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@Godder said in British Politics:
Reagan's line is up there with "tax and spend" as some of the most damaging rhetoric by a politician in the last 40 years.
Both of those lines taken at face value suggest that anarchy is the best government, which is absolute nonsense. Communism is also nonsense, as is unfettered capitalism, but politics and government is ideally about finding the balance between the extremes, not destroying government or individual capability.
The UK already has a centrist party formed from a split of the UK Labour Party, being the Liberal Democrats.
The Labour Party doesn't need to schism again - if there are centrists who don't like where it's going, they should go and join the Lib Dems. FPP makes it politically moronic to split parties, and even Corbyn, primary representative of the left wing of the Labour Party, understands that, which is why he didn't depart and take half the party membership with him.
Without a change in the electoral system to some sort of proportional representation, Labour and the Tories are stuck with managing wings of the parties, as anything else leads to the other side winning easily. The hard part is convincing internal wings/factions to get along for the sake of getting anything done, because while disunity is punished at the ballot box, that's easily forgotten in the heat of the moment.
No fan of MMP or similar, as expectation is that it will lead to unholy alliances.
No sure Tories are particularly right wing. Sure a fair few free traders, but to me centre to centre-right. I know a lot of 'capitalists with a social conscience'.
I voted Lib Dem in the election of the coalition, but not sure that did much for anyone. Lib Dems for me are just flaky.
Like Democrats, British Labour includes Commie/Far Left arm and Metropolitan intellectual 'elites' (at least in their own mind). New Labour, which seemed quite sensible to many seems to have heavy taint. But the middle is where the most votes lie.
My take is that SKS realises there is no way to be effective opposition with such a large majority, and is keeping his powder dry until closer to next election. Lisa Nandy is certainly feisty, and would have a lot of support if SKS were to get bored and move on.
