And so on to part 2. The Conservative party. Well, they certainly have more info immediately available on their site. There's policy and consultation documents, as well as pamphlets and documents attacking Labour, that go back to 2002. But, my aim is just to look at their policies for the upcoming general election. That still leaves quite a few more documents to look through than for Labour.
First up is "action on deregulation". The front page of this states, "We have 63 deregulation proposals to remove the burden of over 11000 pages of guidance & over 1300 distorting targets." Just on its own, if this is true, it's a promising start. Remember that "guidance" is not the same as law. Where the government's concerned, if it benefits their agenda not to follow guidance, then they don't. So why bother having all that guidance?. As for targets - well, "you can prove anything with statistics" and, make no mistake, whether or not its own targets have been met, the government will find ways to make themselves look good rather than bad, when it comes to targets. Targets also more often than not have no real value, being either far too limited to cover such a wide subject as they are intended to do so, or simply not being the best way to measure improvement (or lack thereof).
It goes on to list these proposals. It's interesting reading for sure, and unfortunately I don't know nearly as much as I'd like about many of the issues covered. Instead, I'll pick out a few that caught my eye: There's two proposals relating to charities. One is to allow pubs to run charity bingo games without needing an expensive license, the other is to make it easier and cheaper for charities to benefit from fund raising raffles. These both strike me as small, yet significant proposals. It's nothing big, any extra abuse of trust that may happen as a result of such relaxing of rules would not raise a lot of money for the scammer, and I suspect that charities would be happy to have it slightly easier to run such fund-raising events.
One of the DfT proposals relates to local transport plans and bus strategies. The text claims, "these add little if anything to the quality of public transport, and are an unnecessary extra burden. We will scrap the requirement to prepare these plans." Now, I dunno where they did their research, but it can't have been all that thorough. I live in Nottingham, currently still going through a programme of public transport improvement. In the city and surrounding area, we have very good bus services. And they are noticeably better now than several years ago. We now have trams that, despite a poor start, have become well-used by commuters. And, of course, there're plans for several extra tram routes, now that it's been shown they have a part to play in the city's public transport system. I disagree with the conservatives' assertion about these plans, because if it doesn't stand true for this city, chances are, there are other cities around England that it doesn't stand true for.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
excellent post Jon. much to muse upon. not that i'd be voting for these sons a bitches.
2 - Temple Stark
You spelled labor wrong
:-)
Most Americans, er .. many .. think the Labour Party, because of Tony Blair, is very much like The Republican Party. Ooh, they're so wrong and it's why Blair is going to lose, I believe (good or bad). If they stopped and even thought a moment they'd realize that Margaret Thatcher was a member of the Conservative Party. While overseas she is most remembered for working with Ronald Reagan, in Blighty I think her reign is most remembered for the miner's strike, the Brighton bombing and the Falkland War, in no particular order.
Thanks for the dual posts. Are you going to try and define the Lib-Dems? Good luck on that. :-)
3 - jadester
yes, hopefully later today. Even labour (that's the blighty version =+) had alot of stuff to go through despite "only" have a few documents. This is by no means a full analysis but hopefully in simply picking out the bits that catch my attention, i'll be able to, in turn, catch the attention of some other people.
Of course, there's also a liberal smattering of my own opinions on things in these. But then, in politics, i believe it's impossible to be 100% neutral.
And yes, next up are the lib dems...
4 - Temple Stark
Yeah I know. Twas a joke.
er so jon are you also jadester? I'm confused.
Where's David Steele and the other David when you need them.
5 - jadester
yes, i comment as jadester but write as jon. It's a bad habit, but still a habit
I know it was a joke. Usually when I use the
=+)
smiley it's cos i'm not being serious
6 - Michael Brown
is there a case for returning to a Poll Tax
7 - jadester
I did not see it mentioned in their manifesto.
As for my own opinion on poll tax, all I really know about what happened before was that it triggered riots. Hence, I cannot really decide either way as I don't have any details to deicde on.
8 - lorenzo
very good read, look forward to the blogcritic of labour.
9 - jadester
i already did
sorry for the confusing title.
I may do updates in a few days' time. Also might look at some of the smaller parties such as the Green Party or whatever its official name is
10 - Eric Olsen
thanks JD, very cool stuff, nice to hear about other countries for a change - and they even speak English there!