UK Election: Jubal's Coverage

[Jubal]

Ok, here's the election from the eyes of a 16 year old British nerd... I'll look at the major issues and so on over the next 4 weeks in this thread. probably making unnecessary historical refercnes on the way just because I can.

[Goldyrulz]

omg.... here come the romans again.....

[Jubal]

Part One: The Big 3

The UK has a 2-party system really, with a third party able to hold the balance of power at times. The two parties are the Labour and Conservative parties, the third are the Liberal Democrats.

So, as these "big 3" race to get the votes of the UK electorate, what do they want and what are they promising?
If one takes a look at the slogans, it doesn't tell you much. Labour want fairness, the Conservatives want change, the Dems want both. If you still don't know what they want at all, nor do the rest of us...

LABOUR
Labour is defending 13 years in power. Everyone now dislikes them deeply if not hates them, more or less. The trades unions feel abandoned by the party they fund, businesses always preferred the Tories anyway, and Middle England is as usual pretty disappointed at the lack of hovercars general utopia. That said, the last 13 years hasn't been too bad really. Compare it to the decade and a half before, when we lost our nationalised coal, airlines, trains, and many other services, and Labour looks a bit better. That said, nobody really tends to look at history in General Election campaigns...

Labour's policies are generally those of moderate centrism. They don't want to cut public services too early, but accept the need to save public money. In particular they're concerned about keeping the economy going while trying to use that to fund services such as the NHS. They essentially believe to an extent in "business as usual", since it's been their business for the last 13 years, although of course they are determined to find a new agenda to try and improve on what they've started.

CONSERVATIVES
The Conservatives never had a leader who didn't become Prime Minister until 2001 when William Hague resigned. Considering that they've been in politics since the 1700s that's a pretty good track record. Now, after having three leaders in a row fail to enter the history books (except in the capacity of failures), David Cameron is determined to get the Tories back in power. The Conservatives are essentially right-wing; they believe in economic growth, low taxes for all, and little public spending.

The party has a weighty poll lead of around 8 points (averaging from four main pollsters). They need to be 6.9 points clear to win - the largest swing since the Second World War - which gives them a tough task. Many people will not want the public service cuts that the Conservatives offer (their policies need 6bln more of cuts than Labour's at least to avoid the latter party's National Insurance rise, but wealthier people and businesses will tend to rally behind the Conservatives as they offer more opportunities for business to work with government.

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
The Lib Dems are, to start with, not actually going to win the election. They're a smaller party than the others, and don't have the large-scale business or trades union backing that Labour or the Tories enjoy. That said, they could well hold the balance of power if no party gains a majority of MPs. Their policies look towards liberalism and progressivism; they are not a socialist party and in fact tend to offer some tax cuts for the less well off, but they often tend to still support the welfare state. They favour fairer voting systems such as Single Transferrable Vote, which if they hold the balance of power will be a major policy target for them to aim for.

Right, that's hopefully a reasonably unbiased view of the main parties. From now on, I'm going to be giving my own views and commentary much more. Let the bias begin, hehe...

[Jubal]

PART TWO: AFGHANISTAN

If there's one view I hold that surprises EVERYONE I talk to, it's that I don't think we should pull out of Afghanistan. It's a reasonably strong view of mine, it's quite considered, and I simply don't think that at the present time we have the moral right to allow the Taliban back into power. Make no mistake about it, if we DID pull straight out now the Taliban would be back within weeks. And unfortunately for everyone, we live in a very global world now; one rogue regime can do an awful, awful lot of damage in the world.

There's a tendency, I think, for liberals in the post-Vietnam world to feel that they can't or shouldn't support any wars of interventionism; in a way, I agree. It's clear that interventionist strategies are rarely helpful. One could have made a vey good argument in 2001 for not going in in the first place on those grounds, and they would possibly have been quite right to do so. However, now, in 2010, that's not what we have to be thinking about. We have the situation now to deal with, and we can't pretend that we have the situation of nearly a decade earlier. The situation now, of course, is hardly sunshine and roses, or we wouldn't be fighting a war. That said, it's not Vietnam. even Iraq wasn't Vietnam, and that was most certainly an illegal war that we should never have gone into. But Vietnam was different. The Vietnamese struggles were no threat to western security, even less so that Saddam and his nonexistent WMDs. The USA intervened in Vietnam for purely ideological reasons; to stop the spread of communism. Whatever you think of communism, it's clearly wrong to attempt to impose your cultural ideas for the sake of it, and for another thing the US had little to no popular support int he jungles of southeast Asia. Fromt he beginning, they were fighting a guerilla war that they had utterly no hope of winning.

None of these things are or ever have been the case in Afghanistan. Whether we should have gone in is, as I have said, now an irrelevance; thus we should look at the situation now. Which is, in fact, that most Afghans are actually supporting the US/UK mission. 68% support the presence of US troops, and 70% believe that the country is going in the right direction. In addition, 70% believe that the Taliban pose the greatest threat to their nation. Only 4% think that of the USA. 83% said that the US invasion in 2001 had been a good thing. The stats aren't perfect, but they clearly indicate that the Afghans are not desperate to throw the US out. In fact, as many people think that the US should stay beyond their 18 month target as think that they should leave sooner. There are, if one only scratches the surface, clear reasons why the statistics aren't more favourable. I myself was shocked to read a recent article in which one of Helmand's major religious leaders revealed, on visiting the UK, that he had not realised that Islam was even legal in this country. Considering that most of the public in Afghanistan is probably in the same boat, it is little wonder that it is hard for the international forces to gain support.

I'm not giving my approval to much of our war strategy by writing this; we still have work to do in engaging with the Afghan people (the recent visits of Afghan Mullahs to the UK are a very positive step here), and ensuring the safety of civilians has to be prioritised, which is a much more recent lesson that the Americans have learned th hard way through many years of unneccessary fighting int he middle east. Nor am I trying to justify interventionism, because it isn't really justifiable. Now, however, the Afghan state is young and shaky on its feet, and whatever we should or should not have done in the past it is clear that they cannot afford us to leave - possibly for longer than the somewhat unrealistic-looking 18 month target currently in place. And we can't afford to leave either; not in the material sense, for we are gaining nothing material from the Afghan war. We cannot now leave because it is simply immoral to do so, to leave an entire nation to fall back into the hands of people who believe in the total suppression of women and a form of Islam that is ultimately a fundamentalist debasement of one of the world's major faiths. For that matter, it would be an insult to the memory of our own troops who have died trying to free Afghanistan to waste what we have begun. Yes, we can save our soldiers' lives by bringing them home early. But in doing so - and there is no doubt in this - we murder an entire nation just as she attempts to stand up again. Do we have the right to do that?

"Those Muslim brothers who say Britain should leave Afghanistan - they don't know Islam. Don't they know our whole country is at war? They should advise the British not to withdraw their forces until they bring stability, security and development to us, and then they can go." - Haji Mulla Meherdell Kajar, Chief Imam in Lashkar Gah.

[feminista2212]

Do you believe that an election is won or lost? That is, do the majority of people vote because they believe in a party or the leadership of that party, or because they wish to prevent the rise of another party or leader whom they do not like?

[Jubal]

Depends on the election. This election will definitely be a loss, since neither Brown nor Cameron have even vaguely decent approval ratings and most Cameron supporters AFAIK consider that the only qualification he needs is not being Gordon Brown. Of course 65 million more of us are also not Brown, and all but one of those aren't David Cameron either... Elections such as 1997 and Blair's rise to power were "won" to a much greater extent.

[Jubal]

PART THREE: THE QUESTION OF TRUST

One of the greatest questions in the election campaign, doubly so after the (hugely overblown) expenses and corruption problems that have hit this parliament (why this one we shall never know, since they've probably been there just about since expenses claims were introduced), is this: who can the public really trust to inform them on election issues? The recent arrival of large business on the scene of "people trying to influence your vote" makes answering the question more important than ever.

In general, I'm very worried at the answers most people seem to be coming up with. An awful, awful lot of British people seem to be very prepared to trust businesses and the media. They are equally very very reluctant to trust the government, scientists, and many pressure groups. The reasons for this are not hard to find; business leaders have expertise in the economy, an area everyone is extremely concerned about. The media are seen as the "guardians of democracy" after uncovering one MP's scandal after another. Government, after expenses scandals galore, are seen as corrupt and untrustworthy by vast numbers of people; the media's worryingly successful effort to try the same tactic on science (where it doesn't even make sense let alone being appropriate) has resulted in climategate and other  such happenings that have caused a deep mistrust of science. So with the reasons above backing up all these perceptions, why am I so worried about them?

The answer is, of course, that they are completely wrong. Why is really also obvious when you think about it. Businesses and newspapers have, between them, one important aim; they exist to make money. This is a capitalist economy; they are required to make profits as large as possible. This means, of course, that whatever they tell the public will be angled so as to make them more money. It makes SENSE for business leaders to want to not pay more NI contributions, they make more profit from it. It makes SENSE for the media to tell you of new political scandals, it sells newspapers! If the papers just had actual news, they'd probably seem awfully dull to a lot of people. And from a business point of view... it's easier to sell the idea that the government is putting "a tax on jobs" than saying "the government is asking us to potentially reduce some profit margins, and incidentally is putting a new top rate of tax which affects most of us rich folks". I mean, rich people coming out to support the Conservatives? News?

On the flip side, I'm sure many people don't know the maths and haven't thought about MPs expenses. Most MPs haven't broken the law, tehy just worked a system open to it. Yes, we need to close the openings (and that does mean MPs getting a higher salary probably, assuming we're serious about banning them from all commerical work and decreasing expenses claims as needs to be the case). But the fact is, of 650 MPs about three  have committed a crime. 3/650 isn't a terribly large fraction however you try and skew it, and the simple fact is that being an MP is one of the most important and stressful, not to mention thankless, jobs in our country. With that said, seeing the media treating MPs like dirt, sniping at them at every opportunity, and deliberately eroding public confidence in them really makes me angry. Scientists the case is even clearer on; it makes no sense for most scientists to lie, because it would destroy their careers were they found out to be lying. The odd case happens, yes, but generally (unlike businesses) scientists have a very clear imperative to tell the truth.

Of course, none of this means that we shouldn't question oour politicians; doing so is the foundation of democracy. It doesn't mean that scientists are perfect, nor that businesses and the media are inherently wrong. All I'm saying, really, is that when one group of people are there to serve the public and another group are there to get rich at the public's expense (which of course is what getting rich is, the money one person has is by definition not in the hands of everybody else), then in general you should really be thinking of damn good reasons if you're goin to trust the latter over the former.

[Marcus]

Interesting points you have there, I want to raise another.

It seems, from various places I have been on the net, that a fair amount of people are considering not voting, as they have no faith in ethier party to do things right. Of course, a lot of this is probably due to overblown coverage of the bad things government has done, and relatively litte coverage of the good things. Such is the way of the media. I wonder if voter turnout is going to be relatively low this year, compared to other years, and whether this will have much of an effect.

Also, the smaller parties might make gains in this election. While none of them will rise to power, some of the larger small parties, such as UKIP, Greens and the BNP might make further headway than they have in last elections, due to disaffection with the main parties. Who knows, some of them may get MPs, they've managed to get MEPs, which is an achievement in itself.

Note: I am not condoning the politics of any of the small parties that people love to hate, just observing their possible success and progress.

[Jubal]

Good points. Turnout is likely to be chronically low at the election, which will bugger Labour even further. Generally a higher turnout means a larger left-wing vote, though I'm not wholly sure why this is the case.

Smally perties might make gains. BNP are unlikely to gain a seat though they're attempting to gain control of Burnley council from Labour... UKIP might get a seat, they're being damned unfair about it tbh by going for the speaker (by gentleman's agreement the speaker is not opposed for re-election, but Farage isn't a gentleman). Be nice to see a Green MP even if they are a bit nutty, I doubt we will get one though.

[Jubal]

Part Four: The Presidency?

Okay, today I'm going to go on and look at the leader's debates from last night, though perhaps from a different view to most. Above all, I think that the leader's debate was very well done. Hats off to Nick Clegg for a very assured performance. That said, I don't think it SHOULD have been done at all in the first place. Britain is a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy, we are not a republic. I personally feel very uncomfortable about the leaders of political parties becoming more important than the parties themselves, and certainly more important than local MPs.

More and more, we see that local members of parliament are simply getting sidelined nationally by a media obsessed with personality politics. In fact, the Prime Minister has a sum total of one vote in the commons - exactly the same number as Richard Taylor of the Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern party. The cult of personality is, I feel, very damaging to politics and is turning people off the system even more. They feel their choices are norrowed down to exactly which individual person has the skills to run the country - when of course none of them have the skills to personally run the country. That is why they have a large team of fellow MPs ready to support them; Alistair Darling, David Milliband, Vince Cable, William Hague, Chris Huhne, George Osborne. All these people and many more would have a central role in running large sectors of our government were their party to be successful, and yet last night they were reduced to trying to comment on how their leader had done.

Above all, people are fed up with mudslinging, with personality over policy and anecdote over idea. That will never be improved, to my mind, while we obsess about the body language of one man and try and make it a factor in whether a whole party is fit to govern. I think, too, that this is a major reason why Brown has done so "badly" as PM - he has made far fewer mistakes than people realise and is probably a far more capable manager than Blair, a better statesman than Major, more substantial than Cameron and far more foresighted than Margret Thatcher. And yet he is the modern era's least popular PM, mostly because he is not a media personality and does not boast a lot of personal charisma. I'm not saying he's the best man for the job (I don't think he is), but nevertheless we woul dbe able to weigh him up against his opponents far better by focusing away from his looks and personality and onto where he really wants to take this country.

So I guess this is the plea to Nick Robinson, The Times, ITV, The Murdochs, Sky, and so on. We are fed up of hearing what these people are wearing. We are fed up of staring at pictures of their wives. We can do much better for ourselves in either case by buying an actual fashion magazine or a copy of one of a great number of publications containing pictures far younger and better looking women than Samantha Cameron. So for god's sake... give us some NEWS!

[Goldyrulz]

I watched the debate and found it actually quite interesting as well as funny at times (especially when Brown said he liked the idea of Cameron putting his ugly face up "smiling" on posters and thanked him for it)

And I also think that the other two debates to come will be successful to just like this was. I also feel it should carry on.

The only annoyance I have with it was the fact that the audience were there for a reason, yet no booing or clapping or anything really was allowed on there part. Only certain people whos questions had been chosen were allowed to speak (I bet they felt so special) and they could not answer back, like the time Clegg made the 17 year old Jewish student nod so he knew what he meant.

Clegg was the comfortable victor of the debate as a whole for me and any poll done after the debate showed that the public thought this as well. Brown and Cameron were at each other's throats all night long and Clegg was able to get his pints across failry easily. (although he did take the fact he did not like the

[Jubal]

Part Five: The End of Democracy?

The next government will not be chosen by all of the electorate. Of the electorate, maybe six in ten will turn out to vote. Of those, all those who do not vote for a successful candidate have essentially voted in vain. Those in "safe" seats, which comprise a huge part of the electorate up and down the UK, rarely if ever get an opportunity to vote for anyone other than the incumbent party and expect to win. How confusing the system is is proven by the fact that Labour can potentially win the election with 35% or so of the vote, whereas the Liberal Democrats would require over 40% minimally to win. Even worse in a way, if the Lib Dems get 30% of the vote and labour gets 28% Labour will probably still get double the number of seats their opponents do.

This system, "first past the post" voting, delivers, quite consistently, stable and firm governments that nobody actually wants in power. Maybe a fifth of the electorate get to decide the fate of the other 80%. Of course it's not potentially that bad; local parties have traditionally created the "democracy" element of safe seats, allowing local members to put up their candidates who can then input from the grass roots into the party. In fact, for the large parcentage of us who live in safe seats joining a local party and helping select an MP is essentially more of a "vote" than the actual election.

Which of course makes it all the worse that the Conservative party in particular is riding roughshod over this. One of the less well reported blows to our democracy this election will be that of the new Conservative MPs (and we expect to see many of them), not one has been selected against the wishes of the central party. Conservatie central offices are now putting up shortlists of candidates they approve of, these being the only possible selections for the local party. Labour, too, has played copycat on this in some areas (though not all). Considering that Cameron will literally have hundreds of new MPs in a new government, the reality of him being able to only have yes-men in most of his seats is suddenly terribly worrying. With a weak backbench lobby in a system already given to large blocks of power and stability, suddenly even with a relatively small majority the Cameronites could be almost unopposable in government. Traditionally, unpopular measures or ill-thought idea by government can be broken by backbench MPs - the government's 42 day detention bill springs to mind. When the central party and thus the government have the simple threat of deselection to play, our democracy suddenly turns into a choice of dictatorships at any point when a majority can be reached.

It is clearer than ever that politics has to be brought out of Westminster, out of business and lobbying groups, and back to the grassroots and the people where it belongs. Democracy is government by the people; if the Westminster elite fill their ranks with nodding heads, our democracy and our government WILL suffer as a result.

[Goldyrulz]

Latest Poll

This is the latest poll of polls done by Sky news (polls from different newspapers put together) and it shows a hung parliament with labour only having 1 more seat than the tories! It will certainly be a very close race.

[Jubal]

YouGov now have the Liberals ahead of the Tories by 3 points on vote share, which would put them on 151 seats!

[Goldyrulz]

I find it really annoying looking at the figures and knowing that even if Lib Dems say came out 4-5 points ahead of Labour overall in the election, they still would get less seats by quite a large amount.