Unless you have been living in a news vacuum or mental institution for the last month, you will know there is a UK general election just around the corner.
In the last weeks the main political parties have rolled out their manifestos as if they were rusty old lawnmowers which have been festering in the political sheds for the last 5 years. All have had one common theme, fairness.
Except of course for the SNP (Scottish National Party). In the true xenophobic bigoted ignorance which runs as a steady undercurrent of sewage in Scotland, they have set out their manifesto as: vote for us and we'll protect the things that are important to Scottish people. Surely the first time that square sausage, cheap booze, batter and heroin have been the centre piece of a political party's stall.
Alongside fairness, there has been countless debate on talk radio and sundry other news outlets about equality and discrimination. These three ideas: fairness, equality and discrimination are all components of the misdirection which seems to be driving this election.
In the most simple terms I can muster, there is no difference between the two biggest parties at the moment. They are vying for the same piece of middle ground and simultaneously losing. The issues which have been highlighted are so subjective as to be laughable. Come on, discrimination? Please. Everyone thinks that they are discriminated against at some level. usually they are the bullshit rhetoric cliches which are trotted out day after day in the media i.e:
I'm black, I have been disadvantaged by not being given the same educational and social standards as a white person....... FUCKING LIES
I'm a white middle class person (usually a line trotted out by the white working class) and I feel discriminated against because I don't get the same concessions and allowances as..(insert: blacks, muslims, asylum seekers etc here)..... FUCKING LIES
I am a mum, although I cry a lot and am essentially a shell of the person I once was, I now believe I'm a super strong woman who would do anything for my children and I feel discriminated against because...(insert: there aren't enough mother and child spaces at Tesco, I can't have any more than a year off work when I shit out another kid, I can't get my kid into my choice of school even though I've bought a house in a specific area for that sole purpose).... FUCKING LIES
So as you can see, I think if you really drilled into everyone's psyche that 95% of people believe they have a valid reason to infer discrimination against themselves. In reality, it's bullshit. We live in the UK, the laws of this country and the multicultural society that we live in means there are very few people who could claim actual discrimination.
The definition of discrimination has become clouded with ideas of race and religion, these are the two main protagonists of the grounds on which people believe they are discriminated against.
Here is a different and I think, clearer definition of discrimination, from Dictionary.com
something that serves to differentiate
So discrimination is essentially, being different. This is why, as political ideal, discrimination is a winner, because everyone is different. So we all could have a fairly water-tight case in saying that we are discriminated against in some respect.
The idea of fairness plays into the hands of someone who believes they have been discriminated against. Another winner with everyone. Equality? Same story, doesn't everyone want to be equal, no they don't, only the people who perceive themselves to be 'less than' equal, actually want everyone to be equal. And I'm sure if I took a straw pole in the local High St, I could find that everyone thought of themselves as 'less equal' than some other section of society.
So what do the political parties really purport to do about all this discrimination, inequality and unfairness? Perhaps we should all become Communists? Yes that's it, lets live under a totalitarian regime. For that is truly the only way to iron out the inequalities in society, is it not? Well I for one don't want to be queueing up at the supermarket to find the shelves bare. Communism has been tried and it doesn't work. As much as the idea of driving around in a papier mache car and growing potatoes for my dinner appeals, it won't work.
Why can't people realise that we are all born different? I might be tall and strong, but I also have bad teeth. Things always balance out in life and voting for a certain political party because they promise to make everyone equal is just madness.
I live in the London Borough of Sutton. It's a 'two horse race' here between the Tories and the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems have been in power since I've lived here (10 years). I don't mind admitting that I've always voted for them and will do in the future unless something radical happens to their ideals.
They have a good local council, Sutton is one of the safest places in London (when I'm at home), they take account of the views of the people who live here and despite a few little (forgivable) mistakes they have made, they keep the borough in good shape, it is a desirable place to live.
So in the run up to this election the Tories have been out in force, trying to run down the Lib Dems, with no real evidence or justification to back it up. The Conservative candidate Phillipa Stroud is a Cameron clone, a smile on a stick, a career politician. She sends out mail shots with the holier than thou message that she'll 'fight a fair campaign, it won't be personal'. The reason for that is our MP Paul Burstow, is squeaky clean, a model politician, I know, I've trawled through his expenses when they were released. So she couldn't hope to do otherwise. It's a real irony, shes fighting a 'fair campaign' yet when I drive around there are 15 foot high pictures of Gordon Brown, grinning and telling me he's going to steal my pension and give it to and Afghan asylum seeker, all funded by the Conservatives of course.
Paul Burstow and his cronies visited my house in their publicity marathon in the run up to the election. One of his councillors came to my door and I seen him walk down the street. I told her that I wanted to speak to him and he duly came back and spent 10 mins chatting. I quite unfairly (see, there's the fairness again) pounced on something he'd once said against the expansion of Heathrow Airport. I gave him a 5 minute diatribe on the importance of the airline industry to a country which has systematically destroyed every industry which we could have been proud of. To his credit, he listened and he told me his thoughts on it. No Bullshit, no excuses, no flannel, none of the usual political misdirection usually employed by MP's. He's a real person, not one of the Westminster massive, using your tax pounds to pimp their second homes (duck houses, moats, toilet seats, buy porn films etc).
For me the Lib Dems are the only choice for this country. Everyone has been banging on about how there is no difference between the main political parties. This is true of Labour and the Tories. There was a televised debate (the first of 3) between the three party leaders. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader undoubtedly came out on top. Gordon Blair... sorry Brown and David Cameron spent the whole debate trying to run each other down. They argued backwards and forwards about which successive governments had made the worst job of running the country. Nothing positive, nothing of substance, just empty political promises which have been made time and again with little or no action or results.
Nick Clegg was different. He said things that meant something, he had ideas, some which he'd been talking about for years and which Cameron and Brown had suddenly adpoted as their own. There seemed to be a common sense and an honesty which could only come from a party which probably believes they have no real chance of getting into power, after all, what have they got to lose by telling the truth? Nothing. Labour and the Conservatives have had 65 years to run the country, it's time for a change now.
Let someone else have a go, after all, it's only fair isn't it?
