Political involvement

[Grand Moff Muffin]

As I'm a party member and live just two miles from the hotel where the two Lib Dem leadership candidates are going head to head on Wednesday night, I think I'd better turn up to hear what they have to say, and see if I think either of them has what it takes to improve British politics.

Apart from letting them plant a sign in my front lawn at election time and voting for them, that's the limit of my involvement. (Anything more active might conflict with my work, which must be politically neutral.)

Does anyone here do anything political - either in a pressure group, or aligned to a political party?

Do you even bother to vote at election time?

Martin

[legios]

martinm said:

Does anyone here do anything political - either in a pressure group, or aligned to a political party?

Do you even bother to vote at election time?

Martin

I'm not aligned to a particular political party in terms of membership - mostly because I'm not a fan of the way British party politics functions in practice. However, in practice I tend to vote Lib Dem because other main candidates in my area seem to be too preoccupied with verbally bludgeoning each other to actually explain to me what they actually want to acheive. I do vote, although when it comes to national elections my vote is in practical terms meaningless - it would take a meteor strike for Falkirk to return anything other than a Labour candidate, that is just the way it is here. Nevertheless I feel it important that I exercise my voice, even when it doesn't make a difference. The fact that by some accident of time I live in the very thing sliver of human history where folk like me can actually have any influence over how they are governed is a precious thing and shouldn't be disregarded.

Karl

[The Doctor]

If there is someone I actually want to vote for at election time, I will. I won't just vote for the sake of it. Politics in general is something I have become very cynical about. I switched to postal voting as I was sick of being harangued by the various parties when I would go to the polling station to vote. I wasn't able to vote in the last election as those running it never bothered to send my postal vote stuff through. Which sums up my views on politics in general.

-Ralph

[legios]

thedoctor said:

I switched to postal voting as I was sick of being harangued by the various parties when I would go to the polling station to vote.
-Ralph

They never bother with harranging at my polling station - in fact there is usually only one candidate there at a time and the most I have ever got is "good afternoon" from any of them. Pretty much they treat my ward as a bit of a foregone conclusion I think (and given that the difference between the winning candidate and the next highest scoring tends to be equal to or slightly more than the total votes cast for the latter I am not entirely surprised).

Karl

[andrewcrane]

martinm said:

Does anyone here do anything political - either in a pressure group, or aligned to a political party?

I'm a member of two (aligned) centre-left political parties, went to the party conference for one in September, got filmed for some thing I hope will be never used... Yeah, I'm political and know where my convictions are.

(As an aside, I despise the LibDems. Biggest con merchants of the lot. Aren't centre-left at all, as they try and present themselves at times - amongst other things, leadership candidate Clegg's Thatcherite, and they sit in a centre-right caucus in the European parliament.)

[Grand Moff Muffin]

andrewcrane said:

(As an aside, I despise the LibDems. Biggest con merchants of the lot.

Tempting, but I shan't rise to the bait. I'm sure I don't despise the parties you're a member of, even if I don't share their priorities.

Martin

[Andy Turnbull]

I make a point of voting as often as I can as I do feel that I should make every effort. I'm not a member of any political party though.

Andy

[Shockprowl]

I'm very cinical of politics. Jobs for the boys alot of the time, like the NHS. But I always vote, I always make a decission on who's best. I think it's important everyone uses their right to vote. Is it only something like 70 years that all women have been allowed to vote? Or have I made that up?

[rurudyne]

While I've no real part in this particular debate ...

Martin, I encourage you to go if you imagine you should.

As for my own activities, if anyone is interested in discussions about the US Constitution I'll talk their ears off.

Here's a link to recent sample called "There is no 'general Welfare' CLAUSE": forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=377941

[andrewcrane]

martinm said:

andrewcrane said:

(As an aside, I despise the LibDems. Biggest con merchants of the lot.

Tempting, but I shan't rise to the bait. I'm sure I don't despise the parties you're a member of, even if I don't share their priorities.

Martin

Thing is there, are a few LibDems that I've met that I've agreed with politically 100% - the left-liberal side of the party. But they aren't the majority of the party, not really the local activists, more the sideline type people (unfortunately).

Anyway, I do agree very strongly with the LibDem policy of UK-wide proportional presentation, but I don't think the LibDems could then exist without splits between the two wings of the party... I think then we'd end up with two "liberal" parties, ala Denmark and the Netherlands.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

All three main parties have left and right factions.

The main reasons I'm Lib Dem are (in no particular order), (a) proportional representation, (b) lead on environmental issues, (c) pro-Europe, (d) anti-war, and (e) we really, really need a strong third party, whatever it is, if we don't want the 50-50 split they have in the US.

Personally, I'd love to see the UK have a hung Parliament, just to see how it goes for a few years with no one grouping being able to push through whatever it likes with its majority. Not so bothered which is the largest party, as long as it has to make compromises with one or more of the others to get controversial things through.

Martin

[rurudyne]

martin ... you sound a bit like me: except that I see it in terms of getting less done.

The day Congress recently opted for a 4-day work week was a day to celebrate.

Now if we could only get them down to a 4-day workyear....