Something to discuss on a quiet Sunday. One thing has become clear over the last few months since the Election and no I don’t mean how evil the Tories are, we knew that beforehand. What I am talking about is that Labour as a political party and the opposition are effectively useless for a decade. Even if they find a new leader likely to bring back the voters it is going to take until the election after next before they are a viable force in British politics. The incompetent party are utterly un-trusted on so many things and in so many areas that only the most diehard of supporters are still with them. Not intending to insult those who are still Labourites but you lot have got one hell of a job ahead of you trying to repair the damage that the party as a whole has done to itself this century. Then there are the Lib Dems. Who you ask, those people with the yellow rosettes, you remember them, the lot that can get all of their MPs in the same mini bus with room to spare if it’s a 12 seater. The coalition with the Tories has left them with such a stain on their image that it will be a generation before anyone except their most diehard supports will bother voting Lib Dem. So as I see it Labour aren’t going to be back as a viable force until 2025 and the Lib Dems may be back as an effective power in parliament somewhere around 2035 or maybe 2030. I could be wrong, things may have changed significantly by the election in 2020. Labour and the Lib Dems could be chasing the Tories out of power in five years. Nope! Can’t see it myself. As much as people may hate the Tories, who do they vote for? So ten more years of the Tories. Presuming that we don’t have a rebellion or civil war as parts of the country basically decide enough is enough and outright stand against the Tyranny of the South East and its ruling Lords the Tory government. But that’s fairly unlikely because of the slow pace of the oppression and the changes. Humans are very much designed to live in the present, the future is a fuzzy dream and the past is something the old men and women talk about down the pub. Back in my day they say, back when things were better. For the most part as much as people complain about low salaries and no pay rises and ever increasing costs they don’t really remember how things were a decade ago when their real spending power was much higher. People become used to less as long as it’s done slowly, a take away every week becomes three times a month then twice a month then the end of month treat when you get paid. But while you may remember it intellectually you don’t emotionally understand what you have lost unless it happens quickly. So one take away a month becomes the norm and you don’t miss the time, years ago when you could afford one a week. You change your shopping, cheaper items, less of this and more of that because that costs less or lasts longer. Less brand names and more supermarkets own. So people forget the past other than the old folk muttering about it, they live in the present. Four years of pay caps and benefit freezes are harsh and people are rightly worried but because next year the effect will be small people will cope, then the year after its another small drop so people manage. Four years from now people will mutter about the old days but that will be it. The anger needed to actually rise up and lynch the Tories simply will not be there unless the Tories are stupid enough to rush their Austerity enforced policy of a return to medieval inequalities and end up provoking people. Which I don’t see them doing unless they are absolutely confident they can crush any uprising, which they can’t, but they are both Tories and Politicians so arrogance comes as standard. All of this means that we are left without any effective opposition in parliament for a Decade or more, in effect we will become a single party system. Our political system finally reduced to the third world level of Dictatorial repression that it has been heading towards for years. Now people call me paranoid, and crazy, but consider how much worse the Tories have been in the few months that they have ruled alone compared to how bad things were with a stronger Labour party and a large Lib Dem presence in Coalition. This is after a few months of the Tories not being opposed by either Labour OR the Lib Dems. Imagine how bad things will be a few years from now. Imagine all those people who have spent years without benefits because they are eighteen this year or become eighteen over the next year or two. All those people under 25 who will be struggling with wages further and further behind just because they had the misfortune to be born too late. All those people who are managing on less every year because Austerity is transferring ever larger sums of money from the poor to the rich. Not a pretty picture is it. This is UKplc as a one party state, Orwell could right a sequel to 1894 simply by sitting in a random high street and asking people about their lives in 2018 or 2019. So we need an opposition, we desperately need a power block in parliament to hold back the Tories, not only to restrain them but to roll back where possible the worst Tory policies and hopefully restore some of the rights and freedoms such as privacy that we used to enjoy. But where do we find an opposition. The First Past the Post system is deliberately designed to prevent anyone other than the Tories or Labour getting into government and Labour are out, UKIP had a LOT of votes but the deck is so stacked against them they got one whole MP. The greens got a lot of votes but again that stacked deck was against them and they have one MP. In fact the only coherent block of MPs standing against the government is from Scotland, the SNP. Can the SNP become the actual opposition, right now they are doing the job but they don’t have the numbers to block the Tories alone and the tradition opposition parties are off in the wilderness so please leave a message. Can the SNP get big enough to take over as the opposition, where would they pick up another 100 to 150 MPs from, after all they have almost all the Scottish MPs already. Well that would be the rest of the UK. No I’m not insane, actually I am but that’s a different problem. The Scottish Nationalist Party is almost universally called the SNP, just like banks and companies who have dropped their names and just use their initials. After all who thinks of RBS as a bunch of Scottish bankers rather than just another bunch of money grabbing city scumbags. This may seem odd, bizarre even, but how often after the election (or before) did we hear people say they wished they could vote SNP but they were in the north of England, or the midlands or the west. The SNP say they are not trying to tear apart the union, can anyone think of a better way to demonstrate this than by standing MPs south of the border. There are already stories about how the SNP are getting involved down here, why not make it a formal arrangement and at the same time weaken the constant Tory attacks against them about them being anti union and anti Britain. Let’s face it, after a 20 year old stood up in Parliament and gave a speech like that can anyone who isn’t a raving Tory or Labour fanatic honestly say that the SNP don’t come across well as being where Labour used to be a few decades ago before they turned into red Tories. So can the SNP actually stand as the opposition party in 2020, can they get enough support in the old Labour regions of the north and the midlands, can they get the votes of the people who fled Labour and the Lib Dems and instead voted Tory because they felt the Nasty party was promising to support them when the red and yellow dumped them in the political gutters. Right now they have the charisma to try and if they build contacts and support they could give it a go at the next election. But would they want to? A strong union would benefit Scotland as much as the rest of Britain and SNP MPs representing the North, the Midlands or some of our largest cities would give a voice to many who feel that they have no voice anymore. I suspect if they are willing to try they would draw back a lot of ex labour voters, IF they can overcome the massive campaign of hate directed at them by Westminster and the Media and if they do actually care about the voters rather than turn out to be just another cynical self serving political party to join the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems. But having listened to the maiden speech of a young woman who exemplifies the passion and courage of so many of our young people I don’t think they will. The SNP have demonstrated that they can talk to and speak for millions of people who deserve a voice but are denied one because they are too young to be of interest to the ConLabLib foggies. In a few years every person in the UK under 25 is going to flock to a party that gives them a voice in the opposition against the Tories. If the SNP can give them that voice and bring out the disfranchised voters who will not get involved when their only choice is Nasty, Incompetent or Inconsequential then we could be looking at a political landslide. A seismic shock that will change British politics for generations to come. The SNP managed to bring out many voters who had given up on old fashioned politics just as the Yes / No campaign attracted interest and involvement in numbers completely unheard of for mainstream politics. Could the SNP overtake Labour as the party of the people? Well the seat is empty; Labour left it and wandered off years ago so it’s up for grabs. Would they want to, that I can’t answer, maybe if someone knows any of the SNP leaders they could ask if the SNP intends to become a party for all the people of Britain or just those north of the border. I and I suspect many others would be interested in the answer to that question. |
1 Comment
Hussain Shafiei
19/7/2015 12:08:41 am
I believe we may see a big swing to the left of and socialism when the house of cards that this false economy of the Tories is based on and economic fundamentals hits Gideon squarely in the face. Jeremy Corbyn offers a honest politics and he will bring our country back from the scum serving Tories attitudes soon.
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