UK Election

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Bryant - you're largely right. Although ideologically very distant, there's not nearly as much difference in practice between 'New Labour' and the Conservatives as there is between either of them and the Lib Dems. (Old Labour would have been a different matter.)

A few that spring to mind though...

On the economy - specifically, on dealing with the deficit - Labour want to increase public spending over the coming year because they believe it's important to "sustain the recovery" before beginning cuts the year after. Conservatives say tackling the deficit is more urgent and needs to be done right away. I suppose that reflects a classic economic division.

On immigration, there's not nearly as much between these two parties as their respective rhetoric would suggest. The Conservatives are more keen on imposing a cap, and bringing it down to 1990s levels, but that's about it. They talk tougher but they're a looong way from Arizona! And countless Labour Home Secretaries have gone out of their way to out-toughtalk the Conservatives.

Probably civil liberties is a key issue that separates Labour and Tory significantly. The Conservatives, to their credit (IMO) want to scrap the proposed ID cards system, which Labour have pressed for. However the Tories also want to repeal the Human Rights Act. I might be won around to that idea if I knew more about what they propose for the British equivalent.

The Conservatives may be - in some respects - slightly to the left of your Democrats. They have been at pains to assure us about how committed they are to tackling environmental issues, global warming, gay rights, child poverty, and so on, even if details sometimes arise to make us question this.

Both parties are committed to the National Health Service. Both claim to be committed to the future of the (licence-fee funded) BBC - though personally I don't trust that in Conservative hands.

But you're right, the Lib Dems are the most radical (relatively speaking). For instance, they would put on hold expensive plans to renew our Trident nuclear deterrent, they propose a one-off amnesty on illegal immigrants, and they strongly favour joining the single European currency, though only when the time is right, and not before consulting the British people.

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

EDIT:
Oh yes, Iraq. Lib Dems were strongly opposed to it, while Tory and Labour were for strongly for it.
Also electoral reform. Tories want to stick to FPTP that favour big parties. Labour were the same for ages, but are having something of a deathbed conversion. Lib Dem have always favoured PR.

Some more here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politi...es/default.stm

sounds like someone needs to start a new party over there! maybe i'm just being an ignorant american, but it seems like we have a much broader variety of political parties over here, that cover a broader spectrum of political ideologies.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

sounds like someone needs to start a new party over there! maybe i'm just being an ignorant american, but it seems like we have a much broader variety of political parties over here, that cover a broader spectrum of political ideologies.

Oh I don't know. We have other fairy well-known parties with very different ideologies - it's just that not many people want to vote for them, and consequently they're not viewed as part of our "big three". I'll certainly agree that our two biggest parties have become similar, both vying for the centre ground - the Tories are centre right, Labour are centre left (though die-hards of both sides will dispute the terms left and right there!), and personally I happen to like that. Perhaps Americans would see them as even more similar than we do, because to you they both appear left wing, whereas to (many of) us they at least straddle that left/right boundary. It's just that our boundary is to the left of yours. Similarly, people here often look at US politicians from your two big parties and remark on how they're both so far to the right economically that there's little choice.

If you want British parties with ideologies further to the right (and yes I realise these left/right analogies are clumsy and often inadequate), there's UKIP, the BNP and the English Democrats. It's just that the country is generally not that far to the right so they rarely get anywhere (though UKIP did surprisingly well in the European elections a while back). On the far left we have the Trade Unionist parties, Respect, the Social and Democratic Labour Party, and others. We also have the Greens who gained their first Parliamentary seat yesterday in Brighton. And other much smaller parties like the Christian ones. For those of us who live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, we have those plus our own: Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party and [Sinn Fein, DUP and others] respectively, all of which are big political forces. And the political ideologies between all these differ quite markedly.

Finally, while our current political system isn't set up to fairly represent smaller parties, around 25% of the country choose Liberal Democrat in each election, and as I mentioned, their policies are definitely more "out there" than the Tories or Labour. Understandably the Lib Dems want to change the first past the post system.

So maybe I'm wrong but I'd say, if anything, we might have a broader spectrum of political ideologies than you guys.

No teabaggers or birthers yet though.