NuPolitics
May. 12th, 2010 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootMy verdict on the election? It got weird, didn't it?
Cleggmania didn't deliver, in fact, none of them really delivered, but there was a narrow winner...and the attempts of the losers to turn narrow into nothing were sometimes shabby, occasionally hysterical. Just because the tories got more crosses in boxes it didn't mean that people had voted for them. Some people had voted conservative because their pens slipped or they thought they were signing deportation orders or malign spirits had possessed them overnight... those xs can't have meant that people wanted Tory government or there'd have been more of them. No, they wanted a minority government unable to rule because of an opposition guided by the mighty principles of Anything-Except-Tory and Because-The-People-Don't-Know-What's-Good-For-Them.
Clegg's party did not help themselves. New Politics? As they waited to see who would offer them the best deal and let the country chew its nails? PR? What had any of this to do with PR? It is a genuinely important matter - as is the organisation of our ballot nights - but compared to issues like the deficit and immigration, PR was very periphery to the main concerns of the country at this time. How did it get to be so central? Not because of the rights and wrongs of it, only as a bartering tool, and the longer the negotiations went on, the more it seemed like a blackmailing tool.
Punter to punter, pillar to post, all to see who gives the most...Blunket said the LibDem party was behaving like a harlot, and even I, inclined to write off the delay as caution over getting a good deal, found it all a bit...well, whoreish. I have nothing against whores, but I wouldn't pay one to run my country, any more than I would pay a politician to sleep with me.
Funnily enough Labour's distaste for the process warmed me to them once more. I would rather support a robust and honourable opposition than a 'Rainbow Alliance' of those united by nothing more than hatred of the Conservatives and so much contempt for the people's mandate, they are prepared to dismiss it, fuelling their power to do so with bribes. For a few brief hours I was in despair; I have never voted Conservative in my life, but yesterday I realised that if there was a forced election in 6 months time, I would probably have gone blue in defense of the principle that the people have spoken and no, we don't get re-runs until they vote the way we like.
Labour came out of this looking like the Party I remember and loved, ready to take defeat on the chin and fight on until they win again.
And Cameron? It is right and proper that he enters No.10. But he's still made of wax.
Cleggmania didn't deliver, in fact, none of them really delivered, but there was a narrow winner...and the attempts of the losers to turn narrow into nothing were sometimes shabby, occasionally hysterical. Just because the tories got more crosses in boxes it didn't mean that people had voted for them. Some people had voted conservative because their pens slipped or they thought they were signing deportation orders or malign spirits had possessed them overnight... those xs can't have meant that people wanted Tory government or there'd have been more of them. No, they wanted a minority government unable to rule because of an opposition guided by the mighty principles of Anything-Except-Tory and Because-The-People-Don't-Know-What's-Good-For-Them.
Clegg's party did not help themselves. New Politics? As they waited to see who would offer them the best deal and let the country chew its nails? PR? What had any of this to do with PR? It is a genuinely important matter - as is the organisation of our ballot nights - but compared to issues like the deficit and immigration, PR was very periphery to the main concerns of the country at this time. How did it get to be so central? Not because of the rights and wrongs of it, only as a bartering tool, and the longer the negotiations went on, the more it seemed like a blackmailing tool.
Punter to punter, pillar to post, all to see who gives the most...Blunket said the LibDem party was behaving like a harlot, and even I, inclined to write off the delay as caution over getting a good deal, found it all a bit...well, whoreish. I have nothing against whores, but I wouldn't pay one to run my country, any more than I would pay a politician to sleep with me.
Funnily enough Labour's distaste for the process warmed me to them once more. I would rather support a robust and honourable opposition than a 'Rainbow Alliance' of those united by nothing more than hatred of the Conservatives and so much contempt for the people's mandate, they are prepared to dismiss it, fuelling their power to do so with bribes. For a few brief hours I was in despair; I have never voted Conservative in my life, but yesterday I realised that if there was a forced election in 6 months time, I would probably have gone blue in defense of the principle that the people have spoken and no, we don't get re-runs until they vote the way we like.
Labour came out of this looking like the Party I remember and loved, ready to take defeat on the chin and fight on until they win again.
And Cameron? It is right and proper that he enters No.10. But he's still made of wax.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-13 10:36 am (UTC)Not at all. I am not anti the inclusion of PR as part of a compromise between parties; I am, however, very unhappy about a situation where it becomes THE deciding factor, because brutally speaking if it mattered to the electorate the way it matters to the LibDems, I honestly believe we'd have seen that reflected in votes and seats. I accept that this is subject to argument!
To my mind, the major fault was not in bringing the issue forward and standing by it, but in portraying the issue as the party's price for co-operation. I agree the media did much to demonise the dawdlers, but it did smack more of realpolitik than new politics.
With regard to personal preferences, my party allegiances are changing. Though I have been a lifelong Labour voter, I did not vote with that party this election, and I may not do so again. From now on, I will treat every election on a case by case basis. Can't believe it; I'm officially a swing voter!
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Date: 2010-05-13 11:01 am (UTC)