(no subject)

[chess]

First, a practical thing: does anyone know much about chiropody in Cambridge? I appear to have ingrowing toenails which keep being ingrowing again after I attack them viciously with toenail-cutting implements, and I'd like to find someone competent to work out what's gone wrong, but I don't really know how to go about this without it costing lots of money.

Second, http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/ is a very good website, and reminds me why I am distinctly puzzled how otherwise perfectly nice people can vote Tory, given their vast preference for the 'hanging/flogging' and 'free market' end of the scale. The free market is not very nice (it promotes inequality which makes people resentful, it means some people starve whilst others live in luxury, it is *not very nice*) and punishing criminals rather than trying to rehabilitate them is also not very nice. I probably have more cogent arguements why each is a bad idea, but fundamentally I object to them because they are Not Very Nice.

Thirdly, it's springtime and sunny, but everything still feels and tastes like dust and ashes to me. I just walked out of church this morning and went home because I felt I was harming the important things that were going on there (lots of prayer for the summer mission and some people going out to do primary healthcare stuff in rural India) just by being there. I'm not really sure what's wrong; I just have that big cloak of cobwebs back.

Comments

[leisaie.livejournal.com]

I thought Tories were conservative, though? Kerry's a liberal, albeit a poor one. Or perhaps my dichotomy of liberal and conservative is too Americanised.

[chess]

The Conservative Party are on about the same wavelength as the Democrats. There are no left-wing parties in America; the Republicans are also represented in the Conservatives, but most of the Tories have more centerist leanings than them.

The Labour Party used to be a left-wing opposition gradually dragging itself up from strict communism but in order to get into power a little while ago decided to steal all of the Conservative Party's policies. Blair is basically a neo-conservative as far as Britain understands them, and is in line with basically all the Democrat policies, with the addition of knowing how to make a speech.

The Liberal Democrats used to be the centerists, but now they are the leftists; they actually say 'we shall raise taxes to increase public services, we believe that income tax is a Good Thing and obviously fairer than all of these other taxes that the governments have been sneaking in because they're less obvious so we're going to consolodate on that, mmkay?'

[leisaie.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks, it makes more sense now. Are Tories and Labour the only parties with a real chance?

Labour does sound a lot like American Democrats, who used to be the solidarity-forever-workers-rights party. I would say that the biggest difference between Democrats and Republicans here is that the Republican Party has a definite right wing and the Democrats have a definite left. Neither is a majority, though the Republican mainstream is creeping slowly right. Instead of retaliating by leaning further left, the Democrats are creeping after the Republicans.

Kerry was actually a very poor middle-class leader. He's quite wealthy and came off as elitist to most of red-blooded America. But he's dead on with the fluff.

[chess]

The Liberal Democrats like to think they have a chance at every election, and can get up to 20% of the vote; unfortunately first-past-the-post then converts this into not very many seats.

[chess]

Blair is a good Democrat. He is not very good as the head of the party who was traditionally heavily into state ownership of the means of production and good working conditions for the common working man. He masterminded Labour's rise to victory by stealing most of the Tories' policies and implementing them in a half-hearted fashion. He embodies what we see from the Democrats; 'yes, we know everyone likes less tax and free-market economics and moral values, and we can be less obnoxious about them than the other guys'.

Kerry would be an excellent Tory leader because the Tories stand for middle-class values and Kerry seems to us to be very non-threatening, which is the kind of thing that the Tories could do with more of - they work best when they're fluffy.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

Kerry is an honest, and exceptionally able, liberal politician. There aren't many around - in Britain the Conservatives have one, Oliver Letwin; the Liberals have one, Simon Hughes, and Labour has one, Frank Field. He'd make a wonderful Prime Minister. He'd have made an excellent President. *sighs*

There hasn't been a true liberal in power in England or America since Johnson (in Britain, arguably since Asquith, although you could make claims about Lloyd George (disqualified on "politician's politician" grounds), Chamberlain (comes closest), Heath (disqualified on uselessness) or Thatcher (disqualified on grounds of appointing Willie Whitelaw as Home Secretary).