The David Cameron Problem

[boomnoise]

He's a crafty one. The liberalisation of the Conservative party is, in my view, very dangerous.

From Hug a Hoody to today's Love a Yob, i think that these would be fantastic attitudes to harbour if i felt the man was sincere. The ruse it seems is 'get in at any cost'. Even if this means alienating hardened tories in favour of winning votes from floaters and disillusions Labour voters.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6110180.stm

To be honest i think it stinks. Cameron's realised he can't be more Tory than Labour and has resolved to be more Labour than Labour. For me this renders both parties as totally devoid of anything worthy of my democratic vote. Not that there's many options. The homogenisation of the two parties is ultimately bad for politics.

This is the most progressive the Tory's have ever been and Labour have never been so out of favour. The Lib Dems are percieved as hopeless idealists.

Where now?

I realised this isn't the normal tone of Offtopic but i think a healthy political debate on dubstepforum can only be a good thin.

Thoughts...?

[elgato]

i think he's a smarmy bastard, i dont trust a word he says, i think hes a wolf in sheep's clothing and will sneak nasty policy under a hollow smile. what does any of it mean when its so horribly false?

i echo your thoughts, i feel that this is a terrible thing for politics as a whole, unless it pushes labour back from whence they came, i.e. left. which would be very very welcome, but i have increasing doubts as brown gets closer to number 10. i thought he was going to be different given his far left youth, but the pressure of populism seems to be dragging him down, and when brought into focus with a very sorry bunch of top labour bods who have been making some very disturbing noises in the press of late, the future for labour looks increasingly bleak and reactionary

i dont have a fucking clue who im going to vote for

[drbluebeat]

I agree, the Labour Party are now more a more formiddable Conservative Party than the Tories were under Thatcher, The Conservative Party is wetter than the old Liberal Party and only has any prospects at all because people are utterly sick of Labour. It is only a two party system still and I wont vote for either of them. Even the Monster Raving Loony Party is outdone in the Loony stakes by the Liberal Social Deomcrats or whatver they are called.

Every few years I re-read Animal Farm and it remains as true as it ever was.

[Jubz]

Politics is a game of centrality these days, there are little to none discernible differences between the Tories and Labour. Politics is coming to a stage of agreement, liberal democracy has become an absolute truth, the end of history as Fukuyama put it. Im hoping the homogenisation is unsustainable and that a real challenge will emerge in the consciousness of the nation when
it becomes apparent (as I think it is) that worshipping the free market is a dangerous game for myriad reasons. I still struggle to understand where people went from viewing neo-liberal economics as just another system to an end in itself.

Rant veered offftopic there apologies.

[Jubz]

Ontopic I can only view what Cameron is doing with a cynical eye, the parties are crossing paths and I find it hard to believe anything that any of them say anymore.

[shonky]

At least in terms of my local constituency, it was good to see the Greens come in second, so hopefully if there's enough people disenfranchised with the major parties it might send out a message that there's an alternative and hopefully get the UK's first Green MP. I think there was only a 5,000 difference between the main parties so it's quite possible.

I am just massively fucked off with politicians in general - I don't see hardly any that have any urge towards anything beneficial to society - it's all quick fixes and short term goals, when we really require something far more substantial to counter the very serious problems that are approaching. The PFI is the most ridiculous idea ever and will end up costing the taxpayer plenty more money that will go directly into the private sector. As far as I'm aware all of the major parties are looking at increasing the move from the public sector into the private.

In terms of environment, all are making the right noises but none will do anything to decrease car use or air travel.

Party ideologies are a thing of the past, it's all down to what makes them most electable on a small amount of issues which will then be debated in the media ad infinitum, whilst the things that really concern people are ignored.

Cameron acts like some peace and love hippy in the same way that George Bush acts like a cowboy - it's a great way to disguise the fact that they're both from priveliged backgrounds and sucking up to big business at the expense of all else.

Cameron is modelling himself on Blair in the same way that Blair based himself on Thatcher. Pity for him that the majority of the country thinks that Blair's a tnuc.

I hear most politicians speaking these days and think that they're middle management who got lucky - on Question Time the other week, David Milliband (I think, they all start looking and sounding the same) couldn't say the word "Iraq" without the words "newly liberated, democratized" in close proximity. Do they think that people that hear this shit often enough will believe it?

Modern politics seems to have nothing but contempt for the people it supposes to serve.

[masstronaut]

Modern politics seems to have nothing but contempt for the people it supposes to serve.

When was it ever different? No, it was diffferent wasn't it, for a short while.

Two things:

1 - Modern politics does tend to attract a certain type of narcissistic, megalomaniacal, psychopathic personality. And the ones that do well are even worse.

2 - The psychology of control and public manipulation has become very advanced and effective. A party could field the smartest, most impressive, just, moral, rational, forward thinking, hard working, charismatic candidates you like, but without the huge amounts of money needed for media control, publicity and spin you don't stand a chance.

Of course the problem with manipulating the public's psychology on a mass scale is that it doesn't really work. It just fucks things up proper.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12642.htm

[shonky]

Century of the Self is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, so spot on it made me very angry after watching it. To think that something as revolutionary and beneficial as psycho-therapy and self-understanding was so quickly turned to mass manipulation is such a massive tragedy.

I'd really recommend checking out http://www.anxietyculture.com/ for information on media distortion, manipulative psychological techniques at work and in the media, and some reasoned alternatives to current economic thought (dummies guide to Buckminster Fuller is in there somewhere).

I totally agree with the mass manipulation thing - I'm sure that square pegs trying to fit into round holes (socially and psychologically speaking) breeds mental illness, disconnection and endless, deserved cynicism.

Although he made a fair share of mistakes in government, I still think Tony Benn's got a huge amount of integrity in his dealings and that seems to be what's lacking most in modern politics. He believes that democracy is not just something to gain but to be protected at all costs as it is always under threat from those that think they know best.

Current state of politics reminds me of that NERD tune Lapdance from a few years back.

While the government is soundin' like strippers to me
They keep sayin' but I don't wanna hear it

Oooh baby you want me?
Oooh baby you want me?
Oooh baby you want me?
Well you can get this lap dance here for free
Now you can get this lap dance here for free
Well you can get this lap dance here for free
Oooh baby you want me?
Now you can get this lap dance here for free

[narcossist]

Century of the Self is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, so spot on it made me very angry after watching it. To think that something as revolutionary and beneficial as psycho-therapy and self-understanding was so quickly turned to mass manipulation is such a massive tragedy.

Watched that about a year back now and remember feeling exactly the same way. Spent the next month trying to explain it freinds, relatives, colleagues etc - none of whom could be described as ignorant - with absolutely no effect. Not one person wanted to watch it, or gave a fuck as to quite how much manipulation goes/went down, yet the same folk would happily spend an hour reading Heat or Watching Deal or No deal. R U Dumb?

Sorry, thats kind of offtopic but i think it says a lot about why someone like Cameron has any kind of mass appeal and isn't simply derrided as a wet, scyophantic embarrassment.

[mos dan]

i'm not quite so concerned about DC. new labour have practised triangulation, now the tories are doing it, but the tory right have more power to ruin things for the tory leadership than the labour left have had power to ruin things for the labour leadership.

ergo, the tories will show their real colours before the next election, so people won't be utterly duped by DC, while brown will probably throw us disaffected lefties a bone or two in terms of climate change/redistribution/foreign aid... fuck knows who's gonna win though!

here's what i wrote after DC's conf. speech, fwiw:

http://dan-hancox.blogspot.com/2006/10/ ... ngton.html

[metalboxproducts]

To be honest i think it stinks. Cameron's realised he can't be more Tory than Labour and has resolved to be more Labour than Labour. For me this renders both parties as totally devoid of anything worthy of my democratic vote. Not that there's many options. The homogenisation of the two parties is ultimately bad for politics.

Thoughts...?

Yes this is true. But, doesn't it really represent the homogenisation of socioty/ culture.

[obiwan]

David Cameron is like an MC thats made it in America and used to be a raw criminal, but stopped ten years ago when their recording career took off, but still raps about the shit they were doing ten years ago like it was yesterday. Point is, it doesn't matter what her says, he'll always be a Conservative and all that that means underneath the rhetoric. he's an Etonian upper class enemy of the working classes and always will be

[shonky]

Trouble is, shit as the tories were through the 80's and 90's, Labour have done fuck all in redressing the balance. Tax credits help a bit, but in terms of erosion of civil rights and general undemocratic thinking, they're actually worse than the tories were during that time. Even the tories figured that PFI was a bad idea that would end up costing more in the long run - Labour have taken it as their raison d'etre.

Ho hum. Apathy or revolution, apathy or revolution.

Shame that the only parties representing the poor are Respect and the BNP. Can't quite choose between massive hipocracy in the former and sizan in the latter.

Not really a great argument for spreading democracy in the middle east is it?

We need a new improved Guy Fawkes methinks. Fingers crossed

[corpsey]

Politics is a game of centrality these days, there are little to none discernible differences between the Tories and Labour. Politics is coming to a stage of agreement, liberal democracy has become an absolute truth, the end of history as Fukuyama put it. Im hoping the homogenisation is unsustainable and that a real challenge will emerge in the consciousness of the nation when
it becomes apparent (as I think it is) that worshipping the free market is a dangerous game for myriad reasons. I still struggle to understand where people went from viewing neo-liberal economics as just another system to an end in itself.

Rant veered offftopic there apologies.

Fucking hell blood- that's too much

FUCK DAVID CAMERON, STICK A ROLLING PIN UP HIS CLENCHED UP ARSEHOLE YEAHSSS