My concern is that traditional thinking about which policies are "left", and which are "right", seems to lock in adversarial thinking rather than finding contemporary solutions which improve society. I get fed up with parties thinking and behaving as tribes. If someone from the other tribe came up with an idea, then the members from the opposing tribe dismiss it automatically. The inter-island ferry is a classic example. Winston Peters appears to be finding a middle ground, look at the makeup of his selection board, which is precisely how long term, especially relating to infrastructure, decisions must be made not using tribal ranting. I found your analysis really fascinating, and it reminded me why I chose to exercise my politics in local government!
I belonged to the Labour Party for 43 years. I successfully stood as a Labour candidate 5 times in Local Government. I cut up my life member's card when the last government were so pathetic and failed to demonstrate leadership on so many fronts. I live in hope that politicians can start thinking beyond their tribe and focus on what is best for the countries long term prosperity.
Great to have you back posting regularly! Have you looked at voter demographics in Germany? I suspect that the traditional parties like SPD are largely supported by older generations and parties like AFD are supported by younger?
Thanks, yes it seems that the AfD skews towards young and middle aged males mostly in the East. The geographic split is very obvious and who knows what that means for the future ..
My concern is that traditional thinking about which policies are "left", and which are "right", seems to lock in adversarial thinking rather than finding contemporary solutions which improve society. I get fed up with parties thinking and behaving as tribes. If someone from the other tribe came up with an idea, then the members from the opposing tribe dismiss it automatically. The inter-island ferry is a classic example. Winston Peters appears to be finding a middle ground, look at the makeup of his selection board, which is precisely how long term, especially relating to infrastructure, decisions must be made not using tribal ranting. I found your analysis really fascinating, and it reminded me why I chose to exercise my politics in local government!
Agreed - I wrote an article 18 months ago asking if political parties were too tribal ...
I belonged to the Labour Party for 43 years. I successfully stood as a Labour candidate 5 times in Local Government. I cut up my life member's card when the last government were so pathetic and failed to demonstrate leadership on so many fronts. I live in hope that politicians can start thinking beyond their tribe and focus on what is best for the countries long term prosperity.
Great to have you back posting regularly! Have you looked at voter demographics in Germany? I suspect that the traditional parties like SPD are largely supported by older generations and parties like AFD are supported by younger?
Thanks, yes it seems that the AfD skews towards young and middle aged males mostly in the East. The geographic split is very obvious and who knows what that means for the future ..