- Joined
- Jul 23, 2005
- Messages
- 6,923
- Reaction score
- 1,738
- Location
- Staffs, England
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Very Liberal
The current betting odds are
1 Menzies Campbell 1.38/1
2Simon Hughes 2.88/1
3Mark Oaten 6.5/1
4Ed Davey 8.3/1
5Nick Clegg <8.93/1
6David Laws 11.5/1
7Vince Cable <43
8John Hemming <208
Im routeing for Simon Hughes as he,s seams to be in favor of moveing the party to the left, keeping the partys stance on high taxes on the rich and localism.Hes also proposing "green taxes" which sound good though i havent looked into them in detail.
To me this seams like a better idea than moveing the party to the right like those anoying orange book types want to. This seams absurd to me as voters already have to center right partys and the left is already very disenfranchised after the creation of new labour. The best tatic for the lib-dems is to pick up the voters that would have gone for old labour and replace labour as the working class party.
Im probably going to join the party if hughes or another left-winger wins as although im more of a socialist than a liberal there is need to be pragmatic. Its unlikely a socialist party will come to power under First Past The Post and even if one could its unlikely attempting to socialise the economy useing the same methods as the old labour party would work. Therefore the more pragmatic option seams to be suporting the liberal democrat as by doing this i am promoteing localist, enviromentalist and redistributive policys. If a liberal democrat government comes about people will have more ability to run there own affairs due to Proportional Representation being implemented and political power being disolved to regional assemblies. A socialist government will be more likely after this as socialist partys will have a better electoral system to work under and the electorate as a whole will be more involved in the political process due to being goven more of a say.
1 Menzies Campbell 1.38/1
2Simon Hughes 2.88/1
3Mark Oaten 6.5/1
4Ed Davey 8.3/1
5Nick Clegg <8.93/1
6David Laws 11.5/1
7Vince Cable <43
8John Hemming <208
Im routeing for Simon Hughes as he,s seams to be in favor of moveing the party to the left, keeping the partys stance on high taxes on the rich and localism.Hes also proposing "green taxes" which sound good though i havent looked into them in detail.
To me this seams like a better idea than moveing the party to the right like those anoying orange book types want to. This seams absurd to me as voters already have to center right partys and the left is already very disenfranchised after the creation of new labour. The best tatic for the lib-dems is to pick up the voters that would have gone for old labour and replace labour as the working class party.
Im probably going to join the party if hughes or another left-winger wins as although im more of a socialist than a liberal there is need to be pragmatic. Its unlikely a socialist party will come to power under First Past The Post and even if one could its unlikely attempting to socialise the economy useing the same methods as the old labour party would work. Therefore the more pragmatic option seams to be suporting the liberal democrat as by doing this i am promoteing localist, enviromentalist and redistributive policys. If a liberal democrat government comes about people will have more ability to run there own affairs due to Proportional Representation being implemented and political power being disolved to regional assemblies. A socialist government will be more likely after this as socialist partys will have a better electoral system to work under and the electorate as a whole will be more involved in the political process due to being goven more of a say.
