Skip to main content

Winning elections shouldn't be the aim

I occasionally feel the need to write about politics on this blog. There are a lot of people more qualified than me to talk about this of course, and they do. And there's all kinds of things I'd want to say that others can say better than me about politics and the election, and there's not a lot of use repeating it. But I've found myself shouting at the radio and TV a bit recently so I have felt the need to express these thoughts.

I'm thinking a bit about the Labour leadership election. I've heard some of the leadership candidates speaking and got so frustrated by the lack of any inspiring vision that I felt the need to think more deeply about this. What I haven't heard from many of the leadership contenders is the sense that winning elections is not an end in itself, but the means to an end. There's a lot of talk about "we have to do this and that to win elections" - but my question comes back to "why?" Why does the Labour Party want to win elections - what is the end to which winning elections is the means?

It occurs to me that a lot of the growth of the smaller parties has been due to those parties seeing winning elections not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. UKIP want to win elections so that the UK can leave the European Union. The SNP want to win elections so that Scotland can become an independent country. The Greens want to win elections to radical change the economy to be sustainable and more equitable (admittedly this is a less specific aim than the last two). Why do the Labour Party want to win elections? What is the Labour Party for?


I've not heard anyone answer those questions, and that's why I've found it frustrating to hear the Labour leadership contenders. It seems to me this is part of the problem. An organisation needs to know it's "why" before it can know its "how." I haven't heard anyone explain to me why the Labour Party wants to win elections. That's what it needs. That, in fact, is what "leadership" is all about. That lack of a vision is why people (such as myself) are not voting Labour.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th...
3 comments
Read more

LOST and theology: who are the good guys?

***Spoiler alert*** I'm continuing some theological/philosophical reflections while re-watching the series LOST. One of the recurring themes in LOST is the idea of the "good guys" and the "bad guys." We start the series assuming the survivors (who are the main characters) are the "good guys" and the mysterious "Others" are definitely bad guys. But at the end of series 2 one of the main characters asks the Others, "Who are  you people?" and they answer, in an extremely disturbing way, "We're the good guys." The series develops with a number of different factions appearing, "the people from the freighter" "the DHARMA initiative" as well as divisions among the original survivors. The question remains among all these complicated happenings "who really are the good guys?" I think one of the most significant lines in the series is an episode when Hurley is having a conversation with ...
3 comments
Read more

Is humanism theologically tolerant?

OK, well this might be controversial, but I feel the need to say it. Is humanist tolerant? Please note I'm not asking about humanism within society. Clearly humanism certainly believes in tolerance within society and I'm forever glad they are often the only people in the media calling for a separation of church and state. No, what I'm talking about is descriptions of Unitarianism like this and adverts like this , discussed at Peacebang here , which say that humanism is one option, Christianity is another, God is one option among many. The trouble is, humanism, by definition is theologically opposed to theism. This is very different from the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism. These two traditions may be vastly different, but Buddhism, by definition , is not opposed to Christianity, and Christianity, by definition , is not opposed to Buddhism. But humanism is consciously defined in opposition to Christianity and theism. So to say that humanism and theism can bot...
14 comments
Read more