Backing Blair shift in tactics, and who do I vote for?
This is pretty much what I reckon the Backing Blair campaign should have been all along - I hoped they'd get to it eventually. Now my local Labour MP (well, OK, technically not just at the moment) is on the "approved" list - which is only right, considering their voting record.
Nonetheless, Backing Blair is still cautious. A Labour member friend of mine was telling me the other day to vote Labour so that Gordon would have a good enough majority to get things done. I, like the Backing Blair lot, am not so sure:
"the message is no longerEither way, they now have a well-considered breakdown of constituencies in which anti-war, pro-civil liberties Labour candidates should receive our support as well as constituencies where the Lib Dems have a good chance of beating the Tories - either to first or to second place. It's worth having a quick gander.Vote LibDem, Get Tory , but insteadVote Blair, Get Brown .
"There are two reasons to distrust this new message. Firstly consider Tony Blair. Given all the dissembling over WMDs, the sheer scale of his betrayal of our trust, taking this into account, what guarantee do we have that he will indeed stand down? None. And when will he stand down? Possibly sometime in the next 5 years, but it all comes down to trust, a commodity which Blair is sadly lacking."
I, meanwhile, am still waiting to hear from my local Lib Dem candidate. For anyone who's interested, this is what I've asked him:
Glenda Jackson has voted against the government consistently on the war in Iraq and ID cards, two of the major issues with which I am concerned. She's liable to continue to be a thorn in Blair's backside, and is well enough known for her views to get some airtime. She's also very pleasant in person - she bought me a coffee once when I was working at the House of Commons.Just remember folks - you don't have to make your final decision until polling day. I certainly haven't, and there's still time to win my support. A word of advice, though - don't fucking patronise me - I'll vote against you out of spite. I'm childish like that...
However, a vote for her is - thanks to the absurdity of the current system - also a vote for Blair as Prime Minister. I want him gone. My ideal scenario, short-term, is a Labour government led by Gordon Brown with the Liberal Democrats as the official opposition - allowing you lot time to build up enough knowledge and MPs with experience to be able to form a government in 5-10 years time.
At the moment, however, my prime concern is for Blair to have as tough a time of it as possible. How would you, as a new MP in what will likely remain the third party, be able to give him as tough a time as an ex-minister with name-recognition value through her acting work, who has publicly called on him to resign following the Hutton Enquiry and voted against the government consistently over the last few years?
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"""How would you, as a new MP in what will likely remain the third party, be able to give him as tough a time as an ex-minister with name-recognition value through her acting work, who has publicly called on him to resign following the Hutton Enquiry and voted against the government consistently over the last few years?"""
To attempt to answer on behalf of the candidate, I'd say that one difference a Lib Dem could make compared to a dissident Labour MP is voting against the government on a motion of no confidence, something that might be important if Labour get a small majority after the election.
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