Re: The UK General Election Thread

[Shoeshine]

My big beef with Labour is the ever larger nanny state and encroachment into the are of civil liberties by the state.

Yes. And I'll tell you what really pisses me off about it, that I have to rely on the Tories, the frigging Tories, to act as a bulwark to defend my civil liberties. FFS.

[Allan D]

A right-wing Tory did manage to defend our civil (and all other) liberties rather effectively from 1940-5.

[Shoeshine]

Churchill spent most of his life as a Liberal.

[LeFromage]

And his most recent years as an insurance salesdog.

A tough man to pigeon-hole.

[Allan D]

Churchill spent most of his life as a Liberal.

Actually only 19 years from 1904-23 in a career that lasted from 1899-1964.

[Shoeshine]

Churchill spent most of his life as a Liberal.

Actually only 19 years from 1904-23 in a career that lasted from 1899-1964.

He grew up a Liberal. He was to all intents and purposes a Liberal until he was nearly 50!

[Allan D]

A centralised state is incompatible with civil liberties. Winston Churchill, to return to a theme, set this out in a radio broadcast during the 1945 election campaign for which he was widely derided at the time but seems to have particular resonance today. The most controversial passage went as follows:

No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil.

And where would the ordinary simple folk—the common people, as they like to call them in America—where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip? I stand for the sovereign freedom of the individual within the laws which freely elected Parliaments have freely passed.

What are the Counter-Terrorism Squad, the UK Borders Agency, the Special Patrol Group and the vast army of local authority snoopers and petty bureaucrats with the sole purpose of harassing and fining the ordinary citizen as he goes about his daily business anything but a form of New Labour Gestapo "no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance".

We have MPs arrested and their homes and offices ransacked and threatened with life imprisonment for revealing the number of illegal immigrants who work in the Palace of Westminster, we have newspaper sellers who have the temerity to indulge in a little gentle barracking tripped up from behind by riot police, fatally striking their head on the pavement with no consequence to the assailant, we have children of 7 & 8 being locked up in detention centres 24/7 for the crime of belonging to an immigrant family. This is the price we are paying for living in New Labour Britain. I think Churchill had a very strong point.

[eowyn]

Are we not not far from Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" then Allan?

[Allan D]

Churchill spent most of his life as a Liberal.

Actually only 19 years from 1904-23 in a career that lasted from 1899-1964.

He grew up a Liberal. He was to all intents and purposes a Liberal until he was nearly 50!

No his father was a Tory Cabinet Minister who served as Secretary of State for India and Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Salisbury. He left the Liberal Party after being defeated by a Labour candidate in Leicester at the end of 1923 when he was 49. He fought a bye-election in Westminster in March 1924 as an Independent Anti-Socialist when he narrowly (by 43 votes) lost to the Conservative candidate, Otho Nicholson.

In the General Election of October 1924 he was elected as 'Independent Constitutionalist' MP for Epping Forest without Conservative opposition. The new Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, appointed him Chancellor of the Exchequer and he formally rejoined the Conservative Party in 1925 after an absence of 21 years. He continued to represent Epping (although the constituency was substantially reorganised in 1945 to become Wanstead and Woodford) for his remainining 40 years in the House of Commons. He opposed the Liberals for supporting the 1924 minority Labour Government (which they were to do again in 1929-31).

After he became Prime Minister again in 1951 which was largely due to the Liberals withdrawing 366 of their candidates compared to the previous election in 1950 (David Butler estimated that where Liberal supporters were denied a candidate 3 voted Conservative to every 2 who voted Labour) Churchill offered Clement Davies, the Liberal Leader, a seat in the Cabinet as Minister of Education contingent on the gradual 'fusion' of the Conservative and Liberal Parties (such as had already with the Liberal Unionist Party which had broken away from the Liberal Party in the 1880s over Home Rule for Ireland and the 'National' Liberal Party which had refused to leave the National Government in 1932 along with the rest of the Liberal Party over the abandonement of Free Trade). Churchill had floated this idea before the election but Davies refused to take the bait.

Nevertheless Churchill kept his appointed Minister of Education, Florence Horsbrugh, out of the Cabinet for a further two years in the hope that Davies would change his mind. In 1953 he was reluctantly persuaded to admit Mrs Horsbrugh to the Cabinet, making her the first Conservative woman Cabinet Minister (Mrs Thatcher was the second in 1970).

Churchill was always a Free Trader but he was also an imperialist. The emergence of the Labour Party in the early 1920s as a major party considerably altered Churchill's views (as well as the Bolshevik Revolution at end of 1917) and he became convinced that opposition to socialism should not be divided and that the Conservative Party represented the stronger bulwark to the advance of socialism.

Churchill's wife, Clementine, had been brought up in a Liberal family and probably held more progressive views than her husband in later life. However she thought Lloyd George had treated her husband very badly during the Dardanelles crisis in 1915, egging him on at the outset and then abandoning him, leaving him isolated, when it proved politically embarrassing and she refused to allow LG to enter the house even after Churchill and he were reconciled and Churchill served as a minister in LG's Government.

[Allan D]

Are we not not far from Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" then Allan?

Well we have a New Labour Prime Minister talking about "British jobs for British workers" which seems to have a very hollow ring to it if the latest figures are to be believed. In many ways I see the BNP as the flipside to New Labour.

[Shoeshine]

In many ways I see the BNP as the flipside to New Labour.

No matter what you might think of Brown and Labour, don't equate them with the BNP. They're clueless, racist idiots. Read their manifesto and have a laugh.

[Allan D]

The BNP is a product of New Labour in the same way that dung comes out of an elephant. Wherever the latter goes the former is sure to be left behind. Your last two sentences could apply equally to the BNP and New Labour.

[Shoeshine]

Sorry, that's balls. There have been far right parties in a similar position before, in the seventies and the thirties. Care to blame Tony Blair for that too?

[Merlin]

Are we not not far from Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" then Allan?

For all the fright-prompted vilification of Powell and his rhetoric at the time, history and historians are beginning to accept the cold truth of Powell's bizarre speech in now recognizing its profound and far reaching doom-mongering prophecies, though ironically not concerning Commonwealth immigrants, (which Powell was referring to), but those who now pour into the UK through the EU open border policy from much, much nearer... ie., Eastern Europe.

Go figure!

[Merlin]

Are we not not far from Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" then Allan?

Well we have a New Labour Prime Minister talking about "British jobs for British workers" which seems to have a very hollow ring to it if the latest figures are to be believed. In many ways I see the BNP as the flipside to New Labour.

What the hell's wrong with that?

I'm no Bwown supporter, but that's the sanest thing the Jock's ever said.
Try going to Japan, Singapore, the US, the Middle east, France, Holland (yes, the open market EU) and Switzerland (amongst the many others) and demanding a job in those countries - then stand well back as the authorities there tell you to go get f**ked in no uncertain terms - UNLESS, of course, YOUR QUALIFICATIONS HAPPEN TO MEET THEIR REQUISITE DEMANDS - and even then, there's no guarantee.

So WTF don't we practice that very same policy here in the UK ?

HTF did the BNP get into the fray ... ?

[Allan D]

Are we not not far from Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" then Allan?

Well we have a New Labour Prime Minister talking about "British jobs for British workers" which seems to have a very hollow ring to it if the latest figures are to be believed. In many ways I see the BNP as the flipside to New Labour.

What the hell's wrong with that?

Nothing, if the reality even barely matched the rhetoric which it doesn't according to the Government's own bean-counters:

The ONS figures show the total number of people in work in both the private and the public sector has risen from around 25.7million in 1997 to 27.4million at the end of last year, an increase of 1.67million.

But the number of workers born abroad has increased dramatically by 1.64million, from 1.9million to 3.5million.

There were 23.8million British-born workers in employment at the end of last year, just 25,000 more than when Labour came to power. In the private sector, the number of British workers has actually fallen.

The number of posts for people of working age has increased since 1997 by over 500,000, to 20.5million.

But the number of British-born workers in the private sector has slumped by 726,000, from 18.4million to 17.7million.

Labour betrays British workers

[Merlin]

Okay, I guess saying it isn't doing it, but I sure as hell am hoping that the Tories shout it loud and clear ....

Prime example was on the Beeb's QT 2 episodes back - when a guy for the audience told the panel that he advertised for a fitter (he ran a small boiler installing company) - 14 applicants presented themselves ... 3 spoke and understood English, of the rest, 10 couldn't speak and barely understood whilst the last fella hadn't a clue.

Now apply that to the 'Elf and Safety doctrines ....

Oh wait ... if you can't speak English, HTF can you ..... ?

[Allan D]

Sorry, that's balls. There have been far right parties in a similar position before, in the seventies and the thirties. Care to blame Tony Blair for that too?

Remind me which party was in power for most of the 1970s. Don't socialist and far-right parties appeal to the same disaffected working-class electorate? Even Mosley marched in Bethnal Green not Belsize Park, if I recall. Why in a recession do a minority at least of working-class voters turn to the far-right not to the far-left? Why has the far-left been so hopelessly disorganised in Britain when it comes to electoral politics and can only display its strength when it comes to organising demos and strikes?

[You don't have to answer the last question, I think we can guess].

[Allan D]

Interesting article by Dominic Lawson in The Indie last year about the whole concept of "British Workers for British Jobs" and how it affects the political spectrum:

Nationalism has its roots in socialism as well as fascism

[Shoeshine]

Sorry, that's balls. There have been far right parties in a similar position before, in the seventies and the thirties. Care to blame Tony Blair for that too?

Remind me which party was in power for most of the 1970s. Don't socialist and far-right parties appeal to the same disaffected working-class electorate? Even Mosley marched in Bethnal Green not Belsize Park, if I recall. Why in a recession do a minority at least of working-class voters turn to the far-right not to the far-left? Why has the far-left been so hopelessly disorganised in Britain when it comes to electoral politics and can only display its strength when it comes to organising demos and strikes?

[You don't have to answer the last question, I think we can guess].

The two parties were in power for about the same amount of time in the seventies.

As is very obvious, the working classes are not a preserve of the Labour party, anything but. To blame Labour for the far right is......just stupid, sorry but it is. The reason they have had a modicum of success is down to all the mainstream parties failing to react to the legitimate concerns held by people who fear being swamped. None of the parties have responded to those fears, pushing people into the arms of the BNP.

Even so, there needs to be some rational thought here. They are not about to get close to winning a Parliamentary seat, and the only reason they won a European Parliamentary seat is because of the utterly stupid electoral system under which it was fought. They needed, and just about got, 8% of the vote.

[eowyn]

Are we not not far from Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" then Allan?

Well we have a New Labour Prime Minister talking about "British jobs for British workers" which seems to have a very hollow ring to it if the latest figures are to be believed. In many ways I see the BNP as the flipside to New Labour.

Do you mean flip-side as in opposite ends of the political spectrum? Where in the end their extremes views have virtually the same?

That might work if New Labour were socialists but they aren't are they, they're just a bit left of centre while the Tories are just a bit right of centre.

I think most voters in this election are going to end up voting for the side they see as being the lesser of two evils, which isn't a good thing at all.

[Shoeshine]

I think most voters in this election are going to end up voting for the side they see as being the lesser of two evils, which isn't a good thing at all.

Interesting. I think that's a mark of a fairly healthy scepticism in a democracy. I'd be a lot more worried if people really, genuinely believed in a party.

[Merlin]

I'd be a lot more worried if people really, genuinely believed in a party.

Now I'm interested !!
Why would you be worried?

Or is a ringa ringa roses, knit one pearl one every 6 years considered the more appropriate way ... as with Italy, for example?!

[eowyn]

I think most voters in this election are going to end up voting for the side they see as being the lesser of two evils, which isn't a good thing at all.

Interesting. I think that's a mark of a fairly healthy scepticism in a democracy. I'd be a lot more worried if people really, genuinely believed in a party.

I think mean you'd rather people didn't have blind faith in a party and follow it regardles, never questioning what the party did? Well, yes it's always good to question and think and be independant. What I meant was there isn't someone out there that makes you think, yes, they've got the right idea to help the country right now.

What does anyone think of the possiblity of a hung parliment will do for the country?

[JKLever]

What does anyone think of the possiblity of a hung parliment will do for the country?

Upsides & Downsides

The markets might tumble because of the uncertainty, but it means we might get Vince 'old git' Cable as Chancellor.

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