ObscureAzure

Welcome to ObscureAzure, a slice of MindCake™ belonging to Azuric.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

<P>
This is an appeal.

Can someone please teach me about UK politics.

I was watching newsnight last night, and have been listening to Radio 4 a lot recently (because Radio 1 has become SO AMAZINGLY CRAP - yes Scott oh lets diss my own mum, act like a twat, tell the same crap jokes, and play the same old clips over and over again Mills, Im talking about you!) and have become rather interested in this Labour party hoo-ha.

So far the things I know about politics are:

- Labour is (meant to be) left wing.
- Conservative is (meant to be) right wing.
- Tony Blair is becoming unpopular, and, as 50 cent would say, has got beef wit' Gordon Brown, who wants his job.
- David Cameron is obviously liking the bitch-fight, and edging it on.
- David Cameron is cool because he came on Radio 1 (before it was whack as cack) and seems to be in touch more with the younger generation.
- The LibDems are (apparently) one big Joke.
- The BNP have 3 brain cells between them.
- Nick Griffin should be shot.
- The house of commons seems to be one big brothel.
- Edwina Curry is a bitch. (That interview on Womans Hour was hilarious!)
- No one likes Patricia Hewitt.

Now, thats all I know.

Can someone please teach me the rest. And make it as unbiased as possible.

posted by Azuric @ 9:43 pm  

2 Comments:

  • At 1:19 am, Blogger Anyhoo said…

    This is far longer than I intended, and posted far later.
    ---
    It was all so much easier when L-R was Lab, Lib Dem, Con. Basically old Labour couldn't get elected due to... thinking that fraternity was more important than production (said the child of Thatcher). So they were very close to the unions (who were at this point still powerful), and the unions dictated working conditions, and everything should be nationalised and regulated, and no-one should be made to work unfairly, only all work is unfair, so no-one should be made to work, and if someone is then we should all go on strike in sympathy... oh, hang on, if no-one's working, then where do we get the paper for the banners?

    Er... Ok, I can't do this quickly and non-judgementally.
    Old Labour, meaning Labour proper, not the Chameleonic version we have now (oh, and the Chameleon Dave advert, irony of ironies), were too closely linked to the trade unions for their own good. They were unelectable while the unions still held sway. And the unions had overplayed their hand (basically they thought they were above the market), hence Thatcher became necessary.

    So Thatcher broke up the unions (and negated future risk by outsourcing anything laboriously industrial), or at least showed them to be [relatively] powerless, and unpopular [yes, X might be unfair, but if the fuss over it stops Y and Z for A time, then support for getting rid of X decreases with every increase in importance of Y and Z or A. The unions didn't see why A couldn't be infinity. It was the principle of the thing (whereas most people, given long enough, notice the cost of the thing)].

    Under Thatcher, then Major, people realised life didn't have to be rounds of industrial disputes, inflation swamping savings, governmental interference in the economy (which generally never ends well. But the unions saw no reason why uncompetitive things couldn't be subsided).

    So young politicians realised the old system of left and right wasn't useful anymore. The stable, profitable path is all shades of centre-right. So young members of the Labour party sought to move Labour to this reduced area. Enter Blair. Of course, fate controlled various things, so it ended up with Blair and Brown two of the main contenders for the Labour leadership. Both were relatively young. But Brown was older. Brown was a dour Scotsman. Brown was the more principled of the two. Brown was the more Old Labour of the two. Brown was also unelectable, as he was seen as a stalwart of the ardent socialist party (the strong Scots accent didn't help, as historically Conservative and Liberal leaders have been affluent, well educated English or Scots people. Labour leaders tended to rise from industrial, sometimes rural, or deeply urban communities. So strong Scots, Welsh or Irish accents. Brown sounds like the left-wing leaders, able to become a firebrand, who loathes the bourgeois [i.e. the middle classes*]. Blair is Scots, but minimally so.

    * And regardless of how many people claim to be working class, aspiration and social mobility happens. So the middle class defends itself, and those hoping to join defend it, even if they're a long way of reaching it. This is why high taxes for high earners remain unpopular. Most people don't earn that much, but they see no reason why they should be taxed more if they ever do.

    So one would be seen as a patriarchal, pontificating puritan, and one just fairly similar to the people who might vote for him. But Brown was more senior in the party, and had been in it for longer. Blair can't win the leadership without his support. Brown can't win a general election. But the party under Blair might win.

    So there came Granita (a restaurant, now closed), where they supposedly agreed a deal. Brown backs Blair. Blair paves way for Brown. Basically Blair gets them elected, and then after a while, hands the reigns over to Brown, who stands a better chance of staying in power if he's the incumbent rather than the challenger.

    So Blair took control of the party, and changed it to make it electable. He rebrands it "New Labour", to show it's not that dangerous old form of socialism which kills economies. No, this is Socialism Light (otherwise known as liberal Conservatism). So under Blair, Labour scooted over to the right. The Tory party at the time were going in for self-flagellation (ok, mutual flaying), and so weren't aggressively protecting their political ground, preferring infighting to noticing the enemy has moved camp.

    Blair enlists the latest methods in media management (and Murdoch felt he hadn't be given due respect under the Tories, so he backed Labour and told his papers to do likewise. An act which led to favouritism between government and media, so those who complied got benefits, and those who didn't got whatever Labour and its media allies could fling at them), and promptly wins the election.

    The Conservatives regroup, and decide they weren't distinctive enough in the last election, so shuffle off to the right, and cultivate the ground there.

    Labour win a couple more elections, but with poorer results each time, having discovered that while one can blame the last lot in the first couple of years, it wears thin after a few years (although oddly, anything good, regardless of when it happens, or what caused it, is the work of Labour). And suddenly we're back in the old territory of Labour isn't working (although this time they mean Labour's constant reorganisations of the NHS for example). And Labour keep on with the message that it's trickle-down stuff. Only how long does the trickle take? Surely if it takes any longer, then it's beyond the life-span of most governments. So the cause is detached from the effect, and is it really the cause anyway? And if it isn't the cause, what is it the politicians actually do? And why do they claim the successes for themselves?

    Basically, they need to claim the effects take a long time so they can cover any failures, will claiming it's rapid enough that anything they do will give definable results.

    Er, sorry, tangenting.

    Basically, lab swung right, the Tories went more right (or righter than right), lab lost the popular impetus, but there was no-one to draw it off, the Tories having bickered about how right they want to be, and been distracted by UKIP springing up to the right of them (in political ground they created).

    And the Lib Dems were never that powerful or serious. They're the third party. If people vote for them, it usually means they don't want either of the others at the current time (for example, where my parents live the choices are Lib-Dem or Tory, with Labour only fielding rooky candidates (due to always being on the edge of losing their deposit). The local MP was a Tory high-up, but unpopular. Each election brought LD and C closer, until there were very few votes in it. The MP decides it's time to go, and at the next election the unknown new Tory gets a 5% swing to him).

    The Lib Dems were the choice of no-alternative. Which is a pity, because I quite like them. And this is before the cacophony of scandals (and whenever scandals break, watch what else is about. People know things, but they don't talk about them until there's some reason. The Labour party like burying bad news, and it's not unknown for them to make their own news).

    So now we have a new, anonymous, public schoolboy (er, ok, somewhere else did the whole Cameron = Blair thing much better than I'm doing. But Blair is a natural Tory. Things he says, he does, he believes are all Tory, but he realised the Tories weren't going to be in the position he wanted them to be in when he would have come to prominence. If you're going to revamp a car, find one which no one cares about, and where the engine isn't still running (and so won't take your fingers off). Not only will the result look better through comparison, but there'll be less problems along the way).

    Anyway, the Conservatives have their Blair, having realised that picking someone who shows himself to be truly right-wing is a bad idea (and trying to out UKIP UKIP is as daft as UKIP are in the first place).

    And Blair II is busy reinventing his party (blue = green, and other colourblind tales. Labour did the same thing went it went New - red became purple, although the Tories also tried to go purple, and now it's ended up as the colour of UKIP). Basically just rehash Blair's ascent and the creation of New Labour, put use find and replace to insert Cameron and Conservatives in the appropriate places instead.

    And because he's so like Blair, so blatantly changing to suit the audience, it's really grating. One large chunk of the country didn't like Blair for his perpetual fluidity (changing one's mind is fine, changing one's history isn't). And now the other party are doing it too. I foresee Lib-Demming till the cows come home, although not if they actually might win.

    And of course we should all vote Green, except they're rabidly anti-science (ok, ill-informed and apparently incapable of independent thought), which isn't the best way to help people solve problems.

    So getting back to your points.

    Tony Blair - becoming unpopular? With some sections he always has been.

    I'm not sure it was beef he had with GB, but I don't know what they had at Granita.

    Egging it on, surely?

    David Cameron is cool because he came on Radio 1 (before it was whack as cack) and seems to be in touch more with the younger generation.

    Er...

    I would like to be able to not dignify that with a response, but the idea that you're not joking worries me.

    More in touch with the younger generation? Because he dyes his hair, which is a bit emo, or because...?

    I think it's just the wrongness of the first 4 words which gets to me. Why are politicians meant to be cool? Their job should be seeing that civil servants do theirs, and do them usefully and well. That's pretty much it.

    Then bung in the non-sequiturs of Radio 1 and this whole notion of in-touchness. Do you think Radio 1 asked Cameron, or he (his people) asked them? Bear in mind his people are paid to manipulate his image. They are paid to make sure everyone likes him. So if they can bag a spot on Radio 1, and get him to not make a mess of it, then that's a few more liking him.

    Lib-Dems. It did get to the stage when you wonder when the rabbit would come out of the hat, as everything else has already come out.

    BNP. It's easy to say they're stupid. It's not really helpful. They're completely misguided, of course, but stupid is too easy to suggest, and ignore.

    NG: I think he might say the same about you. I'd prefer it if neither of you were shot, simply he had a few things explained to him, until he gets it (and if he is stupid, then he'll take a long time to get it, and I should think having something slowly and clearly explained repeatedly is probably punishment enough).

    Well it is the House of Commons, which suggests a certain sharing.

    I missed the Woman's Hour thing (heard some of the hoo-ha). Edwina Curry is probably out for all she can get now, having hit the red and purple stage.

    Patricia Hewitt: She the Best-year-ever one? A. How stupid can you get? B. Isn't it odd that the clip of it is edited down from "The Best Year in the World Ever! Volume 6 Part II"?.

    And it's nice to know "whack as cack" is still going, even if Scott Mills (cousin of Trego) still is.

     

  • At 12:23 pm, Blogger Anyhoo said…

    Sorry.

    You know that thing about sex, politics and religion (and maybe sport)? Why is it politics always manages to drag the other two in?

    And I think I failed on the unibiased bit, but then it is politics; the entire thing is about perception.

     

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