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I saw the first election flyer of the campaign up here in Glasgow last night. It wasn’t actually for the constituency in which I reside, but it got me thinking about what I’ll be asking candidates when (if) they knock on my door.

Regrettably, candidates are often very busy, so it’s local political foot soldiers who will be doing the hard graft. Regardless, they will hopefully be well abridged on the candidates and parties beliefs and policies

So my personal questions will be (if I get the time to ask all of them) include the following:

1/ Does the candidate support the war in Iraq? Was the Government right to invade without a United Nations mandate, and based on flawed intelligence?

2/ Does the candidate believe that members of the public should be obliged to carry identity cards?

3/ Should the House of Lords be abolished and replaced with a fully elected second chamber?

4/ Should hunting with dogs remain a banned activity?

5/ Should there be detention without trials in this country?

6/ Should Scotland remain part of the United Kingdom?

(I’ve a number more on health, education, and economics, but will save those for another post). My answers/beliefs (I need to be careful I don’t end up sounding like Michael Howard if I state my beliefs), with some justifications, are:

1/ The war in Iraq was an illegal war, fought on extremely flawed intelligence with no backing from the United Nations. Any candidate that backs such an attack against other states on such a basis will not receive my vote.

2/ I believe that freedom is a fundamental principal on which this country is rightly very proud. Identity cards will detract from the freedom to go about my business without interference or monitoring. I do not believe such a scheme will make me any safer from “terrorists”, and will only benefit an already overbearing state.

3/ I feel that the current system of entirely un-elected and unaccountable “people of repute” having a say without a democratic mandate is an anachornism (as is an un-elected head of state) that has no place in a modern country. Any candidate that seeks to justify the house of lords (or the monarchy, for what it’s worth) as a logical system of governance will not get my vote. The government and revising chamber should be accountable to the citizens in a properly democratic way.

4/ Hunting with dogs is cruel and ineffective. There are better ways of managing wildlife and livestock, including better management and defence of livestock on which peoples livelihoods are based. No way of life is threatened by a ban on hunting, as it is a self-financing organisation. Keep paying your hunt subs, and no jobs are lost.

5/ It should be the right of anybody who lives or visits this country to feel confident they will be treated fairly in any eventuality they find themselves involved with the law. Any detention (and the implicit restriction of their human rights) that entails should be purely at the behest of an independent judiciary.

6/ In case you didn’t know (or realise), I’m English. I moved to Scotland only about a year ago. I feel that Britain, and Scotland, are better places as a result of the Union. Any party that seeks to remove Scotland from the United Kingdom is - in my view - proposing a detrimental course of action for both Scotland and the rest of the UK. I agree that Scotland should have a voice of its own, and has, in the Scottish Parliament.

Keen for an answer to some of these, I popped over to the Guardian and theyworkforyou.com and checked voting record of the current (well, previous) MP. Whilst there have been some border changes up here (due to the Scottish Parliament, there’s a reduction in the number of MP’s), the candidate for Glasgow South (Ian Davidson; Labour) is the sitting candidate. He agrees with me on (4) hunting for dogs and (3) a fully elected second chamber, but not on the rest (There is probably some chance he agrees on point 6, given he’s not in the SNP).

I’ve steered clear of some of the other hot-topic issues, that of health, education and economic policy. I certainly have opinions on those, and will pull together my questions on these issues at a later date.

So, right now, I’ve ruled out voting for Ian Davidson, but given he’s a member of the Labour party, which forms a Government that has lied through its teeth since the last election, it’s hardly a big surprise. It also rules out the SNP, a party I just can’t consider voting for given my support for the United Kingdom (well, country).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2005 at 4:23 pm and is filed under British General Election, Glasgow, Politics, Scotland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.