Thursday, May 15, 2014
Very disappointing
I was hoping that my previous posting on the electoral campaign in which I tried to attack every party would excite some angry comments and attacks here or on other forums through which I promoted it. Zilch so far. Rien. Nada. Zero. Nichts. And so on. Come on guys, there must be some readers out there who are interested enough to attack me.
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Perhaps your readers are like me? I have decided on my vote and see little chance of changing my mind no matter what you write. I shall vote UKIP - not because I think their primary policy is either sensible or achievable, but because I see them as a big club the electorate can use to beat the main stream parties round the head till they start listening to the voters.
ReplyDeleteIt's downright depressing that people can still see UKIP in those terms of persuade themselves that voters in any large numbers are on that side. Which voters do you think the mainstream parties should be listening to?
DeleteThe voters who are going to put their cross next to the UKIP candidate.
DeleteThank you Anon! OK Helen, pick your topic. The mainstream parties have views that a majority of the electorate do not support. They are not listening to anyone but themselves. We need to attract their attention. My MP is a Tory but she is a blithering idiot. Or more likely, she thinks I am. The only thing that is going to attract her attention is losing her seat. If she is replaced by a member of the Labour or LibDem parties, there will be no change. If she is replaced by a UKIP person - who knows? All bets will be off.
DeleteBut she is not going to be replaced by UKIP. So that's that. It's not as if UKIP managed to get anything but a minority of votes in any election, particularly in the General. Why should those votes carry a greater weight than anybody else's? In any case, I have read UKIP's electoral literature. Just what makes you think it's a party that is in any way against what the other parties stand for. They, too, believe in big government, for instance.
DeleteI read Dr Helen's post on election literature with keen enjoyment.
ReplyDeleteIt said everything I would have said and it said it better.
When I saw the Conservative Party leaflet vaunting a reduction of the deficit, I was nettled, for it couched continued overspending as fiscal probity.
When I saw in the same leaflet the claim that Mr Cameron had vetoed a fiscal treaty, I seethed with indignation at the untruth.
And when the Wilsonian referendum wheeze was trotted out yet again, I rolled my eyes in disgust. I voted "OUT" in 1975, for all the good it did.
So that was yet another good post from a commentator whose acumen I appreciate and admire.
Aurelian
Your post was excellent, unlike the content of the "election" leaflets which could have been produced by the same person on a home computer. I am disgusted with this whole Fred Karno circus pretending to be democratic. What really hurts is the low intelligence of those who are doing this.
ReplyDeleteI'm with BoaE.
ReplyDeleteIf we vote LibLabCon, all we will get is more taxes, more regulations, more EU and more bloody windmills.
If we vote UKIP, incompetent nincompoops though many or most of them are, at least there's a change someone in power will wake up to the danger (their danger - the only thing they understand) and start taking some notice of us.
Sigh. You obviously have not read UKIP's election leaflets. Also, we are merely voting for the Toy Parliament in Brussels/Strabourg. Just what difference will another couple of UKIP MEPs make, assuming they remain UKIP for any length of time?
DeleteI pretty much agreed with your post, so its going to take a lot for any of the parties to get me to a polling station. Im just not voting.
ReplyDeleteI think the point you make in the last paragraph of your summary of the literature is an important one. When there is no proper scrutiny of policy by those outside of UKIP (just absurd personal smears in newspapers campaigning for the Tories), or commitment to serious research by UKIP itself, it seems almost inevitable that on everything except the simple message of "Leave the EU" you will have a mishmash of contradictory messages: the very candidates who talk passionately about fewer rules and less regulation responding off the cuff to some issue thrown at them with a casual and mind-boggling suggestion of yet more fifties-style big state interference.
ReplyDeleteDoes this matter for UKIP? In the short term probably not - a bit like some of the other vague 'new' political movements across Europe (eg M5S in Italy, Potami in Greece), UKIP has settled into an entertaining one-man bash-the-political class show - the Dear Leader principle is ideally suited to the media age and, in UKIP's case, is not entirely the fault of the party.
But in the medium and long term, an approach dependent upon one person and with no serious philosophy based upon an intellectual hinterland has the potential for the kind of problems that we have seen before, only on a larger scale and played out with glee nationally by opponents and their running dogs who barely noticed all the similar things that happened 15, 10, 8 years ago. Elected members profoundly disagreeing with party direction and splitting, simple voter boredom taking the place of expectation or hope.
The difference is that at some point the simple smearing, which is mercifully fairly ineffective, will be supplemented by more serious analysis and this will seep into the interviews and commentaries. And that is why some eurosceptics (like "The Boss" Richard North) are concerned that in certain circumstances UKIP could be a problem for any referendum on the UK's relationship with the EU. The key really is whether UKIP squanders what could be a good opportunity. For what it is worth,although I see the reservations you have raised in the comments (I share them almost completely), I decided some time ago to vote UKIP. In the hope that it will not squander the opportunity, that it may have learned the lessons of the past and that at least some sort of a message will have been sent to the 'main' parties. And if not, well. Helen, I point you to the final line spoken by Bette Davis in 'Now Voyager'...
Always know who you are voting for...
ReplyDeletehttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bn8RMfgIIAAoEES.jpg