Saturday 17 April 2010

Fab watches the politics

I’ve just watched the televised political debate between the 3 leaders of the main parties in Britain on the BBC iPlayer… which I thought in general was brilliant. A brilliant idea for politics and the country in general I felt, but not only that – I found I was riveted and excited by the whole deal, something I don’t often associate with watching Cameron and Brown trade insults. So I’ve decided to rather self-indulgently share my thoughts with you….

It began in a strange way for me, I found myself believing in David Cameron’s opening points which in itself scared the crap out of me as I’d not empathised with any of his views thus far in the election. He made some interesting points about Immigration whereas Nick Clegg made a few worrying ones about a regional working system which frankly evoked a vision of 1984 for me, and (for me) some poorly thought out ways of reducing crimes committed by young people (essentially cleaning up parks and streets will apparently reform young criminals).

Another really good feeling I got about the whole open televised debate idea was the general consensus from all 3 about cutting beaurocracy in the NHS, the civil service and the care system. Let’s make it happen please.

Nick Clegg for me proceeded to tear apart Cameron and Brown’s arguments about reform in the House of Commons and in the police force by simply reminding them that they had voted against such reforms previously in Parliament. He then cemented his position, in my opinion, as the strongest candidate by working through how he would fund a tax cut for the first £20,000 bracket of income tax. This began a theme, a rather encouraging one for me, where Clegg would consistently talk through how he planned to free up funds for each promise he made – contrastingly to the promises of Brown and Cameron. An honest politician who proves he’s thought first of most of the ideas the other two are putting forward to gather public favour, and talking us through his figures, surely not?

Economy…seems a basic choice between putting money in or taking it out of the system, and frankly I trust Gordon Brown’s idea of putting £6bn more into the economy so as to bouy it slightly and reduce the threat of a collapse in employment similar to that in the 1980’s… as unpopular as it would sound to be pumping in more money to such a poorly run system. Such an experienced economic servant would surely not be offering a means of renewal that would appear so unpopular and achieve nothing more than to waste more money and spiral us further into our recession black hole. Clegg and Cameron offer the opposing view, unsurprisingly, but as no expert on the economy I really really can’t figure out who is pitching the right move.

Of course, there was the rigorous bore of hearing the opening and closing speeches mainly just involving the buzz-words ‘hope’ and ‘change’. But overall I felt generally good about the whole thing, maybe down to a televised debate being such a first for politics – but I feel more strongly that it’s a belief that now in the Lib Dems there’s a party that has made me feel better about British politics for the first time in a very long while. Plus Clegg is actually quite handsome if you squint a bit.

Let me know what you guys think

Love, Fab-Kabeedie xxxx

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