When does it become 'politics'?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 18:35
VIEWED: 6108
PAGE 8 of 8
Finn,
I agree. To clarify, we should say 'right' and 'left', since people are going to continue using them, are used to mean 'modern right' and 'modern left.' I still call neoconservatism something other than 'modern right' because it is a represntation of radical change, and therefore not 'right.'
Maybe someday it will be the accept standard, but I hope not.
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Even "conservative" and "liberal" are relative to the prevailing norm. In Russia a conservative is a hardline communist and a liberal a guy that believes in free market economics.
A few clarifications as to the UK parties.
In general Conservatives are pro defence, pro law and order, and favour lower taxes. They like to be seen as the fiscally responsable party, the one that is safe with the economy. Consequently they categorise Labour as "tax and spend" and a high taxation party. The core of Conservative support is in the countryside and some urban areas in the south. In general Conservatives are a Unionist party, which means that they seek to protect the Union between the different countries within the UK. A knock on effect of this is that they tend to prefer centralisation to devolved government and believe that central government in London is superior to local government. In US terms they are not into "States Rights." The party sees itself as being the advocate of British busness and free enterprise.
Labour was a creation of the trade union movement and only started holding political office in the early part of the 20th Century. The absorbed over time most of the more ardent left wing groups who had once been part of the Liberal party. In the process they became for a time an avowed socialist party believing in public ownership of key industries. In the late 1940's they nationalised the railways, iron and steel production, electricity generation, mining and a number of other industries. They also created the welfare state, the cornerstone of which is the National Health Service (NHS.) Labour's support traditionally comes from the urban working class, especially in the North. Until the 1980's the influence of the unions was such that they could decide the leadership and the party platform. Labour's focus is on the public welfare especially health. As they tend to be stronger in the regions than in the capital they favour devolved government and the moving of power from London to the regions and bellow. They are traditionally anti imperialist, pacifist and non interventionist. They had a reputation of taxing and spending and for not being prudent with the economy.
In the 19th century the Liberals were the alternate party to the Conservatives. The original "big tent" party they contained almost all factions from the new industrial middle class to working class socialist groups. Their main thrust was electorial reform, specifically trying to break various electorial rules that gave the Conservatives a lock on power. They won gradual advances but as the franchise was broadened the reasons that kept these different groups in one party started to weaken. The Liberals split repeatedly until by the 1930's they nearly became extinct. The modern Libdems are an amalumation of the rump Liberals and the Social Democratic Party, a Labour splinter group that formed after Labour's defeat in the 1979 election.
Libdems tend to be middle class and have their core constituencies in the west. They control or have the deciding vote on a large number of local councils and so favour regional government and devolution. They tend to be seen as soft on defence, broadly pro free market and pro education (a surprising number of teachers are in the LibDems.) Other than that it's really hard to say where they stand. Generally they are seen to occupy the middle ground between the two big parties and tend to benefit from protest votes as a result.
The UK doesn't have a big economy, so consequently a lot of the party differences come down to how they prioritise spending. In addition public finances are regularly presented in the Chancellors budget and in reports to Parliament. This means that government has to justify its spending at least once a year. In addition since the party in power decides the budget there tends to be very little horse trading of the kind seen in American Omnibus spending bills.
So when Labour is in power the focus is on public services especially health. Usually if spending in this area goes up the mone
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Fletch,
Thanks for the rundown on British politics. Fascinating stuff. I remember when I was in Japan, someone explained to me that the japanese have one letter which is in between "r" and "l" so westerners here "r" when their ear is expecting "l" and "l" when expecting "r". This gives the illusion that the japanese pronunciation is always wrong.
I think that something similar is happening here. Bush is not a lefty or a democrat, and Blair is not a Tory, they are clearly the same as one another, so they are something new. That things is in some ways centrist on the left-right continuum, but extremist on some other axis. So when it is in the middle of the left, it looks right, when it is in the middle of the right, it looks left. In reality, it's neither. That's my current theory anyway.
If the Tories have failed to embrace states rights that would explain their weak position. Conservative support relies on preservation of a way of life folks like me, which is based in states rights. If the rural welsh and scots aren't voting Tory, then clearly the tories have done something wrong, since this would be a natural demographic for them, a people with an extant stable way of life that they wouldn't want to particularly change. It's also occurred to me that the lib dems and tories would be stronger if merged into one pro-free market party. But I'm not in the situation, so I don't know, just an outsider's eyeball perspective.
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Noooo
Scotland, Wales and the west are called the Celtic finge. Used to be solidly Labour or nationalist these days I think the LibDems have some good support there. Conservatives have always been the party of big central power, they built the big government to run an Empire. They do best in the areas around London and worse the further away you get, so consequently there is no real love of the idea of creating competing power bases in the regions especially ones you know you would never control. Labour and the LibDems can think of devolving power down because that's where their support is.
As for a Libdem/Tory matchup. I suspect that won't happen anytime soon. By their nature Conservatives are centralist and somewhat authoritarian, Libdems are regionalist and well, liberal. They don't play well together. The LibDems pro market leanings make them a natural "refuge" party for disaffected Tories. Their Liberal leanings make them a natural refuge for desenting Labour types.
Their problem is that Labour has headed right, hard. Labour is probably the most free market orientated ruling party in Europe (which probably doesn't say much.) They are far more agressively free market than the current conservative French government (yes Chirac is conservative bizzare as that seems.) Like I said the aim of this was probably to steal the Tories clothes but it deprives the LibDems of one of their principle distinctions -- being nominally left wing and free market.
I have no idea what the Conservatives are doing. The fixation on Europe is a mistake that just keeps on costing. If they aim to move the focus away from a Federal state back towards a free trade zone that can only be done from inside. Hinting they would pull out (with the economic chaos that would bring) weakens their support in the British business community and hands it to Labour. There used to be a time when the party had more than one topic and could at least do it's job as loyal opposition, not sure what's happening now.
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DT:
Yeah Red is for Labour, blue for the Tories. Liberal Democrates are a yellow/orange sort of colour.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear
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Fletch,
I understand from how the terms are applied liberal, conservative, etc., how come we have so many fights.
I know that Chriac is a conservative. Also a crook. In a way the Tory, anti-EU position is anti-federalist, and pro-states rights, when you consider britain to be the state, and Europe to be the nation, which is a closer parallel to American politics. At any rate, it's hardly a centralize power position. Anti-EU is the only logical political position, I really can't comprehend another one. The pro-Iraq war position seems totally irrational to me but it is easier to understand than the pro-EU. Pro-EU is like pro-Soviet or pro-Chinese expansion.
All of this is making me think I should share with the Tories some of the things which make the Republicans so successful here. It's a case of the GOP has spoken to us in a way that, it's not a religion, by any means, but it's a clear pragmatic position: Even if you totally despise Bush, and just about everything about him, and I really really do, the Republican Party is the logical choice for me. There are some people here who are republicans, and vote republican, that if they lived in a city might be democrats, I mean folks far to the left of me. The curious thing is the break down of votes changes dramatically when you leave the presidential race. New York, even in the city is really more likely to go republican that some places in the South, in non-presidential races. At the moment we have two democratic senators, but a nyc mayor and governors are republican, as well as our congressman, and the one in the neighboring district, and probably a great many more. We could get another GOP senator is Bush would stop blocking an opposition to Hillary. The thing is that our concept of Republican is very different from what it is in Texas. Particularly, NE Republicans are very different from Texas and deep south. A lot of the east coast republicans are fairly similar to us, in VA, NC, SC, but when you move into the more heavily Chrisitan TN, KY, KS, AL, MS, TX, OK, that's where we're likely to see inter-republican sparks flying. A lot of pacific and midwest republicans are more similar to what we have here.
It's a strategic positioning issue, and it sounds like the Tories have positioned themselves poorly. A pro-Britain stances is consistant with anti-EU, but logically, pro-Welsh would follow. Where does the Irish question fall on political lines?
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Well it has to be understood that the Conservatives joined the EU (then the Common Market) in the first place a move that at the time was opposed by Labour who when they came to power held a referendum to see if the British people wanted to stay in (they did.)
Both parties are split on Europe. Withdrawl was officially Labour policy for a while when they were in opposition in the 1980's. Initially the left distrusted Europe, they dislike concentrations of power and the Unions were not sure that an open market wouldn't just export jobs. The right liked it because it was a larger free market and so good for business. It didn't hurt that back in the 70's the then Common market had a principly right wing power base. What happened was that the EU went left during the mid to late 80's. It went far beyond the point a lot of Tories were comfortable with and they started to pull back much to the frustration of their pro-business side. At the same time Labour saw some cracks appearing in the Franco-German alliance that effectively runs the EU and decided they could best effect change from within. They could placate their own Euro-sceptic left wing by pointing out the labour protections and workers rights legislation in the EU (even though they didnt actually ratify any of them) and their right wing, like the Tories could see the business advantages.
Right now in the UK, Labour is pro Europe (they have a split but it's not visable), the LibDems are definately pro Europe and the Tories are split. Right now the Tories hold a line where they can still keep the pro's and anti's in the same party. My guess is that if they move too Anti folks will leave, if they go too pro folks will leave. We've already had MP's defect from Conservative to Labour on this issue, which honestly is amazing.
I wouldn't draw too many parrallels between the US and the EU. The EU is essentially a political project which has varying degrees of support in the member nations. The French see it as a counter ballence to American power, the UK, Swedes, Danes and Poles view it as a free trade zone with some garanteed social standards. Germany's opinion probably just changed with the government. If you do have to draw parallels then the UK's position is probably the same as that of the State of New York in the 1780's, it hasn't heard anything that completely convinces it that anything more than a loose confederation is really needed.
Of course nobody as gifted as "Federalist" has entered the debate to convince them. I think right now there are too many "ideal Europes" in various people's heads. I'm sure Chirac wants a single superstate in which France has a substancial if not dominant role, a "great Republic" that can face down the Americans. In that he IS being a French conservative because the "traditional" possition in France is that it's a great international power. If conservatives are supposed to be overly fond of tradition then he's doing his job.
The Tory Europe would essentially be just a free trade zone, though again there are those that want more from it than that. I think the problem is one of authority. If the Tories believed they could run Europe, that the centralised power was their centralised power, then I think they would probably go for it. What they dislike is the idea of power being taken away from London, and that is the same no mater where it goes to. So power for Welsh affairs going to Cardiff is just as bad as power going to Brussels. If you are the centralised power party, you dont want that power going anyplace else.
Blair wants to dominate Europe and shape it along the lines of the United States. He wants a decentralised Federal structure with more state autonomy than the French vision. He sees such a Europe as a partner to the US rather than a competitor.
From what I've seen of the LibDem position I think they are more into the model of a confederation of states, probably very similar to the pre Federal US. Like I said it's kind of hard to be sure.
On Ireland there really isnt that many party differences. The Cons
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Finn,
I agree. To clarify, we should say 'right' and 'left', since people are going to continue using them, are used to mean 'modern right' and 'modern left.' I still call neoconservatism something other than 'modern right' because it is a represntation of radical change, and therefore not 'right.'
Maybe someday it will be the accept standard, but I hope not.
Hummm I'm not sure that's nescessarily right (grin) I think conservatives choose to associate themselves with the right because of peripheral similarities. The "right" in general is a force that effects change, it's just that in most situations those are changes conservatives are comfortable with. This I think is my biggest problem with the TE hypothesis. You characterise it as being external to Republicanism but you seem to think that
Republicanism == conservative
I see it as a big tent party and Neocons do fit nicely with some none conservative elements that exist within Republicanism in general (what I would call the American Imperialist faction.) That they are NOT conservative is obvious by their policies, that they are not Republican...... that's debateable.
Back home all of our parties are big tent. It is understood that they contain many factions and at least 2 "wings." It is also understood that to win political office they need to present a unified front and that as such various parts of the party are expected to shut up if the party as a whole decides to go in a direction that they dont like. When parties split over policy that tends to kill any chances of being elected. That's what made the Liberals a near extinct party, helped keep Labour out of power in the 1980's and bedevils the Tories right now. Eventually a devils compromise is reached where the factions agree to work together to get the party elected so that at least some of that factions priorities will have a chance to be acted on.
For example within Conservatism there are Thatcherites, Unionists, monarchists, one nation Tories, pro and anti Europeans. The party platform is an average of the inclinations of these various factions the general thrust being decided by the factions in ascendency. Thatcherites as a faction didn't exist before the late '70's but free market Tories did, they just weren't the dominant group at that time. What happened was they got new ideas, a charasmatic leader and better organisation and then gained ascendancy.
I would argue that the faction currently ascendant in Republicanism may not be to your taste but is still home grown, it's existed in the party since at least the time of the Spanish-American war. Even if we accept the TE hypothesis that ALL Neocon ideology came from outside (which I don't) there would still have to be factions inside a party willing to embrace it. Up until recently there has been very little resistance to the Bush administrations policies from mainstream Republicans. In fact three Repubicans I like, Ron Paul of Texas, Pat Buchannon and John McCain are called "RINO's" by most of the Repubicans I know down in Texas. So what's going on? Paul has the highest conservative voting record in the house, but he's considered disloyal because he once ran for President on a none Republican ticket. It's obvious that the Reps I was talking to view loyalty to the party as being more important than ideological purity. Oh these are registered Republicans and campaign donators so not just casual supporters
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