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Archive: BNP

A second opinion

4 June 2009 12:35

Categories: Current affairs, Economics, Internet, Politics, Scotland, Technology

The decision to vote

A series of posts

  1. A pathetic situation
  2. Five disturbing things about democracy
  3. How should politics be reformed?: Part 1
  4. How the new politics might look: part 2
  5. European election leaflets: The main parties
  6. European Parliamentary Election literature: small parties
  7. A second opinion
  8. I decided! And I decided to vote

A couple of tools have emerged in the run-up to the European elections. They aim to help people decide who they should vote for.

This is nothing new — nowadays every election comes with its own similar tools. They are the cousins of Political Compass and the like. While they may not be totally scientific, they are quite enlightening in their own way — and a bit of fun whatever. So I have taken both tests to see what they say.

EU Profiler

This test doesn’t give you results for all the parties, but the big hitters are there. This has the advantage of also comparing your views with parties right across Europe, not just in Scotland or the UK. The Europe-wide results are interesting in themselves.

But first, here are my results for parties that I can actually vote for. The top party is the Liberal Democrats, which perhaps shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Ideologically, they are the only party I am closely aligned to, and I have always voted for them in the past. I am a 60.3% match. Not terribly high, but higher than the other parties.

Second is the Conservatives with a 58.3% match. The SNP are a 55.2% match, while Ukip edge ahead of the Greens to be my fourth-closest match. Labour slug it out with the BNP to be my least favourites.

If you exclude the importance I attach to issues, Labour actually rise up to 4th place. Perhaps this suggests that I agree with many Labour policies — just not ones that I think are important.

I have a much closer affinity with other political parties outside the UK. My strongest match, by quite a long way, is Sweden’s Pirate Party. This is a recently-formed party which rose up in protest at over-zealous copyright laws. Makes sense I guess.

One striking thing about the Europe-wide results is the fact that three Croatian parties appear in my top five matches! Is there something about Croatia’s politics that would make me swing that way ideologically? Are there just lots of similar parties in Croatia? The three are the Social Democratic Party of Croatia, the Croatian Social Liberal Party and the Croatian People’s Party — Liberal Democrats.

The other parties in the top ten are: Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, People’s Movement Against the EU (Denmark), Estonian Reform Party, Freedom Union — Democratic Union (Czech Republic), Humanist Party (Portugal), Liberal and Centre Union (Lithuania). To be fair, having had a glance at each of these parties, they seem to vary quite a lot, so I wouldn’t put too much faith in them.

Incidentally, the Liberal Democrats are only my 65th strongest match. So in theory, there are 64 other parties across Europe that I would rather vote for. Not very good, is it?

Vote Match

Vote Match gives me very different results. My strongest match is Libertas with a score of 51/54, which seems quite high. (I’ve taken the test three separate times now, and Libertas were the top result each time.) This is despite the fact that I chose Scotland as my region and Libertas aren’t standing in Scotland.

Joint second are the Greens and the SNP with 41. The Lib Dems, the Conservatives and Labour are all joint fourth with 39. Jury Team’s Alan Wallace has 33 and Ukip have 28.

The results page on Vote Match is very comprehensive, with a table of each party’s position on each of the 30 questions. Looking down the table, it does appear as though I agree with Libertas on a lot of issues, and all of the issues that I marked as important. On all the issues I marked as unimportant, I disagreed with Libertas. This has perhaps accentuated their score.

These results just don’t sit right with me though. The list seems wrong. It is especially odd to see the Greens so high up there. Perhaps this is where differences in policies for Holyrood or Westminster and Europe come into play. But I’m taking this result with a pinch of salt.

Political Compass

This isn’t related to the European Parliamentary election, but it is the granddaddy of online political tests, and I think it is a couple of years since I have taken it. So I thought I’d take another look. My result now is:

Political Compass 2009
Economic Left/Right: 1.25

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.82

So I’m — just — on the libertarian right. But I am still more of an economic centrist, though firmly a social libertarian. This is more or less what I expected. A clear trend that I have noticed is a slow drift towards the libertarian right. The last time I took this quiz, two years ago, my economic score was 0.38 — closer to the centre, but still on the right. The social score was a slightly less libertarian -6.10.

The time before my score was 1.00 and -6.21. The time before that, in 2006, it was -0.13 and -5.08.

I still haven’t decided whether or not I will vote. However, I think if I do vote, I know which party I will vote for. I’ll report this evening on my action / inaction.

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European Parliamentary Election literature: small parties

4 June 2009 00:19

Categories: Current affairs, Politics, Scotland

The decision to vote

A series of posts

  1. A pathetic situation
  2. Five disturbing things about democracy
  3. How should politics be reformed?: Part 1
  4. How the new politics might look: part 2
  5. European election leaflets: The main parties
  6. European Parliamentary Election literature: small parties
  7. A second opinion
  8. I decided! And I decided to vote

BNP

Needless to say, the BNP is a pathetic party of mindless xenophobes with moronic policies. Their election leaflet has come in for a ton of criticism too, and rightly so.

My dad picked up on their use of a Spitfire at the very top of the leaflet:

The Spitfire was used in a war against your philosophy, you cretins.

Amusingly enough, the Spitfire pictured on the leaflet was actually used by Polish pilots, not British ones.

On the other side, the following is listed: “TRAFALGAR – THE SOMME – DUNKIRK – D-DAY – THE FALKLANDS”. What is this? Some kind of war-mongering jizzathon?

The leaflet also says you should vote for the BNP: “Because it’s not racist to oppose mass immigration.” Well, maybe it’s not racist. But it is downright moronic and fascistic for these reasons.

There doesn’t appear to be any attempt to tailor this message to a Scottish audience. A paragraph rants about “Lab-Lib-Con” — but there is no mention of the SNP, Scotland’s largest party. And the leaflet contains absolutely no information whatsoever about any of the BNP’s candidates.

Beneath this, is the by now familiar section on “Why We’re All Voting BNP”. You know, the one containing stock photographs which have been used in this way without permission. And the models aren’t even British. The “pensioners” are actually an Italian couple who do not hold the BNP’s views.

Christian Party – Christian Peoples Alliance

I got no leaflet, so I took a quick look at their website. I am not a Christian, so I haven’t spent long looking at the website. Reading their manifestos, their main policies include beginning each meeting of the European Parliament with Christian prayer and enforcing “an EU-wide day of rest” every Sunday.

A bit like the Greens, they also want the economic system to be controlled more, but are vague on how to go about it. Apparently limits will be placed on “complex instruments”. All-in-all, they actually seem very similar to the Greens, but with a God bit in the middle. Not a party for me, but they don’t seem quite as nutty as I first feared.

Duncan Robertson (independent)

It’s a complete mystery. Does anyone know who this person is?

Jury Team

No leaflet again, so I took a look at the website. There is not much there policy-wise apart from a general hatred of party politics. Understandable given recent events, although I am not totally against political parties as I outlined in the previous posts about how to reform politics in the UK.

There is something quite refreshing about Jury Team though, which is that the candidates are apparently totally independent of any kind of party control. Jury Team’s number 1 candidate in Scotland, Alan Wallace, has a blog which is an interesting read. He seems like a measured chap and in the (admittedly rather little) research I have done, there has been nothing that has offended me in the slightest.

There really is very little information policy-wise though. Indeed, Alan Wallace’s blog goes out of its way to point out that it doesn’t really matter what the policies are — what counts is that he will be open and transparent. It’s very well saying that, and I don’t doubt it. But it would be better if there was a little more information on exactly what I might be voting for if I place my cross next to “Jury Team”.

No2EU – Yes to Democracy

No2EU election leaflet Cheese-a-rama. Where have I seen this before? Does anyone really think that the current rise in unemployment has been caused by the EU?

The message from Bob Crow makes No2EU sound a bit like UKIP, but with added socialism thrown in for good measure. Loon-tastic. Like most frustrated socialist parties, they seem to long for a way of life that hasn’t been seen since… well, 1972.

My dad noted that the party’s logo is quite odd. The way it’s written looks like “no²eu”. I wonder what the rationale behind turning the word “to” into a number 2 then the squared symbol is!

Amusingly, this Scottish leaflet invites voters to an “Eve of poll rally — Euston, London”. I’m sure all those out-of-pocket Scottish workers will really easily find the time and money to attend.

A bit of research reveals that No2EU is actually a coalition made up of the following organisations: RMT, Alliance for Green Socialism, the Communist Party of Britain, the Indian Workers’ Association, the Liberal Party, the Socialist Party, Socialist Resistance and Solidarity. Communists? Solidarity? Indeed, Tommy Sheridan is number 2 on the list in Scotland. Yup, that seals the deal. I shan’t be voting for these people.

Socialist Labour Party

We got no leaflet, so I looked at the website. It’s a little bit scary. The design is garish and primitive, and the first words apart from the title are: “Scargill. VOTE SLP JUNE 4TH” That’ll be Arthur Scargill’s vanity party then.

Click on the link and you are told that this is “one of the most important elections since the Second World War.” Eh?

Ukip

This Ukip leaflet has the same sort of naff symbolism as the BNP one, with a huge image of Winston Churchill dominating the front of the leaflet and making an appearance on the other side. “Say no to the European Union”, the leaflet proclaims, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Winston Churchill actually called for a “United States of Europe”. Ho hum.

Ukip provides some information on their candidates. Their qualifications? One is “Scotland’s best-known horse whisperer.” Another is an “experienced geophysicist.” Still, at least it underlines the point that “Ukip candidates are real people, not career politicians!” — and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Still, you wouldn’t catch me voting for this lot. In these corruption-aware times, it would be a bit silly to vote for Ukip, who are kings of the art. They also have a track record of telling massive porky pies about the EU.

For another view, I liked Currybet’s take on the election leaflets he received.

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10 comments

The meaningless difference between left and right

19 November 2007 16:14

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Economics, Entertainment, Internet, Newspapers, Politics, Technology

I hate all blogging awards except for the ones I am nominated for. That means I hate all of them (apart from James Higham’s Blogpower awards!).*

One of the biggest problems is that there are just so many of them. The ones I always saw as the most important were the Bloggies — but perhaps that is just because they are the ones I came across first. Besides, I’ve never been nominated for them, so I hate them.

It’s a bit like degrees, as we have been discussing a few posts back. There are so many blogging awards that most of them mean zilch. So it’s quite funny to see Neil Clark acting as though he is some kind of cyber-god for winning a particularly flawed poll.

The full details are over at The Wardman Wire. Because you could vote multiple times (once a day, apparently), Neil Clark encouraged his readers to vote multiple times. Nineteen times in five days, to be exact.

Then when he won he went over to his patch on Comment is free and declared a blogging revolution — hilariously — “because my views are more in tune with ordinary people than most in the blogosphere”!

The only time I had previously come across Neil Clark before was when he wrote a particularly odious piece on Comment is free about the campaign to grant asylum to Iraqi employees for British forces. It rightly drew widespread condemnation from bloggers across the spectrum. (More on the Iraqi employees campaign here.)

However, this is perfectly in tune with his views on foreigners in general, so it seems. Mr Eugenides has pointed out that (as well as being a defender of Slobodan Milošević) Neil Clark is a candidate for the British People’s Alliance, which has among its policies the following:

The British People’s Alliance is also determined to expose, to halt, and to reverse the deliberate importation of a new working class whose members understand no English except commands, know nothing about workers’ rights in this country, can be deported if they step out of line, and (since they have no affinity with any particular part of this country) can be moved around at will, so that the old working class can be told to go hang, taking with it its unions, its minimum wage, its health and safety regulations, and so forth.

The British People’s Alliance is determined to expose, to halt, and to reverse the enforced bilingualism or multilingualism that transfers economic, social, cultural and political power to a bilingual or multilingual elite, so that those who are or will be excluded are or will be the English-speaking working class, black and white.

This is supposed to be a left-wing party, but it sounds more like the language of the BNP (complete with “some of my best friends are black” statement at the end). But it just goes to show — yet again — that the difference between left and right really is negligible. After all, big government is big government, and once it controls one part of the economy then control of other parts of our lives is not far behind.

Rather than left or right, what really matters is whether you are a liberal or an authoritarian. And ballot stuffer Neil Clark certainly isn’t a liberal.

(I will expand on my views on liberalism and statism in two separate posts soon.)

* I did actually win an award today, and coincidentally it was in a post about Neil Clark.

1 comment

Yet more thoughts on the result

4 May 2007 21:03

Categories: Blogging, Current affairs, Politics, Scotland, Technology

A closer look at the smaller parties.

The collapse of the SSP / Solidarity has been spectacular. They have lost all of their MSPs, and apparently even have only one councillor each in the whole of Scotland now. What I am most surprised about, though, is the fact that Solidarity actually seem to have the upper hand.

The SSP clearly owed almost all of their support to the charisma of Tommy Sheridan. Now that he has gone off to form his own party, the left vote has split. But Tommy Sheridan has been quick to point out that Solidarity is already the largest socialist party in Scotland, after just eight months.

It is still a huge comedown. In many areas Solidarity are behind Christian parties. In most areas they are also behind the BNP. Meanwhile, the SSP linger around among the truly diddy parties, registering between roughly 0.5% and just over 1% of votes.

I had got the impression that the SSP had a bigger movement behind it. But clearly among the electorate, SSP support is dead. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Solidarity bounce back by the next election. Tommy Sheridan will have to rebuild trust, but he is the only person in a position to get any socialist party winning seats again.

Outside the five main parties, the best performers have consistently been the SSCUP. In effect, they are now the strongest small party (apart from the Greens). Not bad going, but they have still lost an MSP which really underlines just how badly the small parties have done in this election.

UKIP have taken an absolute drubbing — at the very bottom in Central Scotland, and not much more popular elsewhere. Clearly there just isn’t that same level of support for UKIP in Scotland as there is down south. I wonder if this is to do with their promises to sack all MSPs. I just don’t think there is any appetite for that sort of thing. Maybe to reduce the number of MSPs, but not to sack them all.

Elsewhere, it is evident that the BNP has got at least 1% of the regional vote. The Christian parties also put in surprisingly strong performances. Damp squibs from Scottish Voice and the Publican Party.

Among the bloggers up for election, the 9% Growth Party came last in Glasgow with 80 the votes (ahem, 0.0%). Adam Lyal’s Witchery Tour Party got 0.3% in the Lothians, which was just more than the similar Had Enough Party.

Oh, and a word about independence as well. There is no mandate for an independence referendum. The SNP have more seats than Labour, but they do not have a majority. Indeed, they only got around a third of the votes cast and all of the other independence-supporting parties of note saw drops in support.

And of course, not every vote cast for the SNP will have been a pro-independence vote. In many instances, it will have been a simple anti-Labour protest vote. Pro-Union candidates still have a majority in Parliament, and they picked up a majority of votes.

It’s not quite time yet.

Update: Forgot to say my bit about the Lib Dems. I’m glad they are not in a position where they can be sole kingmakers. I was getting the impression that they were a little bit too comfortable with the idea of being perpetually in government. It is not a healthy attitude.

And while I am usually sympathetic to the Lib Dems when they are accused of getting in to bed with anybody, it is easy to see how they can just focus on finishing third rather than, say, pursuing good policies.

Because of the electoral system used, a coalition needs to be formed, and the Lib Dems will usually find themselves in a position to be part of the Scottish Executive. I’m just glad that this time round they will need to get someone else — probably the Greens — on board as well.

9 comments

I’m so lonely on this chart

10 April 2007 00:38

Categories: Current affairs, Economics, General, Personal, Politics, University

I am in the run-up to a set of exams. And you know what that means. Lots of procrastination, although very little actual blogging.

I have just retaken the Political Compass test. I have come out as:

Economic Left/Right: 1.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.21

This is the first time I have appeared on the right on the economic axis. The last time I took this test, I was just about bang-on the centre, at -0.13. This continues the slow rightward trend.

In the meantime, I have moved even further towards the ‘libertarian’ end of the chart. The result makes me look like a bit of an extremist, or at least an outlier.

Of the four quadrants, mine is probably the most deserted. For perhaps obvious reasons, ‘left–libertarian’ and ‘right–authoritarian’ tend to have the highest concentration of inhabitants, because these ideologies are often — lazily — seen as going hand-in-hand.

The authoritarian right contains just about every major political party and almost all the governments of the EU. The libertarian left contains green and socialist parties. Meanwhile, the authoritarian left contains such delightful characters as Stalin, Robert Mugabe, Pope Benedict XVI and the BNP.

Going through all of the pages on the Political Compass website, it is difficult to find any allies. I feel a bit lonely. Worse still, I can’t tell which party I am closer to between the Lib Dems and the Greens. But they are both very distant.

It seems as though I am destined to be the third corner in a triangle between the Dalai Lama and Angela Merkel.

Boring update: I found out by chance that this post contains the 400,000th word that I have written on this blog. Blimey. Someone needs to get a life.

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