OFF: Re: Foot & Mouth

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

At 19.04 +0000 22.3.2001, ANDREW GARIBALDI wrote:
>exactly - who the hell in the UK is there left to vote for in terms of
>political parties - christ, we may have the power to vote but honestly what
>the hell use is it right now if you don't want he Conservatives Mk 1 (the
>real Conservatives), the Conservatives Mark 2 (Labour), the Conservatives
>Mark 3 (Liberal), the no-hopers (Scottish/Welsh Nationalists) or the loonies
>(practically everyone else including the Green Party) - hell, at least
>America had a choice!!!!

Yeah, and shot it down in the primaries! The US gave itsself a choice
between between Rich Daddy's Boy Party Hack One and Rich Daddy's Boy
Party Hack Two, neither of whom were particularly palatable. No
wonder that election turnout tumbled and the results were so close
and so confused.

Unfortunately, UK poltics seems to be headed down exactly the same
road.  Labour are pretty hopeless, but the Tories are probably worse,
and who knows what the Lib Dems will do?  Like in the States, any
real choice has been lost in a mire of career politicians playing
one-upsmanship party-politics games. Meanwhile, there aren't any
teachers, trains, hospitals, sheep, etc.

I would admire the Lib Dems for saying that they think taxes actually
need to be raised -- since the UK does occupy this weird,
disfunctional middle ground between the US's low-tax
low-public-services and Europe's high-tax high-public-services --
except that I have absolute confidence that they would waste them
just as well as Labour or the Tories. Ah, well, at least they're all
more or less centrists ...

On the other hand, being a dodgy foreign national, I don't get a say
in who wastes my taxes, though I can vote for American politicians
who will waste someone else's taxes. Go figure ...

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea at carlaz.com
http://www.carlaz.com/