Today's QotD comes from our Sunday quiz-mistress Josephine, who for the record is a lovely woman, and who is about to willingly embark upon an exceptionally difficult career I chose to leave. I wouldn't want anyone to think this I was getting at her. However:
"Ah, you're probably all Liberal Democrats, since I already know you're all academics."
Discuss.
4 comments:
Why certainly!
If academics stand for anything as a group it is for freedom of inquiry and the right to challenge the status quo. Therefore they're unlikely to be small-c conservative and are also likely to favour individual liberty over authority. So if there's any truth in the statement it's because all Lib Dems share these values whereas there are clearly strands of thought in the Tory and Labour parties which do not.
However in my experience I'd also say that most academics are left-leaning on the traditional left-right scale. There are several reasons why that could be but more importantly it's an outlook that's not shared with all Lib Dems and especially not with their current leadership - although to be fair to them the difference is magnified by being in coalition with the Tories.
Now add in the Lib Dems' support for Osbornomics and their pledge-break over HE funding, plus the very appealing direction the Labour party is going in under Ed Miliband, and you have the perfect storm. Tribal Lib Dems may weather all this, but of course academics pride themselves on being free thinkers so their tribal ties are likely to be weaker than average.
Nothing I can argue about there. I haven't really been listening to Miliband lately. What's occurin'?
Basically he's repudiated all the nastier aspects of New Labour. I particularly rate him because he's willing to take stances he believes in that are not politically expedient, e.g. supporting Ken Clarke's liberal prison reforms and coming out firmly in favour of AV.
To be fair, the team are mostly liberals, so her assumption served her well. Of course, we can't tell what political affiliation Stevie Baby has (other than anti-French, but that doesn't resolve uncertainty at all). Other than that, I guess we had three academics who would call themselves liberals and one who tends to try to be liberal (but certainly not *a* liberal...).
Post a Comment