Sandid3

All those of voting age are involved in politics whether consciously or not. Registering to vote or not; actually voting or not; thinking (or not thinking) about the issues are all political acts.

Most of those who do vote, vote for parties of the right and far right. Which is to say New Labour, Lib-Dem, Tory and UKIP.

People who go along with evil policies and social attitudes, because they are wilfully blind to the consequences, are themselves evil.

True morality requires observation of reality and questioning thought, not blind acceptance of social norms.

The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates).

Clive B

If an American owned fascist traitor like Blair isn't evil and insane enough for you, why not go the whole way and vote BNP?

Or, if you just want to wreck the economy because you hate the EU, No2EU is an electoral coalition of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). Which parties are just as insane as the Tories but less evil.

"True morality requires observation of reality and questioning thought, not blind acceptance of social norms. The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates)."

Is that morality or an ideology?

The thing about the Scottish referendum is that it has forced a large number of people to enter the discussion. Presumably that's because they can see this binary decision will have major consequences one way or the other. A very high voter turnout is expected.

In national elections a large number of people don't vote because they (correctly) see the London-dominated, big-party system as totally corrupt. It seems to me a Yes vote in Scotland will give English and Welsh voters a real opportunity to shake off London's chains. Anyway, it's probably the only decent opportunity they're going to get.

My starting point is that there’s something very different about London ‘values’ compared to Northern values. It wasn’t always so but I think that divide is becoming more extreme.

Take the dictionary definition of morality as ‘principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour’.

Given the extraordinary catalog of fraud and corruption revealed about almost every aspect of London life, from Westminster to the public sector to the private sector, I’d say there’s a widespread belief in London that being deceitful and ‘keeping your mouth shut’ are not wrong at all but clever – they’re what you do. London is essentially the white-collar crime capital of the world – and it’s not just a few bad apples at the top.

I don’t think this is mindless conformity; Londoners voted for Boris, mindful of not risking the gravy train. Do they really believe the rightwing dogma of efficient markets when what they’re actually doing is cheating people on an industrial scale? Who knows; but they recognize it as a good excuse.

London is essentially a ‘bad’ place. That’s why I don’t think there’s any chance of the status quo being changed through voting Labour, say. It will take a social revolution.

The British version of good or bad has developed from the Christian tradition. But it’s only what we believe; it’s not an absolute truth. There was a good article in Business Insider that shows how we fit on the world scale: This Chart Explains Every Culture in the World.

The other major aspect of British culture is the welfare state – the very thing the rightwing crooks are trying to destroy. The welfare state was established after WWII when Brits voted against having Churchill as PM. They did so partly to prevent a return to the pre-war situation of a privileged elite – the very thing today’s rightwing crooks want and the reason they claim Churchill as their own.

Scotland is showing that the welfare state can be made to work efficiently – another reason it’s such a threat to rightwing ideology. I’m sure there’ll be a lot more dirty tricks from Lynton Crosby before the vote.

Differences of opinion about how to run a country were ever thus!

I was talking a couple of weeks ago to a very bright young Roumanian woman who runs a b & b in the Wensleydale area (while I was on holiday 'up North'). One of her comments was that the politicians in Roumania are crooks, just like the ones in London. I asked her if she would like the politicians to swap countries, and she said 'no' - they were both corrupt, though her own countrymen were more brazen about their stealing!

Like most people in most countries, the 'ordinary man and woman in the street' are for the most part upright citizens who do their best, but rotten apples form an unfortunate minority in all parts of the globe.

We can only do our best to set a good example ourselves.