You'll have heard this quoted ad nauseum by both David Cameron and Ed Miliband for weeks, nay months now. "The choice is clear."
On one hand we have Cameron telling us the choice is between the path that we are on, the successful path that has brought us out of recession and delivered a strong working economy or the alternative which is uncertainty and higher taxes, more borrowing and an increased deficit. Then you have Miliband on the other hand offering a "clear choice" between more austerity, more and deeper cuts, more poverty and food banks or his alternative vision of investment, taxing the rich to pay for the poor and a fairer society. So who is right?
Well neither in my view. That isn't the choice at all and in fact the choice is far from clear. Particularly if you live in any other region of the UK outside of England. Now before you stop reading and assume I am just another angry Scot with a chip on my shoulder I should explain. I am not a Nationalist. I never had been. I believe in the UK and whilst I did change my vote to Yes at the 11th hour in last year's Independence referendum (all of which is documented in this blog)it was not because of any nationalistic feeling of superiority or hatred of our English cousins. My reason for wanting Independence is that I genuinely believed and still do that it would have been the first step in fixing a broken system within British politics and the UK in general. And when I tell you that the Scottish vote at general elections has had no impact on the outcome of the GE for 65 out of the last 67 years, it's not sour grapes, it's just maths!
(Wings over Scotland)
Simply put, England is bigger than the rest of us. It has a massively greater population than Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland therefore it has the numbers needed to sway the vote one way or the other. So the reality is that if you belong to one of the smaller regions in our "Family of Nations" then your voice is likely to be drowned out by our louder family members. So the choice for you is not clear at all.
But I digress, let's get back to The Point (sorry, couldn't help myself).
The choice may not be clear but taking personalities out of it for now, the choice is between Socialist or Conservative. You may think that equates to Labour vs Tory but no, the choice is not that clear. There is no doubt that Labour are less Conservative than The Conservatives but they are certainly not socialist any more. The Labour of old were about the working man, they stood up for the rights of the workers and gave them a voice, they stood against exploitation and greed and strived for fairness and equality. Labour these days are very much part of the establishment and are more concerned about protecting their own power and position and maintaining the support of their corporate sponsors than looking after the common man. The Labour of old would not have gotten in league with the Tories to convince Scotland to vote No.
So what is the choice then? Well Socialism at it's core is about fairness and equality. It is the idea that while you should be encouraged to work hard and hard work should be rewarded, if you can afford to pay a little more in for the common good then you should and that those who, for reasons beyond their control, cannot contribute or are unable to, should be helped. I guess what it comes down to is making sure that those who work hard are rewarded rather than those who make people work hard and no-one is left behind. We are a society and we care for those less fortunate than ourselves. The NHS is the antipathy of this concept, healthcare should be for everyone, not just those who can afford it. So instead of the rich paying for their healthcare and letting the poor die, we all contribute an amount that is relative to our wealth and everyone shares the healthcare. That's socialism in a nutshell.
So what does it mean to be Conservative? Well at this point I should declare that I fundamentally disagree with Conservativism so perhaps I should leave it to someone else to define what it means. To me it means looking after number 1, ensuring that you keep your wealth and those who cannot afford to survive do not. It is their problem not yours. The problem with this is that the number 1 they are looking out for is not you, it is the richest 1% of the population and if you accidentally get to keep a few extra pounds in your pocket as a result of their policies which are aimed at ensuring the rich stay rich then so be it. Unfortunately if you are poor or disabled and you die as a result of their policies then so be it too! It is essentially a belief in non-intervention and thinks that the less the government does the better, it maintains the status quo and is very helpful to those who have and very damaging to those who have not. But I said I was going to let someone else define it, didn't I?
A social conservative wants to preserve traditional morality and social mores, often by opposing what they consider radical policies or social engineering. Social change is generally regarded as suspect. A second meaning of the term social conservatism developed in the Nordic countries and continental Europe. - source: Wikipedia
So now we are getting somewhere. The choice is clearly between a society that cares for all and shares the wealth fairly, allowing those who work hard to be rewarded but sharing some of the wealth with those who need a little help OR a society where you get to keep everything you work for and are comfortable with the idea that those who need help will not get it and many poor and ill will die as a result. You are OK with food banks in a modern civilised society and disabled people committing suicide because they have no hope. That's your choice.
But we still haven't established who to vote for if you choose Socialism. Well if you are English then Labour are your best bet and I would urge you to vote for them. They aren't perfect but they aren't Conservative and are the best chance you will get of putting The Tories out of Number 10. Just to remind you of some of the Tories election promises from 2010 (which has since been deleted from their website along with a number of speeches), they said that they would eliminate the deficit by 2015 as a result of "difficult choices" and while they have failed to do so they are now boasting about how well they are doing and after failing in their task and putting the country through hell for the last 5 years they are using this as an argument for handing them another 5 years! They have presided over the slowest recovery from recession in over 100 years and have repeatedly told us that they "inherited" a bad situation from labour and blamed all of their failings on them. The fact is the global economic crash was, well, global. It started in the US and yet somehow the Tories have managed to convince the country that it was the fault of the Labour government (it's almost as if the same rich people who own the Tories, own the media!). The simple fact is that Labour HAD to do something when the banks collapsed and they HAD to bail them out, had they not the situation would have been a lot worse and thankfully they had the money to do it. But it's not in David Cameron's interest to blame the crash on the banks as they are his friends, it serves him better to blame it on Labour so he does. Repeatedly. Until we believe the lie.
But if you live in Scotland then you have a very different choice. As above voting Tory or Labour will have no effect on the outcome, we will get whoever England chooses. That's just a fact we have to live with. But this time we have a very different choice. We have the chance to send 59 SNP MPs to Westminster, not to break it but to fix it. If we elect 59 MPs from the same party with the same common vision: to end austerity; to stimulate investment; to make a fairer society built on socialist values; to protect the NHS from privatisation, just imagine what we can achieve. These are just some of the policies that the SNP will argue for in our voice. Instead of a random selection of Scottish reps bickering and arguing amongst themselves, we send 59 representatives who have the same goals and a strong chance of achieving them. By sending the SNP to Westminster to take up our seat amongst our Family of Nations we will be truly represented for the first time in a long time. Scottish Labour have been described by their own leader as the London Labour, Scottish branch office; they speak for London with a Scottish accent. The SNP are a truly Scottish party and when 55% of the population voted against Independence they dropped Independence from their latest manifesto, the first time in their history. Had they included Independence in their manifesto this may have given them a mandate to chair a new referendum, but knowing that this is not what anyone wants right now they have opted to change their approach and will go to Westminster and embrace the UK in the same way that the UK embraced us in the weeks preceding last year's vote.
Whether the government is Tory or Labour The SNP will vote and debate in our interests and they will hold the government to account. You don't even have to agree with all of their policies as it is in Holyrood that the day to day business takes place. Their main purpose in Westminster is to speak up for us and when the London government are making decisions that affect us all to ask "What about the rest of us?" Austerity is a policy of inequality as it hits those on the lowest incomes hardest while barely touching those on the highest. When David Cameron or George Osbourne tell us of the "difficult decisions" that effect us all he really means "all of you" and both Labour and Lib Dems intend to stick to the path. The SNP will question that and use their strength in Westminster to affect real change. That is the clear choice that we have as Scots. To have a voice or to hand over full ownership to our Westminster masters in London. Westminster have a proven since September that they have no intention of delivering on their promises of more powers for Scotland unless we go to them and ensure that they do. Going to Westminster and taking part is the positive thing to do and moves us on from last year. It is about looking to the future, our future within the UK rather than lamenting what might have been.
So it turns out the choice is clear, live in England; vote Labour. Live in Scotland; vote SNP.
