UK Politics: Backbenchers to the front!

[polishgenius]

I find it weird how our politics are apparently moving in the opposite direction to the US, but in a manner that concerns me equally. There, both parties are shifting further and further in their respective directions and one must either conform to their side's increasingly radicalised political genotype or face a political death, whereas here all parties are losing any semblance of identity or basic defining principles in increasingly confused cross-spectrum lurches motivated by desperate grabs for voter approval.

[Werthead]

I find it weird how our politics are apparently moving in the opposite direction to the US, but in a manner that concerns me equally. There, both parties are shifting further and further in their respective directions and one must either conform to their side's increasingly radicalised political genotype or face a political death, whereas here all parties are losing any semblance of identity or basic defining principles in increasingly confused cross-spectrum lurches motivated by desperate grabs for voter approval.

This is because of a fundamental difference between the two nations. In the USA, the voting base is much more predisposed to vote for one of the two parties. People much more identify as Democrats for life or Republicans for life. Sure, we have the same here, but it's on a smaller scale. The centre in US politics, the swing voters, seem to be a much smaller part of the population and less critical. In US elections the critical thing is mobilising the base for each party and minimising apathy and people not being bothered to vote on the other side. Obama's victories may be seen as a both the result of a successful mobilisation of the Democrat base and the internal divisions within the Republicans leading to Republicans not bothering to vote out of apathy due to the lameness of their own candidates and their own internal divisions, such as moderates vs. tea partiers and so on (and the reverse was true for Bush's victories, helped by a healthy dose of wartime patriotism).

In the UK, the Labour-for-life and Tory-for-life voters are much smaller, and the centre ground where most ordinary people exist is therefore the main battleground. Our swing voters carry the election every time. This forces all parties to abandon the extremes of their particular political leanings in a rush to the centre. The problem this causes is the parties coming across as too similar and not differentiated enough, meaning that what would otherwise be less-important facets (like the personality of the leader, see Brown's lack of charisma; or even 'giving the other side a go') become more critical.

This is why the rise of UKIP and so on isn't really an issue in terms of them becoming the government, since as a party they cannot go enough to the centre to attract enough votes to gain power. However, they can strip more of the slightly-more-right-wing votes away from the Tories and making life harder for them (hence why some Tories want to make Europe a big thing to forestall UKIP and others think it will make them less electable by looking more far-right).

Or tl;dr, in the USA parties are not reliant on the centre and on swing voters as much, so can be more extreme in their views; in the UK the centre and the swing voters are critical, forcing the parties to homogenise into very similar-looking centrist parties in an effort to win them over.

[Derfel Cadarn]

It's a compelling story, ranking with "bad boys did it then ran away" and "the vodka probably just evaporated whilst you were on holiday"

When I was 17 I remember my mother explaining how spirits could evaporate, using the whiskey in our drinks cabinet as an example while my sister and I assumed expressions of awed enlightenment and kept the grins off our faces.

Serious business, evaporation, as in the case of an unopened second bottle, not only did the whisky vanish, but the glass bottle did so as well. It must have been a hot, erm. winter.

I of course was a (mostly) innocent party, my 15 year old sister was responsible for most of the 'disappearing drink' phenomenon.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Northerners and poor people? My God, they'll be letting the Scotch join next.

Perhaps they'll strive to win over our cold northern hearts by ordering Irn Bru to go with their pims?

Acquaint themselves with the Govan constituency of Glasgow by watching Rab C Nesbit reruns? They could even invite Wee Jimmy Krankie down to Chequers for the weekend. Though that might backfire when Cameron states what a nice chap Jimmy was.

And giving Andy Murray a knighthood is a no-brainer.

[Hereward]

I don't wholly agree, Werthead. The problem with the Us is the primary process, where everyone needs to run to the worst of the base. Why Cameron wants it here is a total mystery to me.

[Alex.]

Because he is a needy attention seeker?

I'm not a Tory fan, but it still makes me sad that our PM acts like he's the leader of a school cafeteria gang. It just looks very small time.

[Lummel]

Because he is a needy attention seeker?

I'm not a Tory fan, but it still makes me sad that our PM acts like he's the leader of a school cafeteria gang. It just looks very small time.

what kind of lardy-da fancy pants school did you go to? oh-ho cafeteria, somebody clearly didn't have slop troughs like the rest of us.

[Alex.]

I was given a cup of hot gravel for dinner and a lump of coal for tea.

[Maltaran]

We had a refectory, is that better or worse thana cafeteria?

[Alex.]

Worse.

I'm not sure "refectory" is even a real word.

[MinDonner]

It sounds like some unholy conglomeration of root words like "renal", "defecation", "lavatory" and "olfactory". A place for the purging of digested foodstuffs, not for consuming them! I present the Refectory at the University of Sussex as a demonstration of this conclusion. That shit was not edible.

[Alex.]

Sounds like a "cafeteria" to be fair.

[Usotsuki]

Serious business, evaporation, as in the case of an unopened second bottle, not only did the whisky vanish, but the glass bottle did so as well. It must have been a hot, erm. winter.

Evaporation is an understudied phenomenon subject to extreme and unexplained variations, in my home town it was noted that vodka, gin and light rum were especially vulnerable whilst dark rum, brandy and whisky were almost entirely unaffected.

Interestingly my sisters and I as teenagers demonstrated a noticeable antipathy to these darker spirits, perhaps as a result of our suspicions as to the reasons that underpinned their resistance to evaporation perhaps not.

[Darth Visenya]

If I say the words Dining Hall am I going to get strung up as a posh person?.

[polishgenius]

If I say the words Dining Hall am I going to get strung up as a posh person?.

Not strung up. Poshos get the guillotine.

I admit, I'm borrowing from the French.

[Darth Visenya]

Not strung up. Poshos get the guillotine.

I admit, I'm borrowing from the French.

Meh, I'm half American, just shoot me instead :P.

[Talleyrand]

Meh, I'm half American, just shoot me instead :P.

Not a smart thing to ask for in Britain - it'll likely be a punch of kids from the Cameron Youth with air-rifles doing it

[Darth Visenya]

Not a smart thing to ask for in Britain - it'll likely be a punch of kids from the Cameron Youth with air-rifles doing it

Yay, I can survive and sue for a health and safety breach.

[kanes_son]

Are we sure that monster raving looney party members haven't managed to sneak into the tory party and get these bills released.

Doubtful, ironically the Looney Party manifesto is in many ways surprisingly sensible!

[Alex.]

IDS this morning using his whole "I believe this to be true, despite the facts" schtick.Happy days.