General Election 2015

“If you don’t vote, you’re taking the colour out of Britain” – A Horribly Divisive And Misguided Message

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Operation Black Vote - The Sceptic Isle - 1

 

By Ben Kelly, blogger and editor of The Sceptic Isle.

The Operation Black Vote campaign is, in some ways, quite admirable. Sadly, their latest campaign sends out the wrong message entirely. It seems to me to be rather tasteless, divisive and pandering to the prevailing concept of identity politics.

A multi-racial Britain needs to be unified to be at ease with itself. It needs to be unified to facilitate the inclusion of minority groups. The dream must be that all who believe in our virtues as a nation and make up our diverse society are British, we are one nation and one people. Identity politics divides creates a victim mentality and weakens our social and political bonds. This latest “whiting up” campaign is good intentioned, but seems to create a divide between Black Britons and white Britons in a way that is counter productive.

“You’re taking the colour out of Britain”, next to the whitened face of a black man seems to put across a strange message that by not participating in the election you are allowing “the whites” all the power. Is it sensible or moral to divide us like this? It seems to create a sense of victim-hood, bitterness and resentment. It aggravates a sense of otherness rather than encouraging inclusivity in the British identity.

Once you enter the polling booth it does not matter if you are white, black, Asian, male, female, rich or poor. All these minority groups and all classes of people become indistinguishable. In that booth you are a British citizen voting in the democratic process to decide the government of your country. It is the great equaliser, one person, one vote. When we have the lamentable situation of rotten boroughs rife with electoral corruption, MPs that target racial groups for their own gain, government communicating with certain minority groups through “community leaders”, that is the ideal that we should be striving for.

Are we British? Or are we white British, black British, Asian British, female British, male British, gay British, trans British, etc. This is where identity politics leads and it is this inglorious tradition that the “taking the colour out of Britain” is perpetuating.

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Election 2015 Uncertainty Makes Everyone A Fair Weather Constitutional Reformer

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

UK Britain Constitution General Election 2015

 

With just sixteen days to go until we cast our votes in the 2015 general election, politicians and commentators of all stripes are suddenly waking up to the realisation that the party they hate most – be it Labour, the Evil Tories, the nationalist parties or UKIP – may very easily end up in government despite failing to win anything close to a popular mandate, thanks to some unpredictable and largely unstoppable backroom deal following a hung parliament.

In response, every commentator in the land seems to be turning into a bad-weather constitutional reformer, bemoaning the impending political chaos now that it is nearly upon us, despite having taken almost no interest in these dull, un-sexy  constitutional issues when there were other, more fun things to write about.

Here is Philip Johnston’s contribution for The Telegraph:

If neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Miliband were able to put together a viable government, a second election would normally follow; but the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 complicates matters. It provides for a dissolution of Parliament only when there is a specific vote of no confidence in the government or if two thirds of all MPs vote for an election. This makes the prospect of another early general election less likely. In any case, the parties may have little appetite for one given the expense and the prospect of losing support in a fresh contest.

Without a dissolution we would have a legislature but no government, a bit like Belgium, where the prime minister resigned in April 2010 and no new parliamentary majority could be established for almost two years. The country was run by a former prime minister brought out of retirement and a caretaker administration. It didn’t do them much harm. A report by academics at the University of Leuven noted that the government continued to make “legitimate decisions” on urgent matters of public finance and national security while MPs squabbled. They concluded that “in mature democracies, a power vacuum is taken care of in a constructive, creative, and responsible way”. Do we have such virtues? We might be about to find out very soon.

One thing is clear: a minority Labour government, with fewer seats than the Tories, running the country while in thrall to a nationalist party that has only 2 or 3 per cent of the total UK vote, would test our constitutional structures to breaking point, and maybe beyond. More than that, it could test our creaking, centuries-old Union to destruction.

Isn’t it funny how Britain’s growing ranks of amateur constitutional scholars and reform zealots have only come crawling out of the woodwork now that they are faced with the prospect that the party they dislike might end up calling the shots while not being the largest party in terms of either vote share or seats?

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George Osborne’s Lloyds Bank Share Sale Pledge Is Cynical And Short-Sighted

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

George Osborne - Lloyds Bank - Lloyds Banking Group Share Sale - General Election 2015

 

It isn’t always easy defending Conservative policies. While left wing parties have the luxury of flaunting their “compassionate” credentials with every unfunded pledge and extravagant promise to spend other people’s money, those on the right have the trickier task of explaining that a smaller, less interventionist state and a safety net reserved for those in real need is the only true path to a happier, more self sufficient population.

Visit any left-leaning website or listen to any left-wing activist speak, and it won’t take long before you hear a tirade against the “Evil Tories”, who in the minds of their accusers are not just wrong, but positively eager to hurt the poor and hound the vulnerable. Whether it’s on healthcare and the NHS, welfare reform, tax policy or public services, British conservatives always begin every argument ten points behind, having to battle against the widely-held assumption that conservative policies are motivated only by greed and a desire to protect the interests of those at the top.

Countering this false, pernicious narrative is hard enough at the best of times. And it really doesn’t help when patrician-sounding Conservative politicians like George Osborne announce the “sale” of partly nationalised Lloyds Bank to the public at a discounted price, a giveaway for the middle classes, the politically engaged and the financially literate at the expense of everyone else.

From George Osborne’s triumphalist announcement, published in the Telegraph:

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Labour’s NHS Party Election Broadcast: Jo Brand Is A Big Fat Liar

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

 

“A decent society looks after its people” is the moralising title of Labour’s latest celebrity election broadcast about the NHS, starring comedian Jo Brand.

That Jo Brand is a loyal supporter of the Labour Party hardly comes as a shock – the comedian was a supporter of the People’s Assembly anti-austerity coalition, and performed at the Stand Up Against Reality Austerity gig organised by that group last year. And credit where credit is due: she puts her time and money where her mouth is, supporting a cause she believes in. But unfortunately, in the case of Labour Party scaremongering about the NHS, that cause is a blatant falsehood.

Brand opens Labour’s latest celebrity ad with one of those “oh! fancy seeing you here” introductions, as though we were the last people she expected to encounter as she exercised on a lone cross-trainer slap bang in the middle of a brightly lit TV studio:

“There’s an election coming up. You might know that. And we all have our own personal axes to grind. Mine is what’s gonna happen to the NHS. Not because of my undeniable status as a national fitness icon, but because once upon a time I used to be a nurse.”

Establish credibility? Check.

When debating healthcare reform in Britain, nothing sweeps away logical debate and replaces it with hushed reverence more effectively than uttering the words “I’m a nurse”, or “I’m an NHS doctor”. Suddenly the speaker becomes an oracle, imbued with deep and mystical wisdom about national healthcare policy thanks to their selfless occupation on the front lines of clinical care.

If you are employed by the NHS, that huge organisation, the largest employer in Britain and fifth largest in the world (just behind McDonald’s), is there not the slightest possibility that working for such a vast branch of government – with a bureaucratic life of its own and a very strong survival instinct – and relying on it for your pay cheque just might skew your judgement when it comes to changing structures and working practices? Apparently not.

Regardless, Jo Brand then whips out the first of her many personal axes to grind:

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BBC Election Debate: A Smug Festival Of Left Wing Groupthink, Plus UKIP

Samuel Hooper14 Comments

BBC Challengers Debate - Leaders Debate - General Election 2015 - Nigel Farage Stands Alone

 

“Work with us to keep the Tories out of government!”

“If we work together, we can lock Cameron out of Number 10.”

“We have a chance to kick David Cameron out of Downing Street. Don’t turn your back on it, people will never forgive you…”

Rabble, rabble, rabble.

To watch the leaders of Labour, Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Green Party plead with the audience – and each other – at last night’s BBC Election “Challengers” Debate, you would think that Britain faced the awful prospect of some fascist or totalitarian party seizing power on 8 May this year, thus requiring all decent people to put aside their differences and band together in solidarity against a visceral, urgent threat to our way of life.

But the hideous spectre conjured by Ed Miliband, Leanne Wood, Nicola Sturgeon and Natalie Bennett is not a latter-day Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin – or even a contemporary African tin-pot dictator. No, we are asked to believe that the mortal threat to Britain and her people comes  in the pale, patrician form of David Cameron – who has already held the top job for five years without successfully summoning the apocalypse – perhaps propped up by the equally unthreatening Nigel Farage (Nigel being just the type of fearsome name that strikes terror into the heart of even the bravest soul).

The British left is used to preaching to the choir and percolating in its own intellectual laziness, having long ago purged from the bubble anyone who doesn’t reflexively Hate the Tories and abhor right-wing ideas. But today we witnessed Britain’s four left wing party leaders construct and imprison themselves in a bubble of their own making, right on the stage at Westminster Central Hall.

From the BBC’s account of the debate:

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