The 2015 General Election

[tonyh29]

 

Interesting question this Greenie craze and the vote chasing actions of all parties.

On the face of it the greens environmental arguments alone are a no brainer. One planet, finite stuff, delicate atmosphere/biosphere, **** it all up and that's the end if the world.

BUT they are asking voters of their own free will to vote to lower their own living standards and those of their children. So as long as we have a system where those offering the most people the cushiest life get into power, greenism is stuffed.

That leaves 3 options:

1) some environmental catastrophe of such magnitude occurs that people change their entire belief system, force the abandonment of capitalism and all pray it's not too late. Yeah, right.

2) some global plague brings down the population to a level that doesn't have such a huge environment impact and those remaining crack on, eventually using and developing greener technologies. Possible but pretty disastrous for the majority who are therefore dead.

3) global totalitarian government prepared to force a programme of deindustrialisation and reverse the process of urbanisation, forcing us out of offices and into the turnip fields.

If there is a 4th, less crap option (that doesn't involve some Harry Potteresque spontaneous shift of global consciousness) I'd love to hear it.

 

worldwide access to free at point of use education, health and contraception*

 

 

 

not free at the place where contraception is actually used, you know what I mean...

 

 

define education  ... or the level of it  , I don't agree that everyone need to go to uni for example and thus I think it's only right and fair that people that do go pay for it .. it's not even true that graduates can help pay me back  for funding their education  though my taxes when they serve me my bacon double cheese burger in burger King any more as the Poles have taken that useful service they provided away from them

[tonyh29]

So based on the 3 surveys to see what political alignment I am today, at the minute I'm either voting Labour, Green or Conservative..

 

Which hasn't helped me decide at all

he He  ... I'm a Green  , who'd have thunk it

 

So you're not going to vote Tory?!!

 

Your nickname of Tony the Tory will have to be reassessed!

 

I don't vote to be honest  , the one time I did it was Tory ( though I did vote for UKIP in the council elections once as a school mate of mine was standing )

 

I'd align myself more to the Tories than Labour for sure mainly as I'm anti trade unions but also  as I admire Thatcher for destroying their crippling grip the Unions had over this country ( choke on that lefties ) and for turning the country around and improving it  the way she did

[chrisp65]

Tony,

By education, I mean the ability to read and write to a 'decent' standard plus the ability to think critically and understand you need to see proof of claims from legit sources. For instance, the number of people in this country that have 'education' but still even now will believe something purely because it was in a newspaper. In the words of my own mum 'well they wouldn't just make it up, it must be true'.

No need for everyone to have a degree in something, every need for everyone to understand they need to filter and check what they see, hear and read.

[Condimentalist]

Interesting question this Greenie craze and the vote chasing actions of all parties.

On the face of it the greens environmental arguments alone are a no brainer. One planet, finite stuff, delicate atmosphere/biosphere, **** it all up and that's the end if the world.

BUT they are asking voters of their own free will to vote to lower their own living standards and those of their children. So as long as we have a system where those offering the most people the cushiest life get into power, greenism is stuffed.

That leaves 3 options:

1) some environmental catastrophe of such magnitude occurs that people change their entire belief system, force the abandonment of capitalism and all pray it's not too late. Yeah, right.

2) some global plague brings down the population to a level that doesn't have such a huge environment impact and those remaining crack on, eventually using and developing greener technologies. Possible but pretty disastrous for the majority who are therefore dead.

3) global totalitarian government prepared to force a programme of deindustrialisation and reverse the process of urbanisation, forcing us out of offices and into the turnip fields.

If there is a 4th, less crap option (that doesn't involve some Harry Potteresque spontaneous shift of global consciousness) I'd love to hear it.

 

Awol, I find it interesting that the total overthrow of capitalism, global plague and global totalitarian government seem to you to be more probable options that reassessing the values that we place on consumer goods.

 

I'd also critique your sentence above in several ways: 

 

1) People don't vote for who gives the most people the 'cushiest life'. Democracy is idealism as well as populism. Quite clearly austerity isn't offering anyone a cushy life (except maybe the minority at the top) and yet the Tories are in power cutting, and cutting again if they are reelected. If anything you could argue that the Greens are offering the cushiest life by making a whole host of uncosted promises. 

2) What is it that you understand by living standards? Are you considering that in purely economic terms? Whose life is richer, the person who works 15 hour days for a bank, has a massive TV and drives a Ferrari, or the person who works 4 day weeks in a job they enjoy, has a host of hobbies and interests and actually spends some time with their own children? Different personalities will value different things but it's not hard to find the second of those two more appealing.

3) If we are talking economic terms, people's children are already growing up to have lower living standards than their parents. Whether you vote for it or not, that circumstance is already here. Again, the Tories are shafting young people in the UK, but it's not stopping people voting for them.

[tonyh29]

Tony,

By education, I mean the ability to read and write to a 'decent' standard plus the ability to think critically and understand you need to see proof of claims from legit sources. For instance, the number of people in this country that have 'education' but still even now will believe something purely because it was in a newspaper. In the words of my own mum 'well they wouldn't just make it up, it must be true'.

No need for everyone to have a degree in something, every need for everyone to understand they need to filter and check what they see, hear and read.

 

at the risk of saying you sound like my dad    *  I think you've just ruled out about 90 % of the population of planet earth to be honest  ....

 

 

* every time I try and have a topical conversation with him its meet with something along the lines of " Says who" or " that's what they want you to believe "  I swear if the papers reported the sea was wet he'd dispute it as it was in the papers

[MakemineVanilla]

Interesting question this Greenie craze and the vote chasing actions of all parties.

On the face of it the greens environmental arguments alone are a no brainer. One planet, finite stuff, delicate atmosphere/biosphere, **** it all up and that's the end if the world.

BUT they are asking voters of their own free will to vote to lower their own living standards and those of their children. So as long as we have a system where those offering the most people the cushiest life get into power, greenism is stuffed.

That leaves 3 options:

1) some environmental catastrophe of such magnitude occurs that people change their entire belief system, force the abandonment of capitalism and all pray it's not too late. Yeah, right.

2) some global plague brings down the population to a level that doesn't have such a huge environment impact and those remaining crack on, eventually using and developing greener technologies. Possible but pretty disastrous for the majority who are therefore dead.

3) global totalitarian government prepared to force a programme of deindustrialisation and reverse the process of urbanisation, forcing us out of offices and into the turnip fields.

If there is a 4th, less crap option (that doesn't involve some Harry Potteresque spontaneous shift of global consciousness) I'd love to hear it.

 

If we are to take Adam Curtis's documentary The Century of the Self seriously, and I think we should, then consumerism is no trivial matter which can be ditched at our own convenience.

 

According to Curtis consumerism was put in place as a response to fascism, as a means of drawing people away from the fanaticism of religious and political cults, which created the various holocausts of the 20th Century, and to offer something more benign which gave meaning to people's lives.

 

If indeed people are pacified and drawn away from fanaticism by the pleasures of consuming then deliberately ending such a system, could unleash forces far more destructive to social cohesion than than the destructive greed which the Greens wish to eradicate.

 

Because should we as individuals lose the meaning we find in the things we purchase and the life-style we create, we would likely seek meaning in either religion or extreme politics.

 

[snowychap]

he He  ... I'm a Green  , who'd have thunk it

 

I think you'll find that you're as close to the SNP as you are to the Greens according to that graph.

 

I think they've got the Greens very much in the wrong spot by the way - they need to move left on the x axis and up quite a bit on the y.

 

p.s. You've also moved (a smidgeon) to the right economically!

 

 

back in 2009 I scored

Economic Left/Right: 0.00

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.56

 

fast forward to 2013

 

Economic Left/Right: -0.38

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.03

[blandy]

Yea, you should vote, but....

 

My vote spectrum test always comes out at Greens, but as I've said, they're just incompetent, ..

Assuming your view that all the greens are incompetent (they're not, though some of them are) then I'd still vote green if that's where your views lie - why? because

The others are incompetent too  - not the greatest motivation I know, but still...

Also, the greens won't "get in". People like Caroline Lucas, who is "in" is very competent - MP of the year, as Jon said, btw. But the more votes they get, the more of a push it gives other parties to take on board the types of views that you say you hold. In the same way the tories have shifted towards UKIP, because they "get votes", Lib Dems and labour will and have shifted "greenwards" We need more of that, IMO.

 

Lapal - why do you find voting for the Lib Dems such a ridiculous idea? I've never understood why everyone just decides to lampoon them instead of engaging with what they're actually doing or saying - it's a ridiculous discourse which the Tories have somehow been able to play off in this coalition and everyone just goes along with it because it's 'the done thing'. 

They don't deserve all the slagging they get, but they do deserve some of it, most even. Where they suffer, I think, is on not getting credit for stuff they made happen, and for stuff they stopped the tories from doing.

[blandy]

Interesting question this Greenie craze and the vote chasing actions of all parties.

On the face of it the greens environmental arguments alone are a no brainer. One planet, finite stuff, delicate atmosphere/biosphere, **** it all up and that's the end if the world.

BUT they are asking voters of their own free will to vote to lower their own living standards and those of their children. So as long as we have a system where those offering the most people the cushiest life get into power, greenism is stuffed.

That leaves 3 options:

1) some environmental catastrophe of such magnitude occurs that people change their entire belief system, force the abandonment of capitalism and all pray it's not too late. Yeah, right.

2) some global plague brings down the population to a level that doesn't have such a huge environment impact and those remaining crack on, eventually using and developing greener technologies. Possible but pretty disastrous for the majority who are therefore dead.

3) global totalitarian government prepared to force a programme of deindustrialisation and reverse the process of urbanisation, forcing us out of offices and into the turnip fields.

If there is a 4th, less crap option (that doesn't involve some Harry Potteresque spontaneous shift of global consciousness) I'd love to hear it.

Those kind of are the percieved options. The problem is the narrative. We have had govt's these past 20, 30 years that have moved evr more towards the needs and wishes of big business. Not all of that has been bad, but if you look at the problems wthe world faces, they're caused to large degree by the practices of globalisism, unrestricted business operations and the like - Obviously the damage to resources and to the planet, the destruction of the rainforests, speicies extinction, lack of fish in the sea, Bees dying off through pesticides...it's endless.

Then there's what the bankers have done.

What the oil industry has done.

Privatised everything - trains, energy, water - these things have made people very rich, but by and large ordinary folk haven't benefitted.

Terrorism and wars - much (not all) of this stems from the actions of nations trying to grab oil.

Plcs avoiding tax via schemes in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Ireland, the Cayman Islands...

 

But the narrative is all about how we need to "help business", How we need to consume our way out of recession, how anyone saying otherwise is a flaky dreamer or worse.

Wath the TV and the Banking sins are discussed by bankers. Tax avoidance by CHief Execs and directors of Plcs. The rest of the world barely gets a say.

 

Because Greens and so on are small, they're not so slick, they're not funded with millions from hedge funds to pay for PR and media practice and advertising and influence. So they can look "amateurish" and their voice is lost in the "but she doesn't remember what a house will cost to build" The discussion goes on to "she's no good" not "there's a housing shortage caused by reasons A, B and C.

 

TTIP is an example too. Being drawn up behind closed doors (not closed to big business), and dumped on us. It's a bad bad thing, but because the likes of the tories are for it, it's all being wrapped up to be delivered fait accompli. Again, it's sold by it's adherents as "good for business".

 

Words removed are in charge of the world, as Jarvis said.

[bickster]

Lapal - why do you find voting for the Lib Dems such a ridiculous idea? I've never understood why everyone just decides to lampoon them instead of engaging with what they're actually doing or saying - it's a ridiculous discourse which the Tories have somehow been able to play off in this coalition and everyone just goes along with it because it's 'the done thing'.

I'm not Lapal (obviously) but from my point of view as someone who has been following politics for about 35 years, the Liberals in whatever guise they were at the time, Liberal Party, SDP and Liberal Alliance or the current Limdems have always been the party that were so desperate for power they'd do anything to get elected. It goes back years. I remember when the idiots at a local level in Hamstead decided to discredit the Labour council by announcing that the school fences that backed on to Brookside Close were in such a state of disrepair that the home were at a much increased risk of burglary. They decided to put this on a focus leaflet and pushed it through the door of every house in the area, including obviously the homes of all the burglars.

There are literally thousands of examples of this kind of behaviour through the last 35 years.

I've watched them every time they get a sniff of power turn their back on whatever principals they claimed they had in an attempt to get on the gravy train, its nearly always ended in them being despised in the end.

Last time around I thought they'd genuinely turned a corner, they were almost worth voting for at the last election but that element of mistrust was still nagging away and only a few days later it surfaced straight away, yep they jumped straight into bed with the Tories… the party they were supposed to be the furthest away from and actually killed their key policies just for that glow of basking in the glory of government.

Any decent Libdem should be chasing after Nick Clegg et al and running them out of the country such is their current standing with the electorate, they've screwed the party for at least a decade. Many students and parents of students voted for them as a result of their higher education polices, they shat on them from a great height within days of getting into coalition.

Thats why nobody really wants to consider them because they trust them even less (and thats almost sub zero trust) than the others. A vote for the Libdems is a vote for the LEAST TRUSTWORTHY party of all.

[Demitri_C]

I don't care for any of them and won't be voting for someone, I'll be tactically voting against the Tories.

So your voting labour then

[villaajax]

Wainy, you're in the same constituency as me aren't you?

[Condimentalist]

Great post above Blandy, spot on for me.

Interesting perspective on the Lib Dems as well Bicks, one with a longer historical perspective on them than I have.

I suppose their plight annoys me so much because I consider myself a social democrat, so a left Lib Dem type, and it seems that there are enough people around of a similar persuasion that they ought to do better, especially when the Labour party no longer stands for anything.

[villaajax]

What do the Lib Dems stand for?

[bickster]

What do the Lib Dems stand for?

pretty much the same as Labour and the Tories, sure the curtains are a different colour but inside the furniture is all the same

[chrisp65]

What do the Lib Dems stand for?

 

to get used to having no seats...

[villaajax]

 

What do the Lib Dems stand for?

pretty much the same as Labour and the Tories, sure the curtains are a different colour but inside the furniture is all the same

 

 

Original answers, please.

[bickster]

How can you ask what a party stands for and want an original answer, that would imply that the answer would be new and unique. I'm fairly confident politics doesn't work like that unless you've expected Britain's fifth largest party to have had a collective epiphany overnight.

The truth is all of the "Sky Four" parties (see what I did there )stand for pretty much the same thing.

Sorry but the truth isn't very original

[villaajax]

I wasn't even asking you to be fair.

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

lib dems used to have principles, as did labour, as did tories.

 

now they're intellectually bankrupt and all middle-of-the-road neo-liberal parties.

 

shocking state of affairs, but predictable, because we've developed into a society that doesn't like people with ideas. we only want quips, good appearances and someone to hate.