British Tories to introduce marriage equality!

[C0ckney]

cort has a point about the management teams and the death of ideology in british politics. it's also the case that all the leaders seem to have similar backgrounds, went to public schools (private schools for our american readers) and the same universities, where they studied the same things. there are still some real differences however.

to be fair to the colalition government, they have been doing some fairly radical things. they probably took the lesson from 1997, where labour had a huge majority and did very little with it, and also, probably the prediction from mervyn king who said in 2010 that whoever won the next election will be out of power for a generation...

[giblets]

Different budgetary outlooks - Tories cut a bit more, Labour spend a bit more, Tories claim to be cutting the quangocracy, but we'll see. They might have different manifestos, and even act on them, but they're not the old parties of determined principle that they once were. They're management teams.

What is a quangocracy? It doesn't sound very ominous and threatening the way "big government" does.

[Cort Haus]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=quangocracy

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-rise-of-the-quangocracy-1648408.html

[Ben Kenobi]

Because the only opposition will come from the Tory seats, and those in traditional Tory heartland constituencies.

Exactly so. Labour and the Lib Dems already support it. Why do the Tories need to support it too?

[Ben Kenobi]

The party as a whole has moved past that point now. If anyone wants to embarrass themselves and put serious question marks next to their re-election, then to be honest I think it's better that they do it now so they can be replaced at the next election.

Why on earth would anyone vote Tory in the UK? That perplexes me. They don't stand for anything that the Lib Dems and Labor does not. If the people want gay marriage, then by all means vote in Labour... That's the way that democracy is supposed to work, where everyone gets some representation.

Are you happy with the UKIP getting all the traditional Tory constituencies? The same thing happened with the Progressive conservatives, they went to the left of the Liberals and were destroyed.

[Asher]

Another march towards freedom. I'm sure Ben is livid.

[giblets]

Yeah, probably. Who cares?

[Ben Kenobi]

Another march towards freedom. I'm sure Ben is livid.

Bewildered is more like it.

[MrFun]

Exactly so. Labour and the Lib Dems already support it. Why do the Tories need to support it too?

Because the Tories have gained a sense of decency.

[Ben Kenobi]

Because the Tories have gained a sense of decency.

Erm, ok, we all know what you'd say if the situation were reversed. Plenty of decent and faithful folks who reject gay marriage altogether.

[Asher]

No quoting!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Traditionally Tories, both in the UK & Canada, were pro individual rights. This was before the Moral Majority ****ed up politics in the US in the '80s.

Nope. I can't comment on Canada, but that's not true of traditional Tory values in Britain.

[MikeH]

This is a Conservative government that I can support wholeheartedly:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-move-to-legislate-samesex-marriage-2356475.html

Great Lib Dem WIN! Actually seeing some good Lib Dem policies coming out in the coallition.

[C0ckney]

Why on earth would anyone vote Tory in the UK? That perplexes me. They don't stand for anything that the Lib Dems and Labor does not. If the people want gay marriage, then by all means vote in Labour... That's the way that democracy is supposed to work, where everyone gets some representation.

Are you happy with the UKIP getting all the traditional Tory constituencies? The same thing happened with the Progressive conservatives, they went to the left of the Liberals and were destroyed.

the culture war doesn't really exist in the UK, there is something of a consensus on these kind of issues. this won't influence the votes of more than a tiny handful.

your UKIP comment shows you very little about british politics. i don't know what UKIPs position on gay marriage is, but given that its politics are not based on social conservativism, it's probably fairly ambivelent about it.

[MikeH]

The thing about UKIP is that although they are a one issue party, they are a one issue party made up of people with very old fashioned values indeed. Bit like a posh version of the BNP. This is a party that even David Cameron said contained 3 factions "the nutters, the fruitcakes and the racists".

They try and be very careful to omit any official policies on things like gay rights however:

http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/assets/docs/briefing/theres-something-about-ukip.pdf

This is fairly old but most of the party members still involved. It's worth reading the whole document, full of great stuff.

Racist

Nigel Farage (UKIP MEP since 1999, leader of the UKIP group of MEPs in the
European Parliament since 2004; former UKIP Chairman, 1998-2000 and cofounder, UKIP) told former UKIP leader Dr Alan Sked “We will never win the
****** vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us”, according to Dr Sked.
9

(he's their current leader)

Homophobic

Frank Maloney (UKIP candidate in the 2004 London mayoral election) commented
that he would not be campaigning in Camden because there are “too many gays”.
He said “I don’t want to campaign around gays… I don’t think they do a lot for
society”. Protesting that he was not homophobic, Maloney then added “In public
let’s live a proper moral life – I think that’s important”

Sexist

Godfrey Bloom (UKIP MEP since 2004) has notoriously declared: “No selfrespecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a
lady of child-bearing age”. He applied for a place on the Women’s Rights
Committee of the European Parliament, saying “I am here to represent Yorkshire
women who always have dinner on the table when you get home. I am going to
promote men’s rights”. He wanted to deal with women’s issues because “I just
don’t think they clean behind the fridge enough”.
30
Mr Bloom later said that employers should not “waste” money training pregnant
staff, and added “Women don’t need protection nowadays – they’re the ones ruling
the roost”

UKIP watch has some other stuff:

http://blog.ukipwatch.org/

They really are the ideal party for Ben if Ben was in the UK.