Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Off Topic => Topic started by: Donnywolf on June 22, 2017, 01:20:54 pm
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I was chuffed to see such a huge surge of the younger set registering to Vote AND it seems actually carrying out their right to Vote by doing it
However they must be wondering what the hell is going on with the Tory / DUP non-Coalition goings on
Personally I cannot believe that the Tories are desperately offering to join forces with the DUP just to cling on to "power" although they have the right to do of course due to being the biggest Party but what annoys me the most (is it just me?) is that the DUP can seemingly call the shots even with their scant number of votes - and that is why PR should be in and in to stay
The DUP attracted 292,316 votes IN TOTAL although of course they could only be voted for in Northern Ireland and they have 10 Seats (which are very attractive to the Tories). However the Lib Dems polled 2,371,772 lets call it 9 times more votes and got the staggering total of 12 Seats and despite having some good ideas have no chance of getting them listened to by anyone / they have no say whatsoever
The Green Party weighed in with 525,371 votes and got just one Seat - a tenth of the DUP for 1.75 times more votes than them and that is what is galling me. Such a tiny Party with such a tiny UK wide support get to call for whatever they want (and it seems they are doing) yet the Lib Dems for one get nothing
The Election Result has left us in the s**t and I for one would vote in a Referendum (if it were offered) to swap to PR with immediate effect. It has its detractors and faults but surely the Pro's not least making my vote exactly equal to every other voter in the UK must be worth it ?
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I cant find a 2017 outcome yet but this is the 2015 one comparing what happened to what may have happened using PR
UKIP would have fared much better and the SNP much worse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32601281
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Interesting points Donnywolf...Even as a Tory I would have to agree,i'm not comfortable with bribing the DUP just to secure the majority vote...Of course you could swing it the other way and say how can Corbyn claim that May doesn't have a mandate and Labour is a government in waiting when he has even less of a mandate...
With the Labour party now back to being a left wing socialist party again there wont be much common ground at parliamentary votes and it will go back to the days that nothing much of anything will manage to pass a vote through the chambers without getting blocked...
So yes for the good of the country PR would be a better system...Although it wont happen..
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I cant remember the exact numbers but no doubt one of our political experts will know, but didn't the SNP secure 50 odd seats in the last GE with fewer votes cast than votes cast in Yorkshire alone?
I am sure i read something along those lines somewhere.
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It will all come out in the wash,we will stay in the EU money will talk.
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I signed the petition calling for PR last year.
The problem is the two big parties would be the biggest losers and they are the ones that would have to back it.
PR would be much fairer and more representative of the whole electorate's views. I just can't see it getting support from the ones that matter unfortunately.
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You were right I suspect as the SNP got 1,454,436 votes in 2015 which got them 59 Seats
Labour in Scotland got 707,147 votes - so lets say 50 % less than the SNP and for that they got 1 (yes just one ) Seat. Surely that just cant be right
Check out the 2015 PR "results" above and see what each Party would have got ! A bit different to 56 - 1 and it should never end that way. 50% of the votes cast get 95% of the Seats
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Interesting points Donnywolf...Even as a Tory I would have to agree,i'm not comfortable with bribing the DUP just to secure the majority vote...Of course you could swing it the other way and say how can Corbyn claim that May doesn't have a mandate and Labour is a government in waiting when he has even less of a mandate...
With the Labour party now back to being a left wing socialist party again there wont be much common ground at parliamentary votes and it will go back to the days that nothing much of anything will manage to pass a vote through the chambers without getting blocked...
So yes for the good of the country PR would be a better system...Although it wont happen..
Cheers - I generally steer well away from Politics because the whole thing annoys me so much
I am finding it hard to articulate what I mean here but basically it is not an anti Tory rant - just what I see as a total injustice with the DUP having "access" or "opportunity" to influence mainstream issues in their own Country and more importantly (to me) in ours with so few Votes whilst others (Lib Dems / Greens) are totally without such influence even though they have massed many more votes here and there and have some very valid points / policies.
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If the DUP agree a deal with the Conservatives, will Arlene Foster get the Deputy PM title in the same way as Clegg did?
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Probably not. Can't see it being a formal coalition, I think (though no doubt someone who knows more on the matter) that might go against the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
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If the DUP agree a deal with the Conservatives, will Arlene Foster get the Deputy PM title in the same way as Clegg did?
No, because a Confidence and Supply arrangement isn't a coalition.
As for PR, as was mentioned earlier in this thread - if you think the Tories trying to thrash out a deal with the DUP is a mess, PR would almost certainly guarantee negotiations to try and form a government after every election.
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Maybe that is better than a pendulum swinging far right to far left disregarding a lot in the middle that might work.
A good idea for the country is a good idea whichever party comes up with it. Compromise can work.
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Maybe that is better than a pendulum swinging far right to far left disregarding a lot in the middle that might work.
A good idea for the country is a good idea whichever party comes up with it. Compromise can work.
Maybe, but would compromise have created the Welfare State just after the war or given Thatcher the strength to implement her reforms?
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Maybe if the Welfare State and the National Health HAD been created by collective thinking and action then maybe that same ethos would enable them to take collective ownership of the problems (particularly the NHS) has rather than each side blaming the other.
If the Tories do anything then they are accused of open privatisation or back door privatisation - whereas Labour suggesting more money leads to claims of unsustainable spending leading to "overspending" and a rise in the "national" debt
Both are probably right but we are getting nowhere. Each is a kind of extremism and those in the middle ground who suggest third ways get nowhere as they are decribed as "really really minority Parties" but the thrust of my OP was that the DUP are now in a position because of our failing democratic process to name their price *
* I dont believe everything that I read but I have seen the DUP wanted 2 billion Pounds to engage to save the Tories - One Billion for Northern Ireland and One Billion for Heathcare there.
If the Greens had asked for even half a billion for cleaner Transport across the Country they would have been laughed at out loud but they have twice the clout of the DUP in votes they attracted but otherwise NO clout whatsoever
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Maybe if the Welfare State and the National Health HAD been created by collective thinking and action then maybe that same ethos would enable them to take collective ownership of the problems (particularly the NHS) has rather than each side blaming the other.
If the Tories do anything then they are accused of open privatisation or back door privatisation - whereas Labour suggesting more money leads to claims of unsustainable spending leading to "overspending" and a rise in the "national" debt
Both are probably right but we are getting nowhere. Each is a kind of extremism and those in the middle ground who suggest third ways get nowhere as they are decribed as "really really minority Parties" but the thrust of my OP was that the DUP are now in a position because of our failing democratic process to name their price *
* I dont believe everything that I read but I have seen the DUP wanted 2 billion Pounds to engage to save the Tories - One Billion for Northern Ireland and One Billion for Heathcare there.
If the Greens had asked for even half a billion for cleaner Transport across the Country they would have been laughed at out loud but they have twice the clout of the DUP in votes they attracted but otherwise NO clout whatsoever
The problem is that's a big 'maybe'. Certainly Churchill was dead against it, and if there was a PR Commons after the 1945 election it is definitely less likely that the NHS as we know it would have been created - even if anything had been managed to be set up, it would have been 'compromised' into something a lot different in order to achieve anything at all.
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Maybe !
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By their very nature proportional representation systems encourage the development of a lot of small parties - each devoted to some special interest or interests. It's not common therefore to find an outright winner of an election in such systems - unless there is quite a high bar that has to be reached before a party gets even one seat. In theory at least, a first past the post system should deliver both a working government, and, centrist policies since the usual way to win is to attract votes from mildly left of centre as well as mildly right of centre voters. Those that then vote proper left or proper right get outvoted by what is, in effect, a centrist coalition. That's what Tony Blair did so succesfully for example and it's what both Harold Wilson and Ted Heath practised. There is, of course, an alternative: the conviction politician of either left or right who is given an opportunity through voter boredom, disdain for or disgust with the long term results of the centrist approach. That's how Maggie got into office - presenting herself as something new at a time of crisis. That's what that wally in the US has done. Once in power a conviction politician of either left or right then has the major problem of figuring out how to win the next election. Maggie was lucky - she was presented with a freeby war she could hardly fail to win in the long run and then, the next time, she was presented with a lunatic union leader who made the whole concept of 'left' more unpalletable than the dirt on your shoe.
By the by, what we are seeing today with the relaxation of austerity, the focus on housing, the removal of things like grammar schools and such like from the political agenda are all examples of the Conservative party moving back towards the centre ground. The right wing impulse, at least at the moment, has had its day. It is in retreat and Jeremy Corbyn is benefitting hugely from it.
Cheers
BobG
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Come on Bob be a bit more generous than that. If Theresa May had won another 30 seats do you think we would be seeing this roll back of austerity? Jeremy Corbyn hasn't benefited from it - he caused it!
We had a referendum on PR only 6 years ago. Less than half the population bothered to turn out to vote and of those who did two thirds voted against it. So I can't see it being brought in any time soon.
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I was chuffed when it was a hung Parliament. Now they will have to talk things through and come to a consensus which is how it should be in my opinion. I dread to think what would have happened to our country with a big mandate for the Tories. More fox hunting - more poor pensioners - the destruction of the NHS - introduction of more divisive Grammar Schools - further lining of the pockets of the wealthy, yipppeee !
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Come on Bob be a bit more generous than that. If Theresa May had won another 30 seats do you think we would be seeing this roll back of austerity? Jeremy Corbyn hasn't benefited from it - he caused it!
We had a referendum on PR only 6 years ago. Less than half the population bothered to turn out to vote and of those who did two thirds voted against it. So I can't see it being brought in any time soon.
No we didn't. We had a referendum on AV. That is not full PR.
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I agree Wilts. Full on right wing Toryism was the plan and it would have been implemented too if she had won another 30 seats. But 10 years is a long time for any political ism to survive. Maybe some people are starting to think again now...? A reaction setting in with some people worried too late about the risks of Brexit; the catastrophe in Kensington highlighting some of the hidden costs of radical Toryism; the never ending cries of anguish about the health service and public services generally; the perpetual raping of the many for the benefit of the few. She might have prolonged right wingery for a few more years but it looks as if it's day, for now, is waning. If there was any reasonable alternative conservative I'd wish she would wane with it. But nobody could seriously want that blond lunatic as PM could they?
BobG
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As always when this topic comes up, AV is not a proportional voting system. It would reduce the spoiler effect and the need for tactical voting at constituency level but overall the picture wouldn't change all that much.
I would support the introduction of PR, or at least some kind of hybrid system such as MMP used in Germany (if you're keen on electing a local MP). After all, the whole purpose of Parliament in a representative democracy is to create policy and make decisions on behalf of the electorate. The FPTP system usually results in a Parliament make up that doesn't represent the electorate very well at all. Here, one of the two main parties usually ends up with near enough full control for a full term with less than 40% of the total vote (except this year of course). The remaining > 60% can be safely ignored. How is that representative?
For any individual voter, unlike the EU Referendum where everyone's vote was of equal value, in FPTP only a small section of the total electorate actually decide the result. You basically have to be voting for one of two parties in one of a certain number of marginal constituencies for your vote to be of high importance. This must disenfranchise a lot of people who can't actually vote for the party who they like the most without rendering their vote to be of very little value, or those who happen to live in a constituency where their vote is of little value no matter what. A fairer system may well help to increase voter engagement and decrease apathy.
FPTP always produces a two party dominated system and I personally don't think it'd be a bad thing if we were to open up the political landscape with PR and move away from that. If it fairly represents the majority of the electorate then I think coalitions and compromises are absolutely fine. The problem with FPTP is that it forces the electorate to make these compromises which have too much influence over voting behaviour at the ballot box, instead we should leave that to the politicians when they're to form and then run a government which truly is on the behalf of the majority of the population.
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Staggeringly good post Akifenwa - DONT disagree with a word of it and it goes right to the heart of the matter
(I am still livid about the power now vested in 250000 votes as in my OP when much more well supported Parties are being totally ignored)
I have just one question - how the HELL can we bring this about - because I am sure it is a fairer - NO- much fairer system of voting and one which the vast majority of people reading your Post or having the injustice of the current system explained to them would be in no doubt supportive of
Bring it on !
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Found this Powerpoint on MMP on Youtube which explained MMP (to me for a start) and led to another as they do on Youtube applying MMP to our 2015 General Election and which would have given UKIP a massive (and probably deserved given their groundswell of support) 83 Seats instead of what they got (was it one or 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU
I am now looking for "pressure groups" dedicated to MMP or something at least better than FPTP
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Even BETTER I have seen the Makevotesmatter Website and the move towards PR is well alive and kicking. I am heartened
They produced the 100,000 votes required to "force" a debate in Parliament on PR (mostly of course unwanted by the big 2 Parties) and which was squashed by irony of ironies the recent General Election
However they will be back and I for one cant wait for my vote to be equal to all others cast in a future election - and there is a Rally tomorrow outside Parliament - and this just needs to get into peoples consciousness as a real issue - before one of the big 2 get a landslide with 42% of the votes cast and kick it into the long grass again
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Making sure no one party has a majority might be desirable, but you could end up getting the problems - and instability - that Italy and Belgium have had,
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Thank you Glyn. My fingers were poised to make that very point. To be any use at all, a proportional representation system has to be thought through very carefully indeed. Generally, they lead to paralysis. If they don't do that it's because some tiny party has weilded huge power despite being totally unrepresentative of the electorate. Their ship will have come in and holding the balance of power gives them an almost blank cheque. Pork barrel politics as the Yanks call it in a different context.
If there is no single, clear winner, you simply can't avoid small parties holding the balance of power no matter what the voting system. It's a function of an election without a clear result. That inevitably means a small party somewhere will have huge power as it is bribed to join with a bigger party to form an often short lived government. Without huge care and thought, it can be a disastrous system. That's the main advantage of first past the post: it does, usually, give a clear winner and a stable government. There are worse things than not being fully representative you know....
Cheers
BobG
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That's right Bob but we have seen some right disasters with first past the post as well.
Parties look after the people more likely to vote for them or the businesses and businessmen that fund them. They usually drift a bit too far left or right and then lose the middle ground and the process starts again.
I honestly wonder how many MPs actually care more about the country or their party.
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Another problem with PR is that you'll lose the connection between an MP and the constituency they represent. Which MP would you go to if you had a problem, as at present?
Also, as parties would decide which people fill the number of seats they win, there's no way for the electorate to get rid on an MP - for example, in 1997 Tatton was able to unseat Neil Hamilton. With the party list system, the Tories could have kept him in Parliament for as long as they wanted regardless of what the electorate wanted. The same goes for David Mellor, Ed Balls, Nick Clegg etc.
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Some very very good points there mr, Glynn that have never entered my damaged head .
After reading the above and especially the part about losing contact with a local mp Iam all for the oresent day system.
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I vote Tory but think with Brexit labour and conservative should try and come together to try get the best for Britain, that would mean both parties giving concessions, but maybe we would
Get a better result for everyone
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None of the parties for me seem to give a shit about anyone really and there only focus is to be in power, it's probably always been like that but this decision will effect generations to come
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Some very very good points there mr, Glynn that have never entered my damaged head .
After reading the above and especially the part about losing contact with a local mp Iam all for the oresent day system.
The ATV system that there was a referendum about but was voted against is a form of PR that keeps the constituency system. It would also keep it so that one party is more likely to be able to form a majority and implement the manifesto that they stood on.
Just think about it - we've got a minority government leading to compromise. So jusy who has got what they voted for? Certainly not those who voted for the Opposition parties, but that's what's to be expected. The difference is that now those who voted Tory aren't going to get what they voted for either as any slightly controversial proposal in their manifesto has been ditched because the government daren't risk not only facing defeats in the Commons but allowing any strengthening of any rebel MPs in their own party. When everybody has to compromise, nobody gets what they voted for.
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Some very very good points there mr, Glynn that have never entered my damaged head .
After reading the above and especially the part about losing contact with a local mp Iam all for the oresent day system.
Doesn't the Scottish system provide some solution to that?
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Yeah, they've got a list as well as a local MSP of sorts. Single transferable vote, for anyone who cares.
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Some very very good points there mr, Glynn that have never entered my damaged head .
After reading the above and especially the part about losing contact with a local mp Iam all for the oresent day system.
Doesn't the Scottish system provide some solution to that?
Tbh fella Iam not that all clued up on how the jocks do it ,allways thought it was same as in England and hence rest of U.K.
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They do for Westminster but it's single transferable vote for Holyrood elections, not sure about their local elections though.
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There are a number of examples of PR systems that use local representatives. STV (Ireland, Scotland), MMP (Germany, New Zealand, Wales) are the main ones. FPTP doesn't have exclusivity on this. Although given that 75% of people apparently don't know who their MP is, I don't really get why this is seen as being important, but anyway...
Proportional representation doesn't lead to unstable or paralysed governments at all. If it was then most of Europe would be a dysfunctional and chaotic hellhole - but it isn't. Over 80% of OECD countries use some form of PR, but how many are actually crippled by unstable governments on a regular basis? Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand etc. etc. - all well governed and politically stable with strong economies. Why? Because minority governments are actually less likely with PR, most of the time PR results in the formation of a stable majority coalition.
In fact the most unstable governments tend to be created within the FPTP system, as mentioned, minority governments or those with a small majority heavily reliant on backbench support. Think UK in 1974-79, 1992-97, 2017 or Canada even more frequently. FPTP creates a more adversarial political culture where coalitions aren't the norm - the main parties campaign with the expectation of either winning outright or being out of government, so when coalitions are required parties are reluctant to co-operate and make mature compromises and agreements in order to bring about stability.
Does a PR system lead to short-lived governments? Well, since 1945 the UK has an election every 3.8 years on average. Canada also uses FPTP and they have an election on average every 3.2 years. In Germany that number is 3.6, Ireland 3.6, Italy 3.9, Sweden 3.4, Spain 3.3 (since 1977). All of those places have PR, so I'm not sure where this claim comes from.
As for small parties holding the so-called 'balance of power', when has that actually happened on a regular basis in existing PR systems? In reality the largest parties pretty much always dominate the government's platform under PR. More coalition possibilities means that smaller parties don't get an exaggerated amount of political influence - they want to be in government so aren't likely to risk overplaying their hand and getting overlooked in favour of someone more reasonable. This is unlike the situation here right now with FPTP where the only options appear to be either a Con-DUP alliance or bust, and even with that alliance in place the government still has considerably less than 50% support from the public.
The people who actually hold the balance of power are the relatively small number of swing voters in FPTP systems whose shift in political mood is greatly exaggerated in the final result. This can throw up results like 2005 - Labour 35% of the vote, but ended up with 355 seats and 100% control (vs. Cons 32% and 198 seats). A small number of people tipped a lot of seats disproportionately in favour of one party. What about the present situation of DUP having 10 seats yet only 0.9% of the vote? Such a small party wouldn't have 10 seats with PR.
If any policy fails to get through Parliament it isn't because of some small party threatening to withdraw support in exchange for unreasonable demands. It's because it didn't get the support from ALL other parties. That's kind of the point of PR, you need more than 50% of support in Parliament and by extension a majority consensus from the electorate in order to pass anything. Developing policy which has a genuine majority consensus is surely better long term for any country. With PR, policy lurching is less likely when power changes hands - a continuous cycle of a minority rule (with a false majority) undoing a load of policy that the previous government made and then getting as many of your own policies through as possible may be satisfactory the short term, but long term I'm not convinced that this is particularly healthy.
You can have both stability and better functioning democracy under PR. I don't see any trade off here, no system is perfect and instability is just as likely to appear in some form or another regardless of the system.
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My thoughts exactly.
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I cant find a 2017 outcome yet but this is the 2015 one comparing what happened to what may have happened using PR
UKIP would have fared much better and the SNP much worse
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32601281
What would the election prior to that look like one wonders ?
2010 -
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/may/10/proportional-representation-general-election-2010
No sign of UKIP there now is there ? A Referendum would never ever have happened under any form of voting . Look how the Lib/ Dems lost out there and have done so throughout the 20th century.
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Maybe that is better than a pendulum swinging far right to far left disregarding a lot in the middle that might work.
A good idea for the country is a good idea whichever party comes up with it. Compromise can work.
Maybe, but would compromise have created the Welfare State just after the war or given Thatcher the strength to implement her reforms?
I would say yes because the balance of power would have been with the SDP/Liberal/ Lib Dems whoever they were at the time .
The Liberals have always been the losers since the Labour Party entered British politics . They have been decked in every election in both 20/21 st centuries .
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2 interesting articles in the papers yesterday and the day before making the point that effectively we are reverting to a pre-industrialised society in terms of employment, the casualisation of work and de-unionisation. Wealth is increasingly concentrated, once more, in the hands of the landed and property and asset owning classes. This is in turn impacting wages and living standards. At the same time it is becoming increasingly clear that the only choice on offer for Brexit is either a hard Brexit with no single market or customs union access, or, to remain. Anything else is just fantasy. Personally, I still think Brexit is the longest assisted suicide note in history - courtesy of Messrs Dacre, Murdoch, Farage, Johnson and Gove. A divided Tory party has now ended up dividing the country and the generations as well.
Have any of you seen the cartoons and jokes about us flying about Europe nowadays? There's a cartoon in a Dutch paper showing the Maybot turning up to the EC Summit with her head carried under her arm.... What on Earth chance have we got when Europe sees us in those terms ...?
BobG
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Maybot and the Grail trending on YT;
Theresa May and the Holy Grail - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qOyT3ZkUxI)
You need to be a certain age to ring the Python bell!
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I am of that certain age albie and that video is really funny mate.
On the Referendum vote, wasn't the Labour party split over in or out as well?
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Yes Hound. :) I had hoped I had made the point already: "A divided Tory party has now ended up dividing the country and the generations as well." On just about every measure you care to name, this country is divided. Split. I can't think, offhand, of any other occasion it has been so split. The Repeal of the Corn Laws maybe? It's an absolutely cracking achievement for a party that wraps itself in the Union Jack at every oportunity. Total and utter incompetant prats this generation of Tories have been and continue to be. Without any doubt at all they are bound for a place in the history books.
Cheers :)
BobG
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Yes Hound. :) I had hoped I had made the point already: "A divided Tory party has now ended up dividing the country and the generations as well." On just about every measure you care to name, this country is divided. Split. I can't think, offhand, of any other occasion it has been so split. The Repeal of the Corn Laws maybe? It's an absolutely cracking achievement for a party that wraps itself in the Union Jack at every oportunity. Total and utter incompetant prats this generation of Tories have been and continue to be. Without any doubt at all they are bound for a place in the history books.
Cheers
Excuse my ignorance, but wasn't it the public that voted in favour of Brexit, not the politicians.
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I'm sorry Hound. I really don't mean to be rude. But if that is the level of your thinking then discussing anything beyond trivia with you is utterly pointless.
Consider:
What has the vast majority of the UK press been peddling for over 20 years now?
Why have they been peddlding it?
What impact has the long term and deep division with the Tory party had?
What political benefit did Camerion think he was going to gain by anouncing the referendum?
Why did that Blonde disaster choose to peddle the line he did during the referendum campaign given that less than 3 months before he had written articles arguing the exact opposite?
And above all else, consider the role of propaganda in determining how you, me and everyone else thinks. One of the key arts in thinking is to be sceptical about sources and to delve beneath the bleeding obvious as portrayed by the press and the data analytic types. Skills, I'm sad to say, you do not possess.
Cheers
BobG
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Comment by Bob "I really don't mean to be rude"
Why then did you do so?
To be honest, you have no idea of any of the skills that I possess.
You also did not answer the question I asked but I suppose you may not have understood it.
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Yes Hound. :) I had hoped I had made the point already: "A divided Tory party has now ended up dividing the country and the generations as well." On just about every measure you care to name, this country is divided. Split. I can't think, offhand, of any other occasion it has been so split. The Repeal of the Corn Laws maybe? It's an absolutely cracking achievement for a party that wraps itself in the Union Jack at every oportunity. Total and utter incompetant prats this generation of Tories have been and continue to be. Without any doubt at all they are bound for a place in the history books.
Cheers
Excuse my ignorance, but wasn't it the public that voted in favour of Brexit, not the politicians.
They didn't actually. It was an advisory referendum, the government could choose to abide by the result or not.
17.5 million people voted to leave
16 million people voted to stay
What is often forgotten is that 13 million people didn't vote.
So 17.5 million voted to leave. 29 million didn't vote to leave. The government is a government for everybody - not just the 17.5 million.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/10/24/brexit-is-not-the-will-of-the-british-people-it-never-has-been/
Hope this helps.
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Wilts, I already knew that.
I suppose I could have said "of those who chose to vote" and then you would have had to find something else to post.
Oh, and could you imagine the fuss if the government had chosen not to abide by the will of the people (that chose to vote)?
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The article Wilts posted cuts to the issue.
Is it fair to disregard the "don't knows"?
Abstaining is a perfectly reasonable response to an idiotic question, which did not detail what form Brexit should take.
In the absence of key information, and in the presence of deliberately misleading claims such as the £350m for the NHS that BoJo was peddling, is it any wonder that many people did not feel confident that they fully understood the pros and cons.
Clear attempts to undermine the democratic process by making claims that are demonstrably untrue should be unlawful, and carry a prison sentence.
Breaking rocks in the hot sun for the foreseeable would be the best way to deal with the Borump!
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Albie, as a remainer I was constantly saying that Boris and his pals were telling porkies.
However there was plenty of evidence to be found that what they were saying was not the whole truth.
i said at the time that there would be loads of stuff that we ( the public) did not know enough about to be in a position to vote on such an important issue.
It is only now that we are at the nitty gritty end of the stick that it is becoming apparent.
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I'm sorry Hound. I really don't mean to be rude. But if that is the level of your thinking then discussing anything beyond trivia with you is utterly pointless.
Consider:
What has the vast majority of the UK press been peddling for over 20 years now?
Why have they been peddlding it?
What impact has the long term and deep division with the Tory party had?
What political benefit did Camerion think he was going to gain by anouncing the referendum?
Why did that Blonde disaster choose to peddle the line he did during the referendum campaign given that less than 3 months before he had written articles arguing the exact opposite?
And above all else, consider the role of propaganda in determining how you, me and everyone else thinks. One of the key arts in thinking is to be sceptical about sources and to delve beneath the bleeding obvious as portrayed by the press and the data analytic types. Skills, I'm sad to say, you do not possess.
Cheers
BobG
you say all this bob but what's the alternative? Labour whose manifesto was give give give, it was completely unrealistic, I think it was the imf but stand to be corrected said the doubted very much they would get anything like the money of the rich that they needed, so who would pay for everything they promised? It's all very well you blaming the tories for everything but there is no credible opponent, Corbyn said trident is here to stay in his manifesto yet yesterday he says it will be gone soon as possible how is he any different to any of the others you dislike
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I'm sorry Hound. I really don't mean to be rude. But if that is the level of your thinking then discussing anything beyond trivia with you is utterly pointless.
Consider:
What has the vast majority of the UK press been peddling for over 20 years now?
Why have they been peddlding it?
What impact has the long term and deep division with the Tory party had?
What political benefit did Camerion think he was going to gain by anouncing the referendum?
Why did that Blonde disaster choose to peddle the line he did during the referendum campaign given that less than 3 months before he had written articles arguing the exact opposite?
And above all else, consider the role of propaganda in determining how you, me and everyone else thinks. One of the key arts in thinking is to be sceptical about sources and to delve beneath the bleeding obvious as portrayed by the press and the data analytic types. Skills, I'm sad to say, you do not possess.
Cheers
BobG
you say all this bob but what's the alternative? Labour whose manifesto was give give give, it was completely unrealistic, I think it was the imf but stand to be corrected said the doubted very much they would get anything like the money of the rich that they needed, so who would pay for everything they promised? It's all very well you blaming the tories for everything but there is no credible opponent, Corbyn said trident is here to stay in his manifesto yet yesterday he says it will be gone soon as possible how is he any different to any of the others you dislike
No it was the Institute for Fiscal Studies and you or rather they are probably right . What Labour proposed in their manifesto not only was impossible to everyone but also never allowed for a contingency for the price of leaving the EU .
This is one big mess and it's high time the Govt and Parliament rolled back from this advisory note. I'm sure they would have by now but they feel they would lose face to the rest of the world and indeed factions of their own. No- one wants to really " own " this problem now.
Losing face to your electorate carries obvious consequences. As for St. Jeremy of Glastonbury and his new Trident policy - that should come as no surprise to anybody ! £££££ s or should I say €€€€s may decide this unequivocally
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Anyway there is little likelihood of the Tories getting much further with this unless they change tack quickly . Could not see how an Opposition of many parts could deal with this either , we need an Autumn election .
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I see the DUPsters have got their bung;
May strikes 1 billion pound deal with DUP to prop up government | Reuters (http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-politics-may-idUKKBN19H0H3)
Not a bad return for their 292,000 odd voters.
Assuming the Maybot holds power for long enough, that is. What happens if the ship goes down in short order?
Better than a shrubbery anyday! Neit!
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I see the DUPsters have got their bung;
May strikes 1 billion pound deal with DUP to prop up government | Reuters (http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-politics-may-idUKKBN19H0H3)
Not a bad return for their 292,000 odd voters.
Assuming the Maybot holds power for long enough, that is. What happens if the ship goes down in short order?
Better than a shrubbery anyday! Neit!
There was a magic money tree after all!
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Well if corbyn got in he soon spunk that one billion and more up the wall before the cricket season is over ,so look at as money saved
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Errr, it's being spent on things which were in the Labour manifesto and not the Tory one, so it is as if Corbyn were in power.
Actually if you add in the scrapping of the winter fuel review and pension lock pledges (both also in Labour's manifesto) the total cost is £16billion. To the British taxpayer. To benefit Northern Ireland. Enjoy.
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So we're ignoring the fact that Corbyn's Labour manifesto showed you exactly how he'd raise the money to pay for what he wanted to do, are we?
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I was more thinking about when last time Labour was in and Torys took over and by all accounts if you belive what you read ,that there was a note in top draw of No10 bascially saying "no money left"
But you get my jist as Labour had spunked all the country's money up the wall .
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And if they hadn't, the banking sector would likely have gone under.
Even then, the Tories massively oversimplified macroeconomics by trying to compare a nation's budget to a household budget. Even with only GCSE-level economics under my belt, I can tell you that's f**king daft.
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Britain was an hour away from the banking system shutting down. Closed. Gone. Kaput. Just think about what that means for a few seconds.... No cash. No cheques. No credit cards. No pay. No bills paid. No social security. No food. No petrol. No imports. no exports. It would have shattered society. Yes. It would have been fixed in the end. But how many would have died? How many would have no job to go to? How many schools would have shut? How many surgeries? How many.....
Personally, I reckon a measly few billion was a small price to pay to avoid all that. And I reckon the man who saved the entire world banking system by making a courageous decision should be applauded and so should his party. Well done Gordon Brown. Well done the Labour Party.
That's why there was no money left Oslo. And you know what? I'm glad there wasn't. It was spent in the best cause of all: helping society - that thing the Tories continue to seek to destroy.
Cheers
BobG