Political

[tinyjo]

I was the most depressed I've been about politics for a long time this weekend. It's not just that the government has managed to steam-roll a terrible illiberal piece of legislation through. That's bad enough but I'm used to it by now. It was the ridiculous behaviour of Blair, Howard and their respective cabinets in the immediate aftermath.

I thought that Peter Hain's claim that the Lib Dems were offering constructive critism while the Conservatives were just opposing for the sake of it was going to be the most ridiculous thing when I heard it that morning but oh no. Apparently, he went on to call Howard a mongrel (I missed that bit) and on the evening news Margaret Beckett said in so many words that Howard had deliberately put the nations security at risk to score political points.

Predictably and justifiably extremely pissed off by all this, the Tories degenerated into namecalling too, although not nearly so badly and the whole thing just felt ridiculous. The LibDems came out best, possibly because they just kept their mouths shut.

It's just so disappointing to have real life turn out more ridiculous than cynism.

Comments

Welcome to my world...

[applez.livejournal.com]

At least the name-calling didn't include the 'F'-word ... that may only be a matter of time.

[pinata23.livejournal.com]

They all played politics with it. If the Lib Dems had turned up at the 2nd reading (or at the 3rd IIRC) then they could have killed the whole bill. But they decided they'd rather keep it around and try to modify it a bit, with the added benefit that they look like they have some power.
So now we haave a bill that is absolute crap, and name calling between all the political parties... Great timing for the election. :(

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking mostly of the aftermath here - the actual passage of the bill was a whole other horrible disappointment in politics in this country!