Keep Calm and Carry On

[andrewducker]

As I write this, there are 44 seats to announce and the Conservatives need 39 to get a majority. This seems somewhat unlikely, although I don't know exactly what areas are left, so I can't be sure.

However, even if we get a Tory government, it won't be the end of the world. No, I wouldn't vote for them. No, they aren't my idea of good government. But life would carry on, there are limits to what they can change in 4 years, and they're unlikely to roll back the minimum wage, halve the spending on the NHS or repeal the legislation allowing civil partnerships.

In short, the Tories are not demons from Hell, summoned to lay waste to Britain, but politicians who have different ideas about how to run the country - and would probably fit right into the Democrats in the USA. The level of panic I'm seeing seems to be more suitable for the former than the latter.

Now, if the BNP got in _then_ I'd be panicking.

Comments

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

LJ ate my post ... what I was trying to say is that there are communities where the last Tory govt with a large majority DID lay waste ... and this (as well as a little tribalism of course) is why they are so genuinely feared and abhored by some people.

I would say a large tory majority would put the min wage and the NHS at risk.

They aren't demons from hell tho, I'll give you that. :-)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

As a US resident, I'm clearly less familiar with the Tories, but from that article and other things I've seen, they don't seem quite as bad a the US Republican party, but they still deeply scary. I'm glad you folks seem to have been spared a Tory majority. A deadlocked government looks like a vast improvement over that option.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The Tories are basically the US Democratic Party, except that in the UK version Kucinich actually has a *real* party to work with and so has left the Democrats.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I remember many stories of Britain under Margaret Thatcher and between that and this story, that sounds like a rather overoptimistic analysis. To me, they sound like the more moderate US Republicans, and from my PoV, even moderate Republicans are pretty darn scary.