It's My Party (and I'll cry if I want to)

Over the years that I've maintained these pages, a number of readers have asked me why, given my interest in politics, I am not a member of a political party. By way of answer, here's a story for you.

When I was fourteen years old, a month before it was legal for me to do so, I joined the UK's Labour Party. Even at that time, I had as many sympathies with the Green Party, but my thinking was as follows: the Green Party will always be seen as extremists, and will never wield any significant political power. It is better to take a party which has a better chance of achieving office, acknowledge its imperfections, and go about making what changes one can to ensure that it will do what it ought to when it eventually gets there. Early on, I was kept busy trying to alter Labour's policy of capitulation where local councils were faced with administering the Conservative government's unpopular poll tax, and I was also involved in getting Gordon Brown his first seat on the party's National Executive Committee. Locally, I focused on establishing retraining and benefit intiatives for steel workers and miners (rather than desperately seeking subsidies which no government could be expected to provide to unprofitable industries forever). I made some progress in these areas, and had bigger ambitions; but, of course, I wasn't the only person who saw Labour, long out of government, as attractively malleable. Neil Kinnock was bent on eradicating the extreme left, which had the unfortunate side-effect of stifling most internal debate and discouraging any intellectual perspective. Tony Blair's brand of soft-focus neo-liberalism (whose red dress is about as convincing as J. Edgar Hoover's) was waiting to be born.

I left the Labour Party in 1992. There was no point in pretending we had a relationship anymore. It had ceased to listen to my concerns; it had become career-obsessed; it smelled of a certain lady's perfume, and showed little interest in its family. In short, we had irreconcilable differences. That's okay. I got over it. As Marc Almond once said: "What about me? Well, I'll find someone who's not going cheap in the sales."

Over the years since then, various parties have suggested that I might wish to get involved with them more closely, but I'm wary of any further intimacy. The political environment has changed. Most of the parties with candidates in the Scottish and Westminster parliamentary elections have some policies I agree with, and most have some I strongly disagree with. It seems to me more useful to be on the outside, keeping in touch with all my representatives, with government departments and with policy makers across the board. To tell the truth, there is no one party which I would prefer to see in government at this time. What interests me is coalition politics, and the more moderate, more sophisticated policy decisions which can arise therefrom. The trick, as I see it, is to get the balance in those coalitions right. I am interested in open and sincere debate. I am interested in good communication. I am interested in honesty and hard work. Candidates who seem capable of functioning that way will always win a degree of support from me, regardless of party affiliation. In elections, I vote tactically, sometimes (where the list system is in operation) for more than one party. I am more interested in cultivating an electorate of people who keep up to date and vote based on issues than of people who pride themselves on unswerving party loyalty. Sometimes at election time I put up posters which say simply: 'Vote'.

Below, I have made some notes of my feelings about the political parties currently competing for my vote.

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Last updated 26th January, 2008