tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132206171945839649.post7806675602546686458..comments2024-02-13T11:11:28.246+00:00Comments on Bishop Alan’s Blog: Mind Games for PoliticiansBishop Alan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13879516755776951638noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132206171945839649.post-70234802453808344112010-05-09T10:23:25.999+01:002010-05-09T10:23:25.999+01:00Sounds like another reason to be cheerful I went t...Sounds like another reason to be cheerful I went to Cambridge...<br /><br />I had a few phone calls enquiring about the Rev you mention, who is very much a freelance.<br /><br />Your post made me think about the way that elections are explicitly about immediate policy issues, where the bigger issues and attitudes that make you trust a candidate or not lurk in the shadows behind.<br /><br />I was fascinated by Peter Hennessy’s comment on the radio as I drove back from a service this morning that UK politics is not divided between liberals and conservatives (like US politics) but herbivores and carnivores. It's the way they play out their various games in the next few days that will determine whether your hopes, which I think I share, are fulfilled. I can’t see any real progress withoout a proper voting system where you get the power you deserve, but then people have been saying that since 1865 without getting it, so I'm not holding my breath!Bishop Alan Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13879516755776951638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7132206171945839649.post-75533828591782877802010-05-07T15:51:43.870+01:002010-05-07T15:51:43.870+01:00Well, in my constituency, the Misogyny Party won b...Well, in my constituency, the Misogyny Party won by 176 votes; no doubt assisted by the Animal Illiteracy Party and the frankly libellous accusations made by a now-unlicensed Anglican deacon who runs a private anti-abortion rights lobby group.<br /><br />The Conservatives have no real mandate in the Celtic fringe. The English for the most part don't care a great deal for Labour although actually Labour has a good number of seats, and a Lib-Lab coalition would have a greater absolute number of popular votes. The Conservatives can't run a majority colaition based on LD support alone.<br /><br />If I thought the Conservatives would run the country as a minority government without catering to its misogynist, homophobic, talibangelical wing, and the KPMG backroom boys and the derivatives bankers, I'd be content with a Lib-Con agreement to play nicely with each other and not upset the horses.<br /><br />Sadly, I don't. Even the young woman who won here has a chequered and murky academic background; nothing like having a hugely public affair with someone else's husband, but in Oxford, these nuances matter.<br /><br />I'm both sad at the result but happy because there is now a small chance that everyone will have to work with each other and there's a ghost of a chance that the Tories have some integrity in its leadership and lead for us all, rather than for its own followers.Vinaigrette girlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04503157468363143336noreply@blogger.com