[net.followup] British Labour Party

db@cstvax.UUCP (Dave Berry) (05/09/86)

First a note - Last night the Labour Party made sweeping gains in local
elections throughout England and Scotland.  The Tories lost over 400 seats, 
to Labour, the Alliance and the Scottish Nationalists.  The precise effect
of the libyan air-raid on this is a matter for speculation.

In article <755@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP writes:
>A Labour Party government in England at this point can't 
>be distinguished from a Communist government by any
>reasonable measure.

I assume by "Communist", you mean a Soviet-style single party system?
(It's not clear - 'socialism', 'communism', 'democratic' etc. can have
many different meanings).
One 'reasonable measure' you might try is whether the party concerned believes
in open, multi-party elections.  The Labour party does, the USSR CP doesn't.
Other differences - support for nuclear weapons, nuclear power, free trade
unions, imperialism, racism, gay rights (just), feminism (sort of), free press,
freedom of information (like all British parties, sporadic), freedom of speech,
home ownership, accountability of officials, open trials, degree of corruption,
etc.  Need I go on?

>When dealing with truly evil people (Soviet leadership), 
and the class enemy :-)
-- 
	Dave Berry. CS postgrad, Univ. of Edinburgh		
					...mcvax!ukc!cstvax!db