Politics - Tory Leadership + other stuff

[karen2205]

Borders on Tuesday = topbit, lizblackdog, neonchameleon, midnightmelody, Vino with no LJ, hairyears and me. I think this was the quickest 'add to friends list and then meet' situation for Liz and me!

Cutting for non work safeness (yes, politics is non work safe for me and a couple of others) - it's probably fine for most of you

So nice simple question - who should I vote for and why?

I'm torn. I like what Cameron is saying (apart from the stuff about marriage. Why should marriage be seen as a better form of family arrangement than anything else?) and he's interesting. Davis on the other hand makes me want to sleep - he's boring, *but* I really like what he's saying about England only votes in the House. Decisions, decisions.

[Poll #609720]

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I like what Cameron is saying

Which is what, in fact?

Why should marriage be seen as a better form of family arrangement than anything else?

In theory it's more stable, although...

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Which is what, in fact?

This from a member of New Labour?

In theory it's more stable

Than what? Communal (tribal) childrearing is more stable than a marriage as it doesn't change too much when individuals have problems. Single parent child rearing is more stable as divorce isn't an issue.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

This from a member of New Labour?

There's no such party as New Labour, but if you want to argue that Labour haven't got any policies you're about eight years too late...

Than what? Communal (tribal) childrearing is more stable than a marriage as it doesn't change too much when individuals have problems.

And I wouldn't necessarily object to it if British society were largely organised around tribal units.

Single parent child rearing is more stable as divorce isn't an issue.

But income and available time often are, amongst other factors. Some people manage to raise children perfectly well on their own, but to claim that all else being equal it wouldn't be better to have two parents is just silly.

[karen2205]

nd I wouldn't necessarily object to it if British society were largely organised around tribal units.

I think the real problem is that we lack information on other types of family structures - ie. we know when marriages are formed and break up. We don't know how many stable opposite-sex partnerships there are/how long they last on average. I guess we'll get some data on same-sex couples after December - but then it'll only be the ones who choose to register their partnership. We don't have detailed information on single parents (ie. in some of these cases the parent will have a partner they see occasionally, in others there'll be a live in grandmother, or they'll have a support network of friends/family around them. And this is without entering the entire realm of polyamorous relationships. Marriage is only seen as more stable because it's the one we've got lots of data for. I wonder if there's a clever DPhil student about who'd want to start doing research into this to find out if marriage really is a more stable family structure.