I get the feeling that the next general election in Britain could be the first one to be seriously altered in its overall result by the internet. I definitely hope so. My ideal result would be for Gordon Brown and David Cameron and that LibDem guy all to emerge from the election feeling equally humiliated, and all sounding like they are on the same side, that of Big Politics, while all the conviction parties, the silly parties, including silly conviction parties whose silly convictions are the absolute opposite of my own convictions, do far better than they were supposed to and compared to the amount of and nature of the mainstream media coverage that they got.
In particular, I hope that UKIP does really well. I’ve heard the complaints about this party, most of which boil down to the claim that they are all just too weird. But scratch any active participant in any political party and pretty soon the weirdness spills out.
My feeling-stroke-wishful-thinking along these lines is based on seeing things like this:
I came across that here, a few days ago. It’s basically a greatest hits compilation of UKIP snippets taken from the European Parliament, mostly about Climategate, with a few bits from some internet TV show in the USA spliced in. I particularly like the Liverpudlian guy.
That EU Parliament is an odd place. People make these little speeches in it, which almost none of the people present pay any great attention to, but which, on YouTube, can sometimes escape into the wild, to the point where mainstream media non-coverage becomes impossible to sustain.
More fundamentally, even if such non-coverage persists, as I expect it to persist at least until the forthcoming general election, so what? More and more people can now receive such messages as these anyway.
Enough to embarrass Brown, Cameron and Whatsisname? Maybe. As I say, I do hope so.
The comment about the Middlesborough steel manufacturer being closed down, the ultimate owner Tata receiving 600 million (sterling) by way of carbon credits, and now moving that steel production to India, is truly fascinating.
Just the tip of the iceberg in AGW big business?
We truly are being conned into poverty.
I also hope we do really, really well. If we repeated last June’s results I for one would be happy. If we got an MP or two, I would be delirious.
I suspect a “minor” (in MSM speak) will gain MPs this time around. Alas I suspect its most likely to be the BNP. The actions of Islam4UK only makes it more likely.
I would love to see UKIP do well and get a couple of seats. UKIP latched on to the internet better than any of the major parties. It helps that early on they hired someone that knew what they were doing.
UKIP still haven’t gotten away from the view that they are only about Euro-elections.
Most likely the internet will result with lots of minor parties getting more votes, but no more MP’s. However, if all the “noise” of the internet converged together around a few candidates in a few seats (especially if local bloggers takes up the challenge) then I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few unpopular candidates in so called safe-seats being unseated.
I’d love to see all three main leaders unseated because the right people stood against them and harnassed the full might of the internet. That might help focus the minds of the remaining MP’s.
When the Climategate story broke on the internet, I spoke to everyone that I knew about it and was met with total bewilderment. It would appear that those that are informed by the internet are but a tiny minority.
We knew about this a full two weeks before you did and your favoured source of information would not have told you at all had we not left them with no choice.
If we could just convince the public that the newspapers, and the BBC are worthless as reliable sources of information and that the internet represents the only truly free press then the battle would be partly won.
My objection to UKIP is not that they are too weird, but that they are too nationalist and not liberal enough. I have no particular desire to see them do well. Admittedly, I have no particular desire to see anyone else do well either, although I wouldn’t mind Labour being wiped out utterly.
John B, head over to EUReferendum and you’ll see how much AGW is about money, rather than saving the planet from certain doom with Science.
There’s many more to see here:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ukipwebmaster&view=videos
and here:
http://www.ukip.tv/
“We should never define Libertarian positions in terms coined by liberals or conservatives – nor as some variant of their positions. We are not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. We are Libertarians, who believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility on all issues at all times. You can depend on us to treat government as the problem, not the solution.” – Harry Browne
Harry Browne is a “truther” and thus a complete arse. I met the guy in NH and quite liked him. That like went to loathing after he revealed to be one of the many truther morons that pervade both the left and the right of American politics.
I’m what I suppose you could describe as a classical liberal.
I’d personally favour LPUK over UKIP, but I could still easily regard UKIP as the ‘least worst’ option, and even admirable in many ways.
Not so with the Tories. I just think ‘Oh, great – just more of the same. Next!’.
Michael, I find that position more then a little ridiculous. Surely, if your central plank is national independence from the EU then…..?
And as for being “not liberal enough”, well, compared to what or whom? I can understand if you regret the fact that they are not liberal enough but objecting to it?
Of the parties that are on offer they are, in my view, the best of a breathtakingly bad bunch. And by a long margin too.
Is it true that the northern Hemisphere is freezing its’ assets off? True to form, a Beijing Bureaucat is already claiming that global Warming caused the cooler weather! Maybe Chinese citizens will believe it….
Apart from their immigration stance, UKIP are probably the most libertarian party with any decent shot of getting an MP or two elected (no disrespect to Chris Mounsey and the Libertarian Party UK).
I agree with Andrew Ian Dodge to the effect that the antics of islamist extremists in the UK is probably going to play into the hands of the BNP, which of course is precisely why these extremist islamists are doing this in the first place. They may look like wild-eyed lunatics, but within the warped logic of their worldview, their behaviour is entirely rational.
I have met a few UKIP guys, and they have mostly struck me as a pretty sensible bunch, like the sort of Tory MP I used to respect, such as the late Nicholas Budgen, for example. I am likely to vote UKIP this time around if there is any chance of such a vote making the difference. My sitting Tory MP, while sound on ID cards, is not very impressive on much else.
Around 35% at least of the British electorate are over 50, a large proportion of whom either does not have access to the internet, and the remainder of which rarely bothers with political blogs. I did a very rough survey of 10 over-fifties recently. 4 had never heard the word blog, and 3 had heard of it, and thought it was something to do with computers. Of the remainder, one had read a political blog occasionally. My personal impression of the demographic of political blogs is that of 20-40’s, predominantly male. And dare I say it, it does seem to me that political blogs tend to be somewhat Londoncentric, because many of the commenters and contributors refer to parts of London, such as Islington, Hampstead or Hackney, with the apparent expectation that their readers are familiar with the idiosyncracies of these places. So I though I think the internet may have some influence, it will be marginal.
For what it’s worth, I was a member of UKIP in the 90’s and was asked if I wanted to stand in Streatham in 1997. I couldn’t, but I regret that now.
I found the top brass in those days to be openly libertarian, but a bit fuddy duddy. I offered to supply them with Internet access FOC but they didn’t see any value to it.
Unfortunately, the American Libertarian party is far more interested in striking postures and cozily waging internecine warfare than in winning elections. It exemplifies “not ready for prime time.”
Considering that many libertarians have Panglossian attitudes towards immigration (there are some exceptions- Hoppe and Sean Gabb spring to mind), I’m glad UKIP don’t have libertarian immigration policies.
I support UKIP in spite of their immigration policy, not because of it. To oppose free immigration itself on libertarian grounds is about as incoherent as it gets when the ‘problem’ is not immigration, it is immigration + welfare statism + state interference in the right of free association (i.e. the right to dissociation).
And I share Paul Coulam’s highly negative view of Hoppe…Hoppe’s views are in effect that in a natural government free state of affairs, we will all chose to live in intolerant racist city-states. The evidence suggests very strongly that Hoppe and his paleo-libertarian confrères are spectacularly wrong on that score fortunately if the high rates of miscegenation in places like London are anything to go by (and they are).
Why does the video come with a notice about a false flag event coming up in Canada?
To Andrew Ian Dodge and PersonFromPorlock: when I quoted Browne, I quoted a good thought, and attributed it accordingly. I have no illusions about Mr. Browne or the American Libertarian party. As they say, it’s the thought that matters.
Cheers, ladies and gentlemen, with fine Scotch too!
To oppose free immigration itself on libertarian grounds is about as incoherent as it gets when the ‘problem’ is not immigration, it is immigration + welfare statism + state interference in the right of free association (i.e. the right to dissociation).
Yes, it will be interesting to see what happens (if it ever gets the chance) when the state interference ceases to apply.
Jonathan Pearce’s post on elites and their education, posted today, comes to mind.
In the real world, where not everything conforms to a simplistic abstract idelogy, mass immigration always leads to a growth in the the size of the state because of the social problems it inevitably causes and the necessary way in which it undermines tradtional forms of social organisation, welfare and the the like which are (yes they really are) indispensible to civil society and so must be undertaken by the state instead.
To add to Gabriel’s point, excluding cognitive elites I don’t think most humans are that keen on diversity:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63217/jerry-z-muller/us-and-them
Peaceful multicultural cities like London seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
Although they do exacerbate problems related to mass immigration, I think it is rather optimistic to assume that all the problems linked with mass immigration will simply go away if the welfare state and political interference went away. And tolerating continued mass immigration will only make it even harder than it would be already to take on the welfare state. Immigrants tend to generally vote for parties of the left, and they continue to do so no matter how much centre-right parties fawn over immigrants and attack white ‘racists’. Therefore, importing more and more immigrants, particularly from the 3rd world, is simply importing more Labour voters.
I think the mistake is in sticking with the premise of mass immigration. It misses the point that absent welfare, immigration is likely to cease being as mass as it is now. By eliminating welfare you automatically un-invite all those who would come for free handouts.
The fact that some immigrants are spongers isn’t the only problem linked with immigration though.
Pirate Party anyone?