Politics

Election time, and it seems necessary to examine my soul and choose who to vote for.

Emotionally I'm anti-government in any form. An anarchist must compromise, however. No-one would actually want to live in a place where there was no government. So let's call me a (fairly moderate) libertarian. I think we should have borders and armies and police and courts. I'm less convinced by the idea of the state running hospitals and schools and welfare systems, but still broadly in favour.

The only issue I really care about is the environment. Although saying that, I don't actually care that much about global warming, probably because I don't understand the implications.

But I hate cars and love trees, and if any major party was of that mind, they'd get my vote.





Over the last aeon, the Labour government has pissed me off.

Here are all the reasons I can think of off the top of my head. These are just the ones I can remember. I'm sure there were loads more that I've forgotten.

In order of how boilingly angry they make me:

Iraq war. Associated lies.
Lisbon treaty. Associated lies.
Lost control of immigration.
Vote rigging.
Boundary rigging.
Corruption.
Wrecking the House of Lords.
Ludicrous anti-terrorism laws in the face of the most laughable foreign threat in British history.

Lots of really stupid new laws. Did you know that it's now illegal to look at certain cartoons? To look at them. 

New blasphemy laws!!

Raising the school leaving age to 18.

Trial without jury.
CCTV cameras.
Smoking ban.
ID Cards.
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.  
IR35.
Fox-hunting ban.
Foot and mouth slaughter.
Sold off our vast gold reserves for almost nothing.
Blew a vast hole in the budget whilst claiming to be prudent.
Pointless expansion of higher education.
Millenium Dome.

Also they're so stupid they thought they'd 'abolished boom and bust'. Or so dishonest that they claimed it knowing it was a lie.

In short I detest them and hold them in contempt. Tony Blair lied to the Parliament and to the People in order to start the Iraq war, and I would like to see him tried for treason and gutted at Tyburn in the traditional manner. I am not joking about this.



I grew up in Sheffield during the awful recession that Thatcher caused, and what I remember is not just the misery, but the hatred and the contempt and the sheer glee of the Tories as they smashed the social structure of my beloved home city. I cried in 'The Full Monty', because that's how I remember it, and funny though the film is, it's a story of utter desperation. And that's what it was like. And everywhere you looked the Tories were crowing with happiness about what they had done.

And I am going to have a very great deal of trouble ever voting for them as a result.

But even so, I prefer them to the Labour party, despite the despicable 'social right' wing of the Tory party, which is a home for racists and anti-abortionists and queer-bashers and 'christians' and hate-ridden old bastards who want to tell everyone else what to do, and whom I would very much like to die.


And then there's the Liberal Democrats. The old Liberal party was probably where my spiritual home was. But they allied with the Social Democratic phlegm that was spat out of old Labour and now they also believe in a vast state interfering with everything. And worse, they seem not to realise that the European Union is a hideous corrupt anti-democratic plot against the European peoples and want to ram their heads up its ass as speedily as humanly possible.

Also their local campaigning is frankly evil and dishonest. Did you hear the one about where they leave an old wheelie bin full of rotting stuff in your back alley and then come round with a questionnaire asking what you'd like to see changed in the neighbourhood? And if you say that you'd like someone to get rid of this eyesore they say they'll get on it. And then a bit later they come and take it away.

But on the other hand, they seem nice. And since they've never been in power and never had a chance to become corrupt, there's nothing I can actually hate them for.

Also the local Liberal candidate is the son of a don at my old college, and that is almost good enough for me on its own.


And finally the Greens. They hate cars and love trees. They are loonies, and I would die to prevent them forming a government, but they love trees and hate cars. So I would like to vote for them because then the other parties might think that there are votes in car-hating, and in tree-loving. And in their dishonest slimy calculating hypocritical way they might do some nice things for trees and maybe even some nasty things to cars. In the hope of siphoning some of those votes in their direction.




So, what to do in Cambridge?

As far as I know, it's a Liberal/Labour marginal, but it was pretty safe in the last election, and everyone seems to hate Labour much more now than they did then, for no reason I can fathom, because they don't seem any more vile than usual, and actually rather less slimy since they gave the psychopath a go instead of the oily lying one.

And Nick Clegg's debate performance has given the Liberals enough of a boost that I can risk voting for the Greens without worrying about letting the Labour filth-swine in by accident.

So that's what I'm doing.



Vote Green!