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The Political Thread

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

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JayzusB.Christ

It's not my city, nor even my country, but I was cheered up to see that Laurence Fox got 1.9% of the vote.  With 5 million pounds spent, that's £100 a vote.  Good work, London.  Waitrose Tommy Robinson now knows exactly where he stands in the capital, as does Farage.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

milstar

Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 09 May, 2021, 01:53:01 PM
It's not my city, nor even my country, but I was cheered up to see that Laurence Fox got 1.9% of the vote.  With 5 million pounds spent, that's £100 a vote.  Good work, London.  Waitrose Tommy Robinson now knows exactly where he stands in the capital, as does Farage.
Thing is, we all joked about Farage some time ago and Fox got a TON of media coverage. He might fizzle out, but we though the same of Farage, who continues to arguably be the most effective single politician since Blair, in terms of the effect he has on the electorate (albeit largely driven by our broken electoral system, and increasingly by the US-style culture war that's now growing in the UK).

Professor Bear

Quote from: CalHab on 07 May, 2021, 11:20:28 AMLabour need to realise that they need to cooperate in elections with other parties and, crucially, agree to electoral reform. Instead they are stuck in a 90s mindset.

The LibDems expressly and repeatedly said they wouldn't work with Labour in 2019.  At this point the SNP would be mad to.

This isn't a dig at you, Calhab, but the loudest proponents of PR I've seen online are always a bit iffy on the specifics, making me view PR as little better than magical thinking.  Britain is a racist country, and PR would see thugs like the BNP go from the lunatic fringe to making policy decisions on councils overnight, and I'm not sure I want to just greenlight that without discussing the finer details a bit first.
For what it's worth, we have PR over here in Northern Ireland, and to put it mildly, it did not solve the problems of a polorised political community and a two-party system.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Professor Bear on 09 May, 2021, 04:21:29 PMThe LibDems expressly and repeatedly said they wouldn't work with Labour in 2019.
They were part of a pact with the Greens and Plaid that invited Labour to join it. Labour said no.

As for PR, I'm not sure what you mean about the specifics. Most people I know who are pro-PR want representative government. They want a system where we don't end up with 35% of the vote installing a government that can do whatever the hell it likes, ignoring the majority. They want a system where parties have to work together to build consensus.

And, yes, this would likely mean some arsehole MPs—although note that the vast majority of PR systems in use have minimum cut-off points. But that is representation too. Right now, Farage is still the tail wagging the two-headed dog that is the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Hell, given Davey's weak leadership, he's wagging the Lib Dems as well. When the entire political direction of our country is built around appealing to a minority of shouty regressives, that helps no-one. When our elections are mostly wasted votes and reliant on flipping a handful of marginals, that helps no-one. But that's where we are.

My wife is from a country with PR and has lived in the UK for around 15 years. She's still aghast at our system. She thinks we're living in the Stone Age as far as democracy goes—and she's right. We lurch from Con to Lab and back. Everyone blames everything on their predecessor and wants to tear everything down and remake the UK in their own image. There's no continuity. Worse, FPTP gives the Tories a massive in-built advantage. Yet Labour still won't even consider looking at a future where they would regularly lead a government comprising multiple parties with a reasonable amount of policy overlap. They'd rather sit in opposition and blame Greens, Lib Dems and Plaid voters for their inability to win an election.

I'm so bloody sick of it all.

The Legendary Shark


At certain points in Rome's history, as I'm sure most of you know, they would elect two consuls. No policy could go forward unless both consuls agreed. Two prime ministers, maybe, one from each of the most popular parties?

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Funt Solo

Quote from: Professor Bear on 09 May, 2021, 04:21:29 PM
For what it's worth, we have PR over here in Northern Ireland, and to put it mildly, it did not solve the problems of a polorised political community and a two-party system.

You could use the same logic to denounce murals.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

JayzusB.Christ

#18472
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 09 May, 2021, 05:16:47 PM

At certain points in Rome's history, as I'm sure most of you know, they would elect two consuls. No policy could go forward unless both consuls agreed. Two prime ministers, maybe, one from each of the most popular parties?

That's pretty much what we have here in Ireland right now.  Sadly, both parties are exactly the same - right-of-centre, look after the banks, the landlords and the big businesses.  The only difference between them is that they took different sides during the Civil War a hundred years ago. 

I've never voted for either of them and I never will, but like Tory voters, lots of people out there obviously don't think the way I do.

EDIT - I should point out that there aren't two PMs (Taoiseachs here) at the same time; they've just divided the term between them - one for the first half, the other for the second.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

The Legendary Shark


As you know, I don't think voting works at all under the present system, but I'm in the minority. As most people do believe in it, but not in the results, maybe it's time to change what the vote is for. Power sharing is far from perfect in itself, and dual prime ministers would require other changes too, but it might at least limit the damage a foolish single pm or president could do. Then again, it might cripple the system through intractability. I mention it only as a suggestion and am not going to defend or advocate it.

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milstar

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 09 May, 2021, 06:03:31 PM
That's pretty much what we have here in Ireland right now.  Sadly, both parties are exactly the same - right-of-centre, look after the banks, the landlords and the big businesses.  The only difference between them is that they took different sides during the Civil War a hundred years ago. 

Isn't Sinn Fein today very lefty party?

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 09 May, 2021, 06:39:51 PM

As you know, I don't think voting works at all under the present system, but I'm in the minority. As most people do believe in it, but not in the results, maybe it's time to change what the vote is for. Power sharing is far from perfect in itself, and dual prime ministers would require other changes too, but it might at least limit the damage a foolish single pm or president could do. Then again, it might cripple the system through intractability. I mention it only as a suggestion and am not going to defend or advocate it.


We need a new political system.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: milstar on 09 May, 2021, 07:11:29 PM

Isn't Sinn Fein today very lefty party?


They aren't currently in power in Ireland, despite gaining the most first preference votes. Make of that what you will.

Sínn Fein are ostensibly a left wing party, with progressive socialist policies. Conveniently for them though, the merits/weaknesses of these policies never get scrutinized, because the DUP in the north and the FGFF coalition in the south thwart them at every turn. The bounders!

What Sínn Fein really is, is a bunch of murderers the Irish reunification party. At least that's what they tell the yanks when they're looking for donations, they wouldn't get much from pushing their socialism.
You may quote me on that.

TordelBack

Quote from: Mister Pops on 09 May, 2021, 07:46:38 PM
They aren't currently in power in Ireland, despite gaining the most first preference votes. Make of that what you will.

Arguably because they didn't field enough candidates. STVPR doesn't really give a runny shite who gets the most No.1s nationally, it's a game played at the local level.

wedgeski

So where should we be looking for the model of a good, real-world, working democracy?

milstar

Quote from: Mister Pops on 09 May, 2021, 07:46:38 PM
Sínn Fein are ostensibly a left wing party, with progressive socialist policies. Conveniently for them though, the merits/weaknesses of these policies never get scrutinized, because the DUP in the north and the FGFF coalition in the south thwart them at every turn. The bounders!

What Sínn Fein really is, is a bunch of murderers the Irish reunification party. At least that's what they tell the yanks when they're looking for donations, they wouldn't get much from pushing their socialism.

Well, like SNP, I suppose.

Quote from: wedgeski on 10 May, 2021, 09:49:48 AM
So where should we be looking for the model of a good, real-world, working democracy?

Hm, Switzerland?
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

IndigoPrime

New Zealand would be a start. Elections every three years. MMP. Ardern govt shows a majority is possible if one party gives enough of a shit about the country and voters at large.

And plenty of countries in the EU have reasonable systems we could adapt for the UK. Of course, all we hear about are when it takes ages for a coalition to form in, say, Belgium, or the ongoing shitshow of Italian politics. We very rarely hear about other countries that have PR, because, well, their politics is often pretty boring. They work out how to collaborate and just get on with things.

Our electoral system was fine when just a smallish number of rich men could vote and choose between a relatively liberal rich-person's party and a somewhat less liberal rich-person's party. Today, it's a relic. I mean, look at what happened in 1983. Thatcher gets 61% of the seats on 42% of the vote. Labour ends up with 32% of the seats on 28% of the vote. The Lib/SDP alliance gets 4% of the seats on 25% of the vote.

FPTP is bullshit and needs consigning to history. Once that's done, we can look at how to deal with the upper house, although that's a much, much trickier thing to sort. After all:

- Do you make it fully elected? If so: cross-benchers are eradicated and you have a deeply partisan second chamber, with an eye on elections rather than doing their jobs

- If you create a senate, how do you divvy up the seats? Evenly between country? (Good for the union; not great for representation of individuals.) By population? (Bad for the union; would give too much power to the English.) Regionally, like with MEPs? (Could go either way—would depend if English regions would gang up on the others, or recognise they have power at that point.)

- And do you give it more powers, potentially enabling it to block HOC decisions? (Vs the current situation, where the Lords is basically a chamber with little power that the govt can override almost whenever it chooses to.)