>Chris Burford wrote.
>
>
> >No. A major internal success of the government has been to roll back the
> >Conservative government's fiction that the NHS can be run with an "internal
> >market". It has also largely socialised the independent providers of health
> >care, the general practitioners, in "primary care trusts" Although they are
> >threatening to resign en masse if they do not get better terms and
> >conditions, they are shifting from being petty bourgeois independent
> >professionals to being privileged workers in a complex socialised economic
> >system.
>
>-Do you have data on NHS budget in the "New Labour´s years"?
No I don't. I get the impression that they put much less into the NHS than they claim they did.
> >By winning support across the range of working people with low taxes the
> >Labour Party is now in a position to benefit from the change in the mood of
> >the electorate that is recognising the need for expenditure comparable with
> >European continental standards, on the social infrastructure.
>
>-But is the New Labour willing to do this?
Today significantly the TImes report as their main headline Hague Turns Left ... to avoid a Labour landslide. This is important because it shows a shift in how politics are perceived in the battle between the main parties. It is a sign that after the election the centre of gravity of UK politics can and will move leftwards.
> >The old cry of the entrists.
>
>-What is entrism?
Trotskyists who secretly enter the Labour Party in order to meet the working class and prepare for revolution from within a bourgeois party.
> >I have got to skim otherwise you won't get any response from me at all.
> >The author is incorrect that there is no alternative to working in the
> >Labour Party. In some respects the Liberal Democrats have policies more
> >progressive than Labour at present. Furthermore there is a much increased
> >role for pressure group politics in a pluralist civil society. Half the
> >agenda of Charter 88 has been achieved with major constitutional changes in
> >the position of Wales and Scotland and of the House of Lords. The
> >Conservatives will lose their control of the Lords in the months after the
> >General Election. There is a lot of tactical voting going on. There is a
> >big need to push through the agenda of constitutional change to get
> >proportional representation in local and national elections so as to allow
> >parties to the left of Labour to get some representation without letting in
> >the Conservatives.
>
>-So are you for the building of a party at the left of Labour? Are there any
>efforts to do it? An report from WSW mentioned the Socialist alliance and
>the Scottish Socialist Party.It seems the current system is very bad for
>left parties. A friend of mine, which defined itself as communist, said
>that he would vote for Liberal democrats since they are at the left of
>Labour and he lives in a conservative district.
>
>
>Alexandre
I personally am in favour of pluralist democracy and not being tied to any one political party.
I agree with your friend that the Liberal Democrats are to the left of Labour. More important than making voting gestures which feel morally good is using votes to change things. IMO the most important reason for supporting the LibDems is their commitment to proportional representation constitutionally and politically, their commitment to European integration.
But tactical voting is on the rise despite the continuation of Britain's first-past-the-post system for our main elections, since 1992. There is a strong desire to vote against the Conservatives even now.
gives information about the best chances of beating the Conservative candidate. For people who do not want to vote against their party they can be paired with someone who will vote for their party where it has a the best chance of beating the Conservative candidate.
Perhaps people could pass this on to other potential British voters.
Chris Burford
London