![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A couple of things I should mention before describing this dream: I am something of an Anglophile, and while I don't take the time to follow all the minutiae of British politics, I follow their general elections with some interest and am always excited to see the result. It's election time again soon. Labour hopes to win an unprecedented fourth consecutive term in government, but the opposition Conservatives seem to be favored for victory this year, with the Liberal Democrats in good position to make some gains (though an outright victory by them seems exceedingly unlikely). Personally, I favour Labour, but I don't view a Tory victory as the kind of disaster for Britain that, for example, a restoration of complete Republican government would be in the US. More on why in a minute, but first the dream fragment:
I was standing in a crowd London's Hyde Park. A political campaign rally was going on. I said to Jeff, "Oh, they must have called for the election!" Then the imagery seemed to shift from a sense of being there live to watching it on TV and the back again. Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a brief statement to the crowd, but then Prince Harry took the microphone from Brown and said that the Conservatives are "a bunch of suicide-bombing lunatics!" and that Britain would be a land of fools to put them in government. This statement by the Prince cast a gloomy pall over the Labour rally as they realized that their chances in the election had just suffered a major setback. Jeff said to me that he didn't see what the big deal was, and then the rest of the dream consisted of me explaining to him that protocol would require that the royals stay out of electoral politics and refrain from statements intended to sway the outcome of the vote [I don't even know if this true in real life, but I assume it is, and I can't remember a British royal ever blatantly attacking or endorsing a party or candidate]. So the Prince's denunciation of the Tories as suicide bombers while standing next to Brown could have the effect of riling the public against Labour and inspiring voters to send a strong rebuke both to Labour and the royal family. "I'm afraid he's just lost us the election," I said gloomily. Then I think I woke up.
In real life, if the Tories win I won't be happy about it, but it won't bring me to tears either. The UK will not fall into a radical right-wing condition under a David Cameron regime. What most Americans don't seem to know is that almost the entire British political spectrum is located to the left of ours. American Republicans might hear about a Conservative Party victory in Britain and feel all warm and gooey because they hear the word "conservative" and mistakenly imagine that the British equivalent of Sarah Palin has been elected. In fact, I suspect that Cameron's government, if it is in fact elected, will be about as "conservative" at most as President Obama's administration in the US (which is being blasted as a socialist, communist and Nazi regime). Ideologically, our present-day Democratic party is probably more comparable to the present-day British Conservatives than Labour. Britain doesn't even have a major political party as right-wing as what our Republicans have become, but their neo-fascist and racist British National Party is a lot like some elected Republican members of Congress and very much like a lot of members of the teabagger movement. The US has become so reactionary in recent years, that an election here will eventually be comparable to a British election if the only major UK parties were the Tories and BNP.
A notable thing about the present-day Tories is that their leadership seems have undergone a conversion on gay rights, and Cameron has been falling over himself trying to make the case that British gays ought to abandon Labour and the Lib Dems and vote blue this year. This interesting table, however, shows the voting record of the three largest parties on some issues important to gays, and you can see that the Conservatives overwhelmingly went against the interests of gay voters on all of them except for civil partnerships, whilst Labour and the Lib Dems voted almost 100 percent in favor of each. I will give at least some of the Tories credit, however: if votes on comparable issues were held in the US Congress now, 100 percent of Republicans would vote against the gays on every one of them. I hope it's true that the Conservatives are no longer an overwhelmingly homophobic party, but I don't trust them. If Cameron and his crew win in May, he can prove it by doing something good. They already have civil partnerships, but how about adding samesex marriage?
I was standing in a crowd London's Hyde Park. A political campaign rally was going on. I said to Jeff, "Oh, they must have called for the election!" Then the imagery seemed to shift from a sense of being there live to watching it on TV and the back again. Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a brief statement to the crowd, but then Prince Harry took the microphone from Brown and said that the Conservatives are "a bunch of suicide-bombing lunatics!" and that Britain would be a land of fools to put them in government. This statement by the Prince cast a gloomy pall over the Labour rally as they realized that their chances in the election had just suffered a major setback. Jeff said to me that he didn't see what the big deal was, and then the rest of the dream consisted of me explaining to him that protocol would require that the royals stay out of electoral politics and refrain from statements intended to sway the outcome of the vote [I don't even know if this true in real life, but I assume it is, and I can't remember a British royal ever blatantly attacking or endorsing a party or candidate]. So the Prince's denunciation of the Tories as suicide bombers while standing next to Brown could have the effect of riling the public against Labour and inspiring voters to send a strong rebuke both to Labour and the royal family. "I'm afraid he's just lost us the election," I said gloomily. Then I think I woke up.
In real life, if the Tories win I won't be happy about it, but it won't bring me to tears either. The UK will not fall into a radical right-wing condition under a David Cameron regime. What most Americans don't seem to know is that almost the entire British political spectrum is located to the left of ours. American Republicans might hear about a Conservative Party victory in Britain and feel all warm and gooey because they hear the word "conservative" and mistakenly imagine that the British equivalent of Sarah Palin has been elected. In fact, I suspect that Cameron's government, if it is in fact elected, will be about as "conservative" at most as President Obama's administration in the US (which is being blasted as a socialist, communist and Nazi regime). Ideologically, our present-day Democratic party is probably more comparable to the present-day British Conservatives than Labour. Britain doesn't even have a major political party as right-wing as what our Republicans have become, but their neo-fascist and racist British National Party is a lot like some elected Republican members of Congress and very much like a lot of members of the teabagger movement. The US has become so reactionary in recent years, that an election here will eventually be comparable to a British election if the only major UK parties were the Tories and BNP.
A notable thing about the present-day Tories is that their leadership seems have undergone a conversion on gay rights, and Cameron has been falling over himself trying to make the case that British gays ought to abandon Labour and the Lib Dems and vote blue this year. This interesting table, however, shows the voting record of the three largest parties on some issues important to gays, and you can see that the Conservatives overwhelmingly went against the interests of gay voters on all of them except for civil partnerships, whilst Labour and the Lib Dems voted almost 100 percent in favor of each. I will give at least some of the Tories credit, however: if votes on comparable issues were held in the US Congress now, 100 percent of Republicans would vote against the gays on every one of them. I hope it's true that the Conservatives are no longer an overwhelmingly homophobic party, but I don't trust them. If Cameron and his crew win in May, he can prove it by doing something good. They already have civil partnerships, but how about adding samesex marriage?
Tags:
