Democracy in action - The young uns must be wondering

[bpoolrover]

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

[bpoolrover]

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

[Glyn_Wigley]

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.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

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?

[RedJ]

Yeah, they've got a list as well as a local MSP of sorts. Single transferable vote, for anyone who cares.

[not on facebook]

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.

[RedJ]

They do for Westminster but it's single transferable vote for Holyrood elections, not sure about their local elections though.

[Akinfenwa]

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.

[idler]

My thoughts exactly.

[hoolahoop]

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.

[hoolahoop]

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 .

[BobG]

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

[albie]

Maybot and the Grail trending on YT;
Theresa May and the Holy Grail - YouTube

You need to be a certain age to ring the Python bell!

[drfchound]

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?

[BobG]

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

[drfchound]

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.

[BobG]

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

[drfchound]

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.

[wilts rover]

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.

[drfchound]

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)?

[albie]

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!

[drfchound]

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.

[bpoolrover]

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

[hoolahoop]

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

[hoolahoop]

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 .

[albie]

I see the DUPsters have got their bung;
May strikes 1 billion pound deal with DUP to prop up government | Reuters

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!

[Filo]

I see the DUPsters have got their bung;
May strikes 1 billion pound deal with DUP to prop up government | Reuters

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!

[not on facebook]

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

[wilts rover]

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.

[RedJ]

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?