Regardless of the persuasive powers of the Tory biased media, their darling Cameron has not acheived a sweeping majority. That is the good news. A large Tory majority would have proved totally disastrous to our hopes of recovery, a point of view held by many significant economists which much of the media attempted to ignore. As all the bile was heaped upon Brown, the fact that the UK debt is smaller, as a percentage of GDP, than that of Germany, Japan and the USA, was totally overlooked by mainstream media. I am pleased that Labour's performance in the polls has not been anything like as disastrous as the Tory media hoped; perhaps some intelligent voters recognized that Brown had dealt effectively with the crisis faced by the banks (as a result of the global economic crisis). It's hard to believe that just a few short months ago a Tory landslide seemed inevitable.
As a lifelong committed socialist, and Labour activist throughout the sixties and seventies, I had never had much truck with Blairite New Labour but, for all their fairly large scale adoption of Thatcherite economics, new Labour did have a compassionate heart - at least at a domestic level. I have also admired Gordon Brown's commitment to international development against global poverty but, totally disagreed with Blair's Tory supported illegal war with Iraq.
Seemingly since the beginning of time, prior to 1997, our constituency had been totally neglected by its (Tory) MP but, since then, we have been extremely well represented and served by Phil Willis (LibDem). Phil stood down at this election and, tragically, the seat has been lost to the Tories. The election of the UK's first Green party MP is a cause for rejoicing, albeit at the cost of another seat for Labour.
Even with the whole hearted support of the wealth accumulators, stock market gamblers, and their media mouthpieces, the Tories have failed to obtain an overall majority; far more votes have been cast against them than for them. Perhaps this really is the time for some kind of electoral reform to more equitably represent the will of the people.
- living and frequently struggling with moderate M.E. -
where (bad) health, faith, politics and the joys and troubles of daily life collide.
ME
3 comments:
One can just hope that the Lib-Dems manage to restrain themm abnd persuade them that if unnecessary government spending has to be cut, it should start with the war in Afghanistan and Trident.
How about a bumper sticker: Cut government spending - scrap Trident
Unfortunately Steve, what we're lumbered with is a ConDemNation - The LibDems have just sold their soul very cheaply and, my wife who had always been a Liberal activist since her teens is no longer going to do anything for them! Even the right wing Tory 'Spectator' recognizes this .. http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5996038/victory.thtml
I'm not sure what else the LibDems could have done in the circumstances. But time will tell.
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