October 12, 2002
No more left or right?
Just stumbled on
Spiked Online, a general purpose online journal based in London, but with worldwide concerns.
Article by Josie Appleton,
Looking Bad in Bournemouth, about the sorry state of the British Tory party as evidenced by their recent convention. What I found most interesting was the observation that it doesn't seem to be any particular political position that voters are disenchanted with, but basically all of the parties.
"Parties today lack distinctive programmes that could conjure enthusiasm and commitment from the public. Their traditional social bases have been consistently eroded. There is no sense of party loyalty - only the politics of personality .... And all the parties lack ideas about how to get out of this mess."
I found her comments just as relevant to the Democratic party in the US, even tho one is supposedly "left" and one supposedly "right." Confirms my suspicion that the left-right division is part of 20th century history, and simply doesn't have any relevance in 21st century politics. Unfortunately, while new parties are emerging to represent new points of view, there's nobody at home to mind things.
