Where do the parties stand?

Last week I received a very interesting and thought provoking e-mail from a friend, asking for my thoughts on the state of the parties.  In replying I thought that he actually raised a very interesting point, and an issue worth sharing.  So here's his question, and my response.

I've been to your website. You know I have always respected your political views or at least your right to put them - even if I'm not a Conservative.

I am still getting the sense (from Labour and Tories and indeed from Lib Dems) that nobody knows what either party stands for at the moment.

What is the "guiding star?" What is Liberalism, Conservatism or New Labour (or whatever it is now)? This is a genuine concern from me and is not just academic. It is what people (small businessmen, decent middle class people, aingle mums with tattooes) want to know. It is just not apparent. As I say not some academic concern but a genuine concern I am hearing - what approach can I follow? what is the best for the country or me personally? Who knows at present?

To me it shows that politics is dead in Britain. No  passion (from any party). As I say - we need a big approach = this is what we "generally" believe in and this is why. Nobody seems to be clear, nobody believes in anything anymore.

As you can see, a very interesting question and one that, I'm sure, is echoed by a great many people throughout the country.  So here's what I said:

So where do they all stand?

"You raise a very interesting point in your e-mail and to be honest I'm not sure I know what the 'guiding star' is either.  I think it's pretty clear that, publically at least, the Lib Dem leadership will be drawing ever closer to the Tory line - at the risk of causing a split in their party similar to the one seen by the Tories in the early 90s.  The problem with something like that is that the Lib Dems are in nowhere near the same position as the Major Government of the 90s in terms of strength, and a split down the middle of the party could well be catastrophic.  I'm of the opinion that if they don't secure a formalisation of the Coalition in the 2015 General Election they will face annihilation as they won't have a line of attack against the Conservatives.

 

Labour is a very interesting proposition at the moment.  I think that they're slowly drawing away from the 'failed experiment' that was New Labour, and there are hints that they are slowly drifting a little more to the Left and back to their socialist roots.  The only question is how far they will go.  Again, it's causing problems within the party, with the very public disagreement between Alan Johnson and Red Ed over the 50p tax rate (Johnson seems to be far more left-inclined in wanting to make it a permanent change).  As well as this, Miliband the Younger seems far weaker than anyone could have imagined and I doubt he will last until the next election.  This would leave the question of who would take over from him, and what kind of course would they steer the party on.  Seeing as most of Labour is Union bankrolled, and in light of the election of the staunch left-winger Len McClusky ('there is no such thing as an irresponsible strike'), it could well be that the Unions could be instrumental in forcing the party back to its foundations on the Left of the political spectrum.

 

Judging by exchanges I've watched at Prime Minister's Questions over the last few weeks, the minority parties seem fairly evenly split.  The Green(s) seems to be intent on following Labour and joining in on their attacks on the Coalition.  This comes as no surprise to me as, having read a little deeper into their manifesto, they have a lot of very left-wing policies and are certainly not a green party in the mould of those on the Continent, which enjoy such dominance in national politics.  I certainly reckon that they are spent as a political force now, having shown their true allegiances, and this has been seen in them dropping the vote in Norwich, of all cities, in the by-elections held in September.

 

The SNP is just being the SNP (!) in blazing their own trail through the House and adopting a very non-partisan view on things, agreeing with policies from both sides of the House if and when it suits them to do so.

 

This leaves the Tories.  I think there have been two 'stumbling blocks' which have seen the party's policies become somewhat muddied.

 

First is the Coalition Agreement.  Whenever you have an agreement between two parties looking to share power, there will always be compromises.  I think the problem here is that the compromises have been between a Centre-Right party and a Centre-to-Mid-Left party and, as a result, the more 'extreme' of each party's policies have been dropped and we have been left with a Coalition which, thanks to its composition, sits firmly in the middle of the political compass for fear of alienating the Left and Right sides of its membership.  This is why, I believe, a fair number of 'good' and 'interesting' Conservative policies (such as anonymity for defendants in rape cases) have been rather quietly dropped or watered down.

 

The other issue is David Cameron.  He seems to have an irrational hatred of the Right of the party - which was shown by his trying to clip the wings of the 1922 Committee (the committee of Tory backbenchers, which has a small say in the running of the party) as it was seen as rather more Right wing than the 'public face' of the party.  I think the background to all this, is that Cameron appears very much to be a consensus politician who is rather concerned with his public image and will back down from a lot of difficult decisions if they could be seen as vote-losers (take a look at the legislation surrounding docking benefits for those who refuse to work - it is now extremely watered down and a far cry from the initial plans the DC announced).  Just last week he suggested in PMQs that he agreed with the leaked memo calling the party leadership 'children of Thatcher' - the only problem here is that Maggie strongly detested consensus politics!

 

The other thing that concerns me is the swift and sudden disappearance of the whole 'Big Society' thing - but I reckon that's an entirely different matter!"

So that's what I think about it all - how do the rest of you see it?