UK General election

[Andy Mellon]

Why do I dislike Bliar?

1. His smarmy and self-righteous manner in public speaking
2. The fact he's actually quite conservative but masquerades as a left winger
3. The fact that at least 2 public enquiries have been massaged and arranged so as to remove any blame for anything from Bliar, no matter how obvious and place the blame on someone else.
4. His failure to take a blind bit of notice of public opinion on issues. Because he's got such a large majority in parliament; he feels he can do what he wants. He's even had some serious rebellion from his own party at times because of this. I would reference several things here, the obvious being the Iraq War, secondly his range of super-hospitals, the super-casinos (he likes things 'super' doesn't he?), fox hunting, counter-terrorism and the list goes on.
5. The over use of 'spin-doctors' and finally making it plain for all to see how untrustworthy politicians are
6. His wife and the Peter Foster affair. Can you really tell me one of England's top barristers didn't realise she was doing anything wrong?
7. The lack of any guidance from the UK Government on how the ECB should deal with Zimbabwe during the last World Cup and also Jack Straw's subsequent handshake with Mugabe.
8. At first ignoring the populace in their desire for a referendum over the UK constitution and then having to concede to one as he was losing political ground.
9. His idea of wealth redistribution is to tax the middle classes and give handouts to others. The richest people in Britain have generally got away with tax increases to pander to the CGI types who are so important for funding.

I could go on if you want me to, but I think that should suffice for now.

[Andy Mellon]

By the way, it would take a 21% swing to Labour before New Forest West would be lost by the tories. Even the Lib Dems wouldn't get it with a smaller swing. Its the 10th safest Tory seat

Great John Snow Swingometer can be found here. See how safe your constituency seat is!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2...tml/labcon.stm

[Occasional Fan]

Andy, the frightening thing about that is that, with that kind of swing, Labour would have 89% of the seats in the House. The Lib-Dems would have about 5 more seats than they now have and there would be no Tories at all. The only opposition would come from the Lib-Dems and the Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh parties. An elected dictatorship! I'm no natural Tory, but seeing New Forest West go the Labour party would have me applying for citizenship here and turning in my British passport!

The Swingometer is a great toy, isn't it? If you are an election addict, as I am, you will also want to sign up for Peter Snow's election alerts, accessible from the BBC Election pages.

[Seamer]

The media in Australia is saying Blair is under pressure because of his participation in the Iraq war. They said the same about Bush and Howard too - before they won in landslides and took absolute power in both houses of parliment ( Congess & senate in US, Reps & senate in Aus). Although the predominately left-wing media was against the war, the general population realised Saddam was a murderous monster, had to be removed, and admired the courage shown by our respective leaders. I don't know about Blairs domestic performance but his foriegn policy has been spot on.

[Occasional Fan]

He might be under pressure, but if Labour don't win this election I'll eat my hat. Our Upper Chamber, the House of Lords, is unelected, and Labour has no majority there, so there is no possibility of Labour gaining control of both Houses at this election. That can only happen if they appoint more Labour Lords (which could happen, and quite probably will if they get a huge majority in the Commons).

House of Lords is an archaic system and should be abolished for the good of the nation. It should be replaced by an elected senate to ensure the upper house is represented by people with genuine talent and whose actions will be held to account. If i was English, the House of Lords would annoy me to say the least. Cromwell should not have stopped with the king and should have stripped the aristocracy of power as well.

[Seamer]

Above is my comment - forgot to log in before posting

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Andy Mellon

Why do I dislike Bliar?

I could go on if you want me to, but I think that should suffice for now.

Excellent post Andy... I wish you had gone on.

I think for me one of the single most annoying things about this current (new) "Labour" administration is the fact that they swept to power with the help of the not inconsiderable traditional socialist vote. They are not a socialist party, and they didn't, in 1997, set out a traditional left-wing manifesto, yet all their traditional support voted for them.

Somewhere along the line you would think that the old left would realise: "hey my partys gone all right wing." But they haven't yet.

Granted this administration has begun to tilt back to the left, but they have by no means arrived there, and Blunkett was practically a fascist. But it is deeply politically incorrect to take a pop, in public, at a blind man, so nobody does. Nobody on "any" side of the political spectrum. Can't say "either" side, as most of them are right wing.

So anyway, here we have everyone realising that (new) "Labour" are a party of the centre-right ground and who will vote for them on May 5th? Why, all the socialists and left wingers. Because "Labour" is traditionally their party.

Well they're not now. OK. Go and vote for the worker's revolutionary party or Arthur Scargill's alternative Socialist Party, because you'll probably get a much more accurate representation of what you're after if that's really what you want.

If you want centre-right politics, vote for the Conservatives, who have always been a party of the right, and just as England know better than any other country how exactly to play 4-4-2, they (the Conservatives) know exactly how to govern from the right. They've never changed their direction or leaning and they probably never will.

Tony Blair made an unelectable party electable by making it a right wing party. That tells more about British society than it does about Tony Blair.

And if the explanation isn't that British society wanted a right wing party in power, then it is merely that the traditional Labour voters (left wing and socialists) didn't realise that their party had moved so radically to the right.

Do they know now? Do they care?

Probably not.

The Hon. Sir Oliver Smith-Smythe-Smith Bus-Stop F'Tang Ole Biscuit-Barrel (Grumpy Old party)

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Tony Blair made an unelectable party electable by making it a right wing party. That tells more about British society than it does about Tony Blair.

Not a right wing party in the true sense of the word Oliver, more like the Conservatives under Ted Heath.

I would dispute New Labour was elected because of Tony Blair, the mood in the country was for change, the econonmy was fine, John Major and co had got that right.
But it was inevitable the Conservatives had to go, any other party was preferable to the Conservatives, people like I say wanted change, and change they got.

Not really like a Conservative government, spending has been high, borrowing large ammounts of money by Gordan Brown has papered over the cracks of a deficate national budget.
They are not left wing I agree, just wishy washy centre rightish.

[Andy Mellon]

In response to Ernest's post as well as Oliver's

Oliver: Totally agree with what you have to say; Labour have shifted towards the right and use a lot of traditional tory policies (i'm thinking tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime type stuff here) but parade around as if they are the supporters of moral and social justice (i'm thinking right-on liberalism here - over protective nanny state, aggressive political correctness). I just cannot understand why traditional labour heartlands cannot see that British politics have shifted to the left. Basically, the Lib Dems are as left wing as labour - and with their rhetoric like "1p on income tax to fund education/health" you could easily read the Lib Dems as being more left wing!

However, most people couldn't bring themselves to vote for Scargill or the Socialist Worker due to the credibility gap. The collapse of the miners strikes in the 80s has destroyed any credibility Scargill and in fact most of the old left had. The only guy who ever maintained some respect was Tony Benn. Even Red Ken Livingstone was absolutely destroyed at the time (though mainly due to mis-management of the old GLC; so I find it HIGHLY ironic that Londoners voted him to be mayor of London)

As days pass and I get more and more disgruntled with poor employee relation skills by management at my company; coupled with Bliar's cosying up with the CGI (particularly the opting out of the Working Time Directive thanks to lobbying from the CGI) I feel more and more that Labour is not the answer. Who would I like to vote for? The Conservatives? - No, I don't agree with the majority of their policies, and I have no trust for their leadership - or the people who appoint their leadership (Ken Clark or Malcolm Rifkind would have been much better options than Michael Howard) Lib Dems? Well, better than the other alternatives, but couldn't have enough power unless proportional representation were brought in and I don't think Charles Kennedy is a strong enough leader either in terms of perceived power or oratory skills.

In recent times I've thought, "What if there was a party which told the no-holds-barred truth" rather than the half truths and evasion of questions paddled by all politicians. Oh for a time without spin, where a spade is a spade and people admitted they'd done something wrong. A cricketing analogy would be to walk or not to walk. Not only do politicians not walk, but they query the original reason to make an appeal in the first place. Had the bowler fairly stated the action he was going to use? Surely the noise the umpire heard was the ball striking the pitch?

Really, who is there for someone like me to vote for? In the past, the SDP would have provided a decent option and they would now be the real left wing mainstream party if they still existed. Dr David Owen, where are you now?!?

POSTSCRIPT: I don't think the Socialist worker party posts a candidate in New Forest West (or in fact anywhere South of Royal Leamington Spa)