I'm a bad person

[ajva]

My disappointment at the unexpectedly poor showing of the LibDems last night is, frankly, massively outweighed by my sheer Puckish delight at the chaos resulting from this particularly numerically "balanced" hung parliament we've got. I managed to stay up until 0520 (sadly missing the Brighton Pavilion declaration, but my first action on waking up about noon was to fire up the iMac to check out what had happened there). And as an election geek, I had a night of rapture, as every single bloody result was completely different. Incredible. And, if you're someone with no clear party allegiance like me, really rather fun. So much fun that my alcohol intake was actually rather moderate, so enchanted was I by what was going on. A bit like when you go to see a film that grabs you so much that you sort of forget about your popcorn.

I bet there are suddenly lots of Conservatives astonished by the fact Clegg is talking to the Tories, so certain were many of them that he was what they might call "loony left" in disguise. And, I have to say - committed democrat (with a small 'd') I am - despite my natural aversion to Conservative politics, I was pleased to see that Clegg stuck with his campaign promise to firstly favour the party that had attracted the most votes/seats. If he'd done anything else, he wouldn't have been worthy of the 'democrat' bit of his party name, in my view.

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Yes, I feel a bit like this too. I'm relatively positive about it all. I don't think it's anything like the nightmare it's being painted.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

I broadly agree with you. (Although I note that a LibLab coalition would have insufficient MPs to govern, so I'm not sure how much choice Clegg had in talking to the Tories.)

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Yes, take your point about how much choice Clegg had - although thinking about it, if I were he I think I might be glad that the choice were so clear cut. If Lab/Lib were a numerically possible majority, with nevertheless the Conservatives still as the largest party and with the most number of votes, I think his currently very difficult position would be even more difficult. At least this way he can claim moral legitimacy for his immediately chosen direction.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, while you're here - I haven't forgotten that I owe your household a dinner; we still have floorboards ripped up all over the place, though, so it might be a few months, I fear...

[lilithmagna.livejournal.com]

Rubbish. Either you believe in a politics where you take money from the poor and give it to the rich, or you don't. If 99%of the population had thought that giving money to 3,000 millionaires was a good idea, then most of them would have been deluded and the 1% would have been right. Vore Nick. Get Cameron. So much for your progressive values.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. Both for reasons of the complicated combinatorics of hung parliaments and the diversity of political opinions.

[lilithmagna.livejournal.com]

Yes, whenever anyone mentions redistrubution of wealth someone pompously intones "*I think you nwill find it is a bit more complicatede than...etc" This is often followed by "Tory at 20, no heart; Socialist at 40, no head" accompanied by even more pompous guffawing. Meaning = I wont pay higher taxes.

Or was your comment meant to be ironic?

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

This comment was me not Lili.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I am a socialist, more than half way from 20 to 40, and would gladly pay more taxes - especially if that was more progressive income taxes rather than flat/regressive taxes like VAT. But my point was that there's more to political life than the question of wealth redistribution. The present discussion is very much about electoral reform and styles of government, and trying to shoehorn it into a linear narrative about socialism vs capitalism is a mistake.

I've just got back from the protest in Smith Square. There were (reportedly - I didn't count that many) about a thousand people waving placards calling for electoral reform, and a handful of people with a huge anti-capitalism banner. They just couldn't seem to understand that this demo was important, but was not about their pet subject. They were being extremely annoying, and were aggravating and alienating the majority of the protesters. Eventually, they were asked to move their clearly separate demonstration elsewhere. I've done anti-capitalist demos in the past, and I'll probably do them again in the future, but this wasn't one. It really is more complicated that that.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

There's far more than 1 issue involved here - suggesting it's as simple as wealth redistribution vs class warfare is highly misleading. I personally regard the civil liberties elements as being at least as important as the economic questions, possibly more so, and I also regard myself as being predominantly of the left. Where the money goes is important, yes, but it's not the only or even the main voting issue for me, and I don't think that somehow makes me a Tory running dog, twirling my moustache gleefully as the poor are ground into the dirt. There are obvious limits, but I don't think moves towards consensus government are necessarily bad at all, quite the reverse.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

No, it makes you a privileged Left - ish intellectual. For many, many people trhe question of who or what will help tyhem out of their desperate poverty is the only issue of any relevance

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

So I'm a privileged leftish intellectual because I care about tiny, piffling issues like detention without charge, torture, rendition, the asylum process, etc? Fine, I can live with that. I suspect that when a person is being tortured, *that* is the only issue of relevance to them at that point! Using an emotive ad hominem doesn't help here, since I suspect we're probably operating at roughly similar levels of privilege in most regards, but I *really* don't want to get into one of those sort of one-downmanship debates, because it's just. Not. Relevant. And it's boring for everyone.

You seem to be implying that poverty is the only issue worth addressing, and that if anyone wants to talk about anything other than poverty, they are being a complete bastard who doesn't give a toss about the poor. It's entirely possible to care about the subject without having to make every conversation about it - all that does is make a person look like an ideologue, and I'm not not really into that. When the conversation is directly connected to poverty, you bet your arse I'm going to have an opinion on it. But to suggest that poverty is the only political issue of any importance, ever, seems, as well as derailing, to make the discussion so very broad as to be almost meaningless, which doesn't seem to me to help with the poverty either. Context matters, to be honest, and since I didn't make the original post, I don't really think it's for me to hijack it.

I'm not really sure why my position is bothering you quite so much. It's hardly as if I'm saying "bollocks to poverty, I want electoral reform so I can vote for tax breaks for meeeeeeee!".

Slightly OT

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

But I'm really curious - when you called me an intellectual, was I supposed to read take as a compliment or an insult?

[lilithmagna.livejournal.com]

I suppose I feel that the primary purpose of politics is deciding who gets to keep the wealth, and the secondary issue is how we go about doing this. The Dems focus on civil liberties is important because it keeps the larger parties honest (er)

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I agree - but sometimes you can't tackle things in order of importance - they must be tackled in order of priority. In order to break the stranglehold of institutional privilege on the national government, and enable progress on the really big issues - international relations, social and fiscal justice - we must first turn the state apparatus into a set of tools fit for the job. For the first time in a generation, that prospect is halfway realistic.

Important is not the same as urgent.

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

Fabulous post, A! I am also a committed small D democrat and anti-party in general. Very curious to see how this all will pan out.

[lilithmagna.livejournal.com]

Maybe as a positive MP's will be more independent minded and worried about their MP's opinions. One can hope. Here's a deal. If you have a Dem MP (sorry, can't remember where you live just now), you write to them and say a coalition with the Tories will leave you feeling betrayed. I'll write to my Labour MP and advocate 3 Lib Dem policies. Let's say less prisons and less, prisoners, the immigration amnesty and the 10k tax holiday.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

:o) Sorry, only just got back today after taking the weekend offline. Actually, I live in Leyton and Wanstead, so I have a Labour MP: Harry Cohen stepped down, so now we have the very honourable Mr. John Cryer, formerly member for Hornchurch. Happy with him, to be honest. One of the arguments often put against pure PR is the idea that some systems cut the link between the constituent and the MP, but I do remember a time when I lived somewhere with a Conservative MP, and, frankly, there's nothing worse than thinking of writing to your MP but knowing there's little point because they're going to disagree with you and kick your complaint politely into the long grass because you're of a different mind.