There was a chance to change in the 2011 referendum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum
I wasn’t aware of that, maybe because I was living in Spain at the time and not following UK so closely at the time. Just like the Brexit vote, you can’t trust the British people to know what is good for them. It would be interesting to know how the media spun the vote, although my instincts tell me that the mainly right wing papers would have been encouraging their readers to vote against change.
Absolutely they did. There were loads of videos put together trying to make out it was too confusing (and basically saying the public were too stupid to understand) Along with disingenuous examples of a horse race where the one that came in third actually wins. Which would be immensely unlikely under the proposed system And of course it worked
a) The referendum was a concession by the Tories as part of the price of the Lib Dems forming the coalition. b) Although there are many forms of PR, the Alternative Vote system was the only one on the ballot. c) The government campaigned against AV, as did Labour. In summary, the whole thing was a complete farce.
Because it served them well for three elections under Tony Blair. Pressure for electoral reform - long overdue imo - has to come from right across the spectrum, and transcend party loyalties.
I think that the past two weeks have been a fascinating insight in to politics especially in relation to the reaction of the general public who I feel have not come out of the recent debacle looking too clever either. I have to say that Boris is an easy target at the moment yet, in reality, he has always been the same and it is only within the last two week that the general public has woken up to this fact. There has never been any point as which he has not been an untrustworthy liar. Boris got elected with an enhanced majority and destroyed Labour in the last election when Corbyn's campaign was undone by a confused message on Brexit and policies which seemed incredible at the time to many. Two years later and Boris seems to have embarked on a whole reforestation project of magic money tree planting having previously ridiculed Corbyn on expenditure. If people has the same choice in December 2021, anyone voting for Johnson would be accused of being certifiable. I feel that the last two elections have been tragic. Corbyn would have smashed the Conservatives in 2016 had there been no Brexit. Labour offered a breath of fresh air in politics under his stewardship yet twice the electorate voted for the Conservatives having been seduced by their lies. The point I would like to make is that Boris has now shown the Conservative Party for what it really is - an establishment party designed to maintain the status quo with regard to power and commerce. They have and will always represent the aristocracy and the protestations that they are the sensible, economic party is only applicable insofar that it ensures that the rich remain affluent. Regardless of who is in charge or what faction is in control , these are the same , unscrupulous people pulling the strings. I have no sympathy for anyone who voted Conservative either with regard to their companies who are going down the swanee due to Brexit or the years of austerity which have ensured that the NHS is at breaking point in dealing with Covid which means they cannot get vaccinated. Conservative Party members and the people who have voted for them are reeping what they have sowed. Having chosen Boris Johnson as their leader and then convinced the public to vote for this charlatan is an alltime low in British politics and demonstrative in my opinion as to why something needs to be done with the menace that is the Conservative Party. They should not be allowed to continue. The election of Boris Johnson tells us many things. All those Conservative party members thinking that the party is out to assist "the hard working man" are quite mistaken. I cannot see why anyone wishes to belong to this political party as it serves no purpose and has served it's time. The people now calling for the head of Boris are mistaken. It is not just the PM they need to call to account but the whole party apparatus behind him. I am not just talking about the cabinet or even the parliamentary party. I am talking about every single Conservative Party Member and indeed everyone who was foolish enough to vote for them. The Conservative's demise must now be comprehensive and final and both it's parliamentary and local tentacles must be dismembered to ensure that they can never hold offer in any form or at any level again. Whether we are talking about Boris or local councillors, the whole lot of this bad bunch are accountable. You cannot belong to this political party and remain innocent. If you have your finger in the pie, you are equally to blame and need to be held to account. This is an enterprise that is totally venal and has no part to play in 21st century politics. It is a real shame that no one has the balls to do what actually needs to be done and that is prescribe the Conservative Party. I believe that this is a political party which is not fit for purpose, in inherently corrupt and does not have the interest of those people who elected them at heart. We have always known this is the case yet people still cannot see through their lies, even if the scales have fallen from the eyes of many over the last fortnight. It is not only that they cannot be trusted but also that their policies and behaviour utlimately end in people dying. The performance of Boris Johnson's government should never have been a surprise. Everyone on the Left knew it would be this bad yet still people ended up voting for him. It does make me wonder if Boris can get elected whether we have actually see the demise of democracy and whether the current political party system needs to be changed. If the public is capable of voting for Boris, who are they capable of voting for next? I just feel that the issue of PR or first past the post misses the point. Democracy is extremely erratic and not necessarily capable of producing the result which serves the electorate. As long as the Conservative Party is in existence, I strongly believe that they will remain an obstacle for democracy. The tenure of Boris Johnson has shown us that our current politcal system is capable of producing "wrong" results with catastrophic consequences albeit the current Covid crisis is based on over a decade of Tory austerity. In a modern and progressive society, I would put to you that this is a political party that needs to be broken up and people held to account. The Left needs to be brave and make some big decisions when they get elected and this will include how to address the criminal behavior of Boris and his cronies including custodial sentences if necessary. I do not believe that the Conservative Party should be allowed in exist in any shape or form at national or regional level in future. It needs to go permanently.
Unfortunately there is no mechanism for breaking it up and stopping it from existing. Any attempt would be met with cries of “tyranny” and “this is undemocratic” The only solution is to vote them out and do a sufficiently good job as to keep them out The big thing that needs shaking is the absurd idea that they are the party of “fiscal responsibility” when they clearly aren’t. The Republicans in the US also have somehow pulled off this con as well even though they have increased the US National debt far more than the democrats
Thing is i had a discussion with my die hard conservative father earlier. He is a staunch blue purely due to the days of thatcher where he was able to make a good success of his own business Combined with a hatred of unions that comes from one absurd story he keeps telling where apparently he was doing a job somewhere with a union and accidentally walked into a union staff room or something. He was apparently told by someone that the mere act of doing that was enough for the union to go mad and threaten to walk off work I still struggle to believe how he could ever have been that gullible and how he still believes this to this day. And hates labour as a result Anyway - he was STILL defending Boris and trying to brush off all the party and corruption stuff. And pointing the finger at all the MPs who voted against him on the covid measures as he thinks Boris is doing the right thing on covid and the best he can He is also one of those people who can confidently claim )with all the certainty in the world) that no matter how bad this government’s handling of covid “it would have been worse under Corbyn and McConnell”. It boggles my mind how people can say that with such certainty There is no doubt in my mind that had labour won earlier then our services would be better funded to deal with covid. Politically it may still have been mismanaged but the nhs would have been better funded for 4 years previously. There is also no way lucrative contracts would have been given to old friends who can’t actually fulfil them. Again - I’m not saying it definitely would have been better. But there is evidence to suggest it would have been in some aspects I also have no doubt that if labour had won in 2019 a few months before covid hit and with no chance to prep or do anything about it they would have been 100% blamed by the media and most of the public anyway. No consideration would be given to the previous years of austerity under the tories. It would have been all on labour It’s how this country works
Or doesn't work, it fails too many whilst boasting of having the 6th or seventh biggest economy with a government regarded as a laughing stock in the international community.
What’s broken isn’t the Conservative Party, or the political system. What’s broken is capitalism itself, which was always inevitable, just as dear old Charlie Marx said it was. Essentially it’s just a gigantic pyramid selling scheme, which sucks wealth upwards away from the people who create it, upwards and upwards until the whole thing inevitably collapses, which it will. What replaces it probably hasn’t even been imagined yet, but it could either be several degrees of magnitude worse than anything which has ever existed, or, just possibly, it could be better. The only way this planet survives is if it’s better, it’s as simple as that.
Greg I do not think it would be too difficult to break up the Conservatives. It would just be a case of getting the courts to recognise that their members had commited crimes and serious financial misdemeanours. I am sure that it would not be difficult to open up a public enquiry to investigate their finances and find out who their donors were. I believe that the Covid enquiry will be a watershed with politics and the government will come out of this look criminal and criminally negligent. There will be custodial sentences dished out after everything is brought to light anf the incumbent government must act swiftly in conjunction with the remaining political parties to ensure that the maximum amount of damage is done. John McDonnell had drawn up plans to print the press in to line had Corbyn been elected. I think these measures should be fast-tracked so that it becomes clear what exactly has been going on under Johnson's watch. The whole process just need to be ratcheted up. I feel it is doable and there will be no better time to dismantle the Conservatives after the next election. I am not necessarily saying that the Right cannot have a say in future politics and would certainly suggest that the smaller, Right wing parties are not suitable to fill the void. I just think that in future the Conservatives cannot be the Right of- Centre party. I am not even sure that the Right should have a voice in politics as we have moved on from that towards a more liberal and progressive society. The current Conservatives are corrupt to the core and that alone means that they should play no future part in 21st century politics. The so-called Woke movement is well overdue and effectively just a matter of common decency but i think Covid has seen a groundswell against the Right everyware which obviates the need for a party occupy the position held by the Conservatives .
I totally agree but Rosa Luxembrg won a NobelPeace prize for saying this in the early 1900s! Peopleha e known Captialism hasn't worked for a century. I can see if being replaced by a greener version of what has happened in China. I just think that, despite the Geo-political issues , China is showing the way to go in the 21st century. What China has acheived has been incredible albeit I think that globally, their motives are less than honest. However, that does not mean se cannot follow their economic model. Places like China and Venezuela have shown that socialism does work.
I don’t share your optimism. The people you are talking about being up for prosecution are the super rich or have their support Same with the donors you want to expose - not that donation is specifically a crime Also the recent elections do not suggest at all the the U.K. (or at least England) have moved on from the right towards a more progressive society And again with a US example - look at how razor thin the margins in some of those states were. And how many still went Republican after the outright criminality, corruption and venality of the trump years. There will always be an alarmingly high portion of people who will vote against there general best interest in favour or something more narrow. In America is is anti - abortion or pro-guns or anti immigrant. In this country it is largely just the latter I also don’t share your optimism for a deep and meaningful public inquiry over covid and it’s management. I hope it happens. I just don’t see it. A white wash is far more likely And all of what you say relies utterly on a conservative defeat in the next general election. Which given the time delay is far from guaranteed
Wait what ? The place committing a genocide against a minority ? And with significant state surveillance and censorship. And a catastrophic family policy that is pushing it towards a demographic crisis ? (Not that we aren’t also facing a demographic crisis with young people including myself unwilling or unable to find partners and have replacement level children for a laundry list of reasons) I’m not sure we should be aspiring to China I’m going to need to look into more on Venezuela. Is it working now or are you saying it did before? I thought it was now basically on fire but that seems like it might be right wing propaganda that is so easy to inadvertently consume A preferred example I have for socialism is former Yugoslavia. I have spoken to people who are 40+ from Croatia , Bosnia and Macedonia and found many said it was better under Tito. Either from their own knowledge or what their parents have told them. Reasonable jobs were guaranteed as were reasonable houses - I can’t remember if that was for all or if you did certain jobs Now tourism is one of the biggest industries that is seasonal. And has pushed prices up but wages down - especially off season
