England's dreaming....
So a key donor of the UKIP has pulled the plug and returned to the breast of the Conservative Party. Apparently he was dismayed to hear UKIP announce that they would put up a candidate in every constituency at the next election, even if they would be standing against tories of stature. It seems that it dawned on him that the only credible way of getting Britain out of Europe would be to get the Tories elected.
Good Grief.
I know the Americans don't have much choice in their election (Bush or Kerry - hmmmm. Should you really elect someone as president on the grounds that he ISN'T the other candidate? Or perhaps that's always how it has been done?), but with the General Election possibly only 6 months away, I'm feeling my own choices being constricted:
Labour - took us into an unpopular and unjustified war with Iraq on false pretences
Conservative - you can spin him as much as you like, but I remember Michael Howard for the worm he was as Home Secretary. As for the party themselves, they are a nest of vipers.
Liberal Democrat - sensible policies on the war and on Electoral reform, but I'm afraid I.m not convinced that they are heavyweight enough for government and Charles Kennedy is looking increasingly like a cadaver
Green - much though I approve of the idea, I can't vote for a party when I barely know their policies on key issues like education
UKIP - behave! Robert Kilroy-Silk is my MEP and is a dreadful man. Labour MP turned TV presenter, turned racist and campaigner against Europe.
Bring back the Natural Law Party - Yogic Flying for peace. Can't hurt, can it?
Seriously though - I feel strongly that I should use my mandate and make my voice heard, but who the hell out of this motley band should I be voting for. I know that the whole thing about democracy is that if no-one represents me, I should get off my arse and form my own party, but frankly that's just not practical.
Depressing.
Good Grief.
I know the Americans don't have much choice in their election (Bush or Kerry - hmmmm. Should you really elect someone as president on the grounds that he ISN'T the other candidate? Or perhaps that's always how it has been done?), but with the General Election possibly only 6 months away, I'm feeling my own choices being constricted:
Labour - took us into an unpopular and unjustified war with Iraq on false pretences
Conservative - you can spin him as much as you like, but I remember Michael Howard for the worm he was as Home Secretary. As for the party themselves, they are a nest of vipers.
Liberal Democrat - sensible policies on the war and on Electoral reform, but I'm afraid I.m not convinced that they are heavyweight enough for government and Charles Kennedy is looking increasingly like a cadaver
Green - much though I approve of the idea, I can't vote for a party when I barely know their policies on key issues like education
UKIP - behave! Robert Kilroy-Silk is my MEP and is a dreadful man. Labour MP turned TV presenter, turned racist and campaigner against Europe.
Bring back the Natural Law Party - Yogic Flying for peace. Can't hurt, can it?
Seriously though - I feel strongly that I should use my mandate and make my voice heard, but who the hell out of this motley band should I be voting for. I know that the whole thing about democracy is that if no-one represents me, I should get off my arse and form my own party, but frankly that's just not practical.
Depressing.
posted by swisslet @ 08:20
6 Comments:
At 9:57 am,
Teresa Bowman said…
I voted Green in the recent local election, through lack of choice more than anything else. Usually in local elections I vote Socialist Alliance but they didn't have a candidate in Bristol North West. And I sure as hell wasn't voting UKIP or BNP (2 of the other options I could have chosen ...)
But yes, I agree, it's damn near impossible to decide who to vote for in the General when, as you say, they're all pretty much as bad as each other (or worse!) I guess I'll just have to sigh, shrug, and put a cross in the Labour box again. Like a lot of other people, I should think.
At 12:51 pm,
Damo said…
I've voted Lib Dem on all three occasions that I have been able. Don't know if they'd be better, but I trust them more than the other two. Yes, Labour took us into war, but the only respect in which the Tories are different is that we would probably have been there in late 2002, rather than March 2003. I still find it odd that a centre-left politician is in bed with a hard-right president, and I can't believe that there wasn't SOME behind-the-scenes wrangling that delayed the process. But ultimately, his advisers probably told him he'd be better jumping off a cliff than damaging the 'special relationship'. So I can't work out if Mr. Blair is evil, or just plain spineless... and the truth is we'll never know.
I'm not sure what the pros and cons of closer European ties are - I want to become better educated on this issue. All I know is that the very idea of closer ties seems to annoy all of the people that I would want to annoy myself...
At 9:24 pm,
The Num Num said…
I am infuriated by Labour. I trusted them with my vote, I expected them to put money back into the poorer peoples' world - education, nhs, progressive taxing etc.
They largely did that. But then, President Blair went to war on lies. I am fuming. He continues to be there, I really want the world to make his family into pariahs once he steps down (or pops off to the USA to marry Bush in a Gay Mormon marriage cermenony).
This year, I will be protest voting. I will vote....vote....shit. You're right. It Sux.
I'm voting for Blue - sod it. Southall is too un-political, I'll be the only vote for the Blue chap. God Bless him.
At 11:15 pm,
swisslet said…
whoah - easy now. Don't be making rash statements like that. Ken Clarke is my MP - in my books about the only Tory I would contemplate voting for - and I've never been within a whisker of voting for him. I couldn't bring myself too.
And I don't agree with protest voting or tactical voting either because I think you should vote for what you believe in (although to be fair, I've never lived somewhere where I've had the chance of making a meaningful tactical vote, and maybe I'd change my tune if I did).
Either way, it's a shit choice this time around and no mistake.
At 12:23 am,
Damo said…
Mr DP. Excuuuuuuuuuuuse me?
By all means vote for the blues if you must, but as a protest against the war? Have you forgotten the Reagan/Thatcher friendship? And they supported the war wholeheartedly. If anything, voting blue would be a vote for a party that would have had us at war three months earlier (as the US wanted, because the desert temperatures were lower then).
Worried now. You're not really thinking of voting Tory are you? (Gulp.)
At 12:31 pm,
Teresa Bowman said…
Politics = Hell.
I have had an innate distrust of the Tories from my very childhood and it ain't dissipated yet. Still, I think you can guess my tolerance level of people whose politics don't exactly match mine when I tell you that my Mum voted Tory for 20-odd years, then voted for the Referendum Party in the general election in '97 (!!!) and the UKIP in the local election (!!!!), and I am still living in the same house as her in a state of reasonable equanimity.
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