Political rants... [purplecthulhu]

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Those of you thinking of voting for labour at the next election who have some sympathy with human rights and refugees should look at the following and ponder their vote...

A rant from someone who works in the field.

Meanwhile, a broader and deeper critique of New Labour and its (lack of) principles can be found from Monbiot in the Guardian.

Bottom line - if you want there to be any chance of change don't vote for new labour.

Mood::

angry

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There are 12 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

The real problem is that the Tories are *at*the*very*least* just as bad.

The only real hope for change would be a hung parliament with a coalition government. Which would have to be Lib-Lab because the Lib-Dems won't ally with the Tories.

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Like others commenting on

lizw's post, I find it difficult to believe how the tories could be worse on this issue, or on many others. And on some they're likely to be better. Continued one party rule will just continue the downhill slide.

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Do you seriously believe that the rights of immigrants will be better protected under a Cameron government? How about the restoration of rights to terror suspects? How about length of detention without trial?

Any [I]real[/I] civil liberties issue (as opposed to stupid stuff like ID cards and CCTV) are going to be as bad under the Tories. So the only issues to decide on are economic ones ... and the economic policy the Tories have been advocating for the last few years are exactly the kind of stuff which led to the current crisis.

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Someone who works in the field of immigration law has stated that they can't se how the tories could be worse on the rights of immigrants. I'm willing to accept their opinion on this since they're better informed than both of us.

As to terror suspects and detention without trial, the tories voted against the government on these. So yes, i do believe they'll be better. [The tories, as has been noted elsewhere, have a long history of being more skeptical about requests from the police for more powers, so there is historical precedent.] And CCTV and ID cards are not stupid stuff - they're tools for potentially greater repression and the latter, at least, will damage many innocent people thanks to the proven inaccuracy of government databases. You may think that's silly now, but if you're one of those who have been given a criminal record thanks to the poorly maintained databases then you won't be laughing for long.

Economics... I'm sorry, but I thought labour was behind our current problems... They are in government after all!

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Classic fallacies.

The policies which led to our current economic predicament were put in place by John Major, and exacerbated by the actions of the Americans. Labour didn't do as much as they could have done to mitigate the effects, but they did a lot. Which might well be why we're only in the worst recession since the 80s, rather than the worst one since the 30s like Germany or America.

Similarly just about everyone agrees that the banking crisis was caused by lack of regulation. Have Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition spent the last decade calling for more regulation? No. They've been calling for even less than the inadequate regulation we had.

So basically I'm not inclined to risk putting the worse of two evils in charge. And I damned well know that they are the worse of the two.

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Can you actually name any single thing the current government did that might have helped mitigate the situation we have all ended up in? Apart from the deregulation you mention, and the de-gumming (they never had fangs in the first place) of the FSA?

I'm not blaming them for the global meltdown, but they actively supported the corporate and individual behaviour that had that inevitable result (my only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner), and make it abundantly clear that their preferred future is a return to bubble inflation as soon as it can be engineered.

I've never in my life voted Tory, and even now I'm not planning to start (whatever they may say in opposition, I doubt they'd do anything whatsoever in office to reverse any of Labour's demolition of liberty, privacy and the rule of law), but to suggest that Labour is in any real way better than them in 2009 is to hang on to disintegrating thread of hope that the last decade has demonstrated to be untenable.

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Look, I AM an immigrant, and I know one thing or two about right-wing governments. I don't get a vote, but if I did, it sure as hell wouldn't be for the Tories.

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Mine won't be either, but nor will it be for labour.

[It should be noted that the tories are not a right wing party in the mold of Berlusconi's mob. The centrist 'one nation' tories that in many ways are the core of the party are still there, and are reasonably civilized. And neither part of the party is as authoritarian as labour has become.]

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I don't think we have any hope of a decent government then - we had a Lib/Lab coalition in Scotland for a while and that didn't go so well. Basically, the Lib Dems threw all their policy promises out of the window in return for a chance to be sort of actually in the government and not the opposition for once. Things they absolutely promised they would do before the elections just did not happen.

Sad to say, but without some sort of miracle, whichever government we end up with next is going to be a bit shit.

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I am a member of the Lib Dems, and it is not true that we are more likely to support a Labour government than a Tory one. We are unlikely to go into coalition with either, but we would probably vote with a minority government on a case-by-case basis, as is currently happening with the SNP minority in Scotland, and we would not treat Labour any differently from the Tories in that regard.

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purplecthulhu

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