British Voters

[bozo]

@ Adrian

The reason for this is not human rights act its self but due to the fact that European Court of Human Rights has no legal document in Britain that it can use as a guide for what rights and responsibilities people in Britain can expect.

See, this sounds fair enough, but isn't convincing when preceeded by:

# "The Human Rights Act has made it harder to protect our security."
# "And it's done little to protect some of our liberties."
# "It is hampering the fight against crime and terrorism."

This appears to imply that rights are getting in the way of dealing with crime and terrorism. My knee-jerk response was to compare it to the erosion of American rights brought in under the guise of anti-terrorism and conveniently named The Patriot Act. Of course, it was only a knee-jerk reaction but I'm still unconvinced that such motives don't exist within the party. In context of the rest of the article however, it does appear that the conservative party are far more concerned about our freedoms and rights than we might think- especially when compared to labour.

It makes me wonder why the conservative party are crushed into the upper right of the Political Compass if Cameron's policies are so much "for the people".

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I haven't voted in recent general elections because I haven't had a socialist party candidate to vote for and I don't like the choice of voting for the " best of the worst " under our first-past-the-post electoral system.
I am hoping that part of the reforms we are being promised after the expenses scandal will be a change to proportional representation. Such a change should help re-engage people with politics. In my case, I could join a socialist party that could campaign on a socialist agenda with a real hope of having a voice in Parliament.
If that doesn't happen, I may well not vote again next time, unles Labour is still intending to introduce ID cards ( I belive it will now probably drop it before the next GE ). If I'm wrong, then I might vote for the likeliest party that will form the next government that will ditch the policy.

My mother is very much the same in regards to her feelings on electoral reform and how she would engage with a socialist party. Slight difference- she votes "best of the worst" in each election. She's still under the impression that Labour are for the working people and the closest we have to socialism. Sigh. On a sidenote, she used to campagin for socialism when she was younger I never knew this until recently.

It's very strange this year; there appears to have been a huge shift in the positions of labour and conservatives. Or perhaps the fact that I'm new to politics just makes it seem so.


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I'm also under the impression that our elections aren't nearly as fierce or epic as those in America. The divide between Labour and Conservative supporters doesn't match that of the split between Liberals and Republicans in the US. When following the run-up to the elections, it became apparent just how much passion was put into the 2-team run. Am I right in saying we don't have anything like that in Britain? And if not, do you think it would be a good thing to have or not? I feel like it might spark an interest in British politics that I can't seem to find elsewhere. Nobody in my school is associated with any particular party- they show complete apathy, and when I'm on websites such as politicsforum the British politics section is only a tiny and underviewed section with little contributions being made. The american section is booming constantly though. Perhaps we need third party with completely different ideologies to make an impact and bring some "big debates" to light here. Even this forum is pretty void of British political discussion. If I want to some decent debate material I have to look towards the United States- be it on youtube or in forums.

I don't see much evidence of a big shift in positioning between Labour and Conservative. In days gone by there was. In days when Labour was for the working class and Conservative was for the middle and upper classes. Those days went when Thatcher became pm and the working class was betrayed by Labour and by trade union leaders. Today, both parties are simply caretakers of capitalism.

As a result, it is not surprising that real debate and real passion is missing.