatcher or Major. I was also 2 when the Liberal Party and the SDP merged so I don’t exactly have any vested interests in the conflict between them. However I could never just “take the parties as I find them” as how I find them is influenced heavily by political strategists, PR people… etc. It’s their history and previous record where the parties should be judged and in the case of the SDP, whose former members now fill much of the leadership of the Lib Dems (including Kennedy himself), it’s a group of people who left the Labour party believing it to be too left wing.

The only judge of how the Lib Dems react in power is in local government where it is pretty much a 3 party system and, as seen before, we have had different experiences with that. Yet the attempt of the leadership to be all things to all people, as well as the huge disparities between them and the local party where I live and in other parts of London (where in many instances they are the opposite of the parliamentary Liberals), ultimately means that I don’t believe they stand for anything beyond a desire for votes and the thirst for power. What they say in manifestos and policy is not a reflection of what they will do in power or what they stand for, as they know that will not be happen for some time, if at all.

When it comes down it I pretty much dislike all political parties but realistically I have to vote for the one that I believe will do the least damage…

Good luck with the job interview! I’ll be missing out on the next couple of weeks of party propaganda (thankfully) as I’m going to Berlin. Is it far enough though?

Bye

Yes, good luck Clive. Although don't quote me on the leaflet thing, which provoked quite a debate in the office at work today ...

Mol

Thanks Guys!

not sure how it went bit difficult to tell you know?



Still fingers crossed.

Now off down to Salisbury for my *other* interview. glee.

hmm....with regard to the whole meteor impact theory, I think you might want to watch the experiment in the 4th July, when the US shoot a ballistic probe into a comet. Does this seem like a particularly good idea to you?

With regards to how the Lib Dems work in power look at Scotland as well as local councils. Before entering a second partnership agreement each local party had a representative vote on the agreement that had been negotiated. It had been explained to the membership present. But the Lib Dems have stuck to their principles to get many of their pledges into policy.

As for most to the leadership being from the SDP. OK there is Kennedy and Vince Cable but Menzies Campbell, Simon Hughes, Phil Willis and Malcolm Bruce were Liberals. As was Paddy Ashdown. Most of the other's are too young to list any other party but the Liberal Democrats at least with representation.