Americans uninspired by UK election

[T_i_B]

I'd try to inspire you about this, but I'm fed up with the buggers myself!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4487253.stm

The UK election has been mentioned on most US news outlets but even though Tony Blair is well known in America, there is little in the way of day to day election news from Britain.

Mr Blair has crashed down to earth, according to a reporter for the NBC television network, but the correspondent added that the opposition conservatives were in a ditch.

That is the conclusion being drawn by almost all American coverage of the British election - that Mr Blair will win, but that Britain is no longer enthusiastic about its leader. Most American commentators have been unimpressed by the alternatives to Mr Blair.

The contrast between British coverage of the American electoral process and American coverage of the British is marked and reflects the fact that Britons care about America more than Americans care about Britain.

[MontageOfFreedom]

1. Tony Blair will fix the elections.

He's a greedy corporate stooge, so likely he will see the election be rigged and be re-inserted into power.

I think the fact that americans are ignoring it, has more to do with their general distaste for blair combined with bush, and that blair is even a worse problem for europe because its playing into the hands of freepers.

On freeper websites, they are even talking about the rising fourth reich being in europe and taking over the poor conservatives and federalizing everything. Boy oh boy, did they ever get the wrong idea this time.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

7. "Tony Blair will fix the elections."

He won't fix the elections (party officials are allowed nowhere near ballot boxes), because he's very likely to be re-elected anyway. The only other feasible alternative is the Conservative Party.

[Guy_Montag]

8. Party official are, however, allowed to collect and deliver postal votes

That really bothers me.

Don't think it'll lead to stolen seats this time, but maybe next time.

[LeftishBrit]

2. I'm also fed up with the buggers!

'That is the conclusion being drawn by almost all American coverage of the British election - that Mr Blair will win, but that Britain is no longer enthusiastic about its leader.'

Yes, quite right, Blair will probably just win because Michael Howard is even worse. Quite a lot of us will vote Liberal Democrat or smaller parties, but not enough to get Blair out under our system. I also suspect that the turnout will be lower than usual.

[T_i_B]

5. I also think turnout will be appalling.

I think I've expressed my sentiments on that front in the thread below.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x3301

I will still be voting, don't get me wrong on that. But I do find the choice at this election to be utterly dreadful. Perhaps I should wear a clothes peg on my nose on May 5th when I visit the polling station?

[mr blur]

3. It'sthe most pathetic election choice I can ever remember

I don't see any real change after next Thursday. At least we can be reassured that, whatever happens, a lunatic religious moron won't be elected.

[TyeDye75]

4. Hardly surprising

Half of americans are uninspired by their own elections

[booksenkatz]

6. Hell, it's hard to get Americans worked up about

what's happening in their own damned country, under their own damned noses, with their own damned tax dollars and their own damned kids' lives, much less worked up about what's happening in places around the world they couldn't point to on a map if their lives depended on it.

If it's not on American Idol, or if it doesn't ding out of a microwave in just one minute with its own gravy, most Americans aren't interested in it.

[Dhalgren]

9. America is king of the world.

Americans don't give a fuck about anyone else.

[graywarrior]

10. I could care less about that comment

[Dhalgren]

11. American?

[graywarrior]

12. Of course. Can't you smell the arrogance?

[Dhalgren]

13. LOL! I love it!

You know, we may be hated the world over (and deserve it, too), but no one can help but stand in awe of our magnificent self esteem.

[RogueTrooper]

14. Goodnees me

I thought this thread was about the UK election. ;)

[Dhalgren]

15. Man! Petards, hoisting; all over the place.

It's a really great morning so far, eh? :hi:

[smirkymonkey]

25. What is a petard anyway?

I'm hearing that a lot these days.

[iverglas]

26. heh heh

Oxford Concise:

petard
a small bomb used to blast down a door, etc.
a kind of firework or cracker

Hoist by your own petard: blown up by yer own gunpowder. Or, perhaps, shot in the foot by yerself.

"Petard" comes from the French verb péter, which Oxford delicately renders as "break wind". Harrap's French-English adds: "to fart".

[iverglas]

21. amazing, isn't it?

Damned hard to get USAmericans interested in anything but themselves, it often seems. To the point that anything about anybody else becomes about them, or just fails to exist.

Or, at the very least, that anybody else becomes somehow the same as them. Rigged elections in the UK (or Canada) ... that's about as nonsensical an idea as one can imagine, and can arise only from a worldview that fails to actually notice the world.

The events unfolding in Canada in recent days have been well worth noticing as well:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1426337

-- both because they can be expected to have some effect outside Canada (i.e. even if nobody really cares what goes on inside Canada), and because they are just objectively interesting to anyone interested in political processes in modern democracies.

Ditto the UK election. There are all kinds of things worth noticing and knowing about in that respect. Knowing what is important to people in the world, and how people in the world go about doing something about those things, really is a worthwhile endeavour for just about anybody.

And no, Blair is neither "liberal" nor, good grief, Liberal. The concept of "liberal" as used in the post in this thread that asked the question is virtually unique to the US, and simply has little meaning elsewhere ... and seldom a nice one in any event.

Blair's party was historically social democratic; Blair is hardly that.

From www.politicalcompass.org (which analyses things from a somewhat less US-centric standpoint):
http://www.digitalronin.f2s.com/politicalcompass/extremeright.php
"UK Election 2005 - a different way of seeing it"

Firstly, though, a few words about popular political terms.

Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the "extreme right" refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.

Similarly, the "extreme left" identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies.

... In the United States, the voices of dissent over unfettered market forces (ie extreme right economics) are heard from social authoritarians like Pat Buchanan as well as social liberals like Ralph Nader.

As an example, take a look at the ground that the main English parties in the UK's 2003 local elections (May 1) occupied in reality. The difference between the BNP and the Greens in economics isn't great, but there's a huge gap on the social scale. Neither scale, however, reveals enormous distances between the Conservatives and New Labour.



In the chart below, we look at the three largest UK parties and the positions that they've occupied on The Political Compass in recent years. We see that New Labour, for example, is actually significantly to the right of the pre -Thatcher Conservative Party. As the centre of political gravity moves rightwards, the Liberal Democrats, who have held the most consistent ground, appear more left than in previous elections.

And of course it's always worth taking the Political Compass "test" one's self.

[Dhalgren]

27. The OP actually is a about Americans' interest level in the UK

elections. So, that's the topic, right?

[iverglas]

29. and quid est demonstratum, eh?

I wonder how it feels to be a stereotype?

[Dhalgren]

30. Are you trying to imply that you don't know? Heh...

[graywarrior]

16. Believe it or not, this arrogant American is paying attention.

I find it very important. I'm interested in what British citizens will do. They don't seem as hypnotized by fear as we yanks.

[AndyTiedye]

17. Britain Still Has a Free Press. All Our News Is More Or Less Faux

[graywarrior]

18. I'm seriously tempted to live there

[iamjoy]

19. Isn't Blair Liberal?

Excuse my ignorance (I'm an American and there's so much news to follow here, I've been neglecting the world)

I mean, excpet for being all hawkish on Iraq, isn't Blair a social and economic liberal?

And isn't the British Prime Minister "elected" if his party wins a majority of the seats in Parliament (it frightens me when I equate it to the U.S. and try to imagine Bill Frist or Dennis Hastert holding the highest office in the country).

So, people may vote Liberal because they like the economic and social policies and get stuck with uninspiring Blair again.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Not Liberal with a large 'L'

because there has been for over 100 years a Liberal Party in the UK - a tiny remnant of it exists, but most of the members went into the Liberal Democrats (and are sometimes slightly inaccurately refered as the Liberals).

Blair may look like a social and economic liberal to the USA - economically he is in some ways (the tax system has helped the poorer rather than the better off under him), though the Liberal Democrats want a more progressive tax structure than he does. Socially, he has pushed for abolishing juries in some types of trial, putting some people under house arrest without any trial, and the introduction of national ID cards - definitely more authoritarian than the Lib Dems, and comparable with the Conservatives.

Yes, the PM is the leader of the biggest party in the House of Commons.

Would Bill Frist really be worse than Dubya?

[AP]

24. He's rolling back Tory bullshit as fast and as permanently as it can be...

...rolled back. And his primary tool is devolving as much economic power as possible down to the people and away from the oligopoly the Tories built.

[demo dutch]

22. Since when does the average American gt excited about anything outside

of this country. They don't even "get it" if it happens right here!

[Dangerman]

23. American commentators are idiots.

[trackfan]

28. Americans are seldom even inspired by AMERICAN elections,

unfortunately. So this isn't too shocking.

[T_i_B]

31. At the time of the US elections...

...the shelves of the bookstores over here were heaving with books about American politics. However, the UK elections have inspired remarkably few books and what has been written about this election has not been read by too many people from what I can see.

Given that the UK population is so utterly uninspired, I guess it's expected that Americans are not inspired either. The election does matter though, regardless of how appalling the choice is.