Ed Milliband Vs Scarlet & Our right to be afraid

To say that Ed Milliband has said something that Scarlet doesn't agree with is to say something akin to 'Liverpool and Man United fans has different opinions on Sir Alex Ferguson'.  Scarlet and Ed live at different ends of the political spectrum, but Milliband is a necessity in our nation of open politics and free exchange of belief and ideas.  It is a sadness that yesterday the Leader of the Opposition (maybe our next PM) suggested that these values are not close to him, when he made a comment which stirred every liberal bone is Scarlet's body.

Mr Milliband has committed to 'outlaw' Islamophobia, now I am not one who believes that demeaning someone's religion and/or ideas is something one should make a habit of but we're not talking about hate, crime or evil here, we are talking about our right to be afraid. 

To bring you all up to speed here is the definition of said word by the OED:

Intense dislike or fear of Islam

This article is not about Islam!  This article is about the rights of individuals and about the view of Mr Milliband and the party he represents.  I could run over reasons why it would be legitimate to be afraid of Islam or to actively dislike it but that is not the point of today's post, the point is to establish how vital our right to be afraid is to us.  We must be allowed to be afraid in the United Kingdom, our fear of social and political progression is part of what keeps our society strong and healthy.  

No one is more irritated by the ramblings of the SNP more than Scarlet but they have a voice!  They must have a voice, they must have their chance to stand up and be counted just like everyone else, we are all the same in our land of liberty.  If I want to be afraid of something and post it on Twitter then I am allowed to.   Should I wish to state my position I am able to whatever that position may be, that must be the way of our society, it is absolutely key.  Why is Mr Milliband trying to take these vital ideas away?

I will send a copy of this article to Ed and I hope he will find the time to take a look and reply because he may have chosen his words badly, he may believe that all ideas and all people are equal in our land.  

With the election just over a week away one of the biggest players has chosen to say he will outlaw free thought and free expression of that thought, could 1984 be 2015?  It looks like if you want it to be, vote Labour.

After The Election - What Scarlet Thinks will happen

We are headed for deadlock!

The only certainty is the uncertainty of the entire thing!

To the politically minded like Scarlet the election this time will be fascinating, for everyone else it will be incredibly boring.  Most of the electorate will vote for who they always work for, however the others (the floaters) seem to be evenly spaced in lily pads all over the national pond.  So what is going to happen?  Naturally Scarlet doesn't know, but here is what I think might just happen:

The Tories will do better than we think

It is a tried and tested premise that people don't like being seen as 'Conservative voters'.  As a party of tradition and old values it is often seen as 'the nasty party'.  The Tories have modernised considerably under Cameron but it could take up to a generation for them to shed this image, people simply don't like saying they are going to vote Conservative.  In 1992 the Tories surpised everyone with a last minute jump to secure a 4th majority in 4 elections, we won't see that this time round but they could punch above their polling, the following things could also help them out:
- Typical small Party squeeze - The Tory machine haven't done a great job of making this election look like a choice between Cameron and Milliband, people have found it patronising.  At the end of the day however people will start to turn when the likelihood of Milliband starts to dawn on them, they will abandon UKIP and return half a dozen Tories in key marginals.
- Status Quo - usually being incumbent government is a good way of reducing your support but this time it might not happen.  As people see our nation head towards deadlock they might just vote to leave things as they are, better the devil you know.
- The Papers - The media are likely to favour Cameron, as in 1992 we could see a decisive swing if the papers let their thoughts known.

The SNP Will irritate the English

It would appear that South of the border we haven't noticed our the SNP very much, they wish to break up the UK but they do all their campaigning in Scotland so really the rest of the UK really aren't that bothered, well they're about to be a key player in Westminster. We all know that UKIP exist to remove the UK from the EU, well the SNP exist to remove Scotland from the UK.  They tried to convince the Scots to leave and they failed, what is the next step I wonder?
1. Ignore the democratic will of the Scots (Have another vote and carry on until you get the answer you want)
or
2. Irritate the English until they want out of the UK and the whole thing collapes on its face.

It may not be SNP Policy to do either of these things, perhaps it is paranoia from South of the Border, but all we need is for a few thousand to suspect it and the anti-SNP fervour will grip and there will be a reaction North of the border, the union is in danger, tread carefully all.

All 3 major party leaders will be looking down

It will be after this election that all 3 main party leaders could see themselves under threat within their own parties.  Should Cameron win he will serve out his second term but will then need to be diplomatic as his replacement gains ground in the party, the smart money is on Boris but watch out for George Osbourne.

The Liberal Democrats will probably have fallen from 23% of the vote in 2010 to only the fourth biggest party in terms of seats.  Nick Clegg got the Lib Dems in government and got their agenda into the cabinet but his tenure as leader has been disastrous for the party, they will be gutted at this election and may will come fifth in the popular vote.  Surely whatever happens it will be time for Cleggy to step down.

Ed Milliband is never going to do well out of this...  Should he bargain his way into Number 10 it will be perhaps the most unpopular government since the death of Cromwell before he has even started.  Milliband will need the SNP a heck of a lot more than he will need them, he'll be a lame duck PM and will be remembered for being weak from day one.  If Red Ed loses the election then there is no way Labour will want 5 more years of him, sorry Ed you simply don't cut it.



It's going to be a very interesting election, or so Scarlet thinks, trouble is he can't see a way the British People are going to come out on top....
 

Scarlet the Atheist - Irritating Questions

Scarlet is an atheist.  Scarlet doesn't talk about it all that much on a day to day basis but it seems that faith plays a big part in the lives of people across the world.  Just to clarify when Scarlet says 'faith' he means the belief which a person has in a supernatural entity which is in someway 'in control' of the universe.  I could well go further and explain what I mean with all the other words I say but I just thought it was worth making sure you readers know where I am when I say I have no 'faith'.

I would also like to address what I mean by 'atheist' before moving on to the main purpose of today's post as this could well lead to further confusion later on.  When I say I am an atheist I say that I do not believe that there is 'a god', I am not saying that there is no god, simply that I do not believe in what most people call 'a god'.  I do not believe in god because I do not believe that there is a reason to do so.

So today I'd like to explain my position through answering a series of questions which I and many atheists have been asked loads of times, many many times:

Why do you hate God?

We reach a bit of an issue here because you are immediately not understanding my position if you ask me this question.  I don't believe that god exists therefore I cannot openly profess to like/dislike this individual.  Scarlet doesn't hate god, Scarlet doesn't believe in God.

If Scarlet did believe in God would Scarlet love god?  No, if Scarlet believed in god he would not be very happy for a few reasons:
- Why does this God demand humanity believe yet place doubt it their mind?
- Why does this God leave behind so many inaccurate descriptions of his will?  if the God of the Qu'ran exists then the Bible is wrong etc.
- Why does God not interfere and stop the evil?  If I was in a position to cure AIDS, I would do it with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.  The same goes with cancer and every single thing which brings pain to human beings or indeed everything which feels it.  If God existed it would be sitting watching all this, doing nothing about it.  So no, I don't hate god, but I would be very concerned about his motives if I did believe.

Isn't it a bigger leap of faith to be an Atheist?

The problem with this one is that I think people tend to misunderstand my position on the central point here.  A lot of believers think that 'if you are an atheist then something must have come from nothing', you are not listening to what I write.  (Can anyone listen to words, surely I mean read?)  I DON'T KNOW, I simply do not know where the universe came from, and that is my attitude towards loads of things and it is what feeds me to learn more.  When Darwin looked at the variety of life he thought 'I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS HAPPENED', the same goes for Newton and the Apple.  If we immediately subscribe to the premise of 'I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS, THEREFORE IT WAS GOD' we start on a slippery slope.

If you tell me that there is a god you make a claim, when you tell me you believe this with no reason other than 'because you do'  you are making a leap of faith, I do not do this, tell me if I do.

Where do you get your morality from?

 From my life experiences and from humanist ideals.  I get my morality from the warm feeling I get when I make someone smile, from the pain I feel when I see someone suffering.  Many ideas in religious texts are not what many reasonably minded people would call moral, at least not in the Western World in any case.  Atheists and secular people ground their morality each individually just like everyone but we don't use obscure passages of text to justify evil and we don't believe in a 'cosmic justice'.

  Ok I get it, your an Atheist why do you bother going on about it?

This one really does leave a sour taste in Scarlet's mouth.  What if we turn the question around and ask a deeply religious person why they wear a cross around their neck or a turban on their head?

I abhor so many elements of religion and should this post be popular I may just spend a few posts ranting about it but my main purpose here is to spread the word of positive atheism.  To think that someone may read this post and feel more comfortable with how they feel, it would be incredible to see that. 

To Thine Ownself Be True.

Be yourself and love your life, it is (probably!) the only one you are going to get.

Defence Cuts

Scarlet looked out of the office window and down into Portsmouth Harbour, once the most important Naval Port in the world it all made for quite a distressing sight.  2 or 3 cross channel ferries were moored up taking on passengers and 2 Vessels of the Royal Navy sat in the harbour, not too bad thought I; an aircraft carrier and a smaller boat (later turned out to be a destroyer).  My heart sank when the Guy next to me announced that they were both there for the long haul.  The Aircraft Carrier retired, to be preserved for the nation. The Destroyer now a training vessel.  So it has come to this, this was no quiet day for Portsmouth Harbour, this is the Royal Navy these days, the Navy that ruled the waves for a hundred years has started to rot around us.

Before we move on it is important to note that Scarlet isn't glorifying The British Empire, but at the time the armed forces meant something to us as a nation, could we not preserve this element of our culture in the modern world?  Granted, we are no longer defending territory representing a quarter of the world but can we really say that we don't need a sizable Army, Navy and Air Force anymore?  The threat to the United Kingdom of direct invasion may not seem that great but bear in mind that we have had to defend British territory from invasion in the last 40 years, which is no time in terms of a defence strategy.  Let us not forget the environment around us also, the Russians are parked up on the Ukrainian border, the Iranians are working with nuclear reactors and let us not forget the ISIS situation; which may ultimately require British intervention, to sort out the British who have gone over there to fight for the other side if nothing else.

At the onset on the Second World War the Royal Navy numbered more 300 ships, today it is less than 80, our other armed forces have been similarly gutted but we have entered a new world where British interests are safe with less presence from our armed forces needed, but are we?

If we push aside the actual defence element just for a moment there are still reasons for us to keep our armed forces ticking over, the first which comes to mind is the education side of things.  This isn't going to be a 'bring back national service' rant, I'm just making the point that a lot of people are concerned about a lack of work ethic from many young people in the UK today, why not step up the drive and suggest that people on long term benefits join the Naval reserve or train to be Army Medics?  Our prisons are overcrowded, you can't tell me that the old rule of Borstal or Army might not help a few young people on the right track.  Also more and more people are worried about immigration, would these people be concerned about immigrants if they were serving the crown in the RAF?  I'm not talking about forcing anyone into armed combat, but there is admin work needs doing surely and Let us at least explore the option.

The other reason to keep the drive going is technology.  Nuclear Fission, the computer, the jet engine they were all developed by nations with thriving Military environments, as a nation we have developed great inventions, whilst we are spending on defence we can increase our breakthrough in the technological world and maybe invent a superb new solar powered thingy whilst at it.

Maybe it is just that looking out a window on a gloomy day I wanted to see something more exciting, but it seems to Scarlet that it is worth paying an extra penny in the pound to see more planes in the sky over Cornwall, more ships in dock at Pompey and more troops on Salisbury Plain ready to defend our nation at whatever may come.

Great Prime Ministers

A nation that hates its politicians is not a rare thing as Scarlet has previously said, even the politicians we have taken a shine for over the years tend to have negative approval ratings and we tend not to remember them with too much honour.  The cream of the crop politically are Prime Ministers, the political head of the nation, the person who controls the red button and the lot.  The most remembered national heroes tend to be soldiers or writers and the like, but we have had some great Prime Ministers in our time, here are a few: (NOTE Scarlet has very strong political opinions as regular readers know, this may be reflected in this post)

Benjamin Disraeli Conservative

Finest Hour: Formation of One Nation Conservatism
Greatest honour: Statue in Parliament Square, Later Earl of Beaconsfield
Summary:  Disraeli was at the front of the one nation conservative movement.  This particular ideological bent dominated the Conservative position for over 100 years.  Born to Jewish parents Disraeli was the first ethnic minority appointed to the lofty position of head of government.  There is no doubt that he helped swing the Great Game toward British interests.  A renowned novelist and a competent Chancellor of the Exchequer, Disraeli had more than one string to his bow.

Winston Churchill Conservative

Finest Hour: Leading Britain to victory in WW2
Greatest honour: State Funeral
Summary: Winston was a staggering man.  Born to the nobility Churchill will always be remembered for his charismatic words demanding the British keep an eye on the NAZI's in the 1930's and for his determination that the British would defeat the Germans and push the invaders all the way back to Berlin.  Churchill was not without his faults, an imperialist who wasn't a fan of the idea of a multicultural Britain he was certainly a man of his time.  No one has ever been as BIG as Churchill politically, no one will ever bring across the same feeling of loyalty amongst the British people and no one will ever command as much respect as the man who demanded every Briton to stand up and be counted and rallied the people of the nation to their finest hour.

Clement Attlee Labour

Finest Hour: Formation of the National Health Service
Greatest Honour: Buried at Westminster Abbey
Summary: After serving as Churchill's deputy in the war Attlee won a landslide in 1945 and oversaw the birth of Britain's socialist Economy and the end of the British Empire.  A calm and unassuming man Attlee was popular for his consensual style and he laid the groundwork of how Britain would work for 30 years.  It was during the Attlee years that Britain really ramped up her Welfare state, a move incredibly popular at the time.  Attlee regularly tops polls for Labour Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and led Britain well through a socialist revolution.

Margaret Thatcher Conservative

Finest Hour: Facing down the miners
Greatest honour: HM the Queen in attendance at her funeral
Summary: No one person has commanded such divided opinion in the history of our country more than Maggie.  The 'Iron Lady' overcame the odds to lead a major political party despite being a woman (still an issue back then) and went one more by getting the keys to Number 10 in 1979.  Maggie had an agenda and was ruthless and efficient in carrying it out, many people rebelled against her radical agenda but she pushed on, determined that she was building a better tomorrow.

Whether we agree with the actions of Mrs T she was an emblem of change and maybe our strongest ever leader on the global stage facing down the rest of the EC and helping bring an end to the Cold War.  Scarlet suspects that Maggie will be remembered as the leader who brought Britain (sometimes kicking and screaming) back to the big stage.

The Land of the Free: The American Dream from England

There is an iconography to the American view of freedom.  The Lincoln Memorial & The White House. The Stars and Stripes hanging from a pole with pride everywhere from Honolulu to Maine.  The fundamental principle of freedom and liberty in the United States is a national institution in its own right, a precious jewel in the crown of the worlds most powerful republic.  Our friends across the pond could not be more different to us in the way in which they celebrate their freedom.  The Americans are enthusiastic, excited and proud of their equality, their rights and their national duty under god, the British reluctantly vote every few years and cling on to their old ways, after all changing all that would be far too much bother.

In the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities Dickens drew a comparison between Britain and France.  In a slightly less significant article tonight I present to you the differences between the United Kingdom and the United States in the systems, and how our cultural bond is separated in the political sphere.

Constitution

The Constitution of the United States is the shortest document of its kind in the world, it is a clear and concise reflection of the ultimate value of American society and the Americans quite correctly take considerable pride in the document and her story.  Perhaps the greatest achievement of America's supreme law is that she has been amended only 27 times in her history; there is no perfect system - particularly in law - but the United States hold a document which is near enough theoretically perfect; the Constitution is everywhere in America.

Most British people on the other hand believe that we don't have a constitution, we do have one it just isn't very good.  Various statutes and drafts of Westminster Law as well as other documents like Magna Carta and the European Convention on Human Rights make up a bizarre mix of what Governments do and what they can't do.  In the UK 800 years of Magna Carta are passing, there have been a few bits and pieces on the television but most people won't even notice, could you imagine such a thing happening in the US, indeed I wouldn't be surprised if our cousins were already making a bigger fuss of Magna Carta than we do.

President/Monarch

If you know your history you will know that the role of the monarchy is central to how the United States came about.  A certain dislike of George III (but, to be fair he was insane) was prevalent in the colonies when independence was asserted and since then the United States have plugged this gap with a presidency.  Since 1776 the monarch has changed in the UK, slowly but surely the role of the monarch diminished until it became the constitutional symbol of tradition it is today.  Yet an idea as big as a king or queen doesn't just diminish and the role of president has grown in its own way, the President has much in common with the crown these days:
- Head of State
- Iconic i.e. appears on money, in images of national pride and physical institutions associated with the office.  Such as The White House being as recognisable as Buckingham Palace.
- Top family - The American next of kin to the President is called the first lady, it seems to Scarlet that this implies a social hierarchy centred around the office.  In the United Kingdom the royal family are at the top of an aristocratic class in a clearly defined socio economic unit.

I'm not trying to say that the President and the Queen are the same, they are clearly very different roles both in law and in social convention it is simply interesting to see the clear influence of the British system on the American one.

The key difference is in the right to remove the President from office, this basis of the people electing the top man/woman and then removing them is entrenched in law and again it is in clear law, the role of the monarch in the UK is much more abstract.  Technically speaking the Queen appoints the Prime Minister, she doesn't have to pay any attention to the election result legally, she just does!

National Iconography

The 2 points I have discussed both suggest that image is important in the American political setup and there can be no doubt that the American love for image and icons runs through the system.  The Americans through neccesity must draw their images and icons from the system around them because it is a very new country and the system as our cousins know it is really the only one their nation has ever needed.  When we think of emblems of the American Political ideal we don't just look at the two I have suggested but others which ride through their nation and there are always differences from our own so it seems:

- Uncle Sam - A national embodiment of the state, we don't personify the state in the UK, we have Britannia and John Bull but no one has heard of these for hundreds of years!

- The Stars and Stripes - There is a huge amount of pride for the flag in the United States.  Indeed even the confederate flag is loved by millions in the South, the physical embodiment of the nation in colour flying proudly is beautiful to our friends in the United States.  There can be no doubt that the United Kingdom doesn't have this same level of pride, our Union Jack is familiar across the planet as a symbol of small nations working together to create a greater state, but we really don't care.

There are differences in our nations and our political, economic and social views but we are one in our ideas of freedom, liberty and honour.  Our nations our united in a special relationship that shines across the world as a beacon of equality, trust and mututal respect. 

Again I think of our beautiful land of tradition, where the freedom lives through thousands of years of slow progression.

Again I think of a beautiful land where the liberty was fought for and won and laid out before the people in words.

To the United Kingdom and the United States, two lands divided in culture and united in love.

The Disenchantment

I have recently suggested that the UKIP vote is stemming from a disenchanted political class in the United Kingdom, how do we unpack as big a question as why are people annoyed with the politicians? 

People in this country and indeed the free world in general have always been loath to take a liking to politician. , We don't like our politicians.   This has been true for years, people hated the mainstream political setup but only now it would appear people have had enough.  The Scots are uniting under a banner of Nationalism and the rest of the country are flirting with UKIP and some even looking at the Greens with a genuine belief that they may bring us something a little different.  Why now?  Here is a few reasons why it may be...

The State of the Economy

I find it highly unlikely that Scarlet is going to win an award for original thinking for this one but it remains a pressing factor on many people.  In the past if Labour or the Tories messed up we handed things over to the other lot for a few years to sort it out, it would appear that the formula has become stale with the current situation.  There is a general consensus amongst the country that the Blair/Brown years are what threw the economy on the rocks this time round, an emphasis on borrowing and lack of regulation of the banking sector pushed things through the floor.  Naturally the British people duly elected the Tories to sort it out but this time it was different for 2 considerably important reasons:
1. The Conservatives didn't get a majority - It was a bizarre election last time round which pushed the Tories into bed with the Lib Dems; the requirement of Liberal Democrats in the government has made it a little more difficult for the Tories to roll out their agenda, there is no doubt that without the Liberal influence we would have seen a very different plan to sort the economy.  Whether it would've worked or not is anyones guess but there is no denying that we have seen a watered down plan this time round.
2. They haven't finished the job - A very strong feeling exists in the country that even though the economy is sorting itself out the British people aren't feeling the benefit from it; unemployment is in a better state now but is still high.  The pound isn't doing anything terribly impressive on the global stage and interest rates are planted at an incredibly low rate.  Why give this lot another chance?  Why not try something new?

Population Boom

As a young man with no children I can't claim to know all that much about the struggle for school places and other boring things which parents bang on about at the park to other parents but even Scarlet notices that there are some issues here.

Our services and our inability to future proof ourselves from service shortages, mainly due to overpopulation.  At the risk of sounding incredibly old back in my day they came to pick up your bins once a week, there were two post deliveries a day and you could drive for more than five miles without a new housing estate being built along the side of the road.  The public transport network is overcrowded, the roads are jammed up and the queues at A&E are getting longer.  There are those of us that think that increasing public spending would solve most of these issues but there is a prevailing opinion venturing forth that its getting a bit crowded around here.

Naturally many on the right point the finger at immigration "It is too high", "We've let too many in".  Scarlet isn't going to express an opinion on this one, its for people to read the numbers and see what they think but there are people aplenty being born across the world, more mouths than food and more homeless than houses.  The suggestion that more people are welcome in the UK is very disconcerting to many.

Welfare Class

Whilst Scarlet is on the topic of overcrowding a lot of people appear to be worried about a perceived welfare class, a large group of the population completely reliant upon the nanny state to get about on a day to day basis.  Scarlet has worked in a Job Centre and has met the people who have another baby to top up the benefits and subscribe to Sky and buy 20 cigarettes a day but need a crisis payment to pay to put food on the table.  These people represent a tiny percentage of the people on benefits but it could be argued that one family choosing benefits as a lifestyle over work is too many.

The welfare state has given the United Kingdom the unenviable problem of being labelled a nation of scroungers by her own people, this tends to irritate the people who actually do go to work and receive little subsidy from the Government, it would appear that doing things the right way gets you nowhere, or so the UKIPpers seem to believe.

European Union

 Britain has always had an interesting role in the EU; first we wanted to stay out, then we desperately wanted to be in, then Maggie wanted us in but lodged in the doorway.  These days Brussels tends to bear a lot of stick for everything which is wrong with our nation, the growth of UKIP shows the desire for direct self determination is building in England and the SNP's success North of the border implies that the Scot's want to draw in.  More and more people across the entire of Europe are considering the great European experiment  to have failed them, old loyalties have stayed true in Greece, Italy, Catalunya and in the UK too as the desire to take control of things as a nation as opposed to a super state grips the continent.

We Brits have always distrusted everything over our narrowest of channels, feeling more comfortable talking to our friends in the United States, the disenchantment has reached a junction with Europe as we are no longer the biggest player, do the British wish to remain in?  I don't know, do you?

Our politicians are overdue for a good shake up, this is what the British people seem to think, the last time our Political structure split like this the Liberal Party fell, will it be the Liberals who lose out again?  No one knows what will happen, but after the election in a few weeks time I fully expect that politically our nation will never be the same again.

UKIP: 3 Reasons why we shouldn't be worried & 3 Reasons why we should be

British Politics has a new marmite, as the BBC remove their biggest icon of political incorrectness (our friend M. Clarkson) another beacon of anti-establishment is running through our society, if you dislike Mr Farage and the United Kingdom Independence Party as they are seldom known you may wish to scroll down a little where they get a good bashing but for now let us take a look at why Mr Farage and his lot are worth having around:

Not Extremists

When it comes down to it, UKIP aren't extremists.  UKIP are further to the right than the political mainstream but 20 years ago they may as well have been the Tory party indeed UKIP is more influenced by the Thatcher years than the modern conservatives. Let us remind ourselves how popular that Government was, Thatcher tops pretty much every even opinion poll conducted on British PM's, and Mr Farage's party represent many of the core values of that government, particularly now that the left of the Tory party are in charge.

You will hear many comments from many sources that UKIP are 'racist' political party but this really doesn't hold any water.  It seems a given that racists will vote for UKIP because of their role to the right of our spectrum but the party in itself can make quite a convincing case for its position of racial equality.  UKIP will throw any public racists out of its party through a clear and open internal procedure which Mr Farage claims works very well at ferreting them out.  Secondly UKIP claims that its central goal (i.e. Leave the EU) is to remove an organisation which is indirectly racist in its own way.  UKIP claim that the freedom of movement principle is in itself a racist policy as it opens the door to millions of Europeans and that in itself discourages potential migrants from other traditional immigration powerhouses to the UK, nations in the commonwealth.  All in all UKIP are a little beyond the mainstream and they will attract the extermist vote but to claim that the UKIP vote are a bigoted ractist bunch of uneducated people is to do this party no harm at all and only angers them and makes them more likely to vote UKIP.

Look at the French

The rise of UKIP has come about with considerable disenchantment with a percieved 'political class', most UKIP voters will be doing so to try and show that they have had enough of Milliband, Clegg and Cameron who are considered out of touch, middle class and not 'real' enough for most people.  This is also the feeling across the channel, albeit backed up by the terrible economic outlook.  It is the case though that while the British are turning to Nigel and his 'Peoples army' the French appear to be turning to the Front National.  The latest hot thing on the French politic palate truly is a worrying prospect, a strident believer in French individuality Madame Le Pen is determined to bring the death penalty, the slow removal of the welfare state and remove the right of dual citizenship to French nationals. This is before we consider the Greeks whose new government are dredging up 70 years of history in a desperate attempt to renege on their international responsiblities.  All in all, 16% of the UK electorate voting for UKIP doesn't seem all that extreme now does it?

Patriotic

Britain is infamously unpatrotice about itself.  There is a variety of reasons why British nationalism is considered a little bit embarrasing, the last time we allowed patriotic fervour to catch on without the German army parked on the channel we got a bit megalomanical and took over a quarter of the world and imperialism isn't as cool as it was 200 years ago.  Whether it is hangover of this or the general blase attitude of the British mentality but we tend not to be too proud.  Nigel and UKIP are proud, they love Britain and want to seize the disenchanted into a united front of nationalism to return the most important legal house of the UK to London.  Whilst the return of nationalism may not be an overtly good thing, it looks like pride is back on the menu in British Politics and that wouldn't be unwelcome to most of the British people unless Scarler is misreading the game a little.

Now for the much more fun to right bit, this is what is why we should be worried, and I am going to take all 3 of these points straight from their website:

UKIP will amend the smoking ban to give pubs and clubs the choice to open smoking rooms properly ventilated and separated from non-smoking areas.   

The smoking ban has been one of the great successes of modern times, this is a clear attempt to get the smoker vote and will be appalling for public health 'treating smoking as a second class habit' has worked to get smoking made less accepted and it has helped our nation greatly.  I say we stick with it.

Inheritance tax will be abolished

Right now Inheritance tax only affects the richest and this would be a serious surge to the right.
  

Ending the EU freedom of movement of People

Now this one is a little obvious but this EU principle is actually very convieniant for the British people over the years, there are plenty of British people living across Europe (particularly in Spain) and even though the free movement premise isn't perfect for those people it is certainly an incredibly easy option for life and it could be very nasty for our expats living out on the continent.

Scarlet isn't sure what to make of UKIP and her voters, but it appears to me that they don't really seem worse than the average political party in the UK.

The end of First Past the Post

It would appear the birth of multi party politics for the first time in well over a century is upon us in the United Kingdom.  As SNP, UKIP and even the Greens look to press home gains in the national polls it looks as if only the SNP will benefit from their boom in the polls, as the dated First Past the Post system goes on being a long ignored symbol of everything wrong with our political system

So Scarlet has accused our electoral system of being undemocratic?  Can he back it up?  Of course he can, let us take 1983 as an example, here are the key results with all votes counted:

	% Vote	% Seats
Conservatives	42.4	61.1
Labour	27.6	32.2
Liberal-SDP	25.4	4.5

So here we see everything wrong with the system.  Mrs Thatcher's Tories win less than half of the votes and a huge majority in the house, the Tories control almost all actions of British Law and the Government for several years.  As far as I'm concerned this isn't even the worrying part of it (then again as an arch tory, I wouldn't) the worry lies in the absence of the Liberal SDP alliance in parliament (who are there but have no clout).  As you can see if you wanted to create a government representative of more than half of the votes you need the Tories to buddy up with another party yet no such undertaking was ever neccessary.  This would be excusable if not for the fact that this has been the case in almost every single election in British electoral history.  Churchill, Macmillan, Wilson, Blair not one of them won more than half the vote in a single election, so why keep the system?

Well for many years the system has been considered again and again but there are a couple of points in favour of first past the post.  The most obvious reason which comes to mind is that First Past the Post has protected the big parties very well over the years, the Labour vote collapse in 1983 but the system still gave them more than they deserved with 27.6 of vote and 32.2% of the seats.  Likewise the Tories have benefited in the past but the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and now the Greens will all fall foul of the system.

The other reason often thrown about for keeping First Past the Post is that it often gives us a strong Government, even though it is never what the people of the UK have voted for in the first place.  This may seem a fascist argument but it works out, a strong government is generally a better one, even if it is controversial, provided there are checks and balances of some kind on them and the electorate are still vital to the system.  If the vote is going to be divided up into chunks of 20-40% for the bigger parties we would never get a storng government, indeed this sytems seemed best for many years but now I would argue the tide has turned on this argument.  Here is a poll  from today for expected vote percentage:

	% Vote
Conservatives	34
Labour	34
Liberal Democrats	7
SNP	4
UKIP	14
Green	5
Others	2

Now the first thing that you will probably notice is the squeeze at the top, where would expect one of the two main parties to crack 40% as little as ten years ago the system has opened up, it looks like we will get no clear winner from an election with this kind of spread.  We now reach the time at which it is neccessary to make uneasy allegiances and the most simple way to do this is to draw a line between left and right, the table then broadly looks like this:

Left

% Vote

Right

% Vote

Labour

51

Conservative

49

Liberal Democrat

UKIP

Green

½ Other

SNP

½ Other

With a typical 1% opinion poll margin of error it seems that the nation is heading for electoral stalemate, or at least that is what the polls would imply, near enough a straight down the middle tie, a very unstable government is what the people appear to want, however the projected seat totals when split to left and right don't add up to 325 each, instead we get this:

	Seats
Left	348
Right	302

  Now obvioulsy this is pure conjecture from Scarlet but it looks alarmingly like the right could be underrepresented at the next parliament.  Many British social values are lurching to the right on things such as benefits, crime and immigration we could see the resentment build, particularly if the left's leader is the current leader of the opposition whose personal poll ratings are amongst the lowest for a serious candidate for PM in years.

 So I ask the people of the United Kingdom, is it time to change the system?  Or do we keep calm? Do we invoke the spirit of Proportional Representation or tow the line again?

The SNP and the death of the UK

The situation we find ourselves in these days is laughable...

To begin a blog about politics by making a general and incredibly depressing single sentence may not be the best way to draw viewers in but you would be hard pressed not to look at the British political layout 3 weeks before an election and not either laugh or cry.

For those of you interested enough a well researched website from today projects the following:

Conservatives		286
Labour		271
SNP		43
Liberal Democrats		26
UKIP		1

It would appear at a glance that the only way to see a stable Government (which the UK clearly needs) is for a grand coalition of the left: Labour, Lib Dem, SNP.  I will come on to the abject horror of Mr Milliband in number 10 in another post because today is not the day for me to ratchet up my blood pressure unnecessarily.  My worry instead centres on the SNP, heroes of Scottish nationalists and the real winners from five years of austerity.

The Scottish National Party are still reeling from the disappointment of losing an independence referendum, or so you may think in fact the best possible thing happened for them.  Alex Salmond promised the people of Scotland the glory of a modern social Democratic utopia, now he walks away not having to make good on a single promise he has made, the people of Scotland voted to stay in the United Kingdom but - of course - that was due to a load of half arsed promises from London and scaremongering.  As Mr Salmond waved goodbye as first minister of Scotland he played the martyr who couldn't quite get his dream, as he did so he licked his lips as he realised that it was the best end to the story he could have hoped for.

You see the SNP have tapped into some latent tensions with the English that some of the Scots have had over the last three hundred years or so, re awakened by an unpopular regime north of the border.  For some peculiar reasons our cousins in Scotland seem to think they are getting a bad deal out of the UK, one simply has to point to the Barnett formula  to identify that the Scots are really doing quite well from the arrangement....  Then there is the history, you know the English royal family were responsible for the death of the Queen of Scotland 500 years or so ago.  If you really wish to dredge up history should we not consider the fact that the Acts of Union were a bailout deal to the people of Scotland in the first place?  Scotland was a bankrupt little nation, within one hundred years she was at the sharp end of the largest empire ever known.

Scarlet isn't saying this to light the flame of anger in the heart of patriotic Scot's.  Scarlet is wondering why the English aren't getting annoyed by this?  We do we not care?  Could it be the classic 'passive' English attitude?  The same attitude which has seen our country fill up without enough new roads, schools, hospitals, homes and jobs?  Could it be that we simply do not care?

Whichever way you perceive what is going to happen it seems inevitable that the United Kingdom is slowly tearing itself apart.  The Scot's are annoyed and want more power in Edinburgh and less in London.  The English vote is split and weak, should England unite in the next few weeks the only way it can go is to top up the Conservatives to 300 seats or so, enough to keep Mr Cameron in Number 10; and we all know what Scotland think of the Tories...

Scarlet may be wrong, our best days may be ahead, but it seems to me that the beginning of the end is here.