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Posts Tagged ‘Liberal Democrats’

As a rather clear sign of what the public think about Local Elections generally, a turnout of under 30% on Thursday rather paints the picture all too well. The truth of course tells us absolutely nothing of any value because only those with some kind of commitment and/or anger, will bother to turn out. In this sense, it is rather like those unreliable “satisfaction surveys” on owning particular models of cars.

The results are always suspect because the only people who bother filling in the surveys are those wanting to ‘justify’ their original purchase decision or, those who have had reliability issues and/or bad customer service who want to give the brand a severe kicking. Whatever the motive, the results are unreliable to say the least and of no use in your decision about what car to buy next yourself.

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Many years ago when I was considerably younger, a history teacher in order to illuminate the topic posed a question concerning a specific event we were looking at: “In whose interest was it ?” Over the years when faced with complex and obscure situations, I have often applied that same question myself and do again today with regard to the witch hunt that is being built around the Culture Secretary.

Whether Mr Hunt is guilty of any impropriety or breach of the “Ministerial Code”, I don’t know but the amount of fuss in the Media generally is suspicious. As the Media is entirely an incestuous industry, many of the staff will have worked for various other titles in the past and Leveson is grinding finely with an awful more yet to come. It poses the question in my mind that the “Hunt Witch Hunt” may well be a diversion, a Red Herring built upon trying to obscure the truth…

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As I have expressed previously, “gay marriages” are not really of much concern to me because it is really a cosmetic name change which socially will have no impact on society at large. My one strong reservation given what happened to Catholic Adoption Agencies is that there must be an unequivocal and legally binding undertaking that IF gay marriage passes into Law, there can be no question of a “Right to Marry in/on Religious Premises”.

The rather smug Lynne Featherstone has declared and emphasised that if civil marriages for gay couples were allowed, it would “not force anyone on religious premises to marry same-sex couples.” She added that she wanted to make that “crystal clear.” Now in France that has been made crystal clear by a ruling of the ECHR and Ms Featherstone is shown as totally wrong in her presumptions.

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John Rentoul wrote a mildly interesting article in the Independent on Sunday concerning Nick Clegg and basically suggesting that he is tarred by being in the Coalition. Whilst certainly that seems to be correct, according to the pollsters, the LibDems have lost a lot of support since joining the Coalition Government, it is likely not the whole story.

I don’t think that it is quite as simple as that…”They sold out over tuition fees…” and such like phrases, it is more to do with the historical nature of their support I suspect. However, whilst I was thinking about Nick Clegg, it led me to ponder the nature of political life “At the Top” and how fleeting it all is…

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I was quite struck by a couple of pieces in The Telegraph by Benedict Brogan. In the first of which he was giving his “take” on the tactics being employed by David Cameron to remain in power after the 2015 General Election.http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100134556/why-wont-ministers-speak-up-for-david-cameron/

Whilst I found his article interesting and in a sense, “timely”, I am not too sure that I agree with it all in the sense that whilst for now, that may be an ‘intelligent guess’, reality means that as it is as all such things, a moving target or a “World in Motion…”, and how the game plays out over the next 3 years, may well be very different…

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Oh Lord, here we go again, yet another numb nuts politician trying to make a name for themselves by “Reforming the House of Lords”, this time its Nick Clegg. One day it might occur to the inhabitants of the House of Commons that just as a Liberal Government tried and failed prior to the outbreak of WWI, so too has every attempt since and for good reasons, the Lords works as it is.

This doesn’t mean that the Lords hasn’t been changed over time, it has and in many ways as is right and proper, like all living things, institutions need to continually evolve to survive and adapt to changing circumstances. The problem with the brainless reformers from the Commons is they want “radical change” so that they can say; “I did this…I bent this to My will !” How idiotic can you get ?

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I was slightly amused by Chris Huhne giving an opinion on the motives of the “Tory Right Wing” with regard to the EU the other day but more than that, I also read a number of articles on Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/international/ with regard to the current Euro Crisis which gives an interesting insight to some German thinking on the whole thing.

What struck me about these articles and however ‘reasonable in tone’ they are, the authors completely miss any basic understanding of a “British Perspective” which has been shaped over a long period of time and is largely influenced by us being “island races”. By the same token, I don’t suspect that we can easily understand Continental Europe with its contiguous land borders either that have shaped their present day views in both peace and war.

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A couple of recent stories, which may seem rather disconnected at first glance set me thinking about the way politicians “manipulate the truth” and whilst it is easy for the electorate to condemn them as “Liars prepared to say anything to get elected…” The real question I suspect should be asked of ourselves: “Are we being realistic in our demands and expectations of them ? Do we even listen properly or is our hearing both selfish and highly selective ?

There were two ‘stories’ this week that highlighted this for me, the Unison strike over pension benefits and Angela Merkel’s speech to the German Parliament promising to save the Euro etc… To my mind behind both of these events sits a damn big lie or, a rather large Elephant sitting over there in the corner of the room…

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The following I write without any intention of intending  ‘sounding superior’ in anyway but as a statement of fact: I don’t read the Red Tops, Heat, OK magazine, watch TV Soaps or Big Brother and some may say that I am probably ‘missing out’ on things by not doing so. The truth is not whether I think them good or bad, it is just that they don’t interest me and the endless list of minor ‘celebrities’ they seem to generate is frankly confusing, I just don’t know who these people are or even “what they are for”.

Eventually though, what I suspect is the “meat and drink” of this trade, will percolate through even to someone like me and I refer of course to the case before the Courts concerning a lady called Carina Trimingham who is the “partner” of Chris Huhne, suing Associated Newspapers and if the outline that I’ve read is correct, I find the whole thing astonishing at pretty much every level…

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As I contemplate the “Party Conference Season” all that comes to my mind is that they always have seemed disconnected from the electorate at large, an introverted gathering of the truly converted to whichever party but this year, more than most, they are little better than a series of pointless charades.

I am tempted to use yet again one of my favourite Bill Shakespeare quotes: “…Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” But in all fairness, is there really an alternative to a “National Party Conference ?”

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