Posts filed under ‘Elections’
The Aftermath of Vote 2011
So I said a few weeks back that I would start writing more on this blog, and with the local elections now done and the Lib Dems put back in their place, I actually have time to take stock. This post will look at the electoral-political reality coming out of this week, whilst i intend to write a further piece looking ahead at the coming months of Stop the Cuts work.
A reaction to Ed’s speech
By the wonders of technology and the Labour Party website, I tuned in to see Ed’s speech. It contained very little that actually grated, but at the same time, very little that could be called ‘impressive’. Certain parts, including his paragraph on Iraq felt like the right message 5 years late, and the Palestine section was perhaps the only one to mark a significant shift. But what did he leave out, and where does this leave those contesting the cuts in their own communities?
Start Wearing Purple: the road to Voting Reform
I originally started writing, and abandoned, a blog post by a similar name on about 8th May 2010. That its taken this long to actually sit down and write about the shock-arrival of a new movement on the erstwhile-boring topic of electoral reform (now called voting reform, cause at least people might know what that is!). Time has moved on since the heady days when Take Back Parliament were visible in half of all outside shots on TV.
Its all gone a bit quiet
This post, as much as anything, is designed to tell everyone that I am in fact still alive. I just haven’t felt a lot like writing lately, but in the last week I’ve really started to feel the urge to get this thing moving again. There’s plenty to talk about and plenty to reflect on; a new government means a new set of challenges, and with the summer approaching, there are many new possibilities. (more…)
As the dust settles…
I’m sorry not to have kept blogging through the run up to the elections, but with polls closed and votes (mostly) counted, there is now much to be said. Now is not the time to rest, other than to grab back some of those lost hours of sleep. Now is the time to get working on building the civil society response to slash and burn cuts, or indeed any of a myriad of Tory policies, even though we know this still might not happen.
Bigotgate: Brown was right first time
Its one of the problems of being on the go and doing stuff that you occasionally loose touch with the sudden newsflashes from the media, and today is no really noteworthy exception, other than the way little bits of info have dripped through. The story runs thus: Brown has been charming to a woman, got in a car and told his aides she’s a bigot. The media goes ballistic at Brown. One minor detail gets completely missed: the woman is, in fact, a bigot.
What might Cameron’s big society be?
Like many people, I’ve been forced to wonder what on Earth David Cameron means when he talks about “the big society”. Apart from obviously being a reflection of the term “Big Government” it presumably has some other meaning, though its difficult to pick out quite what they have in mind.
Nobody mention the Lib Dems
The Lib Dems are looking increasingly confident of squeezing out a majority government. There are many pros and cons to this state of affairs. True, Lib-Lab is better than Tory Majority government, but the situation with regards to Lib Dem votes and constituency boundaries is such that its very possible a massive surge for the Lib Dems might only give them a handful of Labour seats… and Cameron victory. This threat isn’t only theoretical as I wrote about before, its becoming real…
Marriage and the Elections
I had an interesting chat with a friend who works at Church today about the different parties and his main concern was Labour’s attitude on marriage, which he saw as uncommitted and against Christian interests. There were several things I said that feel like they should be noted down, so I’m going to do it here.
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