More Evidence...as if it were needed...that White Evangelicals

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Ill give way on the northern Ireland issues but to claim a few MPs trying to sway things one way or another amounts to a movement is nonsense.

So if new labour are 'centreright hen who exactly was the centre in British politics and who the left? The fact is that politics have shifted rightwards because people (myself included) who used to be of the left realised it was based on shit economics, hypocrites and people who just hated their own country. The left joining forces with islamists was the last straw for me.

I didn't say there was a movement, but there is certainly a large segment of the body politic that is still very religious and very conservative. Thankfully their power waxes and wanes (mostly the latter) as people become disenchanted from their views, but they do exist and they do have a large impact on legislation and lobbying. I don't think we should dismiss them too easily, especially when it comes to things like education reform. I researched and advised on SACRE in the West Midlands as part of a small research team:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Ad..._Education

You wouldn't believe the number of extremists of all religions that came out, some of them somewhat prominent local and regional politically figures.

Well, from around 1992 to 2010 arguably there wasn't a 'left', at least not in the traditional sense of the word. New labour was the brain child of Blair, Campbell, etc in response to what you rightly say was the shift to the right in public opinion, but the issue for the left was that they were subsumed into it. Their only options were to move left more (which was a no no considering what happened to labour in the 1980s), or go along for the ride. That's why people like Brown towed the line, because there wasn't really a choice. They were popular in their constituencies (typically old labour heartlands like Yorkshire, Wales and Scotland etc), but the middle voters wouldn't have found them palatable had they tried to reveal their differences from the charasmatic Tony Blair.

There were certainly some good left MPs in labour which were worthy of their seat. I'm thinking like people such as. Gisela Stuart and Robin Cook (A great MP by anyone's standards, and sadly missed), but you're right, largely, the left has seen a massive exodus because, frankly, in there UK at least, they led the country to near ruin in the 70s and 80s. Their policies on integration and assimilation, especially over matters of religion were disastrous in many respects (Muslim council of Britain, central London mosque, the debacle in tower hamlets and Islamists using the labour candidate list to get extremists elected), but I try not to hold it against them because this is true of multiple governments of successive decades.

I apologize if I'm just elucidating on matters you are already versed in, which I guess you are. I don't believe there actually has to be a left and right for people to vote for, just so long as there's an illusion of choice. And that's what I think there is, especially because most people are idiots who don't realise they're being taken for a ride by the elite, who are distinctly mediocre IMHO.