Some positive news (129/365)

[white_hart]

While the local election results are mostly pretty dismal, I'm pleased to see that our county council has gone from Conservative-controlled to No Overall Control. And I'm glad that Sadiq Khan got back in as London Mayor, though I wish Count Binface had beaten the odious Fox.

Unfortunately I fear that England is just a deeply conservative country; it's no surprise that the only Labour leader to have won a general election in the last 40 years was Blair, who started off on the right wing of the party and moved further right as he went on. (I've just looked up the list of general election results on Wikipedia, and that makes it even clearer just how much Conservative governments are the norm and any other party - Liberal until World War 1, Labour since World War 2 - being in power is anomalous.)

Maybe I really should think about moving to Scotland in the hope of one day living in an independent Nordic-aligned state...

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

I don't think England is that conservative, really, or at least no more than anywhere else. Its conservatism is of a kind which tends to stick together and which is helped by FPTP, while its radicalism is more fissiparious...

[tree_and_leaf]

I think there's probably something in that. And of course there's also the demographic factors at play, such as the brain (and energy!) drain to London and other metropolitan centres.

[nineveh_uk]

Agreed with both this and sir_guinlain. I'm also deeply doubtful about the "Scandinavian Scotland" idea. Is it an idea I'd really like as a reality? Yes! But none of the existing Scottish political parties, with the exception of the Scottish Greens, seem to give any indication that this is the way they see the country going. As UK national parties Labour and LibDems are hampered on that front, but the SNP isn't, and the SNP is decidedly not giving a message of "We would intend to introduce Scandinavian style taxation in order to deliver Scandinavian style standard of living" or any significant signal towards that, and since any chance of such change happening requires public opinion to behind it, that rather suggests that it isn't currently viewed as a winner in terms of public opinion (or at least that proportion of public opinion that is also pro-independence).

[white_hart]

The SNP's policies are pretty progressive, though. And their inclusive message appeals to me so much more than the Little Englander attitudes that both Labour and the Conservatives down here are espousing.

[nineveh_uk]

I definitely agree that the SNP's policies have included some excellent socially progressive aspects and I'm glad of that and their messaging (though I've seen some more negative takes from BAME Scots). But ultimately, I see the Nordic model as a fundamentally economic one, and that's a different battle and not necessarily one that progressive voters on other fronts automatically support. Even Cameron ultimately saw same-sex marriage as a vote-winner overall.

That said, if there's one thing that you can guarantee independence would bring, it would be a huge shake-up in Scottish politics. It's certainly possible that that would bring about a move towards a Nordic model, and since I am inclined to see independence as more likely than not within 20 years, I hope that is the direction things would go. But it's also possible that with the Westminster question removed it sees the resurgence of a mainstream economic right-wing force in politics.

[white_hart]

Yes, I was generally thinking of the socially progressive aspect. (Apparently I have no hope of an economically progressive government anywhere on these benighted isles ever again, so I hadn't even considered that.)