An Open Letter To Dan Radcliffe
Dear Daniel Radcliffe,
I’ve watched you grow up on screen. I grew up alongside you and Harry Potter.
I’ve seen numerous articles and quotes from you that hint at your deeply liberal philosophy.
When I read the article in the Guardian taking extracts from your interview with Attitude magazine out tomorrow, I was surprised as you seem incredibly liberal, that you were dropping your support for the Liberal Democrats. Even in the interview extracts you seem very liberal.
I was perplexed at why you were dropping your support from the LibDems. You say:
I was initially supportive. For me it was good that the Lib Dems would be fighting our corner. But he has become a whipping boy and it seems to me that he has been totally used by the Tories – anything they don’t want badly reflected on them they reflect on to him.
The reason why you are dropping your support, is not because you don’t like the LibDems fighting our corner in government. In the interview I gather you cite a number of good things the LibDems have done in government. But you think the PR is wrong.
The reason that your dropping your support, is not because you no longer believe in liberalism or that the LibDems aren’t doing good things in government but because the Tories are using Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats as human shields for policies that the Tories don’t want to be blamed for. And the media are lapping it up.
That is entirely the wrong reason. Someone with your influence, is capable of blowing the whole thing open and showing people that actually the LibDems aren’t to blame for x, y or z policies but the Tories.
As for thinking Ed Miliband is genuine. Ha. He’s got you wrapped round his little finger hasn’t he. Ed Miliband hops on to every bandwagon going and hops back off when it suits.
He came into the hacking scandal only when it became an issue that people cared about, hoping for a few extra opinion polling points, he hopped on the energy bills are too high when it became an issue in the papers, even though 18 months ago, he was in charge of that department. He hopped on to “responsible capitalism” and started attacking big bonuses when it became popular. Labour let bonuses get out of control whilst they were in government.
If Ed Miliband has a genuine belief in anything other than power and how to rip off the poor, whilst making them believe you’ll stand up for them, I’ll eat my hat.
If you believe in liberalism, if you want to make a positive difference. Then support the party that believes that. That party will always and forever be the Liberal Democrats.
Yours Sincerely
Nic Prigg
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Well it was nice to see a considered, well thought out response to this, other than the usual petty character bashing and “He is an actor, what does his opinion matter! ” tosh.
The way to address the points raised are as you have done, which is to tackle what he has said, rather than to negate it all with a pithy comment. After all, he is entitled to his opinion and we should base our argument on the points he raises.
You are correct to highlight how Daniel Radcliffe’s points are rather strange. Like you say, if he really considers himself to be a Liberal, then continued support of the Lib Dems is really the only right way. Ed Miliband was a big supporter of the last Labour govt who were rather illiberal.
I feel that he has got swept up in the whole “left wing” is the only way to be and is a little fooled by Ed’s apparent left wing conversion. The wing thing gets on my nerves a bit because we tend to simplify it too much, but that is a different argument! ha!
It is a shame really because like you say his profile could help raise the importance of our course to shape this country’s Liberal future as well as engaging younger people in the importance of politics.
Good blog post. A breath of fresh air from the usual bashing, thanks!
Thank You for the warm comment.
I don’t like bashing people for who they are or what they do. Everyone has a right to their opinion.
Thats why I don’t understand why he thinks he’ll vote Labour. Ed Miliband was part of an incredibly illiberal government and is hopping on every bandwagon going.
The wing thing annoys me too. I don’t see left and right. I just see differing opinions. Keynesian or Hayek economics(or others, I don’t know other famous ways to view economics), individual is king or collective is king or some kind of balance. Left/right is of the French revolution, its too old to be of any use today.
Having common sense or lack of it appears in all corners of the population films stars etc included. Unfortunately people vote & support Parties for in many cases for the wrong reasons imo. But this Coalition has tainted the Lib Dems for many people – there aint no justice.
Indeed, the coalition has tainted the LibDems but we need people to help fight our corner, not just to get things implemented in government but also spreading the word of what we have achieved, what the Tories want to do, which we’ve stopped them and also showing a positive vision of what we want to do given a majority. Because of the media’s assault on us, we have to fight that extra bit hard.