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purplecthulhu at 06:09pm on 30/04/2005
purplecthulhu at 06:09pm on 30/04/2005For me, the election is over.
Today I put my cross in a box, and put it in the postbox. Its all downhill from here, and I can watch the fireworks safe in the knowledge that my democratic duty is done.
I haven't voted along party lines. The LibDems, sadly, and Conservatives don't have a chance where I live. Instead I have voted for a result, and that result is the punishment of Tony Blair and the lobby fodder that have followed him onto what even his Solicitor General classified as unsafe legal ground.
It is highly unlikely that Labour will lose this election. It will take a parliamentary swing of epic proportions, a scale never seen in history, for the Tories to be returened to government next week. The polls all say that, the bookies all say that and, if truth be told, Howard, Kennedy and Blair must all be saying that in private too. So even those who hate the Tories but marched, wrote and spoke against the war can express their wish for Blair to be punished on Thursday.
By reducing Blair's majority we not only punish him for Iraq. We also send him a warning on several of his other policies that are dangerous, misguided, and deeply inimical to the democratic traditions of this country.
The erosiion of jury trials, imprisonment without trial and the massive public monitoring and control programme to be instituted through ID cards and the database state are all examples of these. With a reduced majority (I'd hope for 40 or less, but it is likely to be much more) Labour's worst authoritarian instincts will be curbed by their own backbenchers more effectively than by any Tory opposition. We can stop this erosion of our civil liberties here and now.
I live in a 'safe' Labour constituency. It is now a marginal, thanks to the war and George Galloway's Respect party. Respect is one thing that neither Galloway or the sitting MP, Oona King, get from me. But at least Galloway isn't a Blair stooge. He is a down and dirty political operator, with a shady past, and with bad decisions behind him. But this is not a man who is going to get into political office. He is a lightening cxonductor for the anti-Blair and anti-King protest vote in Bethnal Green, and that is all.
So my vote has gone to Galloway. Not as a vote in favour of him and Respect, but as a vote against Blair, his war, his lies, and his authoritarian vision of the country. If we had a sensible electoral system I wouldn't have had to do this.
Elsewhere, the anti-Blair vote is a different one. In many places it will be a vote for the Lib Dems. In others it might be for the Tories. In some it will be a Labour vote.
Participation in Bush's illegal and unnecessary war deserves to be punished. The British electorate are the only people who are able to punish Blair, and we must do that. If you opposed the war but are not voting to punish Blair then you are saying that your own narrow self interest is more important than 100000 dead Iraqis. If the Tories shut the NHS down tomorrow they would kill fewer people.
Think about this pile of bodies and what Blair and Bush might do in the next 3 years before you cast your vote, and vote against Blairism.
Today I put my cross in a box, and put it in the postbox. Its all downhill from here, and I can watch the fireworks safe in the knowledge that my democratic duty is done.
I haven't voted along party lines. The LibDems, sadly, and Conservatives don't have a chance where I live. Instead I have voted for a result, and that result is the punishment of Tony Blair and the lobby fodder that have followed him onto what even his Solicitor General classified as unsafe legal ground.
It is highly unlikely that Labour will lose this election. It will take a parliamentary swing of epic proportions, a scale never seen in history, for the Tories to be returened to government next week. The polls all say that, the bookies all say that and, if truth be told, Howard, Kennedy and Blair must all be saying that in private too. So even those who hate the Tories but marched, wrote and spoke against the war can express their wish for Blair to be punished on Thursday.
By reducing Blair's majority we not only punish him for Iraq. We also send him a warning on several of his other policies that are dangerous, misguided, and deeply inimical to the democratic traditions of this country.
The erosiion of jury trials, imprisonment without trial and the massive public monitoring and control programme to be instituted through ID cards and the database state are all examples of these. With a reduced majority (I'd hope for 40 or less, but it is likely to be much more) Labour's worst authoritarian instincts will be curbed by their own backbenchers more effectively than by any Tory opposition. We can stop this erosion of our civil liberties here and now.
I live in a 'safe' Labour constituency. It is now a marginal, thanks to the war and George Galloway's Respect party. Respect is one thing that neither Galloway or the sitting MP, Oona King, get from me. But at least Galloway isn't a Blair stooge. He is a down and dirty political operator, with a shady past, and with bad decisions behind him. But this is not a man who is going to get into political office. He is a lightening cxonductor for the anti-Blair and anti-King protest vote in Bethnal Green, and that is all.
So my vote has gone to Galloway. Not as a vote in favour of him and Respect, but as a vote against Blair, his war, his lies, and his authoritarian vision of the country. If we had a sensible electoral system I wouldn't have had to do this.
Elsewhere, the anti-Blair vote is a different one. In many places it will be a vote for the Lib Dems. In others it might be for the Tories. In some it will be a Labour vote.
Participation in Bush's illegal and unnecessary war deserves to be punished. The British electorate are the only people who are able to punish Blair, and we must do that. If you opposed the war but are not voting to punish Blair then you are saying that your own narrow self interest is more important than 100000 dead Iraqis. If the Tories shut the NHS down tomorrow they would kill fewer people.
Think about this pile of bodies and what Blair and Bush might do in the next 3 years before you cast your vote, and vote against Blairism.
angry
(no subject)
(no subject)
I agree ...
A protest vote is (almost always) one that won't affect who will actually get returned, but if enough people stand up and say "Oi, You, Blair, NO!" then perhaps (and only just perhaps) people might notice.
I lived in Hackney for years, and so Labour were guaranteed to get in (of course if Brian Sedgemoor had change allegiance sooner, things might have been better ...)
Re: I agree ...
Of course if we had a sensible electoral system it wouldn't be wasted at all.
(no subject)