British Voters Go to the Polls

Yeah, the general election is finally underway. There's been a whole scandal about the Iraq shit, but if I were a voter, I'd be just as if not more concerned about domestic issues. Having said that, I'm pushing for the two dominant parties in the British Parliament to be Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The Tories are basically hopelessly backward right-wing conservatives (albeit a far cry from the neocons of the USA). A lot of their privatisation measures proposed are a bit ridiculous and far-fetched. Any privatisation must occur gradually so as to allow for adjustment and testing the waters to account for possible abuse. Michael Howard just isn't a very inspiring leader either.

Labour's right-centrist stance makes sense to me, but I'm a bit upset by Blair's pushing the envelope when it comes to telling the truth. I don't know enough about the British political situation to comment, but his middle of the road policy seems to be fine — for now.

The Liberal Democrats seem interesting. Their proposals are unorthodox, but not unorthodox in the same way as many of my ideas. (I like Charles Kennedy's accent too, but that's not really that big a factor for most voters, I reckon.) I've been reading a book published in the 1980s and written by several leading politicians in the now-defunct Liberal party (which merged with another party to form the Liberal Democrats), and the ideas proposed make sense. That said, you can't really expect the Liberals then to be the same as today's Liberal Democrats. The Wikipedian entry on the Liberal Democrats piques my curiosity, though. If anything, it'll be interesting to hear more from them.

Of course, my opinion in this case is totally irrelevant. I know next to nothing about Britain, but at least I've proved to myself that I know enough to write a few paragraphs about their general election. So, with a bit of hesitance, here's hoping for a Labour victory with the Liberal Democrats nipping at their heels.