A few months ago I had a small disagreement with someone whose blog I really like and respect (http://jjbeazley.blogspot.com/ ) about voting. I was decrying people who don't vote, and I think (as far as I can remember - it was a while ago) he told me to wait until I was older and I might feel differently. He said that he doesn't vote because he felt there wasn't anyone worth voting for. Well, I think I understand a bit of where he was coming from. I am losing my faith in politics and it scares me. What if I get to 18 - only 10 months away - and I don't want to vote for anyone because each political party is as downright awful as the next.
I can't, I can't, I can't bring myself to imagine voting Labour. I may agree with some things they say but others are so contradictory to my views that I know I would not be able to vote for them with my conscience in tact. I don't and I don't think I'll ever support Trade Unions, for example, and so to vote for a party with such a link to them feels against my better principles. And it was partly them who put the country into the dire economic straights it is in now, and has meant the present government have to make such awful cuts now.
I have always thought I'd vote Conservative, but suddenly I feel let down by them. I don't give a fuck what David Cameron might say - he's squeezing the middle in all the places where it will hurt me and my family most. I feel betrayed by the decisions they are inevitably going to make about University - they are short sighted and mad. I don't like that they are investing more money into science and maths and are bringing the arts and humanities to their knees. As Benedict Cumberbatch said at the rally/conference thing to save the Arts Council - the NHS saves lives but it's the arts that enrich them. The government actually put more money into the arts during the war because they understood the importance of culture in dark times. And I think the Academy scheme is fucking ridiculous - my awful Grammar school is going to be the first in my county. All they will do is marginalise the humanities and continue with the elitism among science students. A little part of me wonders, too, whether private school boys who have grown up in a privileged little bubble can really understand the problems facing me?
And, Jesus. Don't even get me started on the Lib Dem's. Principles? Standards? Shame? Do they have any? I think it's clear what the answer to that is.
I'm sorry. This is not coherent and I've sworn too much. And I'm sorry if I misquoted you, JJ Beazley.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
11 May 2010
Actually, scratch that.
"Not what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities."
Total rip off "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country," but I still liked it a lot. I completely stand by that.
[We're watching it one Fox News, cuz we love America, and they've just commented that Samantha Cameron is "great with child." WHO SAYS THAT?! The Americans... they say that.]
Total rip off "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country," but I still liked it a lot. I completely stand by that.
[We're watching it one Fox News, cuz we love America, and they've just commented that Samantha Cameron is "great with child." WHO SAYS THAT?! The Americans... they say that.]
Hey, David Cameron.
So, after days of not really having a government, we now have a coallition.
David Cameron is now our Prime Minister (a man who may be the poshest man in the country) and Nick Clegg is his deputy (he could well be the deputy poshest man). So, can a posh man who has been to Eton and Oxford and been a member of The Bullingdon Club and accepted honoury membership to The Carlton Club, which still does not allow women members represent me?
Do you know what, I don't think he can. This evening I have talked myself out of supporting the Conservatives with a man like David Cameron at the the head.
I want Gordon Brown back, who didn't go to a private school and who isn't Oxbridge educated. I think he knows what I want more than David Cameron does.
I have a lot of love for Gordon Brown right now - actually I have always said how I like him and thought he really cared about the country. Okay, he wasn't the best PM but he damn well wasn't the worst. He had really crappy situations to deal with. He wasn't smarmy and he didn't spend a load of time kissing the arses of the public, but it's shit that that means he wasn't liked. Yeah, okay, he looked odd when he smiled. Big frigging woop. He's a politician, not a page 3 girl. He was serious about his job. But he did mess things up. I think the economy is partly down to him, as he had been the Chancellor who claimed to have abolished boom and bust.
UGH. I don't know what to think about anyone. I am just distracted by David Cameron's I've-had-servants-all-my-life-what-the-hell-is-a-dishwasher babyface. It makes me distrust him.
David Cameron is now our Prime Minister (a man who may be the poshest man in the country) and Nick Clegg is his deputy (he could well be the deputy poshest man). So, can a posh man who has been to Eton and Oxford and been a member of The Bullingdon Club and accepted honoury membership to The Carlton Club, which still does not allow women members represent me?
Do you know what, I don't think he can. This evening I have talked myself out of supporting the Conservatives with a man like David Cameron at the the head.
I want Gordon Brown back, who didn't go to a private school and who isn't Oxbridge educated. I think he knows what I want more than David Cameron does.
I have a lot of love for Gordon Brown right now - actually I have always said how I like him and thought he really cared about the country. Okay, he wasn't the best PM but he damn well wasn't the worst. He had really crappy situations to deal with. He wasn't smarmy and he didn't spend a load of time kissing the arses of the public, but it's shit that that means he wasn't liked. Yeah, okay, he looked odd when he smiled. Big frigging woop. He's a politician, not a page 3 girl. He was serious about his job. But he did mess things up. I think the economy is partly down to him, as he had been the Chancellor who claimed to have abolished boom and bust.
UGH. I don't know what to think about anyone. I am just distracted by David Cameron's I've-had-servants-all-my-life-what-the-hell-is-a-dishwasher babyface. It makes me distrust him.
6 May 2010
X.
I have twenty minutes before this post becomes not-voting day, and therefore void as a who-I-would-have-voted-for-if-I-wasn't-only-16 post.
Not a big fan of David Cameron. Not at all. I think he is a bit too posh and a bit too baby-faced. As a Prime Minister I would much rather have someone like Gordon Brown, who looks serious and as if her really, really cares about the country. Nick Clegg - I thought he did well in the debates but I can give or take him.
But.
I would have voted for the Conservative Party, partly because their policies most closely match mine, and partly because the man who is running in our area was a rather good and convincing speaker when all the representitives came to speak at our school. Also, he comes from what is deemed a 'minority background' and I feel that MP's in parliament need to be more representitive of the general public - more women, more young candidates and less of the white-midddle class sterotype. I don't like Labour's policies on taxation and I do feel that they have had 13 years in power in which they could have made the changes they now advocate. And I would not support the Lib Dem's because I do not want to go on the euro.
Maybe, altruistically, the best result for me would be a hung parliament/minority government that could hang on for 2 and a bit years untill I'm 18. That would be nice...
I'm off to watch more election coverage. Night!
Not a big fan of David Cameron. Not at all. I think he is a bit too posh and a bit too baby-faced. As a Prime Minister I would much rather have someone like Gordon Brown, who looks serious and as if her really, really cares about the country. Nick Clegg - I thought he did well in the debates but I can give or take him.
But.
I would have voted for the Conservative Party, partly because their policies most closely match mine, and partly because the man who is running in our area was a rather good and convincing speaker when all the representitives came to speak at our school. Also, he comes from what is deemed a 'minority background' and I feel that MP's in parliament need to be more representitive of the general public - more women, more young candidates and less of the white-midddle class sterotype. I don't like Labour's policies on taxation and I do feel that they have had 13 years in power in which they could have made the changes they now advocate. And I would not support the Lib Dem's because I do not want to go on the euro.
Maybe, altruistically, the best result for me would be a hung parliament/minority government that could hang on for 2 and a bit years untill I'm 18. That would be nice...
I'm off to watch more election coverage. Night!
23 Mar 2010
VOTEVOTEVOTE.
This is one of my 'things'. I am so passionate about this, I got up and made a speech about the importance of voting and why I think we should bring in compulsary turnout to my English Lit class. I repeat that speech to adults who tell me that they don't vote.
In the last 2005 General Election only 61% of people on the electoral register chose to vote. Logically, it should follow that only 61% of people have the right to complain about the government, and yet I'm wiling to bet 100% of people in this country have sat at home criticising the Prime Minister at one point or another.
And there is nothing wrong with that. We have the right to free speech in this country, which is a brilliant thing, except that not everyone chooses to use it. The voting public have a responsibilty to to have their vote counted - and it should be considered as important to the harmonious and succesful running of society as paying taxes. Our country is a democracy, and to form a proper democracy everyone needs to have their say. Some will say a democracy is one where people can chose whether or not to vote, but to have 'equality of rights and privellges', everyone's voices must be heard and their votes must be counted.
Compulasary turnout has been working succesfully in the functioning democracy of Australia since 1924. There, voting has increased from 47% to 96% and the general public (particularly youth) are highly politicised. To complain that politicians do not 'do anything for me' is unfair when we are not doing anything for them either. How can they respond to us if we don't care enough to tell them what we want them to do? How can they represent us if we are too apathetic to be represented?
You tell me you don't know what any of the parties stand for - go onto the internet, look in a newspaper, ask your local MP. It's really not that difficult to find out that the Conservatives want to intoduce a United Kingdom Soverignity Bill that would keep ultimate authority within our parliament, and not Europes. The Lib Dem's, meanwhile, want to immerse ourselves in the EU, because there is 'safety in numbers'. Labour would like to form blanket policy with the EU on economy and climate change. They also want to reform the Common Agricultural Policy to improve farming.
That's just one issue. The aims of these parties do differ.
And, I do hate to bring this up, but people fought and died for our right to vote. Suffragettes were reduced to inhuman creatures by force-feeding in goals. In Afghanistan, people literally risk their lives to vote. And some of them do die.
So, if you're reading this, and you can vote but you don't, please do think about it. It is such an important thing - and your vote does count.
In the last 2005 General Election only 61% of people on the electoral register chose to vote. Logically, it should follow that only 61% of people have the right to complain about the government, and yet I'm wiling to bet 100% of people in this country have sat at home criticising the Prime Minister at one point or another.
And there is nothing wrong with that. We have the right to free speech in this country, which is a brilliant thing, except that not everyone chooses to use it. The voting public have a responsibilty to to have their vote counted - and it should be considered as important to the harmonious and succesful running of society as paying taxes. Our country is a democracy, and to form a proper democracy everyone needs to have their say. Some will say a democracy is one where people can chose whether or not to vote, but to have 'equality of rights and privellges', everyone's voices must be heard and their votes must be counted.
Compulasary turnout has been working succesfully in the functioning democracy of Australia since 1924. There, voting has increased from 47% to 96% and the general public (particularly youth) are highly politicised. To complain that politicians do not 'do anything for me' is unfair when we are not doing anything for them either. How can they respond to us if we don't care enough to tell them what we want them to do? How can they represent us if we are too apathetic to be represented?
You tell me you don't know what any of the parties stand for - go onto the internet, look in a newspaper, ask your local MP. It's really not that difficult to find out that the Conservatives want to intoduce a United Kingdom Soverignity Bill that would keep ultimate authority within our parliament, and not Europes. The Lib Dem's, meanwhile, want to immerse ourselves in the EU, because there is 'safety in numbers'. Labour would like to form blanket policy with the EU on economy and climate change. They also want to reform the Common Agricultural Policy to improve farming.
That's just one issue. The aims of these parties do differ.
And, I do hate to bring this up, but people fought and died for our right to vote. Suffragettes were reduced to inhuman creatures by force-feeding in goals. In Afghanistan, people literally risk their lives to vote. And some of them do die.
So, if you're reading this, and you can vote but you don't, please do think about it. It is such an important thing - and your vote does count.
This place is made of our votes.
22 Mar 2010
I'm going to have your baby -
- just in time for the election, it appears.
Yes, Samantha Cameron is pregnant. Good timing? Good luck? Good PR? I'm cynical, I suppose, but I do have a feeling this was very well-timed (or at the very least well-released). Fits right in with Mr David I'm-a-family-man Cameron's image.
Interestingly, I wonder if it might just lose him votes. You know, new Father - up at all times of the night, lack of sleep, post-pregnancy hormonal wife...
Except, of course it won't. Because people don't assume these things will affect a new-father at all. MEN are NEVER asked at job interviews whether or not they plan on having children soon. Now, I'm not opposed to women being asked this question (within reason), but I see no reason men of a 'certain age' shouldn't be asked it too.
Well, as I am a politically aware 16 year old who is longing to vote in the election, and will therefore be theoretically casting my vote along with eligible people, this is something which will go into my considerations.
Oh, and, congratulations and all that.
Yes, Samantha Cameron is pregnant. Good timing? Good luck? Good PR? I'm cynical, I suppose, but I do have a feeling this was very well-timed (or at the very least well-released). Fits right in with Mr David I'm-a-family-man Cameron's image.
Interestingly, I wonder if it might just lose him votes. You know, new Father - up at all times of the night, lack of sleep, post-pregnancy hormonal wife...
Except, of course it won't. Because people don't assume these things will affect a new-father at all. MEN are NEVER asked at job interviews whether or not they plan on having children soon. Now, I'm not opposed to women being asked this question (within reason), but I see no reason men of a 'certain age' shouldn't be asked it too.
Well, as I am a politically aware 16 year old who is longing to vote in the election, and will therefore be theoretically casting my vote along with eligible people, this is something which will go into my considerations.
Oh, and, congratulations and all that.
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