It should be obvious that my starting position is on the left political wing. I am a social democrat. I instinctively believe things the Left represent and in a reformist, slightly radical but not not revolutionary approach to achieving them.

Most people have a complex relationships with the political spectrum.  You can support policies that come from a range of parties.  Philosophically a key dimension of the political spectrum is the tension between the common good and individual good.  Everyone wants what is best for themselves but how far are you willing to pursue this if it means harming others?  How much should individual’s compromise in order to achieve a shared basic social compromise?  These are some of the big questions that peek from behind the policies.

Filters and Lenses

Some of the things I believe in are:

• I believe that we need to pay more attention to the environments and ecosystems we live in if we are to provide sustainable security for all.  Not just in the short term but the security that comes from believing these things will exist in the long term.  This is welfare in the large not the narrow-minded definition of welfare we’ve turned it into.  Sustainable security comes from:
  • having physical safety
  • having enough food to eat
  • having warmth and shelter
  • being healthy
  • having fulfilling work that receives respect and fair remuneration or benefit in kind
  • having access to education
  • having the opportunity to be active member of a community.
• I believe mostly in pluralism and consensual approaches to increasingly complex problems.
• I believe it is my patriotic duty and moral responsibility to make a shared contribution to the governance and infrastructure of this country.  Pooling our resources makes the country better and safer for all of us and provides important protection for those in need whether they are businesses or individuals.  We all have a responsibility to contribute to social and charitable provision as well as meet our individual needs and should do so for as long as we are able.
• I think governments and politics need reforming but I also think that marketplaces need regulating.
• I don’t think public or private are inherently better than the other.  All large, old complex organisations have issues and both public and private organisations have important contributions to our society.  Neither one should be vilified in general but should be innovated and improved in the particular.
• I prefer the word we to them.  Every time debates reduce an issue to “them and us” it has grossly over simplified a problem and closed off many potential solutions.  I find it hard to think of scenarios where we don’t all have some responsibility for problems or ability to contribute to solutions.
• I believe people should be paid a fair wage for a fair days work. That should be at least the legal minimum and the legal minimum should be a living wage.
• I believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility but I also believe neither is absolute and governments exist to support the greater good. I think governance should be by many for many not by few for few.
• I believe most strongly in the [universal declaration of human rights](http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/).  This emerged from the darkness of war in the middle of the twentieth century and whenever I read it I think yes, this should guide us towards a sustainable future that ensures a better life for more people.

Voting Green 2015

At the moment my current voting intention in the UK 2015 general election is to vote for the Green Party. I’ve been a Green member for several years without being terribly active about it.  I have mostly voted Labour all my life and was born into a strong Methodist, Socialist tradition.  However, I think it is important that we have greater choice if politics is to continue being meaningful to people going forward.  We should have 5 major parties in each constituent country and a vote for the Greens will make it clear that there is greater energy and diversity in than country’s left wing than First Past the Post tactical voting demonstrates.

That’s not to say I am lost to Labour.  They just have to get off the fence and do better.  Not in their policies but are usually better than the mediated interpretations give them credit for.  No, the Labour party need to stop hedging their bets and tell better, more persuasive, more seductive stories about the power of social democracy.

To be honest I don’t think this is a great election to win.  We have yet to reach rock bottom in this crisis and the full social effects of the austerity cuts to public services have yet to be felt in full.  Better perhaps that they should be revealed under those who instigated them rather than a left wing coalition be caught in possession.  My wish for May 2015 is that another Conservative led coalition or minority government forms narrowly sneaks in the face of a diverse left surge (featuring Labour, Green parties, SNP, Plaid Cymru) and staggers on until the nadir is reached and a no confidence vote is able to trigger dissolution.  The left will hopefully be bold enough to finally seize its social democratic moment over this crisis and won’t be caught in a position where they will be too easily maneuvered into being responsible for austerity outcomes.  We can but dream.

Asking Questions

However, this is my starting point.  I don’t want my views to be fixed or dogmatic.  Yes I will be using the blog to advocate for more left wing politics but I also want to use it as a space to genuinely interrogate modern UK politics both the policies and bigger philosophies were are grappling with and being asked to choose between.  Most political party philosophies have faded from view as the technocratic demands of governance take over.  Most were formed in order to practically implement  strongly held philosophical beliefs.  Gradually these have been eroded into the corporate platitudes of modern politics.  One of the things that attracts me to the Green Party is it has a published philosophical basis that is both visionary and humble.

I think the biggest asset you can have in the world is an open and inquiring mind. Whilst I won’t be able to get away from the fact that my background and beliefs will always filter politics for me towards a certain bias an important aspect of civic participation is listening to the perspectives of others and attempting to understand views that aren’t your own.

Society is made up from all sorts of people and so a balanced view means taking account of all sorts of opinions.  Of course I’m going to be more lenient towards left wing ideas and more critical of those further to the right but that’s why there are all sorts of other people with their blogs out their arguing the opposite.  That is pluralism.  That is politics.