As the UK prepares to go tomorrow to the polls, I have a guilty secret to confess - I haven’t actually cast a vote since 1990 (when
I voted for myself in the elections for Strathclyde Region)…..As someone who went
into politics (in 1968) because it was so obviously an honourable activity, I’m glad that
Scottish voters - due largely to the devolved parliament there and the new style
of political conduct it introduced - still consider that the vote counts….Clearly that is not the case elsewhere in the UK
Although my posts in The
Independence Argument – home thoughts from abroad
showed that, ultimately, I had not been convinced by the argument for Scotland separating from the UK, I
have been happy (and amazed) to see the speed with which erstwhile Scottish Labourites
have shrugged off their tribal affiliations in recent months….......I was always vaguely annoyed when
I was chapping the doors at election time to be told that “we’ve always been
Labour here” – somehow I needed a more calibrated endorsement!!!
Who could have anticipated the massive hemorrhaging of the Labour vote since the independence referendum of last September???
One pollster who has been focusing on individual British constituencies seems to be giving a boost to the decidedly un-British (but sensible) phenomenon of “tactical voting” – which seems to be empowering a lot of rightwing
voters to hold their noses and switch their support to high-profile (but empty)
characters such as Jim Murphy and Nick Clegg…..
I was actually moved by the John
Harris video of doorstepping (with a 70-year parliamentarian no one has
heard of) to write a comment about what an unctuous piece of stuff that
particular guy was all the time I had known him on at the Scottish level before
he went to Westminster…..and how staggering it was that he considered himself entitled
to keep taking good money…..
My views on political parties these days are set out in the second part
of Ways
of Seeing….the global crisis. Scottish Television actually asked me
yesterday to complete a short (and rather stupid) survey on the election – and
I duly recorded that I would be voting Green (on principle, not tactics).
We seem, frankly, to be going backwards in British politics – in 2007 or
so there was a strong electoral reform campaign (who remembers the Power Inquiry of 2004-06
and “Power 2010”?).
Now we just seem to have comedian Russell
Brand’s antics (intriguingly the
German word for “fire”) – although people do seem to be taking more to the idea
of coalition government…..
John Harris - in this latest clip whose accents may be difficult to follow.....- shows just how effective the Conservative propoganda seesm to hav been about the idea of a minority Labour Government depending on Scottish nationalist support.......
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