It is decision time...this is whats on offer...

So tomorrow is the big day! I have spent this evening trying to catch up on the huge amounts of election shows that have been pushed out via TV this week. To be honest, they are all rather dull. All the parties have repeatedly spoken about the same boring issues and put the same points over without ever really giving any passionate; ideological please about why they are correct. So I have decided that the best way to decide who to vote for is to choose your ideology, and then vote for the party that fits this best. Below you will find (with the help of the BBC website) a detailed version of what the parties are now, and then a comparison of what they have traditionally stood for. I will take the Tories as standing for ‘one-nation’ Conservatism, which is essentially paternalistic, whilst maintaining hierarchy and authority. I will take Labour to be a socialist party, essentially standing for left-wing ideals of equality and distribution of resources. The Lib Dem party are a bit more difficult to pin down due to their ‘new’ status, but I will take them from their oldest roots as I have with the others, they are basically a Liberal party believing in freedom and equality of opportunity. Essentially, if you traditionally vote Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem – look at the below and question whether you should this time.

Labour

Key priorities:

1. "Targeted" increase in public spending over the next year to "sustain the recovery", before cutting the deficit by more than 50% by 2014 and reducing the structural deficit by at least two-thirds over the next parliament

2. Protect "frontline investment" in childcare, schools, the NHS and policing

3. Ensure all people who suspect they have cancer get test results within one week

4. Restore the link between the state pension and earnings from 2012

5. Guarantee a place in education or training for all 16 and 17 year olds

Analysis:

This seems to stay fairly true to Labour beliefs, it is watered-down and saturated in fluff; but to be fair when you fight your way through the extras there is still a base of ideology in this. I am surprised by this as I felt Brown had been swept up in Blairism and failed to bring the party back to his original ideals; but clearly I was wrong and he has.

1. A “targeted” increase in public spending is essentially the redistribution of wealth, a primary socialist value. Labour has always been known as a ‘tax and spend’ party – this is evidence that they still are. My problem with this stance by Labour is that they have not stated which groups they will be “targeting”, this could be the decided whether this policy works or fails.

2. Protecting “frontline investment” is another key socialist value that the Labour Party has clearly kept at the front of their policies. It is the idea of re-distributing resources to ensure basic services are available to all, a basic standard of living safety net. The Labour Party established the NHS and Tony Blair coined the phrase ‘Education, Education, Education’ – their love for social institutions is clearly built into their party and remain still.

3. The promise that all patients who suspect they have cancer will get results in one week is a very odd promise. Both Tories and Labour have jumped on pro-cancer policies during this election. Obviously it is a huge disease that affects many people; probably the most prominent in our society so should be recognised by government policy. However, this is neither a step away or towards ideology. It is simple pragmatism; it could be argued that this is a step away from ideology as it is prioritising pragmatism over socialist values and therefore stopping the ‘revolution’. However, I would simply say this is social awareness; but I will question why cancer is being picked out from all the diseases, I would be upset if I suffered from another, less popular, terminal illness.

4. Restoring the link between state pensions and earnings is another sign of redistributing the wealth through tax to those that are less well off. This is again about a certain standard of living, a step towards equality. Clearly another case of Brown sticking to values.

5. The guarantee that all people between 16-17 year olds will have a place in education or training is a slight side step away from socialism. The Labour Party would argue they are enabling the movement of working class into middle class and therefore ensuring equality of opportunity. However, equality of opportunity is essentially a liberal view, socialists primarily believe in equality of outcome. This is a step away from socialist values, a step first made by Blair and his ‘third way’; however it is only a slight one so I suppose we can forgive Mr. Brown on this one.

Conservative

Key Priorities:

1. Aim to eliminate "the bulk" of the UK's structural deficit within five years beginning in 2010 with £6bn in cuts

2. Spending cuts in all areas apart from health and foreign aid

3. Allow charities, trusts, voluntary groups and co-operatives to set up new Academy schools, independent of local authority control, and to run other public services

4. Scrap identity card scheme

5. Recognise marriage in the tax system by allowing adults who are married or in a civil partnership to transfer up to £750 of their tax-free personal allowance to their spouse, as long as the higher-income member of the couple is a basic-rate taxpayer.

Analysis:

This is not the most ideologically based set of key priorities. When compared to the Labour priorities which are clearly based on their core values, there is a clear lack of core values in these. The Tories have traditionally been pragmatic and they may be able to argue that these policies are pragmatism rather than ideological, but I am not sure what trends they are jumping on here. This has rendered me correct in my opinions on Cameron, there is no substance behind his charm...whether he is a good leader or not may be what you decide to vote on, but looking at this I would suggest that is all he has.

1. To be fair the aim to cut “the bulk” of the deficit with £6bn in cuts is a traditional Tory policy. Whereas Labour are a ‘tax and spend’ party, Tories have always been the party of less is more. They believe in cuts in public services and therefore a cut in taxes. They believe they can stop a rise in taxes by cutting public services – my problem with this policy is that they have not made clear which services will be cut.

2. This priority seems very similar to the last one. Perhaps another sign that they are hiding a lack of substance through charm and word play. However, what does come through is the want to save health and foreign aid. This answers part of my question over the first priority, we now know these two institutions won’t be affected but still don’t know how the other areas will be. It is also sheer pragmatism that these two have been chosen. Foreign aid is clearly chosen because of the media saturation surround instances like Haiti and the campaigns of Oxfam. Health is another odd choice, could be personal to Cameron or could be because he has felt a census since Obama’s healthcare policies that the British are proud of the NHS. I say healthcare is an odd choice because it was not long ago that the Tories were threatening voucher systems and privatisation. However, I think the Conservatives could argue that their want to keep foreign aid is their core value of paternalism, but on a global scale. Instead of the rich looking after the poor within our country, they are doing it on a global scale – and thereby ensuring England stays on top of the hierarchy.

3. The allowing of charities and trusts to take over from public spending in paying for our schools is essentially more cuts in public spending. This is clearly a sign that they want education to take a bulk of their cuts. This again shows the Tory value of being a party that cuts, not a party that taxes...but is this really all they offer. I understand that Cameron is not a Thatcherite, he is a one-nation Tory, but he shows nothing of the passion and ideals that she led this country with.

4. This is a policy I do not understand at all. How is this priority? I understand it was expensive to set up and we are now in deficit, but really...a priority? There is no ideology behind this at all...just pure partisan pragmatism.

5. The recognition of marriage in a tax system is my favourite Tory policy, yet completely misguided. It should not be the ‘recognition of marriage’ but an incentive for one parent to stay home and be more involved in their children’s lives. However, at least there is ideology behind this; it is a clear that Cameron is still a firm believer of the Conservative value of tradition, in this case traditional family values.

Liberal Democrats

Key Priorities:

1. Identify and cut £15bn of lower priority spending per year to protect front-line services while reducing structural deficit at least as fast as Labour plans, beginning in 2011

2. Raise the threshold at which people start paying income tax from £6,475 to £10,000

3. Impose "mansion tax" on the value of properties over £2m and increase capital gains tax to bring it into line with income tax

4. Introduce a banking levy until such time as banks' retail and investment arms can be separated

5. Scrap identity card scheme

Analysis:

This is the least in line with the traditional values of all the parties. They show no real sense of libertarianism that defined the Liberal Party for so many years and instead have basically turned into a socialist party. There merger with the SDP is probably the root of this, but in the 80s Thatcher basically took the reins of negative freedom and since her departure no party has picked it back up.

1. This is just the pragmatic cut of spending that we have seen from all the parties. Again, there is no sign of suggesting which front line services might be saved and which will be cut.

2. Raising the threshold of income tax is essentially a socialist policy which I am sure, if the economics adds up, Labour will steal. It is however not a traditional liberal policy. Liberals believe in freedom from large government, the more tax intervention the more government re-distribution.

3. The imposing of “mansion tax” is again a tax intervention that goes against liberal core beliefs. Traditionally liberals would believe in supporting enterprise and entrepreneurship by not taxing the wealthy, they see it as taking away from their incentives.

4. The banking levy is purely pragmatic. Again, this is going against their traditional beliefs of supporting enterprise. They have jumped on the ‘hate the bankers’ bandwagon and not taken into account that they are have been a highly successful industry at the centre of our economy that the market needed to regulate. That would have been the traditional libertarian viewpoint.

5. This is as poor show as the Tory priority to scrap it. To be fair it is freedom of civil liberties which has been strongly supported by the likes of Locke. But still...a priority?