I am so sorry. I hear your elections didn’t go so well, with conservatives winning big, and all the leaders of your more liberal parties throwing themselves on their swords. But at least Nigel Farage went down in flames! That’s got to be a tiny bit of consolation, right?
I know the feeling, though. I watched Reagan get elected, and a couple of Bushes, and all you can do is stroll down to the pub and mourn. We’ve seen the cycle a couple of times now, and so have you. The conservatives will sweep in, wreck everything, run up a bill that will take decades to pay off, and when a more liberal government eventually steps in, will then blame them for all of your country’s problems and get the cycle going again.
Chin up, we’re all doomed together!
How long before the UK votes to break up with the EU? It’s on the table now.
Mr Cameron said he would press ahead with a planned referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union.
It’s really not as bad as all that.
Consider that we have a free-at-point-of-delivery National Health Service, and that’s not going to change under the Conservatives.
Consider also that this Conservative Prime Minister was the one who brought forward the legislation that finally gave England and Wales same-sex marriage.
I might moan a bit about Conservatives policies on tax and benefits, but essentially David Cameron is a bit to the left of Barak Obama.
No major party is in favour of leaving the EU. UKIP got less than 13% in the general election. There will be a referendum, because it is a campaign promise that’s really easy to keep, but it will produce a resounding ‘Yes’ to staying in the EU.
We’ll have conservative parties as long as we have rich people that want all the things.
I don’t know about resounding but yeah, it’s hard to see a victory for Brexit. My bet is it will be similar to the Scottish Independence referendum.
The decidedly left-leaning SNP managed to take a load of seats across Scotland though, so it’s not all bad… Reasons for their triumph aren’t clear at the moment, but I’m guessing a mixture of resurgent nationalism in the wake of the indyref and the fact that Labour are fundamentally the same as the Tories when it comes to things like economy; there isn’t much other option aside from the Greens if you’re not on board with an increase in austerity!
Cameron’s victory speech:
Inconceivable! Imagine a POTUS devolving power of the Congress to (eg) New York and California, then giving Texas a referundum on whether to stay within the US. blrrrrphhh. Inconceivable.
Double inkonseevable is that if Texas was given such a referendum, they would choose to STAY in the Us. The Texas the MSM reports on, seems to be struggling mightily to break away. They are so paranoid, that POTUS will declare martial law down there, the Texas guvenor ordered the local National Guard to keep an eye on those faux exerceses the Military is conducting in their neighborhood. They wants to break free from that tyrannical piece of paper we have called “The Constitution of the UNITED States”.
IDK, i’d say “ByeBye Tex, sorry to see ya go.” I’m sure I’d regret it instantly IF that were to even be possible; but imagination is for imagining, right?
Not related to the OP, but I’m having a brain fart and can’t locate the option to email this directly to you, PZ. Have you seen the Fox News story about the big, bad atheist professor persecuting the poor Christian girl for not agreeing with him that Christianity is evil?
No?
Well, it’s bullshit anyway.
http://www.theledger.com/article/20150506/NEWSCHIEF/150509562?p=1&tc=pg&tc=ar
Turns out she repeatedly ignored the parameters of his assignment to get defensive about her faith, still came away from his class with an A, and now some BS law group called the Liberty Counsel is trying to get this guy fired for doing his job.
We don’t want a liberal government! We want a left-wing socialist one, like we used to have.
I feel sorry for Ed Miliband. He ran a good campaign and Labour were genuinely offering something different form the Tories. They were definitely not the same, not even close. In fact, IFS showed that their manifesto was most similar to the SNP.
Either way, it looks like five more years of Conservatism and deep austerity measures. At least the odious Liberal Democrats got their comeuppance.
At least we’re not as right wing as the US. I think our Conservatives are closer to Democrats than Republicans.
re 8
[still OT:]
“He gave her 4 CONSECUTIVE zeros, therefore he harassed her and must be fired.” Is what I imagine the Liberty Counsel is rolling around their “brains” to justify their legal action against Polk. With, “She only got an A as a fig leaf to cover his harsh discriminatory harassment of her deepity held belief in our Lord and Saviour (who will teach this prof a ‘fiery’ lesson, soon enough)”
..
Thanks, thelastholdout, for giving me that. It made my imagination run circles round me making me dizzity.
Peter Hopkins @ 6
But, but… THE TORIES WOULD BE WORSE!!!
Click on the “PZ Myers” link directly under his photo on the left.
Unfortunately, and to my great regret, the Labour Party’s eventual mis-handling of the economy when they were last in Government undermined many people’s confidence in them, and has now prevented them from being able to establish a platform from which to implement more progressive policies.
The election results were made worse, I think by many English voters’ knee-jerk reaction to the rise of the SNP – many seem to have voted Conservative to avoid a minority Labour Government propped up by the SNP.
Thank you for the commiserations, PZ.
Yes, Farage himself is out but the vile Ukippers got 12-13% of the vote nationally, apparently, which is not good.
One other scrap of comfort is that Galloway is also out (he’s carved out a niche for himself as pro-authoritarian-patriarchal-islam).
Labour lost big in Scotland because they’re Tory-lite and not anti-austerity. I’m not as confident about the results of the referendum – the situation as it stands is that maybe 30% of the population understand the issues and will vote to stay in, 5% understand the issues and will vote to leave, and the rest are taken in by the claptrap in the Daily Fail and will vote to leave against their own best interest because they have their nationalist fervour stirred up.
What impresses me the most about liberal governance in America is how well liberal-governed municipalities work–Baltimore, Chicago, Washington DC, Newark, East St Louis, New Orleans, Detroit etc are liberal Democrat wall-to-wall and are among the best-run municipalities in the country.
And Obama’s tenure has certainly been a highlight of American governance. Integrity in government is improving daily, the wealthy no longer have politically powerful friends in high places and life for the poor and middle class is much better, race relations have never been this good, trust in government is at an all time high, and foreign policy has markedly improved. The Middle East is safer and more peaceful, we are increasingly respected around the world, democracy and human rights are flourishing, anti-Semitism is in decline, Christians are free and safe to worship everywhere, and our relations with Russia have never been better.
Even better, liberals are offering America a shoe-in for the Democrat nomination who is a paragon of ethical conduct who has stood all of her life against money and dishonesty in politics. And if she wins, the First Gentleman won’t be some serial sex offender who lost his law license for lying under oath about committing sexual assault.
Liberalism is bringing great things to America. Those conservatives are soooo scary.
It’s as much an artefact of our antiquated and wholly inadequate electoral system as an expression of the popular will. About a third of the electorate didn’t vote for a variety of reasons, including apathy, ignorance, disgust, and the fact that on some issues there was as good as no difference between the Tories, Lib Dems, and Labour who are all equally keen on TTIP, neo-liberal economics, and “hard-working families”.
If you look at the number of voters it takes to elect 1 MP nationally rather at constituency level in Great Britain (excluding Ulster because the party landscape is completely different to the rest of the UK), the current figures, with 7 seats still to declare, are:
1 Tory MP = 34,292 voters
1 Labour MP = 40, 258
1 Lib Dem MP = 299, 983
! Green MP = 1, 154, 162
1 UKIP MP = 3, 875, 409
In Scotland each SNP MP is worth 25, 972 voters, and in Wales each Plaid Cymru MP is worth 60, 564 voters.
Taking Great Britain as a whole, the system is still heavily biased against minority parties. Personally, I couldn’t disagree more with UKIP – but it is ridiculous that nearly 4 million electors have only 1 MP. We Greens did slightly better .
Considering that we can elect neither the second chamber nor the head of state, I fail to see how the UK can be described as anything other than a rather third-rate oligarchy suffering from the delusion that it gave democracy to the world. As a Brit, I say “Bollocks to that!”
Do you know any link to tables showing the absolute numbers of votes for each party?
Going after the numbers of members of parliament is misleading about total support,
since the election system favors the one candidate with most votes in each district.
If it turns out Labour did not lose that big in absolute votes, maybe they will accept -and even push for- a more fair system.
Peter Hopkins @ 6
Try telling that to people on disability benefits. And a lot of others at the bottom of the heap. They’re far too similar, I agree, but that doesn’t mean they’re the same when you’re at the sharp end.
Re @ 18
Oops, I hadn’t read the comment by Katybe in the Lounge,
“Well at the moment, the Tories don’t even have 45% of the vote – with only 8 seats still to declare, they’ve got 325 (needing 326 for a majority) but 36.8% of the total population.”
.
In that case, you need to grab your local Labour candidate and shout “WHY DON’T YOU WORK TO GET A FAIRER VOTING SYSTEM!!!!” At least one or two of them might be willing to act in their own self-interest. Or are they as dense as the Republicans?
But they’ve already been in power for a full term. They aren’t sweeping in. Voters have sat and watched the Tories rule for 5 years, merrily destroying the nation as they go, and now they’ve given them another 5 with a stronger mandate.
If only the SNP would drop the nationalist bit and become the new lib dems – their overwhelming steamrollering of Scottish politics would, I think, spread somewhat further south were they not confined to a minority of seats.
I do despair at the mathematical incompetency of various English friends of mine who have seen fit to blame Scotland for the the Conservative victory…. if 232+56 were greater than 330 then the UK would have a labour SNP coalition government – and probably the most left leaning one since pre 1980.
The libdems basically destroyed the decade – the initial coalition put the tories in power, then it sunk the libdems – with their marginal seats going to whoever they were marginal against – there appear to have been enough LD/Con marginal seats which swung back to conservatives that this decided the election – the libs lost 36 seats in England, 20 of these went to conservatives, 15 to labour, 1 to UKIP (on average, I haven’t followed the exact swings enough for this to be totally accurate, and I do want to vomit most profusely that the UKIP now holds a parliamentary seat – sure, Nigel didn’t get in, but one of his pals did, and this is sickening (hurrah, I didn’t get cancer of the right testicle, only the left!))
Here you go, birgerjohansson – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results – the full numbers are at the bottom. About 2 million voters difference overall, comprising about 6 1/2% of the people who bothered to turn out to vote.
http://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results
lays out percentages etc.
Conservatives are majority on percentage, but a Lab/Lib coalition would, on sheer percent of the population, beat that (38.3% to 36.9%) – however the UKIP managed 12% of the vote, which would take the tories to 48% of the vote, which even if you were to combine Lab, Lib, Green and SNP you’d still not beat (46% of the vote) – this’d leave everything up to which way Plaid Cymru and the various NI parties fell (I’d assume PC would go against a Tory coalition, but I don’t know how the split would go in NI)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
There was a referendum on switching to AV in the last parliament, which was a condition of the Lib Dems supporting the Tories. It was defeated by a large margin.
Now all seats are in….
Con + UKIP have 15,216,049 votes
Lab, LibDem, SNP and Green combined have 14,371,265 (amazingly SNP and Green differ by 300,000 votes only, yet one part has 50 seats and is a clear 3rd part in politics for the next 5 years, whereas the greens have 1 seat and remain fringe) leaving a 844,784 gap for pure PR to fill before the forces of absolute evil can be replaced with the forces of not quite so evil. Approximately 1.1 million votes remain on the table in such a scenario – the bulk of these would likely side with the lesser evil, but it still remains too close to call even on a purely popular vote (at least by my limited understanding of the stance of all the parties in NI, all the minority parties, and the 164,000 or so ‘others’.
Not all of the liberal parties have been decapitated – the Green Party held its one seat and had its best year yet overall.
Offing Farage may be a temporary consolation. His party performed well in terms of votes but only won a single seat, so disappointed and disenfranchised supporters are predicted to go hard for an EU exit. DO NOT WANT.
Still, there’s no downside to Galloway’s defeat. And there’s a reasonably strong possibility of a woman or minority ethnic man succeeding as Labour leader. It’s a teeny silver lining, but I’m clinging to it.
birgerjohansson @ #18. Sorry, I forgot the link. The table is at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results – scroll down to see seats won, percentages and total vote cast.
Labour and the Tories have traditionally been hostile to reforming the electoral system, since they have benefitted from it the most. It favours the incumbent party, it favours the biggest parties by giving them a disproportionate number of seats, and it excludes the smaller parties which would be represented in other European countries. The referendum on AV was rushed in by the last government, poorly designed, and not supported by the Tories. One of the reasons for its failure was that the proposed system would have produced as many distortions as FPTP.
Our electoral system in the UK is an outmoded train wreck that habitually dismally fails to reflect the democratic will, so the out come here really is little more than parr for the course. That also explains the roughly 60% turnout – lots of people see no point in even bothering to vote in a system that is so obviously rigged to keep the powerful just where they are and exclude any new voices.
While I agree with some other commenters that Cameron and the Tories aren’t as bad as the Republicans, and are probably slightly to the left of the Democrats in the US, the fact remains (and meaning no disrespect to any transatlantic Pharyngulites who might be reading) that slightly left of the god-soaked, for-sale-to-the-highest-corporate-bidder American two party system is rather a low bar. The Conservatives are nicknamed ‘the Nasty Party’ in the UK for a reason – a fact so well known in Westminster circles that it resulted in Cameron’s failed attempt to rebrand his strain of authoritarian blather as the laughably entitled ‘Compassionate Conservatism’ in the last Parliament… just before he went on to cut taxes on the rich, gut public services, and visciously shiv the most vulnerable in society in a failed attempt to balance the books. Indeed, that is Cameron all over; failure, in every regard except the electoral one.
And now he has another five years to continue wrecking the country, and to do so with a strengthened mandate and an overall parliamentary majority. While he may not be as bad as the Republicans (despite his links to the US Republican Party), that is rather cold comfort at the moment, so I will take PZ’s invitation and take a stiff upper lip to go with my cynicism and despair.
Yeah, but you’ve got to remember that the SNP only stand in 59 constituencies (out of 650) covering less than 10% of the population. They took fully 50% of the vote in Scotland, on a 71% turnout.
Nice Gish Gallop, Dukedog 7.
Labor also gave us the Bush/Iraq war. Can’t say I blame people for not voting for them anymore.
The Tories have a majority of 1 seat (with 8 Ulster Unionists voting for them and perhaps the rump of Liberal Democrats too, assuming that the Liberal Democrats really want to end up with enough MPs to fit in a phone booth, rather than a small minibus). The last time the UK was in a similar position was in 1992, but even John Major’s then government had a few more seats in hand than one. What happened was a weak government riven with disputes about Europe and constantly shaken by sex and corruption scandals. That’s what’s facing the UK now – I wouldn’t call it a sweeping victory.
There are now infinitely more pandas in Scotland than Conservatives too …
Oh, theDukedog7, if only Obama and Clinton were actual liberals…
Tabby Lavalamp
I especially like the part about the poor persecuted christians.
I see. Dukedog apparently felt that they were done with the Noble Task of shitting on the carpet on the other thread: https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2015/05/06/i-am-so-glad-bernie-sanders-is-running/comment-page-1/#comment-940004
After dukedog got attention there, the mission was accomplished, so there was no need to stick around. Just needed to find a fresh new carpet to shit on. Same “arguments”, same unwillingness to engage, but a brand new thread to do it in. Somebody needs to be sent to obedience school.
Not quite – Scotland’s lone Tory managed to hold on to his seat, by something like 800 votes. So now we have 1 Tory, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Labour, and 56 SNP. There’s a joke in there somewhere…
And some of us laughed out loud when good ol’ Mikey Buchanan gathered a whole 153 votes to his proud bosom. Losing his 500 quid deposit means that those votes cost more than 3 quid each.
http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/05/08/uk-election-mike-buchanan-of-the-justice-for-men-and-boys-party-gets-153-votes-not-153000-153/
Yup, just keep your head firmly in that sand, Paul Durrant@2,3. I take it you don’t know anyone who works in – or for that matter, uses – the NHS: “free at the point of delivery” hasn’t been the case for years (dentistry, prescription charges), and what remains “free” is fuck-all use if the service is collapsing for lack of funds. As for the EU referendum, it’s not nearly so obvious as you think that the vote will be to stay in – much of the right-wing press wants out, and Cameron will use the threat of advocating withdrawal to push Brussels even further right. For further reflections of this, see below.
Cross-posted from the Lounge:
katybe@391,
Not 36.8% of the total population [voted Tory], but of those who voted! Turnout was 66.1% so that means 24.3% of the electorate. In terms of share of the vote, the Tories hardly gained at all – their gains were almost all from their former coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, who got a thoroughly deserved thrashing for propping up the Tories for the past 5 years: if you want a Tory government, why not vote Tory; if not, why vote for their stooges?
Giliell@388,
Well I certainly blame the Tory voters! Selfish, racist, stupid, or in many cases all three. Bizarrely, a lot of media commentators are saying Labour’s failure shows they went too far left – when in fact, all they were offering was austerity (and racism) lite. If you’re going to vote to be abused, it makes sense to go for the bully who will abuse you with most conviction. As I noted before the polls closed on the Bernie Sanders thread, I feared the “undecideds” would lean Tory – but being right doesn’t make it any less depressing. There are some consolations:
1) The SNP, while a very mixed bag, are certainly left of Labour.
2) The Greens did better than I feared, although not as well as most polls suggested they would – but they quadrupled their vote to 3.8% and held their only seat.
3) The grossly unfair nature of the UK electoral system was perhaps more evident than ever – although part of this was the fact that UKIP only got 1 seat for 12.8% of the vote, prompting a degree of ambivalence!
4) The Tories are going to have a very difficult time dealing with the referendum on leaving the EU they have promised for 2017. Their big business backers will be overwhelmingly opposed to leaving, while many of their MPS and activists want out.
5) Prospects of Scottish independence are greatly increased – both because the UK as a whole may well vote to leave the EU while Scotland votes to stay in, and because both campaign and result make clear that the Scots are politically at odds with the UK population as a whole.
All that said, 5 more years of these shitbags – and very likely more, given the lack of a viable UK-wide opposition – is profoundly depressing. Plenty of time for them to destroy most of the welfare state, and universal health care, and place further obstacles in the way of real opposition. And the climate change deniers among them will be emboldened, while even those who pay lip-service to the science will make sure no effective action is taken.
The Edinburgh Zoo has Yang Guang and Tian Tian, so there are more Pandas than conservative MP
sin Scotland.Sure, but not “infinitely more” as davidrichardson actually said, and there hasn’t actually been any change at all in the panda : Tory MP ratio (as implied by his use of “now”).
@beergoggles #31:
That issue certainly affected the 2006 general election, where a sizable number of people who voted for New Labour did so while holding their noses, just to keep the bastard Tories out. It hasn’t played a part since then, as the main enabler of that clusterfuck has since retired from UK politics to spend more time with his ego and his multiple tax avoidance schemes. Anyway, you should also bear in mind that almost all Tory MPs voted for dropping bombs on brown people, while a quarter of Labour MPs voted against.
Yeah, only a quarter. I know.
DukeDog7, your sarcasm is duly noted.
About the Lib Dems and their coalition with the Tories five years ago:
I recall that such a coalition was the most mathematically realistic at that time– it was simpler to do it that way than with Labour/Green/other leftists. Plus Nick Clegg wanted that seat of power that much. And all of us thought the Lib Dems would soften and update the Tory stance. How wrong we were, of course.
But it seems another factor was that few people liked Gordon Brown… and Clegg may have been uncomfortable enough with Brown to not want to go into coalition with him. Whatever terrible things Cameron did to the social safety net, he knew how to put a likeable face on it (Clegg assisted with that too).
Ed Miliband had the same problem. And for shame! Because he actually attempted to break with New Labour and get back to its leftist roots.
It’s gotten very inhospitable for “weirdos” in public office in the UK. I wish just once, Ed would’ve said, “Yes, I’m well aware people think I’m weird. Would you rather have good government led by a weirdo, or be abused with a smile? Besides, I’d think you’d breathe easier knowing that weirdos can succeed in public life… that you don’t all have to copycat the same posh, corporate personality.”
This was also why the UK electorate blew the first chance to knock off Thatcher in her first re-election campaign: working-class voters just didn’t like Michael Foot, seeing him as insufficiently tough.
The UK electorate’s need to have their politicians sparkle their heart is destroying them. Abused with a smile, indeed.
Regarding the numbers of pandas in Scotland there are 0 pandas in Scotland only 2 in Edinburgh a suburb of England. See any Glaswegian for details.
What is so remarkable about liberals/socialists is that they behave as if liberalism/socialism has never been tried–it’s a shiny new idea!!! Libs act as if big government, massive welfare state, centralized control over many aspects of life, maintenance of a permanent underclass supported by government largesse in exchange for votes, etc.
Liberalism/socialism are a set of very old ideas, and the fact is that in the aggregate it has been catastrophic in most places it has been seriously tried. A few homogenous small European societies (in Scandinavia) haven’t been wrecked by it (yet), but for a vast array of societies–from the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union and North Korea and Greece and Spain and Ireland and for a host of American municipalities (Detroit, Baltimore, etc) socialism is more or less a civilizational atomic bomb, wrecking economies and families.
Note to libs/socialists: account for socialism’s history first. Don’t just cherry-pick-; paeans to Sweden aren’t enough. You own International Socialism (communism), National Socialism, and every anemic spawn of these totalitarian shitholes. Socialists and liberals already rule nations and cities. Make Detroit and Baltimore and Greece and North Korea work first, then try to sell your snake oil to people capable of reality-testing.
DukeDog7:
I hear a Gish Galloping, do you?
leophoreo@44: That sounds like a “No True Scotsman” argument.
Dukedog7 accuses people of cherry picking. While blaming both Nazism and Communism on liberals, blaming liberals for the non-specific failings of a few U.S. cities while ignoring how much better off Blue States do, and handwaving away most of Europe. Irony meters exploded from coast to coast.
No true Scotsperson has sugar in porridge, No Scotsperson lives in Edinburgh a small insignificant town north of but part of England . Totally different.
Also, Dukedog implies that liberalism’s Big Government, with it’s welfare and it’s Centralized Power, keeps a permanent underclass i.e. causes poverty. I guess no welfare and small government and The Free Market (TM) would finally eliminate poverty? Isn’t the U.S. more right wing than Europe? Hasn’t the U.S. had quite a fucking lot of government control by Republicans? And yet no amount of tax cuts has managed to eliminate poverty, and all of those fantastic things that Dukedog salivates over has only made the rich richer and the poor poorer? Who is making this permanent underclass again?
theDukedog7 is too ignorant even to know the difference between liberalism and socialism, and dishonest enough to pretend that “national socialism” is a form of socialism, when it drew both domestic and foreign support from big business, the churches, and conservatives. No surprise there – just another far-right dolt and liar.
No, “all of us” didn’t. Some of us were better acquainted with the ideological mutation that had transformed British “liberalism” under the “Orange Book” crew.
I guess theDukedog7 thinks everything was better under the robber barons.
Socialists run away from real socialism as fast as they can. “It’s all a big dream–from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, a shiny new object, never mind that it’s been tried a million times, and been a disaster. Obviously International Socialism (communism) is socialism. How’d that Cambodian thing work out? Obviously National Socialism was socialism–the Nazi platform was full of all manner of socialist yummies–nationalization of industry, high taxation, attacks on capitalists, massive welfare, government hegemony over all aspects of life, the usual socialist brew. It drew support from business, churches etc for the same reasons that president Goldman-Sachs (0bama) draws massive support from Wall Street and GE and insurance companies and greenie companies and plenty of lib churches. Crony capitalism, which is just another name for socialism in practice.
Socialism has a history. I don’t give a shit about your promises for the future–“This socialism is gonna be wonderful, just ignore all the stuff in the past”.
As I said– Detroit is your socialist project–pure Democrat liberal governemnt for the past half-century. Make it work, and then get back to me on the miracle of socialism and why we need to make the entire nation into Detroit.
Since you have no idea what socialism is, other a “boogie man”, you are nothing but a liar and bullshitter. Totally presuppositonal fuckwittery without a bit of reality. Typical of those who believe in imaginary deities….And it shows.
Possibly the worst result of the night, by a certain Robin Ellison:
Dukedog7:
Speaking of No True Scotsman.
It’s all style and no substance with Dukie here. All bark and no bite. Just yip-yip-yipping out free associations of everything that sounds liberal-y to them, and then howling out “DETROOOOOOOOITTTTT” at the climax. Somebody just go play fetch with him, or toss him a chew toy. Shut him up. Get him out of the house too, before they make another shit on the rug.
A year and a half ago, I wrote this diary on Daily Kos: Why do Americans keep falling for right-wing ideas? Because we just want to be happy. The basic theme is, we as liberals have a hard time believing that anyone could feel good about voting for the right wing; but more voters than we think actually DO feel good and happy about it; because nothing lasts for 40 years without having some perceived positive good.
We have to come to terms with the fact that racism, exclusivity, division, wealth-worship, even authoritarianism actually feel good to some people; and the sooner we address these emotional needs and use liberalism to address them better, the better off we will be.
For instance, why didn’t Labour say that under them, job seekers would face a lot less psychological abuse than under Tories? The humiliating process of getting a job and performing all sorts of puppy tricks to curry favor with employers is a visceral experience that everyone in the 99% can relate to. If liberals had a message of lessening that misery– and delivering on that message– they would win a lot of hearts and minds.
As far as I know, it’s Glaswegian who’ve been genuflecting toward clan Cameron since the jacobite uprising.
Dear Zeus, I see Dukedog7 is puking up their unsubstantiated, reality-challenged bullshit in yet another thread.
It was housing racism that made Detroit what it is. All those poor beleaguered whites who just HAD to fly away to the suburbs, because they felt uncomfortable with too much melanin in their communities. They moved out and took their tax dollars with them. They may have left because of dire warnings about property values, but they actually created those low property values with their withdrawal of tax support.
@61 Lucy Montrose
It wasn’t just “dire warnings” in the case of Detroit. This was still the period when the FHA would rule a neighborhood unfit for housing loans and lending in general if even one or two black families lived there. Unscrupulous realtors would use that to their advantage, scaring out the whites into selling low so they could then turn around and “sell” the houses to black families along predatory contract lines (Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writing is good on this).
theDukedog7 .@ 54;
OK – that is a little hard to parse. From this paragraph alone, you have identified everything from communism through anarcho-capitalism to nazism as being ‘socialist’. You have run the gamut from Left to Right, and from democracies to both totalitarian and authoritarian states.
Frankly, you aren’t making much sense.
At this juncture, I would like to make what I consider to be an eminently reasonable request in the circumstances; please define your terms. Why don’t you start by providing a clear and concise definition of what you think socialism is, and how all these disparate political movements conform to that definition. While you are about it, you could also define liberalism (it might help to distinguish between politcal and social liberalism on the one hand, and economic liberalism on the other here. Adherants of neoliberal economic models and socially liberal progressives would be… justifiably surprised to be lumped into the same boat, afterall) and how it differs from socialism (let me assure you that the two political concepts most certainly are not synoymous with one another, at least not in the usually accepted understanding of these terms).
Once you have defined your terms, it might be easier for us to understand what you are attempting to convey, and to point out where we think you are misusing or conflating terms and concepts.
Also, anyone who says “just get to work” is a panacea for everything that’s wrong? Have you SEEN what most jobs are like now? Have you seen the hoops we have to jump through to get a job?
Personality tests for retail jobs. Applicant tracking system. Turning a lot of workplaces into cults of CEO personality. Digging into your personal life to gauge your “culture fit”. HR people acting as if education no longer matters. Tony Hsieh and his “happiness test“.
The fact that you can’t get a state job in Wisconsin if you signed the recall petition. The fact that too many jobs consist of trying to force customers to buy your services.
The price of getting and keeping a job is a LOT higher than it used to be… and that has been a choice on the part of employers and HR. Because they have the power, and because they can.
There’s no good reason for demanding we put up with a lot of coercion and psychological abuse as a condition of putting food on the table; except for the massive power trip. #uck that $hit. Nothing will get better until more of us start saying it.
That’s rather an odd look at the world.
liberalism/socialism was (at least in so far as the bulk of the country was concerned, although possibly the rich weren’t getting richer fast enough) doing just fine in the UK – I saw the system dismantled piece by piece throughout my life and it progressively seemed worse and worse. One of the things that the left yearns for, I feel (and I could be wrong here, people of the left in the UK feel free to point out how utterly out of touch I am having spent a decade away), is not moving to some unexplored future utopia, but a return, in certain areas, to points previously visited, to a more equitable education system, to a truly public health system etc.
The Conservatives won because the opposition was pathetic.
Labour’s most prevalent and most oft-repeated promise in all the material they shoved through the door was that they would ‘save’ the NHS….
The Conservatives have promised to spend 8 billion on the NHS and Labour MPs consistently refused to promise to do the same. The idea that the Conservatives are going to destroy the NHS was absolute nonsense.
Ed Milliband made very little impression and simply did not seem like serious leadership material.
The reason to mourn here is that Labour are a pathetic opposition party and we can only expect that to get worse now that they are in disarray after this horrific defeat.
Ed Milliband made very little impression and simply did not seem like serious leadership material.
But why does everyone who’s “serious leadership material” look and feel awfully similar? What if we do not want to be like the official archetype? Hint: it really really helps if you’re wealthy enough to purchase a good impression.
Hence my disappointment that Ed didn’t address his reputation for being weird straight-on, and turn it on its head. I don’t feel comfortable with any system where only a narrow range of personality types can be successful. Because the work of trying to fit in consumes all your energy, so there’s nothing left for creativity or compassion.
@63:
Definition:
Socialism: noun: The socioeconomic policy of people who call themselves socialists.
Now of course you can tweek definitions so that your “socialism” has nothing to do with the innumerable catastrophic socialisms of the past. This is shiny gleaming new socialism, which is sure to work. We won’t turn the country into Oakland. Trust us.
Much of what disgusts me about you guys is your utter lack of accountability and integrity.
Dukeydog @68:
Barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark!!!!!!!!!!! With extra exclamation points.
theDukedog7 . #68
That is a very poor joke.
Gregory Greenwood asked for your definition of ‘socialism’.
Are you going to provide one or just continue trolling?
Here’s something Labour might try for a message: do you really want to have to act like a banker to make a good living?
Financialization has exerted subtle social pressure on us to behave more like financiers if we want to be successful… look at a lot of the business, productivity, and life-hacking advice we find in print and online. And that’s something the Tories love, since they are so beholden to the financial sector.
Narrowing the number of possible pathways to success is never a good thing.
@70
You want me to define your ideology for you? Pretty funny.
Socialism is what socialists do. Liberalism is what liberals do.
You do a lot. You are reluctant to account for it.
I am a socialist.
My socioeconomic policy is: shoot money into space, then light it on fire remotely.
Therefore: “Socialism is the socioeconomic policy of shooting money into space then lighting it on fire remotely”.
Definition solved.
– This message brought to you by TheDukedog7 Foundation for Language and Communication.
A one dimensional troll.
How sad.
Actually, show yourself as utterly stupid by not doing so. But then, we all knew how stupid you were before you latest attempt at pretending to be smart. Any evidence for your imaginary deity yet that would convince a skeptic?
Nope, wrong. But then you invariably are.
What you do is sloganeering, non-sequiturs, and posturing. Nothing cogent being said, merely the pretense thereof.
theDukedog7:
Logically, that must be true for other political ideologies as well. Therefore the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, otherwise known as North Korea, must be a democratic republic, and the People’s Republic of China must be a republic then.
I’m very much reminded of Austria’s election of 2002.
In 2000, the conservatives and the xenophobes (each with less than 1/3 of the vote or the seats in parliament*) formed a coalition. The xenophobes burned out and broke apart, so the conservatives called a new election.
The xenophobes were trounced, but their losses were vacuumed up by the conservatives, so the conservatives ended up more powerful than before. Unlike their colleagues in England right now, they still needed a coalition partner, but that partner (the smaller fragment of the xenophobes) was weak and powerless, and the conservatives basically ruled unchecked and unopposed.
The Liberal Democrats have burned out. Most of their losses outside of Scotland went to the Conservatives.
Almost all the losses of Labour, except one seat, went to the SNP. Very little went to the Conservatives. Conversely, ten previously Conservative seats went to Labour. In terms of left vs. right, practically nothing has changed (again, outside of Scotland).
…Also, single-nucleotide polymorphism. Somebody had to say it.
* depends directly on the number of votes
@73
Your socialism is quite similar to all other definitions of socialism, except socialism usually entails taking the money at gunpoint before destroying it.
“Republic” just means “not a monarchy”.
…though the PRC also called itself a PR when Máo was really hard to distinguish from a monarch.
Stupid sloganistic definition from a liberturd. Dismissed as sloganeering, utter and total irrationality, and historicial evidence proving you wrong seven ways from Sunday. But you are too stupid to see the evidence, or admit you are wrong. Pitiful, you delusional believers…..
Conservatives won?
It’s all the fault of the damned Nader voters.
That won’t work.
See?
I like the way that any example that proved him wrong was prohibited.
Touche!
How can anyone hope to prevail against the mighty intellect that thought up that loophole?
We got PWNED before we even started.
The only way around this, is if no third party evidence to back a claim is linked to, the claim is dismissed as sloganeering. Funny how reality does not back the liberturds/RWA types….
Engor, the top 25 medical system results by country:
The US is at 37. Pitiful, but that is what not having socialized medicine does. Too many folks caught without insurance coverage.
But what should give you, a doctor, pause, is that we have costs 50% higher than our nearest country. Why should we settle for higher costs and lower results when a single-payer plan would solve both problems. Except that is socialized medicine…..
@85
Damn those lists are impressive. There must be loads of Americans scurrying off to Malta for the superior medical care.
Formula for success: “We have a system that is insufficiently efficient and insufficiently effective. Therefore, let’s give the federal government complete control of it, to make it cost efficient and effective.”
Why stop at medical care? Why not make all transportation government controlled. “Amtrack for everyone!”
Why not make food production government controlled. “Oops. We’ve had a drought in the Ukraine for the 100th year in a row, comrade!” Why not make computer manufacture and computer research government controlled. “The guys who designed the Obamacare website can do a better job than Bill Gates and Steve Jobs put together!”
If healthcare can be made as profitable as the Clinton Foundation, it’ll be a smashing success. I suggested single-payer federal healthcare to our next president, but she deleted my email.
Dang, interrupted by the Redhead, no links.
Country results ranking
Cost ranking
That, Engor, is third party evidence. That which evolutionists have, but you don’t, even for your liberturdism.
theDukedog7 .
Why will you not provide your definition of ‘socialism’?
Your circular wanking is not a definition.
…
You are becoming boring.
boring and trolling are both potentially bannable offences.
Non sequitur, as always. Only the rich come to the US for some bizarre reason.
Stupidity and sloganeering. Who is better at taking a million dollars and dispersing it, private enterprise, with its 20% overhead, or government, with 5% overhead? But then, you don’t give a shit about evidence, as you don’t link to anything. just give us the results of your idiocy and sloganeering. Dismissed as fuckwittery, Lights on nobody home is a good description of your posts.
@89
Yep. Washington is one lean efficiency machine.
US National Debt: 18 trillion dollars.
“5% overhead”. My sides hurt I’m laughing so hard.
Of course, it Bill and Hillary paid taxes on the cash they’ve gotten from Algeria, we could pay a lot of that debt down.
Yep, now I’m convinced that the Dukedog7 is indeed Egnor, as in, one of the stupidest people alive at this point in time.
Nazi Germany is known for its nationalisation of industry? Yep, in Egnor’s parallel bizarro world it really happened, people! And somehow the Nazi’s where socialists and persecuted socialists at the same time. And communists of course, even though it is the same thing. Because left bad! Bark! Bark!
Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance. As true as it ever was.
Dukedog, not one link to supporyt you. Your whole spiel is dismissed as fuckwittery. Welcome to reality, which refutes your sorry sloganistic thinking.
Try again, with a link to third party evidence. Then you might no be dismissed, unless it it is to Kochroach think tank.
For grod’s sake ignore theDukeDog7; it’s the moniker of an obnoxious, dissembling idiot.
Nerd of Redhead: that table is now 15 years old and drawn from 1997 data. The annual WHO health report is on a different topic every year, so the report has not been updated, and also I have to say that its method of ranking is pretty damn opaque, which doesn’t help. But having said that, the US does poorly on almost every measure of healthcare. Some stats:
%GDP spent on health: US=17.7% (highest), OECD average=10%, OECD lowest=8.9% (Australia)
2011 Life expectancy at birth: US=78.7 (4th worst), OECD average=80.0, OECD best=82.8 (Switzerland)
2011 Infant mortality (per 1000 births): US=6.1 (4th worst), OECD average=4.1, OECD best=0.9 (Iceland)
Mortality amenable to health care (per 100,000 population): US=96 (worst), OECD median=71, OECD best=55 (France)
Hospital spending per discharge: US=$21,000 (highest), OECD median=$7,800, OECD lowest=$5,339 (Germany)
It’s not all bad news for the US — the smoking rate is pretty low, the cervical cancer screening rate is high (although that’s arguably due to over-servicing) — but the core message is that the US spends a fortune on health care and still ends up with the worst health outcomes in the developed world. It’s like paying for a Mercedes and getting a Yugo.
Sources:
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/surveys/2013/2013-commonwealth-fund-international-health-policy-survey
http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=HEALTH_STAT
I hear ya. We here in Australia aren’t even two years into the term of PM Tony Abbott, the most reprehensible corporate shill, climate-ignorer and conservative private school bully-boy that has ever led this country, and the despair grows daily.
Yep, that is free enterprise health care with the death boards in private insurance companies. But those supporting the continued FFS fuckwittery simply can’t acknowledge the flaws.
I just got a bill from the hospital for a minor surgical procedure that was four figures. And I am supposed have good health insurance. Sorry, give me a single payer system where the bill, at most, was three figures, and preferably “paid in full”.
The other night, the SO’s dicky heart was being dicky, so we went to the nearest ER.
They defibbed, took blood, took EKG, took Xray and analysed the lot.
Cost out of pocket for us, $0.
The prescribed drugs are rather expensive, though.
SO is OK,
diagnosis: heart is old and dicky. Suck it up.
Engor, your are full of shit. Medicare has lower overhead than private health insurance, which isn’t surprisinig considering it doesn’t have to set aside 1) dividedends, 2) multimillion dollar executives, and 3) taxes on profits. But, then, you are presuppositionally stupid, and won’t recognize real evidence that refutes your fallacious presuppositions, like your imaginary deity….Which doesn’t exist…..
Someone hasn’t read their Lewis Carroll. “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.'”
Here in Australia, I had a slip and fall that severed all three of my patella tendons. Without surgery it was a crippling injury, literally.
I had two surgeries to repair it. After the second I had a severe reaction to the anaesthetic that required a couple of extra days hospitalisation.
I had months of physio and required a leg brace, crutches and several tools to help wash when I couldn’t bend my leg.
Cost to me? Maybe $200 all up in token, sop-to-the-rightwing-nutbags, co-pays.
Yup, socialism sure is terrible.
Oh, and I pay so much in taxes that I had the means to have a bespoke home* built….er, wait….
*To be fair it’s tiny.
theDukedog7 . @ 63
In that case:
I am a socialist! My socioeconomic policy is that we should do whatever theDukedog7 thinks we should do.
What now, smartypants?
theDukegog7
@54
@68
Here you’ve made the fact that you’re a liar screamingly obvious. The right-wingers, clerics and businessmen who supported Nazism did not call themselves socialists, crony capitalists do not call themselves socialists. It’s true there were some promises of socialist policies in Nazi propaganda – but they were not carried out*, and those prominent Nazis foolish enough to believe they were anything other than lies to attract working-class support were murdered in 1934 at Hitler’s orders. Nazism’s right-wing allies at home and abroad were never fooled.
*Some welfare-capitalist measures were carried out – if you happened to be of the right “race” – but Nazism retained the support of big business throughout, because it remained in support of private wealth and inequality, and opposed to common ownership of the means of production and of free trades unions, throughout. If you were actually interested in the facts, you could read Adam Tooze The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, particularly the chapter “Partners: the Regime and German Business”. But of course, you’re not.
@67
The annoying thing is that David Milliband DID seem like leadership material. When we had the chance to vote for the Alternate Vote system one of the oft-repeated criticisms was that this was what Labour used to pick their new leader and that’s why they ended up with Ed instead of David.
theDukedog7’s actual definition of socialism: anything it is convenient for theDukedog7 to call socialism.
The definition of socialism in the 19th and early 20th century was quite clear: the collective ownership of the means of production. By this definition, all current polities include elements of socialism, but there are no purely socialist states. The definition has tended to expand to include welfare systems, and public health and education free at the point of delivery – which makes it essential that those denouncing (or advocating) socialism give a clear and non-meretricious definition of the term as they are using it. The dishonest, of course, will avoid doing so. Generally speaking, those who call themselves socialists advocate increasing the proportion of the means of production that is collectively owned, but they differ radically among themselves with regard to the role and form of the state, from Leninists, who advocate a one-party state as a stage on the road to communism – in practice, this has always turned out to be a dictatorship of the party leaders; to democratic socialists, who want to retain and expand the political and personal freedoms of liberal capitalism including the ability to vote the government out at regular, free and fair elections, while socialising the economy; to anarchists, who want to abolish the state altogether. Denunciation (or advocacy) of “socialism” which fails to account for these distinctions is either ignorant or dishonest, generally both; I always make clear that I am a democratic socialist, and feel no need whatever either to defend, or to apologise for, the crimes and failures of Leninist regimes – and nor can I take credit for their successes (e.g. that of the People’s Republic of China in raising more people out of poverty in a shorter time than any state or society in history). The charge of ignorance andor dishonesty is true a fortiori of denunciations which assert that Nazism, crony capitalism, social liberalism, anti-discrimination legislation, environmental and workplace regulations, etc. are socialism (note that I include here things socialists generally approve of as well as things they loathe).
opposablethumbs:
This would be the Labour party that:
1) abstained on the benefits cap vote, on a three-line whip, to make it impossible for Lib Dem rebels to defeat it on the one occasion that party actually tried to do some principled moderation of the Tories
2) had their recently ex-leader give an anecdote in an early speech about a disabled man who was out of a job that Ed had heard about – not even met – and how Ed knew (through remote psychic diagnosis, presumably) that he could work if he tried harder. I can’t remember if this was the same speech he compared bankers to people with messy gardens as example of how rich and poor people both needed to take responsibility for harming the country, or a different one.
3) itself introduced the hated work capability assessment – the one which has led to countless people denied benefits against all medical advice or common sense – in 2007
They are still better than the Tories – in the same way that Democrats are better than Republicans – but the UK is not an enforced two-party state like the US.
EwanR
I wouldn’t be so sure that a lot of the UKIP votes were actually from people who wanted UKIP to win. In a lot of the safe constituencies, the Lib Dem vote has collapsed and the UKIP vote has risen since 2010 by about the same amount. Quite a lot of them are probably votes in opposition to the big two rather than votes for anything in particular.
Under a PR system where it actually makes a difference if you vote or who you vote for, the results might be quite a bit different.
fatpie42@102,
I’m not convinced David Miliband would have done any better than his brother. Labour had a very difficult task in regaining public trust after the crash of 2008 – for which their deregulatory financial policies were indeed partly responsible, and which tainted both Milibands; and was divided between Blairites and anti-Blairites, as it still is. This division was, I think, behind its failure to articulate a convincing alternative to “austerity” – which of course means dismantling the welfare state and making the poor pay for the crimes and stupidities of the financial elite. Levels of government debt are not in fact at historically high levels, and the interest rates at which the UK government could borrow are remarkable low: it makes no economic sense to prioritise eliminating the deficit. That an anti-austerity programme could have attracted public support is suggested by the stunning success in Scotland of the SNP, which has consistently argued against austerity – although other factors were certainly involved there. With Labour in disarray, the real opposition in the Commons is likely to be provided by the SNP in the immediate future – and by Tory Eurosceptics when it becomes clear Cameron intends to keep the UK in the EU, as his business backers almost all want.
chigau,
My dad’s heart is also old and very dicky. So he takes a couple of pills in the morning, a couple in the evening. Cost in the pharmacy – used to be some change because the rest was covered, now it’s a bit more. Still. He also had heart surgery. Cost: 0.
Of course, he’s paying a rather small sum every month for health care. So am I even though I only ever had my bloodwork done a couple of times or had a couple of 5-minutes visits to the doctor.
I’m happy to pay for our socialized medicine. One day my heart too will be old and probably dicky.
@102 and @105:
Exactly what I was thinking. At the time Labour picked a new leader, I was actually cheering for Ed over David. Why? Because David was too Blairish, too New Labour. (Which is as effective and inspiring as the DLC)
What’s more depressing is seeing leaders of what is supposed to be your leftist party decide they gotta embrace austerity once they get in power. You can feel the sad shrug of resignation… almost as if they believe There Is No Alternative (a Thatcher quote!)
Does actually being elected as an MP resemble the life of a Congressman?– in that you have to spend more time than you imagined fundraising? Which inevitably means shaking people down and sucking up to the wealthy? Which does throw a bucket of cold water on your courage and independence, and is the REAL reason Citizen’s United is so terrible… because the very people we all depend on for funds are a bunch of imagination-free bullies who think scary alike and demand to be deferred to.
Are those qualities required in order to become a billionaire? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s now part of the culture fit screening process at many firms (remember, in CameronLand the best personality to have is a banker’s or privileged person’s).
This is why it’s such a disaster to have narrowed pathways to becoming successful. Because it only allows rich-coddlers to have any power or professional success. It also turns rent-seeking and Blair-like hustling into the only normal, healthy personality; with everyone else varying degrees of pathological. This is another reason I hated people criticizing Ed for his weirdness. Parliament is probably an easier life when it’s safe to be weird.
theDukedog7 . @ 68;
You do understand why circular definitions of this type are generally considered unhelpful, right? Defining a thing by referring back to the self-same term you are trying to define is contentless – it serves only to obfusticate.
@ 72;
We aren’t asking you to define our ideology for us (not all of us would even identify as socialists to begin with), we are asking you to define the term with regard to the meaning you think it conveys so that we can understand what you are trying to say.
Let me put this another way – we need to know your definition of socialism; the meaniing which you attach to the term and the context in which you use it. Then we can get a better sense of what you are trying to say, and determine if your definition actually bears any resemblance to the correct usage of the word. Once we establish that groundwork, then we can address your arguments, such as they are.
Again, this is essentially meaningless. Fortunately, Nick Gotts has kindly provided you with both the classical definition of socialism and a brief history of the way the political meaning of the term has developed over the decades. Nick has even explained why it is so important to specify what is meant by the term when you employ it.
Are you using the classical definition of socialism as the transfer of the means of production to collective ownership? Are you specifically addressing democratic socialism? Are you referring to its authoritarian manifestations in communist sociaties? Do you see how it is a non sequitur to claim that so many differing political systems, with their own definitions and terms correctly used to describe them, are somehow all ‘socialist’? And that by some alchemy socialism still has just a singular meaning that is the same in all the situations where it is employed, leaving all the systems described as being ‘socialist’ identical to one another?
Much of ther heavy lifting has already been done for you. The least you can do is to state your position clearly without littering it with false equivalencies and improperly used terminology.
So I ask again – please define your terms. What do you mean when you talk about socialism?
I feel the pangs of allergy when I see disingenuous relabeling like this, because my country is full of parties with completely misleading names. The “Social Democrats” are conservatives, the “Liberal Front” (recently renamed to the delighfully ironic “Democrats”) is an Old Money trust fund, the “Progressives” are mainly concerned with money-laundering and the late “Liberals” had everything from bible-thumpers to fascist wingnuts.
Nick Gotts 103
I still maintain that infrastructure is not actuall a means of production per se, and that public control/ownership of same is not, therefore, a species of socialism, merely of good governance regardless of the economic system in place.
I would also like to note that there are two very different meanings of ‘collective ownership’ that are used by differing stripes of socialist: State ownership and worker ownership. The former characterizes Leninist regimes, which typically have the state owning pretty much everything, (this tends to lead to pretty crap results, although limited state ownership of industry can be a very useful means of economic development in the short term; see South Korea for an example) while the latter describes, e.g. worker cooperatives, where ownership of a given means of production is equally shared among those who operate it. (This works out quite well, as the Italian province of Emilia-Romagna indicates). It also increases democracy, by eliminating the autocracy of the employer.
Personally, I tend to describe the former type as socialism and the latter as communism, because I find it’s essential to be able to discuss them separately.
Some positives from this election. We now have more women, ethnic minority and LGBT people in parliament than ever before. In fact, we apparently have more LGBT people in parliament than any other country in the world.
There are 27 LGBT MPs, including 13 Labour MPs, 12 Conservatives and 2 SNP.
http://attitude.co.uk/the-uk-now-has-more-lgbt-mps-than-any-other-country/
Also, big debate up there on labels of ideologies.
I’ve always thought of socialism in its classical sense, i.e. collective ownership of means of distribution, which the Labour Party was constitutionally committed to until 1995. I would describe myself as a democratic socialist, as I believe in collective/common ownership, which should be achieved in a free and democratic society.
Liberalism can be economic liberalism, which advocates free-markets, small government and low taxes, or it can be social liberalism which advocates some government intervention and providing of services, such as universal healthcare and a welfare state, paid for by progressive taxation, but still believing in the fundamentals of private property and capitalism.
Most European liberal parties combine aspects of both types of liberalism and are usually centrist. In some countries, e.g. Australia, liberalism refers to classical liberalism (i.e. economic liberalism) combined with social conservatism, as reflected in the Australian Liberal Party, which is right-wing.
Either way, when talking about left-wing parties outside of the US, refrain from using the word ‘liberal’, as it can mean something quite different. Certainly, most Europeans don’t equate liberalism with left-wing.
@111
Thanks for the good news– at least there’s some real, non-magical- thinking positivity there. We can’t make a culture more progressive overnight… American acceptance of same sex marriage is probably the fastest we’re ever going to get in that department. But that is some honest good news there.
Oh, and SUCK IT UKIP. A whopping ONE seat of Parliament after all that talk of support. Ha ha!
Lucy Montrose@107,
UK MPs don’t have to spend a lot of time fund-raising – our laws on election funding are if anything too tight, restricting what charities and pressure groups can say in the run-up to an election. But party discipline is much stronger here than in the USA: if they want to get a more influential post than that of an ordinary MP (in the government, or “shadow cabinet” – the main opposition party’s Parliamentary hierarchy – or on one of the influential committees), then MPs have to toe the party line.
All the European 2nd International “social democratic” parties basically surrendered their principles over the past few decades in the face of the resurgent neoliberal right, and so have been unable to take advantage of the bankruptcy of neoliberal “free-market, trickle-down” ideology revealed by the crash of 2008. But we can see in the election of and reaction to Syriza in Greece both the appeal an outspoken leftist party can have, and the way it will be attacked and punished by the political and financial establishment – including 2nd International parties – if it attempts to resist “austerity” (which as I’ve said, is code for making the poor pay for the crimes and blunders of the financial sector bosses). The SNP is certainly not comparable to Syriza – it’s a broad “civic nationalist” (as opposed to ethnic nationalist) coalition, including many right-wingers – but circumstances have pushed it to the left, opposing austerity and the renewal of the UK’s nuclear arsenal, and it’s “voice” will now unavoidably be heard UK-wide. It will be interesting to see what effect that has beyond Scotland, where there has not been a decent-sized party in parliament that could with any justice be described as leftist since Blair was elected to lead Labour in 1992 (there are still a few leftist Labour MPs, and the Greens have had 1 MP since 2010).
Dalillama, Schmott Guy@110,
I think the original phrase was “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange”, which would certainly include infrastructure – but exactly which definition of “socialism” is used isn’t vital as long as all parties make clear what their definition is, and that there are very different ideologies and systems that can reasonably be described as “socialist” – not including Nazism or other varieties of fascism, of course. And you’re certainly right that there’s more than one form of common ownership – municipal ownership is another, and makes sense for local transport and power distribution, for example. I think your use of “communism” to describe worker ownership (if that’s what you meant – did you get the terms the right way round?) is likely to be confusing – that’s not what it has meant in any state run by a Communist Party. My own view is that a mix of ownership forms would be best – including state, municipal, worker-cooperative and properly regulated private businesses if people genuinely choose* to work in them – with legally mandated worker representation at the top level for state concerns, and those private businesses above a certain size. I don’t think pure workers’ control would be a good idea for the railways, power generation, communications, health or education, for example – the interests of users and the wider community need to be protected as well.
*That is, there are other viable work options, and a universal “citizen’s income” that’s enough to live on.
He did, and the schadenfreude was something of a consolation. He did say he’d step down if he didn’t win in South Thanet (the seat he was running for), but he’s weaseled out of it. He’s stepped down, but said he might run for re-election as party leader after summer… which he will certainly win, because UKIP is something of a cult of personality, and without the admittedly charismatic Farage they have nothing. And most of them know that. So in reality, he’s taking a long summer holiday.
Egnor, noun: A massive, multi-layered Dukedog, often equivalent in size to a barn.
Egnor, verb: To Dukedog with gibbering idiocy and massive amounts of intellectual dishonesty.
Dukedog, noun: The wretched, foul smelling byproduct of Egnoring, often involving ruined carpets, damaged floors, and permanent property damage. See also: Bullshit.
Dukedog, verb: To Egnor with a combination of enthusiasm and ineptitude, eliciting a combined response of disgust and bemusement.
@ Opposeablethumbs #14
Masquerading as a proponent of decent, liberal multiculturalism, don’t forget. He lost his seat to the Labour candidate, Naz Shah, who claims to have been a victim of child marriage, having been “emotionally blackmailed” into marrying her cousin at age 15. During one of the local pre-election debates, Galloway produced a piece of paper which he claimed was her niqah (Islamic marriage license; and how on Earth would he have got hold of that?), which purported to show that she was 16, not 15, at the time of the marriage. As if that makes it any fucking better!