The conservative party with its cunning Dick Dastardly trickster chancellor and his latest budget continue surreptitiously to boost the fortunes of their voters whilst simultaneously taking away from Labour's voters (or from those who don't vote at all.) The latest wheeze is the national living wage which (by the law of unintended consequences as amply explained by this article in The Economist) ends up hurting the poorest whilst putting more money in already-well-filled pockets. This is the old game, I guess - Labour could be accused of similar tricks.
This is no way to steer a nation of over 60 million people - 5 or 10 years of one broad swathe of society being stroked at the expense of another; followed by 5 or 10 years with the roles reversed.
An ideal politics would be one where there the conflicting needs and aspirations of different segments of society are constantly balanced and policy is designed to spread the burdens more equitably. This would be a politics in which no one party would be get to rule the roost for a term or two on a slender plurality as at present. A politics based on fairer representation but also with consensus governments put together in order to represent all the major segments of our society. It's a long way from the binary, dishonest and vandalistic game our main parties currently play.
This is no way to steer a nation of over 60 million people - 5 or 10 years of one broad swathe of society being stroked at the expense of another; followed by 5 or 10 years with the roles reversed.
An ideal politics would be one where there the conflicting needs and aspirations of different segments of society are constantly balanced and policy is designed to spread the burdens more equitably. This would be a politics in which no one party would be get to rule the roost for a term or two on a slender plurality as at present. A politics based on fairer representation but also with consensus governments put together in order to represent all the major segments of our society. It's a long way from the binary, dishonest and vandalistic game our main parties currently play.