(Untitled)

[virescere]

I was watching CSPAN sometime this past week - well, it was when Secretary of State Rice was in... Blackburn (I think), United Kingdom. Anyway, on CSPAN, the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, had a few words; then Condoleezza had a few more words; and then a Conservative Party politician had a few less words.

The conservative criticized the war

Comments

[napoleonofnerds]

Tony Blair decided sometime in the 90s that the way for Labour to defeat the Tories was to adopt a huge portion of the Conservative platform and win the elections on charm. This had several effects:

1. It caused people to vote Liberal Democrat.

2. It forced Labour insanely to the right to the point that they are more conservative than the Right.

3. The Conservatives have moved to the Left to get out from under the spectre of not having any issues to run on since Blair decided to just agree with them.

4. The complete reversal in a decade of political entrenchment hundreds of years in the making has displeased so many voters that it's a small wonder Nazis and Frenchmen haven't been elected to the Commons.

[napoleonofnerds]

As for the Irish, they abandoned the political "Left-Right" scale in favor of a measure of conservatism based on what acts of terrorism you were willing to support. Now, they don't need acts of terrorism because they have a Parliament, so instead they only have relative liberals.

That's a simplified version, but there it is. Ireland is also more like Europe than like the UK or the US in that they have a truly multi-party system, so the conservative positions tend to get cut up between several different groups that nevertheless espose views we would call Liberal.

It is also important to remember that Liberal here is conservative in the minds of many Europeans. Mitt Romney, the Republican Governor of the Commonealth of Massachusetts, actually considered running for the Utah Governor's office as a fairly liberal Democrat. Liberal in Salt Lake, Liberal in Boston, and Liberal in London are all very different things.

[bloodypapist]

Now, they don't need acts of terrorism because they have a Parliament...

Double meanings are fun.

[morsefan]

I know a lot about Irish politics. Basically, there are two main parties in Ireland, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. There are also some smaller parties that matter, including the Progressive Democrats, Labour, Sinn Fein, and another that may not still be in existence

[morsefan]

Two things happened after de Valera left politics totally in the 1970s. First, Fine Gael developed interesting philosophical disputes. It developed an interest in social programs by many of its leaders were squeamish about things like abortion and birth control -- this is, as you may recognize, a new version of Catholic social teaching! Fianna Fail stuck to its more free market guns, and when abortion became a huge issue, it got really tough in support of the right to life. Unfortunately, power corrupts, and many top Fianna Fail politicians have been discovered to have been stealing from the people, accepting bribes, etc., etc. This great party of government is now scrambling to form coalitions here and there to stay in power, with the Progressive Democrats who are more free market but more socially liberal, and sometimes with Labour. Fine Gael's experiment with social service protections never really got all that far, either. Fine Gael is far less tolerant of Sinn Fein than Fianna Fail (of course, there's that history), and

[morsefan]

One more thing -- here's concretely why liberal/conservative in Ireland is hard to understand from our perspective. In the divorce legalization, Fine Gael tended to support legalization. Fianna Fail was either rock-solid opposed or mostly opposed. Labour has co-existed happily with both in coaltion, though the Progressive Democrats (liberal on social issues!) only work with Fianna Fail, even though Fianna Fail is the bastion of social conservatism! Yet, Fine Gael continues to have the more "conservative" economic image, but I think that has a lot to do with the line Fianna Fail talks. Now, taking abortion, again, Fianna Fail has always been more "anti" than Fine Gael, though sometimes both were basically "anti" (this is Ireland, you know). But Fianna Fail was prepared to spend money for social services for mothers contemplating abortions to fix the law in the hopes of limiting abortion. So which is which?

I consider it unique.