The internet is becoming ever more prevalent in British politics. The rise of social networks, especially Twitter and YouTube are to thank for this. Modernisation of politics - finally. In the run up to the 2010 general election, all three candidates aimed to use the internet to appeal to younger voters, arguably the Lib Dems and the Tories utilised this new media to their advantage the best.
But the internet isn't all glitz and glamour for politics. In fact, exactly the opposite could be said to true. Is it modernising politics? Or is it reinforcing the old, negative sterotypes of British politics? You know what I'm talking about; the Tories hate the NHS, the poor and anybody else who isn't a billionaire. The same for the Labour party; love benefit culture and do as the unions tell them too. Lib Dems; erm? Irrelevant? I kid.
The easiest target for this reversal of political thinking is obviously the incumbent government. Which just so happens to be the Tories. So what do people do? They criticise them for being like "evil Mrs Thatcher" (by the way, people hate her, yet they still call her Mrs Thatcher - that's respect for you!!!). Cameron's Tories are miles apart from Thatcherism (to the disdain of many Tories right-wingers), but yet still the critics wade in.
Making their misguided criticisms even more absurd is the fact that we are in a Coalition government, with the Lib Dems, who are far from Thatcherite.
But the internet isn't all glitz and glamour for politics. In fact, exactly the opposite could be said to true. Is it modernising politics? Or is it reinforcing the old, negative sterotypes of British politics? You know what I'm talking about; the Tories hate the NHS, the poor and anybody else who isn't a billionaire. The same for the Labour party; love benefit culture and do as the unions tell them too. Lib Dems; erm? Irrelevant? I kid.
The easiest target for this reversal of political thinking is obviously the incumbent government. Which just so happens to be the Tories. So what do people do? They criticise them for being like "evil Mrs Thatcher" (by the way, people hate her, yet they still call her Mrs Thatcher - that's respect for you!!!). Cameron's Tories are miles apart from Thatcherism (to the disdain of many Tories right-wingers), but yet still the critics wade in.
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| Viral posters hammer home the negative sterotypes |
One issue with social media is that it is even more short-termist than the papers. The papers have scandals and stories that go on for days, on Twitter, trends change in hours and people's knowledge is diluted to snippets they read with #hash-tags in front of them.
Constantly bloggers/tweeters criticise the Tories for cutting everything. But lets not forget, 13 years ago, Labour did not inherit a massive deficit from the Tories. It is the Tories who are mopping up the mess left behind.
Names such as UK Uncut and 38 degrees keep popping up, but as Robin alluded to in a previous post, they must choose their battles wisely. They can not try to save everything, because it is not the Tories fault that everything can't be saved. Cuts are needed. But the Tories aren't cutting everywhere, they have prioritised and people must remember this. Yes things will be tough, but shouting loudly isn't going to get you anywhere, because Labour wouldn't be doing anything differently.
And if you disagree with that, then simply - you are wrong. Why do you think Ed Miliband hasn't come up with an alternative to New Labour yet? Why do you think Andy Burnham hasn't come up with a different idea to the English Bacc and Academies. Ed Balls is still shouting on about "the deficit he never created". The only person making any noises aren't on the front benches, namely Peter Mandelson and David Miliband. (Read George's post below)
The problem with social networking sites, is that they are littered with Liberals, far too liberal as well. Without making sweeping generalisations, some are anarchists, they like to criticise everything, because that is the easy thing to do. It's like the 10 o'Clock Live Show 24/7 for these people. They have given rise to partisan blogs, including (the very good) Left Foot Forward, (the not so good) Political Scrapbook and gives a voice to many columnists who are so biased their heads must be up their arses not to notice - yes that's you Toynbee!
It's not just the left that does the bashing, the right are at it as well. Guido Fawkes for example. Letting Boris Johnson write in The Telegraph is like asking a 6 year old how we should fix the deficit - with ice cream please.
Rant over - for now.
Rant over - for now.
I agree that the Labour front bench need to pull their finger out and at least make some considerable counter arguments to the cuts and public policy. The Internet on the other hand is the only real free medium we have left, even the heavily sensored Chinese version can be hacked and manipulated to serve the needs of the public. I get what your saying about it letting anyone wade into political discourse but I think its a good thing because it lets the voices of the nobody be heard and you never know you may just come across something that make you think harder about your own place in society. Put it this way if Sarah Palin and Nick Griffin can have their say in a free open forum like the Internet then so can Tony Benn and Poly Toynbee.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, the kind of people who are going to use the internet to harden their partisan stance are the kind of people who without the internet would simply only read stories in newspapers favourable to their views.
ReplyDeleteThe bonus of the internet is that I can be reading an article about a subject on the BBC then link to the Telegraph, and then an opposing view from the Guardian. You'd never be able to get that variation in printed news.