Left or Right rule in the UK

IrishTrajan

Lemming wrote: »

So ... the fact that there exists euro-sceptics in British politics (namely UKIP, and some Tory backbenchers) equals a conservative society? I hate to break it to you, but the British media gives UKIP and their ilk far more noise then they're actually worth in reality because they stir controversy and sell newspapers. Further, being a sceptic is by no means a defacto negative thing; only if you let your sceptiscm refuse to accept facts when put to you.

UKIP got, what, 12% of the vote? That's over twice what the SNP got. UKIP got votes because that's what issues matter to the people and where the debate lies. UKIP has got the Tories more interested in Defence (with Cameron promising 1% increase to their equipment budget in real terms, and several backbenchers likely forcing a push if Britain falls below 2% spending), Immigration, and the European Union.

The real evil is the FPtP system.

Lemming wrote: »

Again, you have some remarkably peculiar notions on what constitutes conservatism vs. well ... everything else. And you have very pecular notions on what consitutes liberal society. Because if you are going to try and argue that Ireland through the decades and into the 21st century is a more liberal society than the UK, you are so far wide of the mark one wonders if you're trying to troll.

I'm quite certain he just dislikes the UK. Which is fine, but just don't hide behind the idea that you dislike the UK's Conservative nature where there isn't one.

KingBrian2

It baffles me that nobody's sees how conservative the UK is. I do distinguish between authoritarianism and conservatism but too many people on here are apologists for deeply conservative policies entrenched in the UK. Yes other countries have conservative parties but they also work with liberals, socialists and the Greens whereas a plethora of hardline conservatives dominate the media and political landscape.

IrishTrajan

KingBrian2 wrote: »

It baffles me that nobody's sees how conservative the UK is. I do distinguish between authoritarianism and conservatism but too many people on here are apologists for deeply conservative policies entrenched in the UK. Yes other countries have conservative parties but they also work with liberals, socialists and the Greens whereas a plethora of hardline conservatives dominate the media and political landscape.

It's not apologizing, it's facts. Ireland is far, far more conservative than the UK, and the UK is, by and large, pretty liberal.

You say you distinguish between Cons and Authoritarianism, but you keep bringing up Authoritarianism as proof that the UK is conservative, when that simply isn't the case.

Lemming

KingBrian2 wrote: »

It baffles me that nobody's sees how conservative the UK is. I do distinguish between authoritarianism and conservatism but too many people on here are apologists for deeply conservative policies entrenched in the UK. Yes other countries have conservative parties but they also work with liberals, socialists and the Greens whereas a plethora of hardline conservatives dominate the media and political landscape.

I'm an apologist for what now? I told you - based on my experiences to date living in the UK - that it is (and historically has been) a far more liberal society than Ireland, and you don't like what you hear because it doesn't kertow to your world view of how things should be.

You seem to equate what the media fixates on as what actually counts for running of a country. It does not, and if this is what you base your views on the UK on, then you are a hopelessly lost case. But then again, you seem to equate a lot of "not really what you claim it is" in the most impressive display of incomprehensible and non-dot-joining mental gymnastics possible to try and bash everything into your world view of how things should be.

So feel free to baffle yourself away that few others would appear to agrees with you.

KingBrian2

Lemming wrote: »

I'm an apologist for what now? I told you - based on my experiences to date living in the UK - that it is (and historically has been) a far more liberal society than Ireland, and you don't like what you hear because it doesn't kertow to your world view of how things should be.

You seem to equate what the media fixates on as what actually counts for running of a country. It does not, and if this is what you base your views on the UK on, then you are a hopelessly lost case. But then again, you seem to equate a lot of "not really what you claim it is" in the most impressive display of incomprehensible and non-dot-joining mental gymnastics possible to try and bash everything into your world view of how things should be.

So feel free to baffle yourself away that few others would appear to agrees with you.

Great way of dissing large sections of society that are unrepresented by the conservative lobby in the UK. Once again you compare Britain to Ireland when I was comparing the UK to other more liberal countries. I was not talking about how liberal Ireland was, I was asking from the very beginning how many liberals/leftists are their in the country v conservative right wingers in the country.

Based on the current configuration of Westminster conservatives make up the majority. Does this figure accurately represent the whole of the UK and when you look at the conservatives are their views in keeping with the majority of the population. Now from my point of view, reading British media outlets, hearing the various comments coming out of the UK on a wide variety of issues than the answer to me is that yes the UK is more conservative than it would like to present to the world. As I said before, this is about British politics nowhere else.

Clearlier

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Great way of dissing large sections of society that are unrepresented by the conservative lobby in the UK. Once again you compare Britain to Ireland when I was comparing the UK to other more liberal countries. I was not talking about how liberal Ireland was, I was asking from the very beginning how many liberals/leftists are their in the country v conservative right wingers in the country.

Based on the current configuration of Westminster conservatives make up the majority. Does this figure accurately represent the whole of the UK and when you look at the conservatives are their views in keeping with the majority of the population. Now from my point of view, reading British media outlets, hearing the various comments coming out of the UK on a wide variety of issues than the answer to me is that yes the UK is more conservative than it would like to present to the world. As I said before, this is about British politics nowhere else.

It wouldn't be accurate to conflate liberal and left. The liberal democrats veer towards liberal but have both right and left wing elements within the party which is what enables them to seriously consider supporting both the Conservatives and Labour. Labour has some very authoritarian streaks within the party and some liberal ones, ditto the Conservatives.

You need to be very wary of conflating the British media and public opinion. The newspapers in England (not the case in Scotland or Wales) are very right wing but don't IMO reflect public opinion. The BBC gets complaints from the right for being too left wing and from the left for being too right wing. Whatever your perspective there's no doubt in my mind that they attempt to steer a middle ground challenging all positions. I think that you get a better perspective of public opinion from the BBC than you do from the newspapers.

The UK is different to Ireland - in some respects it's more liberal, in some more authoritarian, it's incredibly bureaucratic, tolerates relatively high levels of inequality, has a very strong sense of fairness and despite what I thought ten years ago is much closer than many countries to achieving a genuine multi-cultural society. Its health system is much more (to use a horrible american word) socialised than Ireland's. We based our equality laws on theirs. Same sex marriage has been a reality in England and Wales for a couple of years now. OTOH it has delusions of grandeur militarily and does a poor job of recognising its place in the world and engaging with other nations.

It's impossible to accurately describe the UK as being a right wing or left wing country using the terms you did in the OP. The % of the population supporting the issues you described varies considerably from issue to issue.

KingBrian2

Clearlier wrote: »

It wouldn't be accurate to conflate liberal and left. The liberal democrats veer towards liberal but have both right and left wing elements within the party which is what enables them to seriously consider supporting both the Conservatives and Labour. Labour has some very authoritarian streaks within the party and some liberal ones, ditto the Conservatives.

You need to be very wary of conflating the British media and public opinion. The newspapers in England (not the case in Scotland or Wales) are very right wing but don't IMO reflect public opinion. The BBC gets complaints from the right for being too left wing and from the left for being too right wing. Whatever your perspective there's no doubt in my mind that they attempt to steer a middle ground challenging all positions. I think that you get a better perspective of public opinion from the BBC than you do from the newspapers.

The UK is different to Ireland - in some respects it's more liberal, in some more authoritarian, it's incredibly bureaucratic, tolerates relatively high levels of inequality, has a very strong sense of fairness and despite what I thought ten years ago is much closer than many countries to achieving a genuine multi-cultural society. Its health system is much more (to use a horrible american word) socialised than Ireland's. We based our equality laws on theirs. Same sex marriage has been a reality in England and Wales for a couple of years now. OTOH it has delusions of grandeur militarily and does a poor job of recognising its place in the world and engaging with other nations.

It's impossible to accurately describe the UK as being a right wing or left wing country using the terms you did in the OP. The % of the population supporting the issues you described varies considerably from issue to issue.

Well it did co found the UN with France, USA, China & the USSR, it is safe to say it is a large complicated country. That is not to say that over the last 30 years it has broadly speaking been a conservative country participating in all the International organisations. It has helped reduce poverty throughout the third world and sought compromise and reconciliation with many Nations such as South Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Japan and Turkey. Despite all this it effectively fought dozens of low levels wars against many other Nations and colluded with Islamists, Loyalists and crony capitalists. At this junction in time it is prepared to rip up the European Charter of Human rights, disengage from the ECJ and further support expanding free trade into impoverished Arab nations without first establishing viable states.

Clearlier

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Well it did co found the UN with France, USA, China & the USSR, it is safe to say it is a large complicated country. That is not to say that over the last 30 years it has broadly speaking been a conservative country participating in all the International organisations. It has helped reduce poverty throughout the third world and sought compromise and reconciliation with many Nations such as South Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Japan and Turkey. Despite all this it effectively fought dozens of low levels wars against many other Nations and colluded with Islamists, Loyalists and crony capitalists. At this junction in time it is prepared to rip up the European Charter of Human rights, disengage from the ECJ and further support expanding free trade into impoverished Arab nations without first establishing viable states.

Maybe stick to describing what it has done rather than trying to assign labels? I don't think that a lable in the context in why you are using it is illustrative or insightful.

KingBrian2

Clearlier wrote: »

Maybe stick to describing what it has done rather than trying to assign labels? I don't think that a lable in the context in why you are using it is illustrative or insightful.

Nobody has yet informed me if the UK is predominantly a right wing country or a left wing country. Some countries you know from the get go if they are left or right, Sweden left wing, New Zealand left wing, Russia right wing, America right wing, Japan right wing, France, Germany, Italy left wing. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan fundamentalist. Brazil, Egypt, India, South Africa, Mexico largely centrist. Obviously there is a scale, a question of degrees. Nobody would argue that America is on a par with Russia when it comes to the right wing but both countries have a large conservative voter base. The issue with the UK is which side does it fit in with.

A Primal Nut

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Nobody has yet informed me if the UK is predominantly a right wing country or a left wing country. Some countries you know from the get go if they are left or right, Sweden left wing, New Zealand left wing, Russia right wing, America right wing, Japan right wing, France, Germany, Italy left wing. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan fundamentalist. Brazil, Egypt, India, South Africa, Mexico largely centrist. Obviously there is a scale, a question of degrees. Nobody would argue that America is on a par with Russia when it comes to the right wing but both countries have a large conservative voter base. The issue with the UK is which side does it fit in with.

It's interesting that the Tories would not be as as right wing as most of the right wing parties you mentioned in that list - they are probably closer to the likes of Germany (who you labelled left-wing) than Russia.

johnnyskeleton

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Nobody has yet informed me if the UK is predominantly a right wing country or a left wing country. Some countries you know from the get go if they are left or right, Sweden left wing, New Zealand left wing, Russia right wing, America right wing, Japan right wing, France, Germany, Italy left wing. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan fundamentalist. Brazil, Egypt, India, South Africa, Mexico largely centrist. Obviously there is a scale, a question of degrees. Nobody would argue that America is on a par with Russia when it comes to the right wing but both countries have a large conservative voter base. The issue with the UK is which side does it fit in with.

I think you have your answer - some people subjectively view it as right wing, some as left wing. You are talking about an entire country, presumably over a large portion of its history, and there is no right or wrong answer, just subjective views.

You've been offered other people's subjective views at length but you have rejected these out of hand because they have a different view to yours. Repeatedly stating that you believe UK is conservative and asking people over and over again until they agree with you is beneath the standards of the forum.

Plus, while there may have been some argument about whether the UK is currently out of step with the rest of the EU in terms of social and economic policies, this largely hasn't been debated. So not really a topic on the European Union.

MOD: And with that, the thread is now closed.