Issues of Today This next part will serve to define the arguments and things most relevant for any person living in this country now, starting with the issue of legitimacy of the state. Legitimacy You may have heard that the police and crime commissioner elections were woefully underattended. Although enough people turned out for it to be valid, it raised a question again about the state of representative democracy (where the people elect representatives that best serve their interests). If few people are voting and many of those are voting “blind” where their vote is based, not on policies or ideologies, but on what their father voted for or according to the first party propaganda that comes though the post, this would lead you to think that the only reason a particular party won was due to laziness, apathy and uninformed voting. You may, therefore, contest their claim to the seat, hence the crisis of legitimacy. If all the seats are won this way, then this is not a democracy anymore. In an ideal world, voters would be motivated only by policy and trust. As this world does not exist, we have to resort to the next best thing, convincing the voters to actually vote AND, attempt to educate them, which is what the parties attempt to do. However, as can be expected, the parties only project their views of the events. Despite this apparent education monopoly other sources do exist, mainly in book form. The reach of the independent sources, excluding the main media sources (which are always skewed towards one wing or another) is very small and only appeals to a very small demographic. Although the government often is the one attempting to get people to vote, in the UK most political news comes either from the Murdoch empire, Broadsheets, Tabloids, BBC or ITV. This lack of cohesion on getting people to vote, combined with the current relationship between the government and the media, has led to a conflict of interests. Populism UKIP is the current Populist Party. Populism is essentially exploiting the main flaw of democracy, the fact that many people are gullible, uninformed and self-serving. Therefore, come voting day, they will vote for the party that says that it appeals to their interests the most. This is the basis of a populist party - putting the masses first, and all the minorities in the dust. The interesting thing about UKIP and the British public is how cynical we are and how UKIP exploited that, combined with our inherent gullibility. UKIP’s party line is that it is anti-establishment and antiimmigration. Anti-establishment works for UKIP as we are cynical of the establishment and gullible enough to believe that they are anti-establishment. Nothing UKIP has said is about being anti-establishment; they added that to the party line simply because they have no one in the House of Commons. Page 22
Their Anti-immigration stance is popular because most people are not immigrants in Britain. Therefore UKIP can demonise the minority, using the gullibility of people to legitimise this and make the people believe it is in their best interest to cap immigration. The Middle East Another big problem with the world at the moment is located just above Africa - The Middle East. The two most prominent things about the Middle East are unfortunately war and unethical dealings. War plagues almost the entirety of the Middle East. Almost always the wars are over religion, in particular the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda unless it is Israel in a border dispute with Hamas, or Iraq getting at Iran’s throat again. Often the sides are not very well marked, for example during the Syrian Civil War. The popular conception was that The Rebels were freedom fighters fighting against a corrupt government. So the West should give arms and help The Rebels. The biggest problem was that a lot of The Rebels were affiliated with Al-Qaeda, IS or other extremist groups. If The Rebels did win, then a corrupt government would have been overthrown and been replaced with not only a stronghold for IS but the question remains, would the resulting government be any good? Even if democracy was instilled, who would the public vote for? We don’t understand just what level of extremism exists in those countries. If the general populous hates the west (which a lot of people do, for good reason) then they are going to vote in an anti-western extremist, likely to make our standing even worse. The barbarity would still exist, just with a different man. Whippings and stoning are barbaric, but there are virtually no protests against them. End result, everything is the same but millions have been killed or displaced and our standing has been diminished. Like it or not Qatar, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and by extension other places in the United Arab Emirates, all have lucrative business dealings with us (Qatar funded 90% of the Shard) despite whipping women who show skin in public. We can’t afford to lose the Oil Barons and the moral pains that come with it are not going to go away either.
They are currently in government and are claiming responsibility for the current positive economic climate. Labour Labour started later than any of the other parties that have ever held government and originally it represented the working classes. Unfortunately, their policies are a bit unclear at the moment as they are trying to redefine themselves as “classical labour, but without the extremism of classical labour, while not straying too far into the middle territory to lose the working class vote, while still trying to get the traditional middle classes”. Under Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, Labour policy moved closer to Conservatives policy, so they were voted in government and, for example, cut ties with the unions. It ended with a very un-conservative crash in 2008. Labour has a reputation for economic incapability. UKIP UKIP as stated above are populist and not very moral in general. At the moment, they are attempting to rebrand themselves, just like Labour. However, the UKIP rebranding is even more far reaching than the Labour one, as UKIP have not only changed policies but created new ones. UKIP are decidedly right-wing. Liberal Democrats Lib-Dems are brave when they need to be, they stood heroically against UKIPs demands to leave the EU. This was ineffective as it brought the Lib Dems popularity right down to rock bottom while changing no-one’s opinion or voting habits, nevertheless their heroism was something the other parties could only dream of doing. The Lib Dems are popular with students - perhaps lured by the word “liberal”, although they don’t have many firm policies as anything they say is subjected to flip-flopping much akin to a dying fish. They do (actually don’t) maybe do (?) support the bedroom tax, although one thing they will always stand firm on is student…. never mind.
The Main Parties
Conclusion
The Conservatives, Labour, UKIP and the Liberal Democrats represent a wide range of interests and opinion, despite most of their leaders being from the same public school and university.
Politics is the beating heart of our everyday lives and affects everything everyone does - not just London. Politics is a normal part of any civilisation and is vital to its survival. Politics is intertwined with everything we do or have and can be thought of as the art of the compromise. But despite the need and inherent desire for politics, we still hate our politicians and refuse to engage with them. However, in the words of Bernard Crick: “Politics is not a necessary evil, it is a realistic good.” Perhaps, then, the only thing we need for a better society is for more people to be involved in politics.
Conservatives The Conservatives are essentially fighting for the status quo. They oppose radical change as change always brings chaos, although the more cynical among us would say that this is so they can keep their own bank balance at a high level. Lead by David Cameron with main members including George Osbourne and William Hague, this does not look like a very diverse set as they were all educated in Oxford.
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