US elections

[karohemd]

I think I can go to bed.
Really confusing has been that Democrats are blue and Republicans red. Pretty much anywhere else, blue is the colour of conservatives.

Comments

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Those crazy Americans!

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Do some reading about the Republicans and Democrats and all will become clear :).

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Well yes, it's just not what I'm visually used to.

[slev.livejournal.com]

Yes, and anywhere else, they'd be considered conservatives.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Indeed. I always have to laugh when they are described as "left-wing liberals" because they are neither.

[kizzie.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose you know the differences between the two in nice small bullet points or something... the web keeps giving me huge loads of text about thier policies, and I don't actually know what the main difference is...

That being said, I'm not sure of the differences with labour and the conservatives sometimes... I know what they do in my area, but not nationally. Guess I don't have to worry til next election on that one though!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Traditionally the main difference between Labour and the Conservatives was one of taxation; labour being in favour of higher direct taxation (i.e. money out of your pay packet) but lower indirect taxation (i.e. fuel, cigarette and alcohol duty), and the Conservatives vice versa. This was based on a philosophy of Labour: Nobody has a huge amount of money, but things are cheap to buy and Conservative: You have more money, but things are more expensive.

Most of the other differences can be traced back to that. Of course, in the last 15 years, this traditional positioning has been underminded to say the least.

[kizzie.livejournal.com]

I think I prefer the conservatives there... hum. How very odd to actually have a preference for once

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The problem is that over the last decade labour have pushed up both direct and indirect taxation to very high levels and also run up a huge national debt so it is unlikely that any change in government would see a decrease in taxation of any sort forseeably; the debt has to be paid off.
As such voting conservative in the hope of lower taxes isn't all that likely. In my opinion, the best outcome of the next election, based on the fact that the Conservatives will win it, is for the LibDems to come second. Vince Cable, the Libdem treasury spokesman, is very good - probably the best economic mind in parliament - and I'd like to see him with a front-bench job as I hope this will make the Conservatives raise their game.