Friday 3 April 2015

Quote Of The Day

I thought the following quote rather wonderfully summed up the current mood on the general election campaign and the leaders' debates. This from a fellow Swindon Town fan:
Well, this leaders debate hasn't really helped much in revealing the best candidate has it.

You've got the self serving rich boy party, the racist party, the liar party, the tree hugging party, the hi-de-hi party, the braveheart party, and the 'not even the best Milliband' party.

Meh.
Quite.

17 comments:

  1. Very good descriptions, however the "liar party" should not really be limited to just the yellow party, also "the tree hugging party is applicable to far more than the green one"

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    1. Yes, there's certainly a lot of overlap, for me though the comment sums up the current frustrations rather neatly over the lack of choice.

      Personally speaking for the first time in my life I've no idea who to vote for.

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    2. Pretty much the same boat as me. Im wondering whether its best to keep the "turnout" figure down by just not going, or to lower the "percentage of votes cast" by spoiling. Though its not the first time i have faced that dilemma, i had it for the PCC elections too.

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    3. I'm in two minds. I didn't vote in the PCC elections on principle, same as the EU elections. A low turnout has more of an impact than spoiled ballots albeit it's a marginal one.

      It's a difficult call - with the GE I feel I have to vote or at least turn up to the polling booth, what to do though when I get there however is a different matter.

      I'm actually cogitating voting for the Greens. There's method in my madness :-)

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    4. I have always turned up to a GE, I have moved between Con/UKIP/Independent/spoil, i have always turned up though. It just would not somehow seem right if i did not do that bit.

      Not that it has ever mattered - I live in a "safe Labour" area, and Labour are a party for which i have never voted. Always nice to know that every vote you have ever made has not mattered a jot, other than maybe to lower the majority of the labour candidate by 1. :o)

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  2. Which one is Farage (or UKIP) meant to be? I ask as the son of a foreign refugee, and someone who (because of these dire alternatives) can now only vote UKIP or nothing.

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    1. Given UKIP's obsession with immigration and the very unfortunate tone in language I would guess he means UKIP is the "racist party".

      I posted this as an example of someone who may vote to leave the EU but is put off by the uncompromising language of the only (supposedly) anti-EU party standing.

      In other words we'll lose a referendum.

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    2. Hitchens also thinks that we'll lose a referendum, because the people can be gulled. It won't be UKIP's policies or presentation that lose it, but the combined might of established parties and their media access. Look at what happened to the 2011 referendum on AV. And how the oft-repeated lie that trying to control economic immigration is the same as disliking foreigners - a technique well borrowed from Goebbels.

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  3. I feel that not voting is a betrayal of my forefathers who have fought for political freedom for a thousand years and more.
    And yet...
    Maybe Hancock was right about Magna Carta.
    She did die in vain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZosqiJISs

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    1. You're right... and the process of voting doesn't always mean democracy. The key question is whether we can hold the government to account or - more accurately - have the ability to throw them out of office.

      I will attend the polling station in the spirit of your comment but I can't yet decide what to do when I'm there. I'm reminded of Ronald Regan's quote:

      Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

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    2. There is a problem with that. At the moment there is no good option. There are very bad and there are even worse options, but there is no good one.
      That is not freedom, that is not what blood was shed for. The very system is the problem, and the system is forcing you to prop it up, by voting for the least worst. the system as it stands is the problem.
      As the old saying goes "a hobsons choice is no choice at all". Nor is being allowed to select which bullet you want to be shot in the head with" something to be relished. The system has shown it cant be changed from the inside, its designed to protect itself.
      so "whilst she did not die in vain, she is on life support and she certainly will die in vain unless we do something about it pretty damned quick"

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  4. We have an independent candidate standing for Fylde. I'll vote for the UKIP candidate if it seems that he can beat the Tory clown, otherwise the independent gets my vote.

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    1. Congrats for getting your comment put on . I did not get past the BF moderator . free speech is a wonderful thing when it is allowed !

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  5. I'd question whether there was a 'best' Miliband - but at gunpoint I'd rather choose the one we have already rather than the Uber-Blairite. The one across the water is even more extreme pro-EU than Ed.

    Other than that, the sentiment is fair - there's nobody to vote 'for'. So I'm voting 'against'.

    Recent comments via Vince Cable and Clegg more or less show that a Conservative Referendum within Coalition will be fatally pre-rigged at inception - we already knew it would be, but now we can hear the cockroaches scurrying in the open. It seems the LibDems will agree (at a high price*) to a Referendum, but Cameron will be compelled to lead the 'In' Campaign, and should the Referendum record an 'Out' vote, the LibDems will then withdraw from the Coalition and precipitate a vote of Confidence - even Redwood concedes there will be no majority in the HoC next time round for an EU withdrawal. The Referendum Well thus has already been poisoned. Voting for Cameron on the basis of his EU mirage is rendered a self-harming vote.

    (* ...so a poisoned, pre-rigged Referendum is too high a price to permit the LibDems any form of permanent and irreversible advantage).

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  6. Sums it all up nicely - although I'd describe UKIP as xenophobic rather than racist. Labour's spot on!

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  7. And if there be a referendum, it too will be rigged. Just as it was rigged in 1975 based upon FUD that was fed to the electorate back then. Nothing changes. As a colleague said to me back in 1964: "If voting changed anything - they'd ban it". We are collectively held in a scam that perpetuates the governing network, no matter what flag at the staff, the ship remains on the same course. Would that we could change it!

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  8. I see my comment did not get past the BoilingF moderator .
    Free speech is not to be had even on a small "openhanded " (LOL) blog like this . Frogs do have very thin skin i suppose .

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