Mr David Cameron announces the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition.
We now have the Cameron/Clegg coalition and for the past 24 hours I've been wracking my brains trying to come up with something to say about it other than "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" and hoping that I'll wake up. Unfortunately, I did this morning and they were still there.What has happened over the past week is a perfect encapsulment of all that has gone rotten in British politics. For 13 years, Britain was governed by a party that acted like an occupying power hellbent on dismantling a hated enemy. It was a disaster so all-encompassing that a re-subtitled Downfall clip would have been far too appropriate to be funny. New Labour was such an amazing, transcendent screw up that the Conservatives should have conducted the election in their street clothes and come away with a majority so large that both Labour and the Liberal Democrats should have been replaced as the loyal opposition by the UKIP. Instead, Boy Cameron, who feels that the problem with Conservatives was all that conservatism, managed to run against a hated PM leading an imploding party and couldn't even reach the finish line.
Now, to add insult to injury, the Conservatives have formed a coalition with a party so insane that they haven't held power since the First World War. This isn't a coalition government; it's a stitch up between a hollow log and a joy buzzer. In order to make nice with each other they've had to jettison so much of their manifestos that neither can do anything except infuriate their own supporters and leave the entire country in a position like an alien abduction victim waiting for the anal probe.
A sane outcome of the election would have been a Prime Minister of some standing announcing a five-year programme of dismantling everything New Labour has ever done while giving Johnny Jihad a kick up the backside he'd never forget with an afternoon off to repeal the European Communities Act of 1972. Instead, we have two members of the parasitic new political class that replaced the Establishment who regard actually doing something about defence, immigration, the economy, and the general collapse of British society as too much of a distraction from playing with their train set and altering the electoral system so that another proper government will never be possible ever again.
Mr Cameron says that he will ask Parliament to rig the system so that there won't be another election until May 2015. Fat Chance–especially with the BBC acting as if the Liberal Democrats have broken their lefty little hearts.
Frankly, I give this Frankenstein's Monster of a coalition six months before it gets tossed back to the nation to go through the whole sorry mess again.
8 comments:
6 months sounds about right. I don't understand the situation at all. As you said, Cameron should have been able to sleep walk his way to Number 10. Is the educational system there as broken as ours? Is no member of the political class able to think beyond the PC nonsense?
I'm asking because I feel this country is going in the same way. A political class is developing that will not give up power easily, and does its best to destroy anyone who get's in their way. They don't want to be answerable to anyone ether.
...I think that's it's not as bad as it first appears, at least to I and I.
I'm a tad nonplussed by some of the Conservatives' cabinet choices (Theresa May, noted for a record for voting against homosexual rights, believed you could "cure homosexuality", stuck in the fifties with her views of women's rights etc, as Secretary for Equality? And an untested George Osbourne as Chancellor?).
But they've already put pledges forward to scrap ID cards and the newest generation of biometric passports, and generally roll back most of the worst authoritarian policies that Labour has made in the last decade.
And they're not scrapping Trident, and going ahead with new nuclear power stations, both policies that turned me off the Lib Dems. (I disliked their anti-nuclear stance, so obviously cribbed from the Greens)
Granted, this are just pledges at the moment and there's no promise they'll go ahead; and there's the chance as noted that it'll all horribly fall apart in six months. But some of their general outlook appears to be an improvement on Labour (probably not difficult, to be fair). So not as big a disaster as first thought.
Of course, I'm approaching this from the opposite direction to you, Davey. I'm more on the bottom left of the Political Compass.
ACTUALLY, Dave, could you try that? It seems pretty well-done, and I'd like to see where you rate on it:
www.politicalcompass.org
Wunderbear:
I appreciate your argument, though I'd point out that a half-full glass isn't an improvement if someone has taken a wee in it. True, the new government does support nuclear power, but not with any money. They're still pending it on alternative (useless) energy. As for Trident, they haven't mentioned it at all and until they state categorically that they will not only keep, but improve the Independent nuclear deterrent, I'm not trusting it.
Thank you for bringing up the Equality minister. It is a perfect example of what I think is wrong. Whether or not Mrs May is a wise choice is less of a concern than any choice was made at all instead of simply abolishing that Orwellian nightmare. And if for forms sake they must have someone to warm the chair, why not put a Basil Brush doll in charge?
By the way, I took the test. Most interesting, though I did find the questions loaded at times and filled with hidden assumptions. I came out in the vicinity of Margaret Thatcher, which makes me doubt the results because I've always thought that Lady Thatcher, for all her sterling qualities, was a bit of a wet lefty who was soft on defence, too much a socialist for my taste, and didn't defer to Her Majesty enough.
...Interesting. Yeah, I'll admit, I'm in the diametrically opposite quadrant to you, though much closer-to-centre (and I do agree with some of your small-government ideas, sometimes).
I always assumed you were fairly libertarian, though. The whole authoritarian thing is a slight surprise.
I was under the impression that they had mentioned their new policy on Trident?
No, not a Libertarian. I find some of their ideas interesting, but too chaotic for my taste. I actually do believe in a hierarchical society, but I loathe the sort of self-appointed, self-interested elites we deal with today. I believe, for example, that the House of Lords should be 100 percent hereditary on the grounds of tradition and history, that the aristocracy have a stake in Britain continuing to function, that they are by law barred from most forms of politics, and are not particularly bright or well educated, so they are a perfect balance to the Commons and the Civil Service.
I'm also a monarchist on the grounds that the last election has shown that a democratically elected head of state is more of a lucky dip than the throne, and at least with a monarch you have several decades to get used to what Fate has handed you.
Basically, you could say that I am a democratic feudalistic Imperialist who believes in free markets, free trade, low taxes, minimal government regulation, sovereignty, tradition, Christianity, strong Commonwealth ties, strong defence, strong military alliances, bilateral treaties, replacing the welfare state with private charities and personal responsibility, an utter repulsion of all bureaucracy public and private, a deep suspicion of the motives of any government that wishes to expand its powers even from the best of motives, and making sure that the barbarians and tyrants in this world are pounded into the ground like a nail at regular intervals.
Query: What would be your definition of feudalism in this case? There doesn't seem to be a very clear definition of it, unless you're referring to the classical definition of serfdom.
And you say your main belief is Christianity. What is your opinion of other religions, or stances such as atheism or agnosticism? In your ideal society, how would divisions like this be treated?
I think I've already answered part of your question already. I'll elaborate on Feudalism (a large topic that I don't have space to deal with properly) by saying that if the modern world had things like a proper respect for oaths instead of tolerating abominations such as affirmations, the world would be a better place. I point you to G K Chesterton for a more complete argument.
As to religion, my view is that of C S Lewis. Other religions may have their own path to God, but I know what works for me and that is what I advocate. I generally regard religions like a wheel with God at the hub and the various faiths as the spokes reaching at different lengths towards Him. The only one that is utterly flat is self worship, which, I fear, is the most popular religion today.
As to religion and society, I will only deal with my ideal. I acknowledge alternatives. I prefer a society with an established religion based upon the faith that the people profess and aspire to. When the government respects this establishment, which Britain did for two and a half centuries, real religious freedom is possible (under Christianity, at any rate) because what the relationship of religion and the law is settled for the moment. Those faiths that wish to live within that framework may do so, those who wish to supplant it understand what they faith. I include atheists under the banner of "faith" because atheism is a creed that I find fits astonishingly well under the definition of religion–more so than many Christian sects.
What they "face", not "face"
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