OpEd: Election 22-04-15

The commentators 22-04-15

...on the general election

We don’t buy into this all-or-nothing politics any more. The single thing that alienates young people from politics is the party system. The idea that only one party can speak for them, or represent all their views across a spectrum of issues as diverse as housing and defence, is nonsense.
- Armando Ianucci, The Independent

Perhaps the saddest spectacle in this election, amid stiff competition, is David Cameron seeking tactical advantage from the hatred so many people in Scotland feel for his party. Scottish nationalism is not exclusively about a determination never again to be governed by Tories, but that is one of its strongest mobilising energies. Nick Clegg’s campaign and his party’s prospects for survival depend almost entirely on the mood among those voters for whom the local Lib Dem represents an insurance policy against a hard-right Tory government.
- Rafael Behr, The Guardian

The young don’t want a Russell Brand revolution. They are looking for responsible, mature government, not a comedian. They feel anxious and alienated. According to a recent Demos report they want an adequately paid job or apprenticeship, a higher minimum wage and a chance of getting on the housing ladder. Online privacy, mental health provision and the gap between rich and poor also worries them but they are less concerned about immigration, the EU, extremism and crime.
- Alice Thomson, The Times

The establishment, from Rupert Murdoch to Goldman Sachs, is desperate for Labour to lose. Do we wish to defeat it, or not? For me, the election of a Labour government is not the endpoint: it’s the beginning of campaigns and struggles that would, under Toryism, be doomed. So vote Labour – and prepare to fight.
- Owen Jones, The Guardian

if Ed Miliband somehow manages to scrape into Number Ten after next month’s vote – propped up, as he will have to be, by Nicola Sturgeon – then we will have a Prime Minister whose entire strategy is based on division, and whose plans for office make that 1983 manifesto seem almost tame. Recent Prime Ministers have seen their role as bringing the country together.
Stephen Pollard, Daily Express

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