11 'f’)‘ Kn! E':__‘ ‘I .k _' S '-. if v.

Vote anyone . but them

Our theatre editor isn’t in the business of telling you who to vote for. He wants to tell you who NOT to vote for. Negative campaining? You betcha.

n the old Soviet Union. contrary to popular belief. there were elections. These were held locally every three years. If you didn‘t like some aspect of what your local mayor was doing. you could vote him out.

Of course. this was mainly about very minor nuances of

policy. and whether or not you liked the person at the tops face. Aside from these little tweaks. you had to vote for another person who would instigate the same economic and social policies. Sound familiar"?

It's hard for us to acknowledge. rightly proud as we

are of our democracy. that we live in what. in practice if

not in name. amounts to a one party state. But let's face it. after the tnonetarist economic revolution of I979. we do. The Blair government amounts if the policy facts he examined to a more extreme form of the Major government. The latter was unable to instigate such militant measures in favour of wealthier folk as top-tip fees at universities. which look set to exclude working-class young people from access to university training through the future debts imposed upon them.

This government is also well to the right of previous Tory governments. In the early 70s Iidward Heath‘s (‘onservative government was faced with an unemployment crisis when Rolls Royce was threatened with closure: it acted swiftly to nationalise the plant. preserving jobs and the local social infrastructure in doing so. Faced with a parallel situation at Rover. the current government doles out a week‘s wages and says hard luck. They comment on the situation as if they were weathermen remarking objectively on a cold front. But they are not the weathermen. they‘re the weather. It is they who have instigated policies (or continued them from previous Tory governments) which brought about the crisis. It is also their forthright advocacy of financial deregulation to the point not so much of laissez-faire. as simply turning a blind eye. which must surely have contributed to the reported ‘black hole‘ of between £2()()m and £4()()m in the company‘s finances.

(‘ontrast this government with the more left wing

George W Bush. When confronted with the loss of

American jobs through the closure of several different major steel producing plants in the Midwest. the Republicans showed no reluctance to act like old- fashioned Rooseveltian protectionists. upping steel tariffs by 30“? in order to preserve jobs. This approach would no doubt have irked many of the neo liberal ideologists in the Bush administration. but it was old-

fashioned ‘needs must' politics. still a common facet of

Capitol Hill policy making. So zealously ideological is our own government that it seems unable to imagine such measures in Britain. Instead it continues to extol PFI. a policy which denies the spirit of venture capitalism itself. by guaranteeing. in case after case.

10 THE LIST 28 AtV—t’.‘ Iav 3005

‘VOTE FOR ANOTHER PARTY. SSP? SM”? GREBT? IT ALMOST DOESN'T MATTER'

that private financers will be bailed out by the government should their minimal investment begin to look like losing them money. How much has this already cost the taxpay er'.’

And then there's the \kttl'. Where does tinc stttl't'.’ I'm not generally an advocate of personality politics; this election takes place in the hope from the media that another John Prescott punching incident takes place. in

order to distract from the embarrassing proximity of

policies between the virtually identical leading parties. Yet it is hard not to comment on the unprecedented demeaning of political office that the prime minister enacted when he actively deceived the British public about the weapons possessed by the Iraqi regime.

But you can change the weather. especially if you change the environmental policy. which the Tory /I.abour alliance has singularly

people voted with their arses and stay ed at home. Apathy‘.’ I think not. But by not

party to gain the ends they want: the elimination of people from the voting system. so that they can run .’\merican— style elections. where only a small number of people turn out. allowing them to pitch policy toward a small elite who reap the benefits.

I’m not about to tell you who to vote for. But I would urge you to consider the benefits of reducing the majority held by the 'I‘ory/I.al'vour party by voting for some other party. SSI"? SNI"? Liberal I)emocrat’.’ (ireen? It almost doesn't matter. The important thing is to reduce this in-alI-but-name Tory majority. The Blair

government will obviously win the coming election. for

all the desperate scaremongering of a media fostering the delusion that the largest two parties are in some way different. in order to sell papers. But if a signal is sent informing this alliance that people want pluralism back in British politics. we might .see some policy change.

failed to impress on. In the election of 3()()I. an unprecedented number of

voting. you‘re helping the 'I'ory/Iabour

MY FAVOURITE

SCOTT ISH BOOK

9; Viiae \ .t‘ // ’9) 'r , . ‘4'.

/ .Stlufq Tm" .

As part of our 100 Best Scottish Books campaign. we invite public figures to nominate their own personal choices.

ALISON WATT, AR

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