ECA
I am a FH squatter
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2003
- Messages
- 9,439
Yuck, I don't normally get into politics online but here goes.
Firstly, I detest the current political system in the UK.
We have an unelected upper house and the countries head of state ( ok, technically the queen but in real terms our prime minister ), is not directly elected.
We have an electoral system that distorts the populations general view based on constituencies ( of which the boundaries need a MAJOR redesign ) - I believe the current boundaries are still in place from 1991 and there has been a long term shift of labour voters into conservative constituencies and the fact that the conservative base is more spread out rather than being in localised clusters which leads to a roughly 10% swing in favour of labour.
Anyway, I voted conservative at both local and national level.
I voted conservative at a local level because the candidate is a well known member of the local community and puts a lot of effort in, and a lot of his own time - he really gives a shit about the community.
At the national level I voted conservative because I live in a relatively safe labour seat,
I was tempted to vote lib dem but the candidates election propaganda was highly negative and was basically full of attack politics on contrast with the conservatives positive crap ( hey its all bullshit, but there is no room for attack politics imho ).
While I am more in line with the lib dems as a whole I cannot vote for a candidate who I feel has a low enough moral standing to put out the sort of negative campaign material that was put out in this case.
As for why I didn't vote labour?
Whether you like or dislike the conservatives for their past stretch in power they fixed a lot of long term problems with the country despite the short term negative political currency. Maggie thatcher had balls of steel to do that and I have a huge respect for her on the economic side ( although she could have been a bit nicer on the social policy side ) - I full well understand I wasn't old enough to understand at the time, but I have read around the period quite a lot.
The current government have managed to fuckup the economy so over the next decade expect interest rates to double /joy.
In economic terms the current labour government might as well be called "Thatcher-Lite"
Not only that, I disagree with their running of public services and their falsified statistical meaningless ( perfect example - Set Target: All doctors appointments within 24hrs - solution? no appointments outside 48hrs - target met, propaganda readied ) which is widespread across all sectors.
In the NHS the dates at which the statistics are sampled are announced in advance so of course more staff will be on and everything will look rosier.
My sister is a pharmacist and has often complained that patients are seen in certain orders to fulfil government targets rather than patient need.
On a social policy level I also disagree with the current policy of top up & tuition fees.
Students from poor families who cannot afford to go to higher education as a result of this, it basically keeps the middle classes happy as less contention from places from those lower down the social order, they are more likely to be able to pay and more likely to be happier with this system even though it results in some short term costs for them, their childen are usually the ones paying off the student loans.
Not only that but in their old manifesto they stated they would not introduce top up fees.
Iraq War - Yes it was probably a good thing Saddam got removed, but why wait so long after the first Gulf war to do it? The false link in the US between Al Queda was more than enough of an excuse and for extending US influence in the region.
As a result we dont have the power to intervene in areas we should be intervening in such as Darfour, Myanmar, the Palestine/Israel situation, the DRC, and the Côte d'Ivoire to name but a few places where killing and/or large scale repression is taking place on a much more significant scale than ever occured in Iraq.
Labours standing on replacing retiring MPs is terrible as well. They basically appoint retiring MPs to quangos post-retirement in return for the MP retiring past the cut off date that the labour party has on the local party appointing the new candidate, ie the candidate is chosen by the labour party HQ and is typically a long standing "Special Advisor".
Anyway there you go ^^
Firstly, I detest the current political system in the UK.
We have an unelected upper house and the countries head of state ( ok, technically the queen but in real terms our prime minister ), is not directly elected.
We have an electoral system that distorts the populations general view based on constituencies ( of which the boundaries need a MAJOR redesign ) - I believe the current boundaries are still in place from 1991 and there has been a long term shift of labour voters into conservative constituencies and the fact that the conservative base is more spread out rather than being in localised clusters which leads to a roughly 10% swing in favour of labour.
Anyway, I voted conservative at both local and national level.
I voted conservative at a local level because the candidate is a well known member of the local community and puts a lot of effort in, and a lot of his own time - he really gives a shit about the community.
At the national level I voted conservative because I live in a relatively safe labour seat,
I was tempted to vote lib dem but the candidates election propaganda was highly negative and was basically full of attack politics on contrast with the conservatives positive crap ( hey its all bullshit, but there is no room for attack politics imho ).
While I am more in line with the lib dems as a whole I cannot vote for a candidate who I feel has a low enough moral standing to put out the sort of negative campaign material that was put out in this case.
As for why I didn't vote labour?
Whether you like or dislike the conservatives for their past stretch in power they fixed a lot of long term problems with the country despite the short term negative political currency. Maggie thatcher had balls of steel to do that and I have a huge respect for her on the economic side ( although she could have been a bit nicer on the social policy side ) - I full well understand I wasn't old enough to understand at the time, but I have read around the period quite a lot.
The current government have managed to fuckup the economy so over the next decade expect interest rates to double /joy.
In economic terms the current labour government might as well be called "Thatcher-Lite"
Not only that, I disagree with their running of public services and their falsified statistical meaningless ( perfect example - Set Target: All doctors appointments within 24hrs - solution? no appointments outside 48hrs - target met, propaganda readied ) which is widespread across all sectors.
In the NHS the dates at which the statistics are sampled are announced in advance so of course more staff will be on and everything will look rosier.
My sister is a pharmacist and has often complained that patients are seen in certain orders to fulfil government targets rather than patient need.
On a social policy level I also disagree with the current policy of top up & tuition fees.
Students from poor families who cannot afford to go to higher education as a result of this, it basically keeps the middle classes happy as less contention from places from those lower down the social order, they are more likely to be able to pay and more likely to be happier with this system even though it results in some short term costs for them, their childen are usually the ones paying off the student loans.
Not only that but in their old manifesto they stated they would not introduce top up fees.
Iraq War - Yes it was probably a good thing Saddam got removed, but why wait so long after the first Gulf war to do it? The false link in the US between Al Queda was more than enough of an excuse and for extending US influence in the region.
As a result we dont have the power to intervene in areas we should be intervening in such as Darfour, Myanmar, the Palestine/Israel situation, the DRC, and the Côte d'Ivoire to name but a few places where killing and/or large scale repression is taking place on a much more significant scale than ever occured in Iraq.
Labours standing on replacing retiring MPs is terrible as well. They basically appoint retiring MPs to quangos post-retirement in return for the MP retiring past the cut off date that the labour party has on the local party appointing the new candidate, ie the candidate is chosen by the labour party HQ and is typically a long standing "Special Advisor".
Anyway there you go ^^
