I wrote this for Facebook, where the main offenders are.

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

In 1997, I heard a lot about what happened the previous time Labour had been in power. I heard, endlessly, aboud the Miners' strike and the Winter of Discontent (I still don't see Thatcher as Richard III, but that's another issue). All of that, I was promised by the scare-mongers, could be mine if only I voted Labour. This time round, I'm getting a lot of 'remember what happened last time'. Well, yes, I do remember - and I'm still terrified of John Major, sad to say. However, Cameron isn't Major and he sure as hell isn't Thatcher. I was annoyed then, and I'm just as annoyed and sceptical now.

Don't vote based on what may or may not have happened last time - vote according to the manifesto, and be prepared to be disappointed anyway (remember the 1997 Labour pledge to repeal the Criminal Justice Act (1994)? It's still law). There's plenty in the Conservative manifesto to keep me from voting for them, as it happens. Please, please vote according to what the parties actually offer.


Again, if all a party or candidate has to offer is that they're not something else, do they deserve your vote? No! I want to vote for a fairer asylum system, scrapping Trident, more windfarms, and a candidate who has served my interests well in the past. Your values may differ, your vote may vary - I don't want you to vote what's right for me, I want you to vote what's right for you. I'd like best of all for them to be the same thing, of course.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I'm confused - you were promised both another 'Miners' strike' and another 'Winter of Discontent' if you voted Labour in 1997? MS was under a Tory govt both times (1973/4 and 1984/5) and WoD (1978-9) was under the previous Labour govt - what point were the commenters trying to make?? They're all as bad as each other?

I have had an interesting time discussing the Conservative party lately. On the one hand certain people I talk to are agreeing with Clegg's 8 yo article that we shouldn't judge a country & its people on the politics of n years ago - and in the same breath they're saying that we can never trust a Tory, remember Thatcher, etc. Er, hang on - that was ~30 years ago and as you say, Cameron isn't Thatcher. He isn't even particularly similar. We aren't exactly coming out of the same environment, being lured by the same promises, nor dealing with the external factors that made Thatcherism attractive to those who supported it through the 1980s (the interaction with Reaganomics, for instance). So why assume today's party is not one whit changed from that of 1979? [Counter-argument: look at the politics. Counter-counter-argument: Yes. And see how many familiar ideas have appeared in Labour policies in the last 18 years. Better argument needed.]

[I don't vote Tory and am not likely to in the future - we can get an LD MP around here and I want that; I am just flummoxed by people's inability to see the contradiction/hypocrisy in this stance.]

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I think they were mostly very confused, or blaming the miners' strike on previous Labour governments being too 'soft' on the unions.

(completely agree with the rest, which I'm sure doesn't surprise you)

[alison-lees.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I associate Thatcher with a time of very high inflation, and very high unemployment, while I associate Major with a very serious attempt to broker peace in Northern Ireland. Incidentally, I can remember that university grants were phased out under the conservatives; I have heard people blaming that on labour.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was in the 1996 undergrad intake (my 2nd time) and my grant then was a) woefully small, as they'd been frozen for ages; and b) already supplemented with loans; and we knew the tapered decrease in grant amounts and increase in loan debt was an inescapable part of our future. By 2002 it was frightening how many people had forgotten that that didn't come in with the 1997 govt.

Re Major & NI: yes, I agree; that is the first thing I think of if asked to discuss his period in office.

[ironlord.livejournal.com]

...and I started in 1997, the last of the grant-assisted students. Those joining in 1998 were not so lucky. Top-up fees hasn't even been conceived. Of course, I have had immense fun pointing this out to all the youngsters populating university today, especially those born in the 1990s who scare the shit out of me.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

oh hai there, some of them read this LJ :p

[alison-lees.livejournal.com]

I agree with you again. Except that I also want a better rail network, which I don't suppose is in any manifesto.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

hm.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

It's in Plaid's.

[alison-lees.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected. Actually, I've not read any of the manifestos, but funnily enough, Plaid aren't standing in Oldham...

[(Anonymous)]

And of course, everyone's interpretation of what happened last time will vary based on their bias. The big thing I learned in 1997 was that none of this actually makes very much difference at all. I grew up terrified that Labour would get into power and destroy everything but when they did, sure, they threw a few spanners around and smashed some of the china, but life carried on much as before.

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

That's true. I tend to agree with your analysis.

[aldabra]

I think that somebody who is aspiring to be a Conservative prime minister now was probably a Conservative party member under Thatcher. Cameron's the same age as me, FCOL; he went to Oxford in the same year, he did the same course (I find from Wikipedia). I think that's evidence of an absence of the antipathy towards Thatcherite instincts that I had, and have; if he is reformed, he at least ought to explain how and why, but I suspect he isn't, and is at best a focus-group politician and at worst someone who thinks Thatcher is emulatable.

I just think of Major as grey and drippy; it's Thatcher I'm terrified of. But Major pre-dates Thatcherism. Cameron doesn't; Cameron joined up under Thatcher.

Like you say, they don't do the things their manifestos say, and so it does matter what their instincts are too. Anyone who enthusiastically signed up to and promoted Thatcher in the late 1980s and hasn't had a Road to Damascus moment since isn't someone I want running the country, whatever the focus groups are telling him to say at the moment.

[gerald_duck]

Trouble is, politicians lie. The manifesto is only a fairly approximate advertisement, not a true indication of what they'll do.

For example, one of the parties makes the very reasonable point that avoiding population growth is an important pillar in any strategy to control our resource usage and help prevent climate change. I'd vote for that policy… except that the party in question is the BNP so we all know how they want to avoid population growth.

That's an extreme example, but the same kind of concern plays out on a smaller scale with the more mainstream parties.

I think we have to choose based on the totality of what the parties say, both intentionally and in unguarded moments, on what they have actually done, especially in recent history, on the general character of their politicians, on how they are funded and who influences them, on how, historically, their kind of ideology has played out in circumstances such as those we expect during the lifetime of the next government.


Negative voting isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being of a small-'c' conservative bent, I can dream of a time when everything's ticking over nicely and I just want things to continue the way they are without anybody screwing it up. In such circumstances, it makes sense to vote against various things without voting for anything in particular.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I agree with this caveat: I think ghoti's point is that you should not just vote for prejudice without thinking what the party will actually do, the prime indicator of which is the manifesto. But what the party will actually do is not also has to be filtered through what you know about them, of which experience of "which things they actually mean and which things they just say" is a good indication (a good indication from RECENT behaviour, and less good the older the example is).

[alison-lees.livejournal.com]

I also have another theory that no one party should be in power for too long. I have no explanation for this, and no idea if it is true.

[sonicdrift.livejournal.com]

I've been so wanting to make a similar post for weeks. I've been tempted to give up the internet for the duration.