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April 6, 2005
'Labour's unthinking opposition'
Guardian Unlimited | Columnists | Labour's unthinking opposition
I agree with David Aaronovitch's criticism of the 'prejudice, cynicism and lack of political nous' of some people who oppose Tony Blair. It seems that humans are designed to like broad conclusions and over-strong generalisations, and to hold conclusions strongly without fully exploring all of the relevant evidence. This applies as much to academics as anyone else, even though one of the main aims of their work is to practice and teach careful analysis of arguments. (There will undoubtedly be some academics who disagree with this but, by definition, not in such a way that I could enter into an argument with them).
I think this will be an interesting election because the electorate is more aware than ever of things they don't like about the various voting options. I live in a fairly sheltered part of North London so I don't have much contact with the real world where there are people who are worried about immigration, who supported the war in Iraq, and even some who would ever consider voting Tory (I remember how the neighbours all pitied young Toby, the Tory candidate in our last local elections who was dutifully working the doorsteps asking everyone to confirm that they wouldn't be voting for him). The people I meet are quite unsure what to do in the election. There's definitely unhappiness with Labour, particularly to do with the war, but people don't seem too sure what they do want to do with their vote and they'd definitely hate to see the Tories get in.
Of course, there's also a general feeling of powerlessness associated with not being in the small group of voters who will really decide the outcome. I guess that's one thing that my world does share with the majority of the country.
Despite their shortcomings, I do see that Labour are far preferable to the Tories. The main thing that annoys me about them is still the war and the way they defend their decision to join in (mainly by pretending that anti-war people are pro-Saddam and anti-ever-doing-anything-about-it).
Locally, our MP is Barbara Roche. I know a lot of the 'literary dinner-party' people David Aaronovitch mentioned will be quite negative about her, but I do think she does a good job for people here (and not just because she has been supportive of The Lecture List). We see plenty of her in school and elsewhere, and she did get the graffiti off of Andrew's wall for him.
B-)
Posted by Billy at April 6, 2005 8:14 AM
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