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This is not about widening electoral choice, but restricting it. This is not about increasing the power of the voter, but weakening it. This is not about improving politics, but ensuring a permanent centre-lect dictatorship in this country.
Labour offer a sop to the Lib Dems whenever they need their vote! Then when they realise they can win outright without them, they go strangely cool on electoral reform.
It's simply an attempt to deny the Conservatives the chance of power. SO desperate are they to hang on, they will even change the rules on how people get elected simply to hang on to their advantage.
So, so wrong!
The motivation for electoral change has to be beter politics and stronger democracy, not permanently entreching a centre-left cabal!
I am a LibDem. I have obviously decided to cast my first preference for Brian Paddick (objectively the best candidate, regardless of party), but I am buggered if I am going to cast my 2nd vote for Ken.
City Hall has grown bloated under him, and all these lurid stories and the financial questions they throw up do not surprise me in the least.
Right now I am stuck between leaving it blank or even voting for Boris (aka the MP from Oxfordshire). It will be hard to vote for a Tory, but it's just possible.
There is a quite astonishing remark in this Indy article from Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian Society. He is reported as having written to Nick Clegg, and the eight Lib Dem London MPs, asking them to make Mr Livingstone their second choice, saying: "If London's Lib Dem MPs...do not offer a lead, the likely outcome is that...Boris Johnson [will be] elected as Mayor by the back door."
Either he believes in the alternative vote system, or he thinks it elects people by the back door. Which is it?
Would the Lib Dems really be gullible enough to fall for this trick again! Labour stitched them up after 1997 with crap like the Jenkins' Report that they had no intention of implementing.
Stuart. Why would it be hard to vote for a Tory? Is it just because he is a Tory, and that the Lib Dems have such an entreched and narrow view of the Conservative Party that they fail to be objective enough? Or is it that Lib Dems are actuallt ideologically closer to lfeties like Ken than liberals like BOris!
As a liberal, which has the more liberal policies. He who advocates smaller and better goivernment and empowerment of the people, of he who ammases power to himself and governs like a medieval Laird?
I also thought 'liberalism' was all about taking people as individuals. Therefore, there is no reason why you should vote for Boris, but there is no reaosn why you shouldn't either - unless it is merely prejudice which prevents you.
In which case, I question your liberal credentials!
Getting in, through the AV system, is 'by the back door' if the winner is a Conservative, but perfectly valid if the winner is Labour, Green, LibDem, whatever.
Heavens, how honest! how decent!
I will cast one vote, for the candidate I think best for London - I will certainly not help anyone else to win, since I wouldn't agree with their policies.
Adrian (at 5.16pm): politics is often tribal, and I don't really like the idea that I might wake up on 2nd May and see lots of smiling Tory faces on my TV set. I am just being honest with you.
I agree with you that increasing numbers of Conservatives are taking a liberal approach in politics, and I welcome that a great deal. There is much common ground between a LibDem economic liberal like myself and a Conservative with a liberal take on social issues. I often agree with what Iain writes, for example, and am a keen reader of this blog, although when he gets tribal it turns me off. That's natural. It's normal in politics for activists to feel protective of their party.
More and more, I think that the political fights in this country are between liberals and authoritarians, those who put the individual before the state and those who put the state before the individual. In those fights I am often hearing Conservative politicians arguing along the same lines as Liberal Democrats. That makes me optimistic for the future of our country.
It is because of that that I might vote for Boris, but the idea of a beaming George Osbourne leaves me feeling queasy and unsettled.
As a Lib Dem, I'm hostile to Labour. I remember their flirtation with us pre-1997 when they thought they might need us. They dropped the Lib Dems, and liberalism, and became authoritarian. We've been here before.
And newmania, however many times you repeat your line about the Lib Dems being an addendum to Labour, it still won't be true.
11 comments:
This is not about widening electoral choice, but restricting it. This is not about increasing the power of the voter, but weakening it. This is not about improving politics, but ensuring a permanent centre-lect dictatorship in this country.
Labour offer a sop to the Lib Dems whenever they need their vote! Then when they realise they can win outright without them, they go strangely cool on electoral reform.
It's simply an attempt to deny the Conservatives the chance of power. SO desperate are they to hang on, they will even change the rules on how people get elected simply to hang on to their advantage.
So, so wrong!
The motivation for electoral change has to be beter politics and stronger democracy, not permanently entreching a centre-left cabal!
They would love to back Ken but how can they then go to the country and tell their lies about equidistance before they do the big deal with Brown
I am a LibDem. I have obviously decided to cast my first preference for Brian Paddick (objectively the best candidate, regardless of party), but I am buggered if I am going to cast my 2nd vote for Ken.
City Hall has grown bloated under him, and all these lurid stories and the financial questions they throw up do not surprise me in the least.
Right now I am stuck between leaving it blank or even voting for Boris (aka the MP from Oxfordshire). It will be hard to vote for a Tory, but it's just possible.
There is a quite astonishing remark in this Indy article from Sunder Katwala, general secretary of the Fabian Society. He is reported as having written to Nick Clegg, and the eight Lib Dem London MPs, asking them to make Mr Livingstone their second choice, saying: "If London's Lib Dem MPs...do not offer a lead, the likely outcome is that...Boris Johnson [will be] elected as Mayor by the back door."
Either he believes in the alternative vote system, or he thinks it elects people by the back door. Which is it?
Ken has f*cked up seriously this week.
Would the Lib Dems really be gullible enough to fall for this trick again! Labour stitched them up after 1997 with crap like the Jenkins' Report that they had no intention of implementing.
Stuart. Why would it be hard to vote for a Tory? Is it just because he is a Tory, and that the Lib Dems have such an entreched and narrow view of the Conservative Party that they fail to be objective enough? Or is it that Lib Dems are actuallt ideologically closer to lfeties like Ken than liberals like BOris!
As a liberal, which has the more liberal policies. He who advocates smaller and better goivernment and empowerment of the people, of he who ammases power to himself and governs like a medieval Laird?
I also thought 'liberalism' was all about taking people as individuals. Therefore, there is no reason why you should vote for Boris, but there is no reaosn why you shouldn't either - unless it is merely prejudice which prevents you.
In which case, I question your liberal credentials!
Getting in, through the AV system, is 'by the back door' if the winner is a Conservative, but perfectly valid if the winner is Labour, Green, LibDem, whatever.
Heavens, how honest! how decent!
I will cast one vote, for the candidate I think best for London - I will certainly not help anyone else to win, since I wouldn't agree with their policies.
Adrian (at 5.16pm): politics is often tribal, and I don't really like the idea that I might wake up on 2nd May and see lots of smiling Tory faces on my TV set. I am just being honest with you.
I agree with you that increasing numbers of Conservatives are taking a liberal approach in politics, and I welcome that a great deal. There is much common ground between a LibDem economic liberal like myself and a Conservative with a liberal take on social issues. I often agree with what Iain writes, for example, and am a keen reader of this blog, although when he gets tribal it turns me off. That's natural. It's normal in politics for activists to feel protective of their party.
More and more, I think that the political fights in this country are between liberals and authoritarians, those who put the individual before the state and those who put the state before the individual. In those fights I am often hearing Conservative politicians arguing along the same lines as Liberal Democrats. That makes me optimistic for the future of our country.
It is because of that that I might vote for Boris, but the idea of a beaming George Osbourne leaves me feeling queasy and unsettled.
As a Lib Dem, I'm hostile to Labour. I remember their flirtation with us pre-1997 when they thought they might need us. They dropped the Lib Dems, and liberalism, and became authoritarian. We've been here before.
And newmania, however many times you repeat your line about the Lib Dems being an addendum to Labour, it still won't be true.
Asquith - Lib Dems are an addendum to Labour.
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