Off Topic Political Debate

I find this interesting with us not having any political parties here. We vote for the individuals and the first piece of business of a post-election States Assembly is to vote for the First Minister. Only Senators can be FM, as they are the only States Members who are subject to an island-wide vote. He (currently no female Senators) then chooses their Ministers from the Senators and Deputies (who represent a parish or in the case of the larger parishes, part of it). The final category of Assembly Members are the Connetables, the nearest equivalent I can say is that they are the mayor for each parish. There is a general consensus of opinion that in the parishes where there is more than one Deputy, the Connetable is more powerful than the Deputies. Unfortunately in St. Helier, we have had an unpopular man in situ for 16 years, mainly because the last 3 times the vote should've taken place, he was unopposed.
Going back to the title of the thread, maybe having no parties is the purest politics of all.

 

What may work for 160,000 people would not work for over 60 million. You can be "local" in the Channel Islands and know of most major topics and issues and distance is not an issue. Even then your argument is tainted by saying an unpopular man has been in office for 16 years because nobody opposes him - oh I'll have some of that please.

What would be the point of everyone in the UK voting for an independent. You would have no idea of what sort of government you would have as you would have only been able to vote for whoever seemed the best person in your constituency. That person could not say "I will put up or down taxes" or what ever. People have gone off the LibDems because they had to compromise on their policies in order to form a coalition - what sort of coalition would you get from 600 MPs

Parties evolved naturally from "pure" democracy which was OK for a City State. When I look at parties I have an idea of the things they want to do and I can judge whether there is any likelihood of them getting in and achieving them. Party politics is out of fashion but the alternatives are closer to anarchy

 

True, they have never been indicted - simply because all inquiries into complaints regarding lack of neutrality are internal. The word 'demands' is hardly appropriate to their charter.

 

I don't believe in conspiracy theories. They try to be neutral but do not always achieve perfection

 

Hmmm. I believe you must be a BBC spy sent to disrupt any comments against them...

 

Unmasked -drat

 

Oh what a surprise, The Chilcot Report will not be made public until after the election. Another example of the political classes closing ranks - no doubt when it is made public, large swathes redacted with a very large black pen!
Thing that really pisses me off is we all know it was an illegal war started on the back of Blairs ego - they knew there were no WMD's, this was just about regime change and look at the result the vacuum caused.

 

I think Westminster's attitude towards this was highlighted yesterday by the Trident Renewal debate. At a rough count, about 50 MPs attended the debate, around 350 voted without turning up for the debate and a further 250 neither turned up nor voted. A vast majority appear to support war & wmd, so it's hardly surprising that Chilcot Report is being held back - they simply don't care.

Contrast yesterday to the full house that recently debated the proposed MP pay rise - disgusting really.

 

You are not supposed to question our status as a major supplier of weapons to the world

 

Let me understand. The Chilcot report is about Iraq and why your military went? This was done by the Labour government with Tony Blair so why are the Conservatives not releasing the report to make the Labour party now look bad in association with the Labour party as government then before your election? To me if you could use something against your enemy you use it, or is there something against the Cnservatives also.

 

I'm not sure of the exact figures, but at the time the Labour party held around 420 seats, Tories held around 160 - can't remember the rest. The vote to 'go to war' was won by 412 votes to 149. of those 149 who voted against, 139 were 'rebel' Labour MPs - so many a Tory obviously voted for war. So, yes - the report may show some Tories in a bad light as well.

 

You are right Ak. But it was mainly Tony Blair's war - I think he saw himself as a latter day Maggie (Falklands) Thatcher and tried to screw his party into supporting him which most did but there were plenty of Tory Warmongers too. Only the Lib Dems showed real reservation.
Cameron and Clegg have both called for pre-election publication of the report as they no doubt think that Labour will come off worst.

 

Although the Chilcot process was supposed to have been politically independent, I do think that Cameron could have kicked some arse to get it published a lot earlier than it will be. I just think of all those families who lost loved ones in that illegal war, they are being treated awfully by the political classes.

 

None of that surprises me Cologne. The Tories always support wars - except perhaps Neville Chamberlain and Miliband was never in Blair's camp.

 

Getting back to The Greens....

I stumbled across this earlier - http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/council-house-for-queen-say-greens-11363957367657 That should ruffle a few feathers of the rich & the Establishment, but it wouldn't surprise me if, as a whole, it garnered a lot of support amongst the general population.

 

She'd buy it, thus taking another council house out of circulation, and have paying gullibles visiting before you could say 'Bloodsucking good-for-nothing leech'.

 

Lucky for us the conservatives had Mr Churchill in their ranks in WW2 or else we would now be in a EU dominated by the Germans.

Oh dear!

 

I love his wartime speeches but he was not as popular with the voters of the day as we might think. My grandparents detested him with a passion. My Dad still does, too. I like to think of him as our wonderful wartime PM and separate that from his post-war self.

I presume the latter part of your sentence is ironic, superhorns?

 

Isn't it ironic.

I sometimes wonder what our fallen soldiers would have made of the way things turned out, especially if most of Europe becomes even more dominated by Germany. Interesting times ahead I think.