Our Cause is Your Cause
So said Gordon Brown, launching the New Party’s election campaign today. Surely he meant to say, Your Cause is Our Cause; which is to say, we, as elected politicians will attempt to find out the views of voters, and reflect them in our manifestos. No; he means what he says; they need us to perpetuate their power grab. As Nick Clegg said today, Brown is personally responsible for much that has gone wrong over the last thirteen years, including the failure to regulate capital, and signing the cheques for two illegal wars (that’s Kosovo and Iraq), and two unwinnable ones (that’s Afghanistan and Drugs). I would like the chance to vote for a left-wing party, and the New Party are not it. The Tories have been in power since 1979, and it’s time to see them off.
As part of that process, the New Party need to be comprehensivly kicked into the gutter on May 6th. And, also as part of that process, we may need to put up with a few more years of Tory rule. Does anybody really care? How many people have you heard being interviewed today saying ‘Well, they’re all as bad as one another?’ And so they are. I’m lucky, in that I live in a Lib-Dem held constituency. Our MP is Roger Williams, a hard-working and popular MP who lives and farms locally, and gets in Elda’s Colombian Coffee House from time to time. If I thought the Tories might win here, I’d happily vote for Roger Williams; if he looks like he might be home free, I’ll vote Green. But if I lived in a New Party/Conservative marginal, I really might consider holding my nose and voting for Cameron, if that’s what it takes to force the New Party to go away and turn back into Socialists, or at least pinkish Social Democrats. I still wouldn’t vote for them ever again (I did in 1997), but I’d like the choice.
You and Yours had a phone-in recently where they asked people to send in policies. I sent them three, and they phoned me back, and asked me to be on the show; but sadly, I was out, so I’ll never know which one they wanted me to pitch. Anyhoo, here they are;
1. The setting up of a Royal Commission on drugs.
2. The disestablishment of the Church of England.
3. No university tuition fees for students from state schools who choose to go back to teach in their old school for a minimum of five years.
I’d vote for anyone who put forward all three (except BNP/UKIP, natch); for anyone who gets the environment, for anyone who is against Trident and ID cards, and for anyone who understands why the BBC is so important and needs safe-guarding. At the moment realpolitik makes it the Lib-Dems for me, though my heart is still Green.
I’m going to do m’darndest to blog everyday for the next month, just because this is probably the most interesting election of my adult life; but the one in which lots of people seem completely uninterested. Come back on May 8th if I bore you more than usual; because that’s the date of the Tour de Presteigne…
Ian dearest…do you honestly believe that a ‘red’ Labour party would have done anything different to what Blair & Brown have done over the last 13 years?
The economy would still be fucked. They’ve got lots of previous there, remember.
Schools would still be churning out legions of drab little propagandized drones without an ounce of initiative between them.
They’d have still considered a British passport and its full implications to be slightly less relevant than the list of ingredients on the back of a Bisto packet.
The main problem that they’d have had would have been that they’d have had to be a bit more honest about their aims than the ‘New’ lot were. Which would have meant that they’d never have been elected. Shite world, isn’t it?
Yours,
xxx
Graham
I only ever voted for a successful candidate once; in 1997. And look where it got me…
I feel your despair Ian.
I’ve never voted for a successful candidate or party, mostly for geographical reasons, but nevertheless I’ve never been represented.
Which is exactly how I feel now.
Yes, it’s a hot one all right. Good luck with the daily blog – I’ll read it alongside The Daily Mash, which is also going to make great comedy hay out of the next month.
Like the comment about the Tories being in power since 1979. I venture that it changed a bit after Fatch, but looking back, what’s to choose between Blair, Brown, Major, Hague…
I haven’t voted in the last two elections. It was a conscious choice. I wasn’t going to vote Tory, obv., but I was also fucked if I was going to give ‘New’ Labour a vote of confidence. Maybe if I’d lived somewhere where my vote would have made a difference I might have thought differently but all it was ever going to be was a miniscule contribution to Tony’s mandate and I wasn’t prepared to offer that.
The Tory tactical vote. Interesting thinking IP. I worry though, that this is where it starts and once you’ve gone Tory, you’ll never go back…
Hope you can keep it up daily ’til this ‘democratic’ farrago reaches it’s inevitable conclusion. Basically, we’re all f***ed whoever ‘wins’, but I shall, as ever, be entertained by your observations in the meanwhile.