General Election 09/10: Vote Blue and Get New New Labour?
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under News, Politics, Rant, blog
I’ve always, as long as I can remember, been interested, to some degree, in politics. Today, on my much needed day off from work I’m watching the local election results come in, and unsurprisingly Labour are being absolutely trounced, although it’s currently early days.
Watching the coverage I cannot help but think about the next general election, be it this, or more likely next, year. I describe my politics on facebook as being variable, I’m very much a floating voter, in fact I’ve not voted for the same party twice so far, although I’ve only had the chance to vote three times so far in my lifetime, and never in a general election. I tend to, like most young voters, vote based on specific issues that are of personal interest/concern, for example in the just gone european election for me the main issue was the lisbon treaty, which I dislike not out of any nationalism, far from it, but out of the infringement of rights that seem to come with it.
Putting on my conspiratorial and rant hats on, I can’t help but think that the fall of Gordon Brown and the Labour Party is being purposely orchestrated to ensure that Cameron’s Tories get into power to continue the legacy of Blair’s New Labour. Treating “the public” as a mass of people which are easily manipulated it’s easy to see what is happening. Labour is being portrayed as being incompetent, so you don’t want to vote for them, the Lib Dems are seen as a wasted vote as “it’s obvious” they will never win, so people are going to flood to the Tories to demonstrate they want change without realizing they will get nothing but the same, essentially. I believe Labour and Conservatives, generally speaking, are the same thing, with minor differences that get exaggerated to make the public believe they have a choice when essentially their in fact voting for different sides of the same coin, the only real way to get change is to vote for anyone else but the main two, but unfortunately this will not happen, at least domestically, due to politics being forever framed as a battle between left and right ideologies, between a battle between Labour and Conservatives, and nothing more.
No wonder voter turn out, particularly amongst the young, drops year on year, it’s not due to a dislike of politics as far as I can see, it’s about a disenchantment with it, a feeling of “what’s the point?” The reason for this is not that people are fools, they understand what is going on, but what is damaging is apathy, a change can be made, be it through the election system or via other means, but people cannot be bothered, and it is this is rather damaging to our “liberal democratic” society.
In other news, Britain’s got talent has finished, but at least Big Brother is Back! Forget religion, Reality TV is the modern opiate of the people
Tags: Big Brother, Conservatives, Europe, Labour, New Labour, Politics, Rant, Society, Tories, UK
Should Ross and Brand pay the BBC Fine?
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Media, News, video, youtube
Firstly I’m not going to provide any primary personal opinion on this matter. However last week this topic came up on the ”banal morning guff-storm” that is The Wright Stuff and I couldn’t help but enjoy Marcus Brigstocke’s take on what is probably one of the most important issues to have arisen in the 21st century* and about the License Fee in general.
Thanks to the The Wright Stuff show providing clips on Youtube, and a bit of video cutting by myself, I have this clip of his “rant” to share with you.
*This is of course Sarcasm.
Tags: BBC, Guff Storm, Jonathan Ross, License Fee, Marcus Brigstocke, Rant, Russell Brand, The Wright Stuff
