Why I am a liberal

The UK has a plethora of political parties, with the main parties in England being the Conservatives Labour, The Liberal Democrats and to a lesser extent the Green party. As I have said before I have been a member of the conservative party, this was when David Cameron was leader because under his leadership they were quite liberal facing and doing and saying a lot of things that I agreed with, so I joined the party to help on this front.

But that was all while they were in opposition, when they were elected in 2010 things changed, they imposed austerity on the country which resulted in reduced funding for lots of things making life harder for the everyday person and I didn’t agree with this, so I let my party membership lapse. As I don’t believe that making life harder for people is a very liberal thing to do, they effectively changed their stance on things from opposition to when they became a government.

Then we have the Labour party, they ran the country from 1997 through till 2010, in that time we saw a lot of rank hypocrisy and an increase of the nanny state. One example of their hypocritical actions was in education, they championed state run schools saying how good they were yet the majority of their MPs sent their children to private schools. This makes you wonder if state schools are so brilliant why they would send their own children to private schools.

As a political party, especially in government they like to tell people what to do and regulate things in an attempt to stop people doing them. As a party that was set up to help the working class they like to tell people what to do in a very authoritarian way. The opposite of a liberal approach to dealing with society and the people.

They believe in banning things or heavily regulating things that they view as being bad for people, taking away the choice of people to do things, and then having to deal with the consequences of their actions. As I said this is a very authoritarian way of governing by telling people what they can and can’t do.

I also disagree with some of their policies like renationalising the railways, and excessively taxing the rich and the middle classes. As taxing the rich just drives them out of the country reducing the tax retunes and the money available to spend on public services, as the rich easily have the ability to move to another country. So the burden then falls on the middle class.

I also view them as being the party of envy; they see the rich as being a bad thing. As they don’t think it is fair that some people acquire wealth through hard work and want to almost punish them for their success, which I think is an illiberal idea.

Then there is the green party, basically a fringe party but as they have an MP I thought I would include them. They have some admirable views when it comes to the environment and other green issues. But that is where it stoops; they are very much like the labour party as they are a party that advocates for higher taxes.

Again a party with authoritarian streak who want to control the lives of people through laws and regulations to limit the personal freedoms of the general public. On top of this they are too like Labour a party of higher taxation, wanting people to pay more in tax.

Then finally we have the Liberal Democrats, a party that I became more aware of during the 201 coalition government. They spoke sense on lots of issues, and tempered the conservatives from doing more things that would have hurt people.

They had some very good policies that they got to enact as they were in a coalition government. For example they raised the threshold where people started to pay tax, a policy that lifted millions out of paying tax making them financially better off. Another thing that they did was to introduce same sex marriage, as while gay people had civil partnerships available to them they were not equal to marriage and by doing this they made things more equal.

I was also very impressed with what Norman Lamb was saying about mental health, as being someone who suffers from it his words and ideas were very impressive, and I liked what I heard.

They were also the only arty with a unified view on the EU and Europe and as someone who believes in the EU and all the good it does I was more attracted to them as a party. But it was not till I started to talk to other Liberal Democrats that I became sold on the issue, and that was when I joined the party.

I had finally found a party which advocated for a lot of what I believed in. That being giving the public the freedom to do what they like and take personal responsibility for their actions. Plus they are all for a fairer tax system, one that isn’t punitive like a lot of the other parties, which is something that I believe in, as tax is something we need but we need a fair system one that dose not punish people for being successful.
Also they are a party that believes in equality and diversity pushing for a more diverse political system, one that more accurately represents the population rather than what we have now which is full of old, stale pale white males. They encourage women, BME people and LGBT people to stand for political office and provide them with support.

They are also a party that thinks about the local population and are more than happy to help with local issues, especially their councillors who are all ready to tackle issues that are affecting people locally. Making them a party that not only pushes on national issues but also is concerned with local issues.

Finally they are all for voting reform, something that really needs to happen in the UK as the first past the post system is unfair in a multi-party system. They want to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds, as they view them as being mature enough to vote in elections. Plus they also want to replace the current system with proportional representation, which would give us a parliament that reflected the voting of the public more accurately and give more MPs to parties who don’t stand a chance under the current system.

I feel at home as a member of the Liberal Democrats, as they represent the bulk of my political beliefs. Though there are some things that I disagree with, but it would be almost impossible to have a political party that you agree with 100%, unless you started your own party. I just hope that over the coming general elections as a party we can rebuild the number of MPs that we have, as we were the party punished for the 2010 coalition government, losing a lot of our MPs.

So this is why I am a liberal democrat, because I feel like they are the party that most closely represents my political views. Plus at the parties conferences members can suggest policy ideas to help suggest the direction of the party, so they listen to what their members have to say.