Told you so
I quite enjoyed this little turnaround.
Dave Semple (November 2009):
Power 2010 doesn’t give people any more power than they already have. In fact it still relies upon the consent of the political class and the co-operation of the mass media in order to achieve its objectives or even present itself forcefully…….Labour or Tory could simply ignore the motion, bury it under new legislation and then blatantly fib about it, or admit their failure to meet targets as soon as no one is looking.
Guy Aitchison of Power 2010 (Feb 2010):
With the general election in sight and power within his grasp, he [Cameron] has decided to stick to this formula promising vague and cosmetic changes alongside a few populist reforms that will do nothing to address the fundamental imbalances of power in our society.
It looks like the long debates we have here and here didn’t go entirely to waste, then.
Well done, Guy, on remembering what we talked about.
Another “I told you so” moment is in Michael White’s article, that I liked to in mine entitled “Continuing the electoral reform debate”. He accuses Power 2010 of some interesting things.
How does my statement in any way concede what Dave Semple said? His point, it seems, is that any campaign for reform which relies on elite consent is ultimately doomed. My point is that Cameron is offering superficial reforms (like reducing the number of MPs by 10%) that won’t redistribute power; this doesn’t entail the view that no such reforms are possible or that our campaign is failing.
Nice try re Michael White – see the comments on his thread for our reply to him.
Quite right Guy; I said no such campaign would work – all you are conceding is that yours hasn’t. Leagues apart.
I’m not going to track back to the CiF comment section – usually bad for my health. Be interested to know what your response was if you’ve got it to hand / can summarize it.
The jist was: none of the results of the Deliberative Poll were ‘downplayed’, the results are all available online and were sent to every media outlet – including the Guardian. Indeed, we highlighted that parliamentary reforms – similar to those in the Wright Committee report – were the most popular in a letter to the Guardian which White wrote about.
And the results showed that the more people learned about AV the less they liked it. A proportional voting system was the preferred choice of participants.
Living in a marginal constituency in Kent, with really only the choice of Labour and Conservative and watching Brown performing so much better than I expected but not seeming to have much in the way of socialist intent while Cameron’s cuts scare the hell out of most of the capitalists I know I am beginning wonder if a Labour or a Conservative vote would best serve the socialist cause at this time.
You have to appreciate that my affiliations are neither left nor right and for me the ballot box is always about selecting the lesser of the available evils, but here in Kent the stranglehold of Conservative local government is becoming of even more concern to me than the shape of national government.
Realistically the only way this will ever get broken is by having an unpopular Conservative government at the time of the local elections, as whoever gets elected seems likely to have to hand out the nasty medicine I am interested to know who you think would be best to do this.
Not to be too simplistic, but Tory cuts always aim to be the worst, regardless of who they scare.
Labour’s attack on worker’s benefits is bad, and the worst aspect is that it’s confusing politically, meaning clarity is never more important from the rest of the Left. But the cuts rarely bite so deep, and the restrictions are rarely so stringent.
Dave I am always a little reticent about commenting here as I feel that I may get into intellectual deep water that I can’t easily navigate out of, but I believe you live in Kent too and I am not certain I understand your answer.
Do you think at this time a Labour vote will serve us best in Kent?
Perhaps I should be thinking of the country as a whole, but in the secrecy of the ballot I feel my self-interest may surface, perhaps yours too.
I do live in Kent – and I believe a Labour vote serves us best, yes. I always vote in terms of self-interest. It’s my view that the concept of ‘the nation’ is insufficient as a lens through which to view politics. And my self-interest dictates a vote for Labour.
Ah but there is the nub of the thing for me I voted Labour at the lat two nationals and with a young family it has served my self interest, but now I find I am considering voting Conservative for purely tactical reasons.
So the question for you is would you never vote Conservative even if locally it would be likely to further the cause of the Labour party?
Democracy is a funny thing and I can only face it undecided, if I had only voted the same way in every election I wouldn’t feel I was taking part.
Oh and thanks for the straight answer.
I don’t foresee that voting Conservative will ever help the Labour Party.
Tactical voting is when you vote for a likely-to-win candidate rather than your ‘own’ (in the sense of what you usually vote for) because there’s someone you want to stop getting in.
What you are proposing is different.
Keeping the Tories in doesn’t hurt their reputation; it gives them more time to pursue their agenda. Now you might think that this will simply stoke up more resentment, but the reality is that if their agenda is pushed through it ends up wrecking the confidence of the Labour movement for several elections.
So what you actually get is several Conservative terms, rather than the results yielded by patiently building up Labour’s core, organising the local unions, halting the agenda of the Tory council and actually doing the things which matter most to people; advocating for high quality services, keeping the council tax down for those with little money and so on.