Sunday 2 January 2011

The Facts Of The Matter: My Political New Year's Resolution

The Cleggmania of the 2010 general election gave some of us hopes of an end to partisan bickering and of a more constructive debate on the future of our country. Of course this was never to be the case, only a naive idealist like me could even pretend to hope for such a situation, and the fallout from that election lead to some of the most ridiculously illogical partisan posturing I've ever seen. Liberal Democrats defending Tory policies just to show we are better than Labour. Labour supporters taking mad positions on Phil Woolas, immigration, civil liberties and other such things just because that was the party line (or the Blairite line or the Brownite line or the... etc.)

It's depressed me, saddened me and made me more sure of what I want to stand up for. If 2010 saw me embrace liberalism properly rather than just seeing the Lib Dems as some anti-Tory single issue vehicle, then I want 2011 to be the year I embrace consensus, evidence based politics.

I'm a skeptic (an open minded skeptic, I'll admit) and I believe in evidence based science, education and medicine. So why not evidence based politics?

My New Year's resolution is this: I want to start basing my political opinions on fact not on what makes me feel good. Of course you'll need to keep me honest, but please don't bother with more opinion. Let's talk about facts, statistics and evidence not presumption, ideological blindness and partisan point scoring. We're all guilty of it, but I say "No more!".

Why not join me? Socialism, capitalism, left, right... these are all labels that help blind us to what might work. Throw them off and start looking at things more logically. We might achieve great things. Or we might become more terrifying than the Nazi's. Who knows? I'm willing to give it a go... it's got to be better than how things are working now.

If you feel benevolent and particularly generous, this writer always appreciates things bought for him from his wishlist

2 comments:

Paul Brownsey said...

While there's lot to be said for throwing off partisanship and labels, facts *alone* can't dictate policies. For that you need some vision of the good, some commitment to some conception of a just society.

Paul

Jae Kay said...

Who said it was just going to be facts alone? We all have our own agendas. I'd prefer to see people debate those agendas using facts rather than lies or opinion.