Liberty Alone

I voted at 7:30 this morning. I live in a fairly solid Tory part of Hounslow (South West constituency) although I have seen virtually no Tory campaigning (its been pretty slim from all parties, although I did get a Ken leaflet and some LibDem bits).
It was very quiet in the polling station, I saw a couple of people who’d just voted and about four people actually voting. A lone Tory teller at the door looking rather bored and glum.

I’ve no idea whether this sets the trend for the day or not, I’d assume that quite a few people will vote when they get home.

In work, I’m puzzled by the people who voted Ken then Brian. They seem to be on a ’stop Boris’ campaign. Perhaps we havn’t got the message across that you can vote Brian first and then Ken to stop Boris (or Boris to stop Ken).
The only other strangeness was the person who voted Boris because he thought that would give him more entertainment over then next four years (he put Ken second as well). That’s democracy though…

I walked past Brentford and Isleworth Labour Party HQ on my way to get some lunch. Lots of ‘VOTE LONDON’ posters, interestingly purple not red and with Labour in tiny letters at the bottom. I think they’re trying to get Ken’s personal vote rather than Labour vote out (the sign saying this is Labour HQ also happens to be obscured by bushes).

All the best to the LibDem candidates everywhere.

Because that’s what some seem to think.

I get the impression that many LibDems think we should vote for Ken Livingstone so we can keep Boris, and by extension, the Tories out of power.

If I was in politics to keep the Tories out of power I’d have joined the Labour Party. That is not my aim however, my aim to to promote liberalism and freedom for the individual. The party I judge to be best positioned to work towards this is the Liberal Democrats.

Frankly, I find the Tories, in general, slightly less odious than the current Labour Party, although I’ll grant you that in some areas the Tories are worse (in my home town they’re both equally despicable and I couldn’t vote for either) and they leave a massive amount to be desired.
True, there are the old Tory snobs and a fair smattering of idiots, but at least their snobbery and idiocy is out there for all to see. The Labour party contains its fair share of such people, but they hide behind being ‘progressive’ and ‘left wing’ which supposedly makes it all okay.

When it comes to the mayoral elections - I believe Brian Paddick would genuinely make the best Mayor - and that’s not just party loyalty speaking. After that however I see the twin horrors of Ken and Boris. Out of the two, I find Boris less objectionable. He at least has some liberal bones in his body unlike Ken who is an enemy of all things liberal and free.
I also rather like inefficient politicians, they’re less likely to get things done, encouraging us to depend less on government and more on individual and community efforts.

Frankly, if the London Mayor has so much power that he could destroy London then he has too much power unfortunately the only way to drive this home would be for someone to abuse that power, perhaps then we can start acting to reducing the power of politicians.

Acknowledging the fact that Brian Paddick is very unlikely to win, I’d rather have Boris with an Assembly which will oppose him than anything else. For me, Boris is just the lesser of two evils.

I still don’t get the anti-Boris sentiment.
The man is clever and witty, but has cultivated his buffoon image, that may backfire, but that is no reason to dislike him, merely a weakness.

In my book, he’s a far better bet than Ken. He won’t be consorting with dictators or micro-managing London’s affairs and he has more liberal bones in his little finger than Ken has in his entire body. If Boris is ineffectual then that’s a blessing, perhaps Londoners can get on with their lives without interference from the Mayor’s office.

But he’s a Tory, which means enemy number one, even if the Labour candidate is an illiberal socialist managerial politician who is opposed to liberty.

I have a confession. I don’t find bye elections that interesting.
I will admit to enjoying the suspense of election night and the more substantial arguments during major campaigns can be interesting but bye elections leave me cold.

I just cannot get excited about impending bye elections. They’re not about policy, they’re not about trying to promote and debate ideas. They’re so short term.

I think I must be failing as a Liberal Democrat…

If there’s one thing guaranteed to put people off politics I think it must be politicians and political bloggers after elections.

The Tories had a good result, you’d expect them to be rather crowing. I will take it as a compliment that many Tories have been attacking the LibDems far more than Labour - it shows that they are taking us seriously, even if they pretend that we’re not a threat.

Labour had a very poor result, yet to hear Labour MPs and pundits its not that bad. Its even a good platform for a general election win apparently. Come on, admit it, for the most part you did horribly and you are losing support in the country.

The Liberal Democrats also had a generally poor election. Perhaps its possible to spin bits of it - we did gain some ground against both the Tories and Labour in some areas, but we lost it, especially to the Tories, in other areas. We must admit that, and look at why and what we can do.

Personally, I think that we must evaluate the party and be staunchly liberal. I hear people saying so often that they don’t know what we stand for - true its difficult to get our policies across being the third party and true people not knowing what the Greens really stand for helps them enourmously, but we must start getting ideas across.
We must stop talking about liberal democracy and start talking of liberalism. Focus leaflets should espouse liberalism and frame our policies in the terms of liberalism. We must consider radical liberal policies and espouse individual freedom, rights and responsibilities.
We must seek to show we want to enable people to take control of their lives, to stop keeping people from having opportunity which they’d have without the government policies.

Everything we do should have the overriding theme of liberalism, of freedom and the individual. We must show why individualism isn’t selfish. We must stand on principle against interference in people’s lives, we must allow people to make their own decisions, even if the consequences to themselves are negative.

Everything we do should be based around a message of liberalism. In this age of spin and blandness we have an opportunity to put forward a liberal vision, to take the debate from the moribund left/right debate to one of liberty vs. authority, the individual vs. collectivism and of freedom vs. coercion.

We are the party with the strongest uniting principles, we should demonstrate them and promote them.