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Tag Archives: Politics

Choosing a political party – head or heart?

August 11th, 2010

How do you choose a political party? I was having a discussion with some friends over a pint the other day, concerning a friend of ours who is extremely liberal – but who votes Conservative because her parents do, and she wouldn’t ever consider changing her vote. To me this makes no sense, and I wonder how many other people act in a similar way and if they were to change their vote would it cause a swing?

I have also been having thoughts about my choice of political party and whether or not they suit my changing needs.

When I was 18 years old and first able to vote, in the 2003 local elections – the country had just launched a war on the nation of Iraq and tensions were running high. The Liberal Democrats were a protest vote against the war and they courted it well – they even managed to take over Cardiff council and two years later Jenny Willott (Liberal Democrat) took the Cardiff Central Parliamentary seat from the Conservatives. But at 18 I had different priorities, different ideals.
I was able to vote for whoever I wanted, since a lot of their policies didn’t affect me. I didn’t have children, I wasn’t a homeowner, I didn’t have a car and I didn’t have a high paying job – all of the things that are really affected by Government policy. I was able to be idealistic and vote for the party that played up to my only view – that the invasion of Iraq was unjust and totally illegal – this is why I chose the Liberal Democrats.

Now I am learning to drive, I have a well paid job and formerly owned my own company, I am due to have my first child and I will also soon be a car owner. Government policy now really affects me. If the wrong people are in power I could end up being taxed astronomically and have entitlements curbed – for example family tax credits and free school milk, both of which are under threat from the new “Com-Dem” coalition.

I will stop here and say that I think almost everything I have written previously, and will write after this, may actually be quite moot since the United Kingdom Government as it stands right now is a Frankenstein’s monster that not a single person in the country voted for, so “choose a party” in the case of the last general election is a pretty laughable concept – but I am confident that as soon as this coalition breaks down and a new election is called we will get back to the Government > opposition status quo will be re-established.

Previously I would never have considered voting Conservative – but their policies actually favour me and my situation. Voting Liberal Democrat, it’s entirely possible that in a few years time, once I hit that salary threshold, my income tax would be set at 50% and that is unacceptable. The Liberal Democrats speak to the working poor, students and idealists. Their policies cannot be favoured by successful people as they are the very people that their policies single out to be held upside-down and everything shaken from their pockets to fund lavish welfare schemes and initiatives.

I do still have my beliefs and ideals; especially when it comes to foreign affairs, I am a very apathetic person. I believe that as a well-off country we should be helping countries by providing aid, expertise and the United Kingdom should be a sanctuary for the downtrodden (i.e. asylum seekers). We have built a great nation where we can feel free from fear, repression and persecution – why should we not allow others who are not as fortunate, to bask in our welfare?
But this doesn’t conform to Tory ideals. This is very much a liberal view, so this goes back to my initial question: Do I vote with my heart of my head?
Voting Conservative will always be seen as the “selfish” vote, a vote of self-preservation, while a vote for the Liberal Democrats is seen as an idealistic vote.
This is the conundrum that I faced at the last election, and I continued as I always had, but who knows next time around?

Rhodri Morgan, ever the optimist

January 21st, 2009

Rhodri MorganFirst Minister for Wales Rhodri Morgan seems to think that politics in the UK is too far behind that of the US to for a black person to be elected prime minister. In stating this Mr Morgan is, as usual, exercising his right to senility.

Mr Morgan, who is most likely serving his final term, is completely off the mark to suggest that the voting populous would not elect a candidate by reason of ethnicity or skin colour.

Barack Obama was a first term Senator when he was elected President of the United States. 4 years ago he was almost a complete unknown out of his adopted home city of Chicago, yet now he has taken his oath and is sitting as the commander-in-chief of the most powerful of Western democracies.

To say that years of service and experience through the political systems is required to be successful in British politics is utter rubbish. I would even say that a figure who has been languishing within the pig-pen for 20 years is possibly the worst person to put into high office, for all the scandals, lies and cheating that would likely have centred or gone on around that person through those years, making them corrupted or hardened. Look at Peter Mandelson for goodness sake. When will he give it up and buzz off? After all of the drama he’s been involved in, including have to resign, twice, you would expect him to have thrown in the towel a long time ago, at least to save (what is left of) his dignity.

So, to you, Rhodri Morgan, years of being inside a moral-less, corrupted elitist circle may have been your way of getting to the top, but this does not necessarily mean it is the de facto or only route. Stimulation, innovation and conjugation may also suffice and there are plenty of younger whipper-snappers who will be biting at your heels soon enough with oodles of the stuff.

A job best left to the professionals

March 5th, 2008

Pro-suicide is such a crude term and begs the question, “Are expressions like pro-bullying or pro-domestic violence valid in the same way?” Probably not. With that being the case, why are the national press compelled to use this term when broaching the subject of websites that give advice or guidance on the act of seppuku?

There have been calls from the usual backbench suspects – who clearly have very little to do outside of election year other than to stand up in the house and make absurd suggestions – to consider laws that could never possibly be implemented. Not without severe repercussions on freedom of speech and monstrous infringements of civil liberties.

For a government to inhibit the circulation of the theory of practices that are not punishable by law, but rather frowned upon by society, would make the position of countless other publications, unrelated to suicide, untenable. This would of course be across all mediums; print, online, television, radio. In essence, to prevent access by force, as is being suggested, to websites that glorify or ‘normalise’ suicide, would open the flood gates to all those who feel the desire to complain about anything that aggrieves them in the media.

As an example, citation of this proposed act could have been used in the case of The Christian Faith vs. Jerry Springer The Opera. The BBC received 55,000 written complaints when it was due to be aired on the BBC2 channel in 2005. Would this have been enough public outcry to warrant invoking this act, leaving us instead doomed to ‘Allo ‘Allo repeats (which itself could be censored if enough French people claimed racism) on that Saturday night?

Legislation is no substitute for treatment or prevention. If there was enough attention focused on mental health treatment, which there is not, then perhaps there should be no need to consider absurd censorship such as this.

In my county, Cardiff, there is currently a six month waiting list to see a councelor courtesy of the National Health Service. This has been same since at least 2001. I can tell you this from personal experience. If a person seeks help from their GP citing issues of mental health, they are first and foremost offered anti-depressant drugs and then asked if they would like to be added to the waiting list to see a specialist for counseling. For some people half a year is too long, but have no other choice. Private counseling is an an option that is not always viable, for a multitude of reasons.

It takes a lot of courage for somebody experiencing mental turmoil to turn to somebody for help and for them to be dealt with in such a manner when they do, even more so with the state of mind that they are in at that time, can be horribly detrimental to their health.

In the wake of the Bridgend crisis the UK government should take this opportunity to improve the mental health services available to these vulnerable persons who feel the need to visit ‘pro-suicide’ websites, before it’s too late.