What is 'Voting' for?

[MargeB]

I remember they had this thing a while back, think it was called 'General Election' or something. I remember some people voted Labour, others some other party, Conservative or Liberal. Then for a while I remember there was government, Labour I think, then the other two were 'Opposition'.

I guess this last bit has ended now. I saw the two 'Opposition' guys (that I voted in, since I wanted some opposition, lol) walking into the government guy's house to discuss points of concurrence on terrorism.

Did I miss something? Did they cancel opposition? When did the tories and lib dems start having tea with Tony? I know its a special issue. But the principle!

[kempie]

This Tory Lite... sorry New Labour Government has very rarely been held to account since 1997. Why should it be so now?

[jno]

oppositions usually bend the knee to governments in matters of war (Michael Foot cheered Thatcher on over the Falklands, as I recall). Having licked Blair's boots over the Iraq invasion meant that Michael Howard didn't have an independent stance to offer the voters when the election came round, unfortunately for him (and fortunately for Blair). It seems to be a convention, and it's a bad one. But as kempie says, Blair so consistently adopts Tory positions that Howard has nowhere else to go. Neither do voters.

[mfewell]

I call it decent people suspending politics briefly to stand together in a time of national crisis. Another term is Privy Council and shows that Britain can rise above politics when the country is at stake.

[Oneeyedvic]

jno - I don't think you can compare the Falklands or even the first gulf war to this last one.
In the Flaklands, a soverign territory of ours wasunder atttack by a hostile force. We retalliated. In the first gulf conflict, Sadamm invaded another country. We retaliated.

In the last war, we went in illegally against UN backing.

Hardly the same thing

[Grunty]

oneeyedvic - not only that, but one of the UN inspectors published a book well before the invasion that told us exactly why the wmd could not be there.

[jno]

oh, I agree Oneeyedvic - it's just that the politicians don't; when a government rattles sabres, oppositions join in. The justness of the cause doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Zen]

I feel soryy for them having to interupt their 80 days Summer holidays !!!!!!!!!!

[kick3m0n]

I hate opposition just for the sake of it which seems to be what you're advocating (and what shone through a lot of the Tory election campaign).  It is dumb and shortsighted to not concur on matters which are clearly common to all parties.  I wish they'd do it more often, instead of weakly striving to be different on matters of common interest and common sense.

[MargeB]

I don't mind concurrence. What is the meaning of any opposition statement if all they ever do is oppose? Strength is given to opposition statement if they are seen to concur at times, or not to score points in certain situations where they could have. Its not what I'm advocating.

What alarms me, however, especially given the current lad we have in office at the moment (Jesus Christ reincarnate, in his own eyes) is what I saw yesterday....(did I dream it?) Leaders of the main opposition parties going for a visit to 10 Downing Street to discuss how best to approach the war on terror. Does anyone else think this is madness? Oh sure, we're all against terror, but apart from anything else how the hell is this teaparty supposed to work??? Does cooperation now weaken power of opposition when they will need it? What, for example, happens if Tony Bush decides to invade Iran tomorrow, because of another set of 'terrorist threats'. The opposition might want to oppose.......but they have been formally involved in cooperation over this anti-terror situation.

Not happy with this at all.

[bernardo]

The purpose of opposition is not merely to oppose, but to keep the government to account, to scrutinise, and to improve.  Thus they were being involved in the process of trying to improve - and keep a check on - any propsed actions or legislation which may be done in the forthcoming months.  Such should be the case for all important issues - not merely partisan opposition for the sake of opposition.