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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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Leigh S

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 03 June, 2020, 10:03:05 PM
snip> that Corbyn was treated badly by a lot of people. <snip

It's not that Corbyn was treated badly by a lot of people that gets me, it who those people were.

sheridan

Quote from: Professor Bear on 04 June, 2020, 03:11:50 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 04 June, 2020, 01:37:05 PMI guess both think — like Labour does as a whole — they have a god-given right to rule alone. It's one of the few things they are in complete alignment on — albeit to their mutual detriment.

I was under the impression that most MPs - left and right - don't support PR because it would make fringe parties mainstream overnight.  I guess I can understand that reasoning, but if you think 13 UKIP MPs is a price worth paying to get 7 Green MPs and to make the LibDems kingmakers again, then fair play.

It's difficult to predict.  With PR the electorate would hopefully be more inclined to vote for those whose manifestos match their own feelings, rather than making protest votes.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Professor Bear on 04 June, 2020, 03:11:50 PMLabour did break in two already - it got us the LibDems
Well, it got us the SDP, which joined with the Liberals to form the Lib Dems. And while I know you hate the Lib Dems with the passion of a thousand suns, I'd argue they are useful, for a range of reasons. For one, they are liberal. Labour have often not been so in my lifetime, sometimes tending towards authoritarianism. The Charles Kennedy-era LDs had some superb policies, which I'd love to have seen enacted in government. And they've long been champions of political reform, whereas Labour's desperate to cling to the status quo that allows it to win one time in four, while the Tories fuck up the country for the rest of the time. (And that's every stripe of Labour.)

Also: I'm sure people love to think Labour can win every seat in the country, but the fact is they cannot. However, soft Tories can sometimes be persuaded to vote Lib Dem. For the next GE, under FPTP, we need Lab and Lib to both do well, or we're basically fucked. Again. (And even if they both do well, that might not be enough unless both parties can stop their ridiculous pissing contest with the SNP. Plaid and the Greens are at least grown-ups — about the only ones right now.)

QuoteDemocratic reform in the UK is pointless as long as the House of Lords exists
That view aligns with Corbyn's, and I vehemently disagree. I'm no fan of the Lords in its current form, but it has frequently proven to be a useful safeguard precisely because of its oddball mix (not enough Tories nor Labour to 'control' the house, due to a great many crossbenchers who'd be instantly eradicated under a voted system) and because the Lords aren't beholden to the electorate. So they're not thinking five years ahead—they're just examining the policy as they get it, and making changes. If anything, the house lacks power, because the Commons can override it too easily.

The problems with the Lords stem with how the people there are selected more than them being democratically elected. (Note that I'm not against that happening, however. My ideal would be to split England into a number of states, and have a regional PR-based 'senate' of sorts.)

But the Commons is where we already elect our representatives, and right now it's a massive fucking stitch-up— and that's never going to change.

QuoteI was under the impression that most MPs - left and right - don't support PR because it would make fringe parties mainstream overnight.  I guess I can understand that reasoning, but if you think 13 UKIP MPs is a price worth paying to get 7 Green MPs and to make the LibDems kingmakers again, then fair play.
That's not the impression I've ever got. It's always been about the numbers, and realising for Labour that PR means the end of majority Labour government, probably forever. The Tories are against it because it would dramatically reduce the likelihood of a Tory majority as well.

My take is either you believe in proper representation or you don't. I do. That means, yes, some arseholes will get into parliament (and local govt). But you know what? We've just spent half a decade watching the Tories and Labour (and that includes the Labour left) pandering to UKIP and then the Brexit Party. Our elections hinge on a tiny number of swing seats. The vast majority of votes mean nothing and are wasted. And parties are elected into a majority position despite almost never getting a majority of the votes. Whichever way you slice it, it's a stitch-up.

So, yeah, fine: 20/30/50 Brexit MPs. Whatever. But we'd have dozens of Greens too, and potentially dozens of Lib Dems. As sheridan says, voting patterns would likely change anyway, allowing people to vote for what they believe in, rather than the 'least worst from the big two'. We'd end Labour bitching that it didn't get into power because people who prefer another party had the audacity to vote for said party (or Labour in elections where people 'do the right thing' boasting about increase in vote share, ignoring literally millions of votes being borrowed).

Parties could split, safe in the knowledge that wouldn't mean electoral oblivion, but instead looking to forge alliances that could shift and change depending on circumstances. Parliament could become a place of consensus and compromise, rather than 'us vs them'.

It's never going to happen, of course. The Tories will never go for PR, and Labour almost certainly won't either. But I find it deeply sad that so many of our politicians actually want a situation where the parliament is not representative of the people who voted.

Jim_Campbell

Right now, I'd settle for the MPs we have got actually being allowed to vote. The farce that Rees-Mogg has enacted by enforcing in-person voting should be getting a LOT more attention.
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Professor Bear

It sometimes worries me when I see people make amusing comments about JRM being a snooty fop or whatever, because I realise that's all people see and it obscures the absolute fucking monster that he really is.

JayzusB.Christ

So... What's the crack with Cummings now? Fish and chip papers already?  He and Johnson should be begging forgiveness at this stage, not that I'm naive enough to think that will ever happen.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 04 June, 2020, 08:42:55 PM
Right now, I'd settle for the MPs we have got actually being allowed to vote. The farce that Rees-Mogg has enacted by enforcing in-person voting should be getting a LOT more attention.

Every time a Tory/Brexiteer claims there is a modern technological solution to the British border in Ireland, I will point them to the farcical social distanced voting system in the house of commons. These are not people who support technology. You could take all of Boris' recent speeches and replace "The Science" with "The Bible" and no meaning would be lost.
You may quote me on that.

Professor Bear

Quote from: sheridan on 04 June, 2020, 05:48:28 PM
Quote from: Professor Bear on 04 June, 2020, 03:11:50 PMI was under the impression that most MPs - left and right - don't support PR because it would make fringe parties mainstream overnight.  I guess I can understand that reasoning, but if you think 13 UKIP MPs is a price worth paying to get 7 Green MPs and to make the LibDems kingmakers again, then fair play.

It's difficult to predict.  With PR the electorate would hopefully be more inclined to vote for those whose manifestos match their own feelings, rather than making protest votes.

From Fullfact.org:

The Electoral Reform Society, which campaigns for a change from the current 'first past the post' system, estimates that UKIP would have won 80 seats under a 'list PR' system, 54 under a 'single transferable vote' regime, and stayed at one using the 'alternative vote' that was rejected at a 2011 referendum.

Full article HERE.

The above is from 2016 because I am a lazy bastard and only checked the first couple of links I got from a Google search I used UKIP as an example so had to go that far back to find a PR model where they were relevant, as their vote share isn't actually worth two fucks anymore and most models don't give them a single seat.

Tjm86

Personally I feel like the way that the different nations of the UK have reacted both during Brexit and the Covid-19 crisis points to significant challenges ahead.  Since it affects devolved issues in particular (health and policing) it has given the other parts of the UK a chance to flex their muscles and show what is possible. 

So Wales and Scotland make mainstream news for a change, foregrounding the fact that there is scope for greater regional autonomy.  Regions in England get to make hay over it and Westminster is forced to make noises over variation.

Between this and the "English Votes" issue it does seem that there is a growing case for fundamental restructuring of the UK parliament.  Let's face it, there is widespread opposition to the cronyism of the House of Lords.  The House of Commons is imbalanced towards England.  The stranglehold of the government on fiscal policy hamstrings devolved governments.  The whole structure is stuck in the past.  Small wonder then that voter apathy is a continual problem.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Professor Bear on 05 June, 2020, 01:42:05 AMThe Electoral Reform Society, which campaigns for a change from the current 'first past the post' system, estimates that UKIP would have won 80 seats under a 'list PR' system, 54 under a 'single transferable vote' regime, and stayed at one using the 'alternative vote' that was rejected at a 2011 referendum.
UKIP's rise was in part fostered by the party being a protest vote for the disenfranchised. The Lib Dems also at times got a vote share well above their natural level. So we really have no idea how many seats either party would have won, because voting might have changed substantially.

Even if it didn't, we return again to basic fairness and representation. I find it genuinely baffling that progressive people want a parliament that is not representative. Yet I see this across the political spectrum. I've been in various Green groups that have baffled me in being anti-PR because that would "let in UKIP". Well, they're already in. They're now in government. They were for a time the driving force behind 80% of MPs, to a great extent.

Attempting to stamp out extreme views by way of rigging the vote in a deeply flawed system can sometimes work, but often it really doesn't, as we are now finding. 80 UKIP MPs would be bloody horrible, but at least voters would be represented, and at least some of those people would soon enough see what a bunch of useless tossers they are and likely switch away next time. But also, we would have the Greens on more than one seat (and zero if the boundary changes carve up Brighton Pav), more Lib Dems, fewer SNP (to align with their vote share), and the potential for political parties to split into coherent entities, rather than being de-facto coalitions in and of themselves, endlessly infighting. (Well, apart from the Tories, who are now entirely driven by their second-most extreme faction.)

FWIW, this was my take, way back in 2010. Lots more options. And even if we'd have still ended up with Con/Lib, the balance would have been completely different, because it would have been representative.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Tjm86 on 05 June, 2020, 03:37:56 AMBetween this and the "English Votes" issue it does seem that there is a growing case for fundamental restructuring of the UK parliament.
The problem is always going to be the English relinquishing the power they hold due to population size. Yet at the same time, we also have the regions whining because they lack influence or the means to go about their own way in various areas of influence. Pick one, England!

Personally, I'd happily see this country (England) split into states broadly along the lines of the MEP regions. Give them some autonomy. At the very least have the regions represented in the upper house. Instead, we'll 'happily' continue doing politics like it's 1820, with people yelling at each other across a room, and baffling the world with stupid traditions rather than basic pragmatism.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

You may quote me on that.

sheridan

Riot police watch a video of two of their number commit G.B.H. against a 75-year old, and a further member stop the one police officer who showed any concern about the prone elderly man bleeding from his head and decide the best thing they can do is resign en masse when the attackers are suspended.  Disgusting.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: sheridan on 07 June, 2020, 02:06:27 PM
Riot police watch a video of two of their number commit G.B.H. against a 75-year old, and a further member stop the one police officer who showed any concern about the prone elderly man bleeding from his head and decide the best thing they can do is resign en masse when the attackers are suspended.  Disgusting.

Jesus wept.  Not even an acknowledgement of wrongdoing.  And they wonder why the protests are happening.

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

TordelBack

While trying my best to be cautious about one-sided video editing, internet echo-chambers, algorithms and the relative number of incidents against the sheer scale of this thing,  the relentless procession of documented acts of complete inhumanity from the police seems undeniable - and their willingness to do these things on camera highlights their perception of invulnerability and acceptability.

I titled the Covid-19 thread 'Day of Chaos 2' in a weak attempt to make it 2000AD-relevant, but the way these protests and consequential violence have spread during a pandemic makes the joking parallel a lot more real. The judges fatally lose control of their lockdown not just because of outside agitators, but because they have systematically destroyed the trust of the citizens through decades of abuse and dishonesty.

And here we are.