Who Will You Vote For In The Coming General Election?

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

Labour ruled out an SNP deal last time. The real problem was Ed. Let's hope a deal can be done.

 

[technodup]

Dream on. You think England is going to be happy with a Corbyn/Sturgeon coalition? The SNP, the party of Scotland Scotland Scotland ruling over the English, from a parliament they claim to despise?

That's one of the most mental things I've heard in a while.

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Apologies if this has been linked to before. If not, it should have been. An impartial and effective tool which clarifies the whole 'left' and 'right' thing by adding another dimension:

https://www.politicalcompass.org/

is it bollocks impartial and effective, it's very heavily skewed by the test-creator's own opinions and (sometimes mistaken) beliefs about those who he considers to be the extremes in his two chosen axis.

The questions themselves reflect the author's own liberal (in the literal sense) ideology, so you get weird crap like controlling inflation and controlling unemployment being contradictory goals.

Admittedly the 'test', like all such questionnaires, is a blunt instrument. Anyone who's given such things any thought has a "yeah but..." for any question, which makes a simplistic (strongly)agree/disagree optional answer problematic. What I was describing as 'an impartial and effective tool' was not the questionnaire, but the general analysis at the site, with a list of recommended books that seems to have no ideological bias, and the innovation of adding the vertical axis. It is certainly impartial when compared to the other link in that post.

The result is it gives really weird results. It calls me libertarian-left, less authoritarian than Ghandi. I'm an unapologetic, extremely hardline Communist, so I think that test went wrong somewhere.

Obviously there is often (not always!) a mismatch between an individual's ideals versus what they consider necessary to endorse/sanction/tolerate/suffer from the state. I think Gandhi might qualify as a 'hardline Communist' under dictionary definition? i.e. you might need to more accurately define your position if you seek to differentiate it from his? To me, there is nothing in the phrase 'hardline Communist' that automatically implies a more authoritarian stance than Gandhi's, although I concede that I might be missing the distinction between 'Communist' and 'communist'!

Ideologies really don't go on spectrums. They're philosophical schools, they develop and branch off from one another instead, with very different values and moralities emerging. You can't plot this on a scale of authoritarianism because everyone has a different idea of what it means to be authoritarian in the first place.

Does that mean that you reject any attempt to place ideologies on the left/right continuum too?
One school of thought sees the left/right thing as being basically about how much social/political/economic equality there should be: Equalisers are to the left, stratifiers to the right. I guess the vertical dimension is supposed to differentiate the strategies used to achieve/maintain that? I think authoritarian/libertarian is a useful vertical axis. there may be other better ones.

To me, 'authoritarian' means the unquestioning acceptance of, and psychological need for- more or less permanent hierarchies, in which a person takes orders from 'superiors' and gives orders to 'inferiors', while disassociating themselves from any responsibility for the eventual outcome.

 

[xerxes]

Re:

You can't test for ambivalence with yes/no answers.

 

[The History Man]

I think we need more on the NHS


Ambivalences.

 

[Bats]

Re: Re:

What I was describing as 'an impartial and effective tool' was not the questionnaire, but the general analysis at the site, with a list of recommended books that seems to have no ideological bias

Doesn't exist - everyone has an ideological bias. The people who have the worst bias are often the ones who think they've got no ideology at all - because it means they've got the most commonly held ideas of their society, the ones so entrenched they become invisible.

The real trick is to know your inherent biases, that which you wish to achieve. Then you can whip up a scientific method (or as much as there can be) for achieving it.

Obviously there is often (not always!) a mismatch between an individual's ideals versus what they consider necessary to endorse/sanction/tolerate/suffer from the state. I think Gandhi might qualify as a 'hardline Communist' under dictionary definition? i.e. you might need to more accurately define your position if you seek to differentiate it from his? To me, there is nothing in the phrase 'hardline Communist' that automatically implies a more authoritarian stance than Gandhi's, although I concede that I might be missing the distinction between 'Communist' and 'communist'!

My position is roughly that everything went tits up at the 20th congress but you could see the cracks forming around the time they had to invent "people's democracy" to explain how they got the post-war sphere of influence rather than just admit they bartered for it at Yalta.

Does that mean that you reject any attempt to place ideologies on the left/right continuum too?
One school of thought sees the left/right thing as being basically about how much social/political/economic equality there should be: Equalisers are to the left, stratifiers to the right. I guess the vertical dimension is supposed to differentiate the strategies used to achieve/maintain that? I think authoritarian/libertarian is a useful vertical axis. there may be other better ones.

Left and Right, to me, is a simple division: those who're critical of existing class society on the left, those who're supportive of it on the right. The extremes would be those who respectively wish to destroy it, or armour it.

To me, 'authoritarian' means the unquestioning acceptance of, and psychological need for- more or less permanent hierarchies, in which a person takes orders from 'superiors' and gives orders to 'inferiors', while disassociating themselves from any responsibility for the eventual outcome.

Nah, that's dehumanising propaganda. Cold war stuff. "Those [Russians/Koreans/etc] aren't like us, they crave a dictator" "we have to bomb them because their government is evil" etc. It's how messes like Iraq and Libya and Syria are created and you'll notice that this stuff is never said about countries open for business in US Dollars - like the notorious human rights vortex that is Saudi Arabia. Never mind it's also used against countries that, factually speaking, implement more democracy than North American and European ones do.

What you find is that Authoritarian Dictatorship and Democracy exist in the same countries always. Those who are in power practice democracy amongst themselves. Those out of power are then told what the law is and beaten by police if they ignore it. I for one was not invited to sit in the house of commons, were you?

 

[half cog]

Re:

I reckon Mrs May has just sunk her majority. Even Cameron knew better than to have a go at the pensioners. There are a hell of a lot of us and the idea that we will not be able to hand on what we have worked for to our kids and that winter fuel payments should be means tested will not go down well. Even less so when imposed by civil servents with their final salary pension schemes paid for by our taxes.As a life long conservative even I am going to have to think hard on this one.Shame the labour party could not have chosen a better leader. What a choice

 

[Harryburgundy]

Re: Re:

I reckon Mrs May has just sunk her majority. Even Cameron knew better than to have a go at the pensioners. There are a hell of a lot of us and the idea that we will not be able to hand on what we have worked for to our kids and that winter fuel payments should be means tested will not go down well. Even less so when imposed by civil servents with their final salary pension schemes paid for by our taxes.As a life long conservative even I am going to have to think hard on this one.Shame the labour party could not have chosen a better leader. What a choice

A better leader in which way? This isn't a personality contest, please read the Labour manifesto and make a judgement on that.

As for the Tories
Dementia tax
Means tested winter fuel allowance
No guarantee that NI or Income Tax will not rise
Scrapping free hot lunches for school children
Potentially rescinding the fox hunting ban
Withdrawal of 2015 pledge to ban U.K. Ivory trade
Wonderful work May, congratulations.
Refuses any debates
Uncosted manifesto.
Demonstrably unachievable pledges
Oh no...but they are strong and stable. That's all right then.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

The means by which a party leader is elected, democratic as it may be, fails to address the need to find someone who can get elected by a very undemocratic general public.

I feel Andy Burnham would have made some headway against May. Enough to give hope.

 

[Bats]