My David Cameron Rant
Two points: first, I very rarely research my blog posts. My posts are not strictly opinions, simply the way my mind leans concerning a particular topic here and now. I usually will research the topics after my post. Second, this post is about David Cameron, potential head of the Conservative Party in the UK. Whether you agree or disagree with this post depends largely on how you view politics and political parties as a whole. If you aren't interested, now would be a good time to go to the next blog on your list.
Thats David Cameron, a candidate for the top job in the Conservative Party in the UK, and hence a possible candidate for Prime Minister come the next General Elections. If you compare him to the old Tory head, this guy:
You quickly realise that they are quite different.
Cameron promotes himself as a reformer of the tories (conservative party). The tories have a bad record in the general elections of recent years (see: tony blair) and Cameron wants to be the one to change that.
Nothing wrong with trying to get your party to win, but how? Generally speaking, for an individual (forget politics for a second) to become more popular he has to either:
i] Learn to communicate better - get people to understand him, or
ii] Compromise himself in order to gain acceptance.
Unfortunately, I feel Mr. Cameron has chosen the latter path, which involves 'selling out' Tory values and ideals, broadly speaking. Now, I'm not a conservative, never have been and god forbid ever will be. But I do believe in standing your ground. If someone believes in something, and is convinced by it, I believe they should stick to it, and not compromise it for others. Its like religion I suppose: I prefer the Christian/Buddhist/Jew, hell even the Athiest who has done their homework and firmly believes what they believe (provided they are open minded about everything else) than the Muslim who compromises himself to be accepted. Same holds in politics for me.
The problem is that Mr. Cameron doesn't even hide it. He openly talks about moving the Conservative party more to the center (just as Tony Blair did with 'New Labour', moving it further from its roots in the left towards the center) in order to capture a bigger vote. Its like a normal distribution - the majority of voters in the center. If you stick to the left or right, you capture less voters. So, in order to win elections, you compromise some of your principles and move to the center.
Cameron promotes himself as a reformer of the tories (conservative party). The tories have a bad record in the general elections of recent years (see: tony blair) and Cameron wants to be the one to change that.
Nothing wrong with trying to get your party to win, but how? Generally speaking, for an individual (forget politics for a second) to become more popular he has to either:
i] Learn to communicate better - get people to understand him, or
ii] Compromise himself in order to gain acceptance.
Unfortunately, I feel Mr. Cameron has chosen the latter path, which involves 'selling out' Tory values and ideals, broadly speaking. Now, I'm not a conservative, never have been and god forbid ever will be. But I do believe in standing your ground. If someone believes in something, and is convinced by it, I believe they should stick to it, and not compromise it for others. Its like religion I suppose: I prefer the Christian/Buddhist/Jew, hell even the Athiest who has done their homework and firmly believes what they believe (provided they are open minded about everything else) than the Muslim who compromises himself to be accepted. Same holds in politics for me.
The problem is that Mr. Cameron doesn't even hide it. He openly talks about moving the Conservative party more to the center (just as Tony Blair did with 'New Labour', moving it further from its roots in the left towards the center) in order to capture a bigger vote. Its like a normal distribution - the majority of voters in the center. If you stick to the left or right, you capture less voters. So, in order to win elections, you compromise some of your principles and move to the center.
So, as I said before, its all about how you see politics. If you see political parties as being means to serve people, then you'll disagree with me. But if you see parties as being about representing certain views and principles, you'll probably agree with me when I say that ideally parties shouldnt be about winning elections but providing fair representation to whatever group of people you're representing.
Posted by illogicist at 11:56 AM
2 Comments
You have to achieve a goal: to start your political program.
And without numbers you don't do it.
So you have to make a compromise.
What's so wrong with it?
Depends on the compromise obviously.
See heres where we differ ideologically perhaps: or maybe I'm wrong. Either way, thru argument my thoughts will develop more fully. Will reply to you in a bit - I have a blog post or two Im ITCHING to write about!
Just a note - theres a difference between compromising in a situation, and compromising yourself in a situation. Ill talk about that in my next comment.
Post a Comment
« Home