In the Name of Science
Not too long ago, all political satire was aimed at the irrelevance of the Liberal Democrats but they fought their way into the Chancellors debate, followed by the three Ministerial debates. After the first, hosted by ITV, Nick Clegg surged in the polls as people saw that perhaps this party is not one to ignore and now, broadcasters, journalists and satirical writers have found that this man may be of interest.
Political journalists have certainly been doing their job. We have important facts of Gordon Brown of where he went to school, how many bananas he eats a day (nine) and which of his eyes are made of glass, but now information for the first time is oozing into papers about this “new” man. It is embarrassing to see that first time facts of Mr Clegg are being published two weeks from the elections! Does it only take two weeks for people to decide whether they like this man or not? We know his father is half Russian with a Dutch Mother and a Spanish Wife with a list of three children all with Spanish names – great journalistic research there, you really are a credit to society.
Mr Clegg has been referenced to Barack Obama in their parallel inexperience in politics and people may use the buzzwords of ‘fresh’ and ‘exciting’, but I would like to point out at the welfare war played against the conservatives and specifically David Cameron who was mocked for achieving at Eton whilst in the same way Mr Clegg studied at Westminster, but nobody puts him down? I’m not saying they should, they should in fact be praised for their excellent institutions that they were part of and furthermore they both went on to Oxbridge to read there.
In my honest opinion, I truly believe that Mr Cameron, despite his desperate nature and his over-blushed face in times of confrontation, is the best leader for our nation. Too often, when analyzing policies we look at how they would benefit us, be it tax rates, pensions, student fees et cetera. This is because we are always a fan of someone and that animalistic selfish behavior throws a smokescreen in front of our rational minds. I think, with the current situation of Britain, which is a growing internal racist population, no confidence in the economy and lack of family values, conservative policies fit the solution to solve Britain.
I personally do not benefit from any of the conservative policies such as (deep breath) their family tax break as I am not married, their increased budget on the NHS as I have private health care, their new policies on schools having more power as I am in higher education and went to a public school anyway, or their inheritance tax limit. However, these policies, in my opinion, are the best for this country at this time and that I believe is what people have failed to see in that they look at policies through their eyes of today and not the country’s eyes of tomorrow.
On the other hand, many have slotted themselves as the ideal person to benefit from the Liberal Democrat policies such as the £10,000 income tax allowance which is a great policy but would be offset by a tax on airplanes. Some more ambitious, such as pulling out of Afghanistan in a given time, which is the worst foreign affairs policy to date and to dig them deeper, their immigration policy which allows illegal immigrants to work legally in this country. Some critics have realized these awful policies but the public haven’t. The elephant in the room like question is, can a new party, who have all these outrageous policies actually deliver if they were to come into power?
Despite all this, I propose an experiment. I do like to think of myself as a bit of a scientist so these are my aims. My experiment outlines that in the political game, the public mass vote for the Liberal Democrats. This will as a result, increase their number of seats in parliament and hopefully reduce the number of labour seats because they have way too many and (ideally) the conservative party become victorious. In future, when the Liberal Democrat’s policies are right for the country at that time, which I don’t think is now, they will have enough of a majority in parliament to win the next election and come into power.
If you would like to participate in my experiment, in the name of science, say nothing, but vote on 6th with a tick in the Liberal Democrat’s box and our results will come through on whether a new party can deliver all its promises.
I do agree with your point about the background of schools that our prospectful PMs have, i resent the argument that people have with regards to being governed by a PM from say for instance, Eton, with the point that someone from an upper class private school cannot possibly represent the blue collar or working classes, surely then this concept should be reciprocal; an MP, and lets take Glenda Jackson for example who came from working class roots, cannot represent the upper class electorate in Hampstead and Highgate because as those die-hard anti tories say she’ll only be looking after the poor.
Also, i was all for the tax breaks to those earning under £10,000 with the poor generally having a higher marginal propensity to consume but i heard that it was a tax break to the first £10,000 of everyones income which would surely lose more than would be made back in consumption?
I’m confused, are you saying that leaving Afghanistan would be the worst foreign affairs policy to date, or that going in in the first place was?
His policy of leaving Afghanistan in a given stated time is the worst foreign affairs policy. Britain’s decision to invade Afghanistan was the right one in my opinion.
I’m not sure I agree with any politicians on Afghanistan so my opinion may be irrelevant to current conversations. However I think it’s worth mentioning here that in order to talk about exit strategies, you have to ask why the UK went in in the first place. Without wanting to spark an entire debate (I really don’t want to get into it!); as usual we followed the US who seized the opportunity whilst their rhetoric of ‘terror’ was most effective on their public, to invade this resource-rich country and reap the benefits.
This is a country with a long, painful history of others wanting to take control over the resources with no regard for its people, and a people who for generations have been dying defending their right to their country. After 3 previous defeats, Britain would have been fully aware of Afghanistan’s ability to resist. Yet, after 9 years of war and ignoring the opinions of Afghans and Britons alike, we continue. A recent survey showed that 94% of Afghans asked in Kandahar now prefer negotiations with Taliban rather than further offensives.
If you want to talk about citizen security, which is one of the main objectives foreign troops are supposed to be securing, it is interesting to hear that many Afghans say they felt safer when the Taliban were in power (obviously I do not advocate a Taliban rule). However the figures speak for themselves – the Pentagon admits to 87 civilian deaths caused by US-led forces in this year alone and over the years we have glanced at the raising death toll with a detachment that quite frankly scares me.
If our leaders went in for the right reasons, there would be a visible rebuilding of the infrastructure so vital to any country and we would see real steps being taken to secure democracy. What we see instead is the typical Western rhetoric that encourages and in fact controls the corruption in its government, abuses military force to keep the country down and, in my opinion the worst of their crimes, misleads their own country with exaggerated images of a feared ‘other’ creating a climate of terror that somehow rationalises civilian loss, which in other contexts would be unacceptable.
Show me that civilians are safer, that drug growth and deals are on the decrease, that institutions are being rebuilt and unemployment levels are declining; show me an attempt to make this an independent country and I’ll say Britain was justified in going in. So far all I see is twenty first century colonialism and therefore cannot support their continued presence. For me, the means do not justify the end simply because this is not the right end for Afghans.
Thanks a lot for that extremely cool post.