The UK 2010 Election and I

So we mainly post about gaming, media and cats playing musical instruments but alas politics affects all things, even lolcats and so with the upcoming UK general election I thought I could offer a brief insight into where and why my vote is currently going. Let’s get the fact right first.

I am 25, that means I have only voted once before in a proper election, I come from a mining town in the Midlands and I have worked, at least part time, since I was about 13. Tax Records will state that I started significantly later. I’m not ashamed to say I have an anti-Tory bias.

I come from a mining town, my dad was a miner, and I was born in the early 80′s that means my childhood was heavily influenced by the fallout of the miners strikes. On top of this the Tories are hardly the most “in line” with my belief system, I am libertarian (although that Wiki article is shit) and even though this Political stance embraces many ideals it does not stand for the unbalanced “save our rich people” campaign the Tories are basically pushing.

This being said I have approached this election as unbias as possible, I listened to what Cameron had to say just as much as the other parties and I would not deny them my vote just because past policies have been pretty crap.

Anyway, the truth is that this election is really important, the World Wide economic crisis has really shook things up and there are a lot of game changing decisions to be made over things like tax, immigration, virtual law, privacy and national defence that drastically effect me and my peers, we really need to get this one right. So far we have had months of campaigning and one interesting TV debate (with two to go) so here are my thoughts so far…

Labour

Oh Labour, how times have changed. Labour were my first ever vote, as much as people go on about him I actually liked Blair and I thought he did a pretty decent job of running the country. Over the last 4 years however Labour have proved to be no-ones saviour. They have had a tough term, getting hit by the banking crisis and the war fallout has not been easy and I don’t hold any of these decisions against them but they have made a lot of other mistakes. Labour’s primary goal seems to be trying to please everyone who makes a noise in every possible way. The problem with this strategy is twofold;

1) Only twats make noise, this is common sense knowledge that most people are aware of. The noisy minority vs. the silent majority. Labour have done an excellent job of bending over and taking it up the ass for lots of little noisy minorities  and screwing over people who just try and get on with it. Sorry this is not going to fly. I cannot emphasise the following point enough therefore I will write it on a new line in bold. This is what equality means;

NO-ONE AUTOMATICALLY DESERVES SPECIAL TREATMENT; INCLUDING MINORITIES.

2) It creates more problems exponentially, as more people notice that being “a minority” i.e. a certain religion, a single mum, a married to a goat person etc. etc. then more people become part of and create these minorities to gain the advantages. This is human nature for weak people and is both the Governments fault (for allowing this to take place) and for participants fault (for taking advantage).

I could and maybe will, write a whole blog post on equality and social responsibility and what it means to a young libertarian like me but that’s enough for now.

For me this underpins many of the current problems with our systems and society, it is made 100x worse by a frankly insane media presence that overdoes both sides of the problem. Because of this Labour will not get my vote.

What About Brown?

I don’t mind Gordon Brown, he has been the countries biggest scapegoat for 2 years running and that sucks, however he doesn;t do himself any favours. In the TV debate he came across as bland at best. He seemed relatively unaware that he has been in power for the last few years and could/should have implemented most of his policies a year ago.

Conservative

I honestly did give them a chance. I am afraid it didn’t work out.

After I became disillusioned with Labour I turned to our blue blooded friends to see what they had to offer, after all these elections are a two horse race right? right?

I have watched numerous interviews with Cameron and his shadow cabinet, I even took time to read some of the Tory manifesto and their stance on the things that really matter to me. Every time I did this it came across with one strong, underlying message.

“Labour suck balls”

Everything the Conservatives do is about shaming Labour for different things, approximately 70% of which they are wholly irresponsible for. I cannot honestly vote any Government into power who think that the best Election campaign to run is “haha Gordon is Fat and Stupid, we’re really cool!” Maybe this works for the Sun. Maybe it helps their rich Tory mates filter the ideas down to the workforce I don’t really care, it’s unacceptable.

If I were to ignore this then they would hardly win me over with their manifesto, some ideas in there are good, some are just what we need, most are to help rich people and this is one time when the papers really are not blowing it out of proportion. OK maybe a little bit but it’s still true.

The Conservatives will not be getting my vote either.

What About Cameron?

Unfortunately Cameron has repeatedly thwarted any hope of me voting Conservative, why? Well quite honestly he is a twat.

He is a liar. He rides around in a private jet while telling me he understands what it is like to struggle to pay a mortgage or choose a school for children, and yes, he’s a rich boy with rich boy mates and these are exactly the kinds of people who just instigated global financial meltdown.

David Cameron flights –

In the TV debate Cameron came across as a childish, creeping rich kid and I know it was more than me who noticed that everyone one of his answers began with bullshit. I’m sorry I just cannot like David Cameron, maybe it’s me being unfair, maybe he is just a twat. Guess we’ll find out in May.

Lib Dem

Like a gray running  the lead in the Grand National suddenly everyone is looking at the horse no-one backed.

Last time I went to vote I seriously considered Lib Dem, I didn’t choose them because I was scared. Scared by the media into thinking this country only has two choices, scared by my parents into thinking Labour is the only choice and scared of what would happen if the Tories got in.

After a lot of reading, some hard decisions and the first TV debate they are looking pretty bloody likely to secure my vote this time around.

I want to make this clear right away, I am not considering the Lib Dems because the other two parties are shit, smell funny, are not racist enough etc, to vote in this way is completely stupid and I would not approve of it in any circumstance, I am (likely to) vote Lib Dem because they are doing two things I welcome in politics;

1) Admitting they do not have magical answers. Numerous members of their party have now mentioned how they would like to see joint brainstorming solution sessions between the major parties to arrange solutions for things like pensions and the military. I welcome the fact these guys are standing up and offering this choice instead of saying the opposite of what someone else has said.

2) Standing Up Against Large Companies. Maybe I am overly paranoid but it seems like a lot of big banks and companies got away with a lot in the financial crisis and the truth of the matter is their “tax avoidance” costs this country more than benefit fraud and all those other problems the Tories were crying about put together. Employees who work hard, customers and normal people make these companies successful it is time they paid it back instead of asking for an extra 10 hours a week without pay.

The Lib Dems also seem to have a policy that overlaps with mine on a lot of issues, most notably for this blog, Clegg announced he would reverse the shambles that is the Digital Economy Bill should they get power in May.

What About Clegg?

Clegg seems OK. I don’t by any means think he is the perfect man come in our hour of need to lead the country into a new phase of being, I do however think he is serious about trying to change a lot of the problems that we have at the minute, this at least is something to hope for.

In the TV debate Clegg did shine. I had a lot of stock in the Lib Dems before it but afterwards I felt much, much more confident in my choice. Less slimy than Cameron, more impressive than Brown, Clegg struck a good balance between serious facts, good policies and pleasant personality.

What About Dre?

Fuck that I forgot about Dre :(

Conclusion

We still have a long way to go and maybe something will happen to change my mind but at this moment in time I’m voting Lib Dem. Everything here is my opinion, there s a huge amount I haven’t said because it would be simply impossible to get everything across in one post but trust me when I say I have thought a lot about this and everyone out there voting next month should be doing a lot of thinking too.

Please if nothing else, don’t just listen to Rupert Murdock and his rather sprawling media empire.