Quote:
Tony Blair: The guy's a big-time lefty.
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Lol! You americans wouldn't know a lefty if it jumped up and nationalised your public services! To you guys a 'lefty' is someone who suggests that just maybe, sometimes, in some extreme theoretical circumstances, it might be reasonable to suggest that perhaps government money might legitimately be used to assist sick people who can't afford to see a doctor. Anyone further left than that is a rabid communist and should be shot.
Our traditional political spectrum has your 'lefties' beyond our mainstream right wing and our 'lefties' as proper socialists: Renationalise the trains, the hospitals, all that. The posh toffs of the tory party were the right wing (yah, boo, hiss) and working class trade unionists of Labour were on the left. The intellectual liberals were piggy in the middle (and they never got to catch the ball).
Over the last 10 years Blair has pulled his so called 'labour' party further right than the tories! Our leftmost party now (disregarding the minority fringie parties) is the liberal party, which *used* to be the dead centre ground. There is no longer a true, large scale socialist party in this country, which leaves a powerful vacuum waiting to be filled.
On the other hand, Blair has dragged our entire political stage so far right (based on some US model, as far as I can see) that now people are starting to wonder if the right wing UKIP party (or, as I like to call them, the "I'm not racist BUT..." party) are the 'true' voice of modern Britain. Even the BNP (the 'let's beat up all the black people and deport them to Africa' party) are winning votes.
Me? I've given up on the lot of them. I don't believe in policy any more, since politicians state their policies before the elections, then promptly do the exact opposite of what they promised, grab all the cash out of the public purse and blow it on whores, wars and big expensive cars. I might just about vote liberal next time, since they haven't been in power yet so I feel they ought to be given a chance to (dis)prove themselves before I give up on democracy altogether, stop voting, stop paying taxes and turn anarchist.
We all talk so smugly about our "democracies" in threads like these but when was the last time *your* duly elected representative actually served the will of the people rather than their own interests? Democracy is a scam.