Sister blog of Physicists of the Caribbean in which I babble about non-astronomy stuff, because everyone needs a hobby

Saturday 22 April 2017

Decision made

Ranty summary of why I'm voting Liberal Democrat in a Tory-Labour marginal constituency. More for posterity than anything else.

There are good reasons why some are predicting a landslide win for the Tories - they are well ahead in the polls, the SNP dominate Scotland, and Labour seem determined to screw themselves as hard as possible. And yet that does not tell the whole story. We're already in uncharted waters - not just from the referendum result, but from the massive loss of "safe" seats at the last election and in recent by-elections.

Paradoxically, this election is one born of both opportunism and desperation. It's opportunistic because of the high poll ratings for the Tories, the extreme weakness of the Labour party, the saturation level of the SNP and the tiny number of Liberal Democrat and Green MPs. And yet it is also desperate, due to the immense ongoing political pressure resulting from Brexit, coupled with the new challenge of a second Scottish independence referendum, as well as the underlying unpopularity of austerity. For Theresa May it's do-or-die at this point : either secure a "mandate" from the populace or accept defeat and a potential change of course. Politically, an election looks like not just a good way to secure the next few years of Tory government, but the only way. She's certainly gaming the system, but it's a game she's been forced to play.

There seems to me reasonable evidence to doubt the certainty of a landslide Tory victory. The Lib Dems recently won some spectacular victories in by-elections. Labour are so unpopular it looks extremely unlikely that they can win. Anecdotally, I know too many once-devoted Labour supporters (both young and old) who are literally disgusted with Corbyn to take any claims of a shock Labour win seriously. But surely a shock Liberal Democrat win is even more unlikely ?

Sure. But the Tory minority is tiny. It's far less implausible to suggest that it might be reduced to nothing and the government replaced with a coalition of the left. I accept that we won't get a shock Labour or Lib Dem win, but would a Tory loss be so unexpected ? Anger at Brexit is widespread, austerity is unpopular. With a sensible leader at Labour's helm I doubt there'd be much talk of a Tory landslide at all. So I do think there's a chance of an upset. More pragmatically, Cardiff voted strongly for Remain, so in my constituency the Lib Dems now have a chance to appeal to voters in a way they previously haven't, since no other party is so staunchly anti-Brexit.

Here We Go Again

Thank you, Brenda from Bristol, for saying what we're all thinking : There's too much politics going on at the moment. There certainly is, far too much. Time was when we could all discuss politics at leisure, get cross with the other side but not too cross because we could be confident that the damage they could do would be limited.

9 comments:

  1. "So it seems to me with pretty nearly all of Corbyn's ideas : he isn't willing to negotiate or compromise because he isn't able to - they are core parts of his identity. His early token gestures of "kinder politics" rapidly gave way to a distinct nastiness; a total lack of wisdom as to when to talk and when to threaten. This, in my opinion, is because he has made policies into moral issues, and in my personal experience it's very much harder to change someone's opinion about moral ideologies than pragmatic issues."

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  2. Assuming this is a fair survey... I got 76% conservative and am a Tough Secular Progressive with Unilateralism and Collectivism tendencies. I'm pretty much bang on a Centrist (slight nudge to the right and libertarian)
    uk.isidewith.com - UK’s most popular voting guide for elections, political issues, candidates, and poll data

    ReplyDelete
  3. Heh, I side with those crazy Plaid Cymru on most issues and am (less surprisingly) a left-wing authoritarian :
    uk.isidewith.com - I side 77% with Plaid Cymru

    That's changed considerably since the last time I took that test (97% Labour, 90% Liberal Democrats).

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  4. Also, bit of a dramatic change form the other political test, which has me very much as a liberal rather than an authoritarian :
    politicalcompass.org - The Political Compass
    I guess it depends on the issues. Fiscally I'm definitely authoritarian, socially I'm liberal.

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  5. More left by those metrics for me this time...
    politicalcompass.org

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  6. When I hit your results link it says you side 78% with Labour...

    They must have flip-flopped to win your vote.

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  7. I don't think the URLs they generate are persistent.

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  8. That's odd. You can see in the link in the post the original title was 77% Plaid Cymru. Maybe they update as party policies change ??

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  9. Maybe.. I got SNP! But I had a LOT of "other stances"..

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