Sunday, January 08, 2006
Purple Politics
Have you heard of purple politics?
It's something I've wanted to talk about for ages because its happening all around us and Google has hardly taken any notice. Or maybe I'm just a really creative thinker. It's mainly my worry that the major parties are going through a little reform of their own, with a decent mandate from the public, and each side - red and blue are drawing up the same deals, shifting their own principles closer and closer to the centre - green causes being roped in by David Cameron who wants to take the right wing out of Conservatism - just to dwell on that...what's Conservatism without the right wing?
With Cameron agreeing more and more with Tony Blair's ideas (top-up fees, the NHS/Welfare State) Cameron is ditching old Conservative principles to try and get the party back on track and is proving popular with everyone - right and left wingers. Hell, even I find Cameron pretty engaging at points - he certainly knows how to talk during Prime Minister Questions and to the media. Labour finds it difficult to shoot down Cameron because that would be like criticising Blair; Cameron has the public school boy charm as Blair, and they end up saying more or less the same thing - except Labour has more of a recent history than the Conservatives, who hadn't taken Britain to war or not having such a great economy at general election time. The Tories will have taken on all of these image changes, throwing off the almost indelible mark of Margharet Thatcher. To the apathetic, it's real change, but it wouldn't be. I don't think so. Unless politics is so tied to the media it's starting to forget how to think for itself, and Cameron was lying - he's as navy blue as a raincoat and has a locket of Thatcher in his silk breast pocket. He did go to both Eton and Oxford after all.
I don't know. I mean, this isn't the best written political analysis, but it's what I think after all and I don't know who I'm going to vote for in the next election. If everyone going to start agreeing, if the debate doesn't permeate through to the public, then the next election will be down to arresting and distinctive personalities, and this is where the Chiracs and the Bushes find their way. And this is where it could all go very, very wrong.
The last word:
"And what it all comes down to,
Is that no one gone and figure it all out just yet
Well, I got one hand in my pocket and the other is playing a piano...
And what it all comes down to my friends, yeah,
Is that everything is just fine, fine, fine!
Well I got one hand in my pocket
And the other is hailing a taxi cab." (Alanis Morrissette)
Principles go, results are next to godliness and the cult of personality breathes in Centre-ism, if anyone has called dibs on that yet and wrote a book yet.
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2 comments:
This is a great Blog! It is well-written and delightfully humerous.
I wish I knew more about your politics but I don't have a clue.
I'm sorry I haven't been commenting. Stupid bloglines doesn't let me bookmark your blog and I forget. I'm a horrible person.
Ric sounds like a great person.
Excuse me while I slip into lecture mode. Drugs are bad. Cutting is bad. Please stop. Leaving lecture mode.
Hope 2006 brings you a wonderful year.
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