I take it that no one wants to discuss the relative merits of PR and FPTP then. Perhaps after tomorrow's business. ON THE BALL CITY!!!
All this vitriolic diatribe from some posters is really nauseating. In the county of Norfolk most of the MP s will be Tory, that is the way rural farming communities vote. Therefore I would suggest that there is a significantly larger proportion of fans who are Tory.
The country has voted and we have a single party with a majority - albeit a slender one, but surely that is far better than a 'rainbow coalition' that I feared only a few days ago. No amount of 'mud-slinging' or anything else can change the outcome and with those 'north of the border' having been 'brainwashed' by Sturgeon and co, it's going to be a long road back to power for the Labour party. Mods - I think it is time this thread was closed!!!
Except I'm NOT a Tory and I did cast my vote. How do you explain the massive swings (in excess of 20% was quite commonplace) if it's not brainwashing????? I just feel that it is better to have one party in power than some of the scenarios that were predicted!!!
I take the opposite view,that the thread should NOT be closed. Of course those who don't want to take part any more are entitled to exercise their democratic right to feck off!. I'm just kidding btw JR,nothing personal. On the Scotland issue it's quite straighforward. The entire 45% Yes vote went to the SNP plus probably a small swing to from the LD's and Labour who voted No. I don't like this Scots bashing at all,it's divisive and nasty. I like the Scots.
Of course they are, completely brainwashed by the Tory mantra of "the financial mess left by the previous government" bullshit that we've had pretty much on constant loop for the past five years. Too many people just accepted it as a fact, rather than look just a little deeper to see it for the propaganda bullshit that it actually is.
I liked the old bird on QT last night who argued that the Tory press has no effect. If that is the case it raises the question of why thry spend so much time and effort writing those headlines knocking Labour.
Unfortunately, labour do have to take some responsibility for this. They let the Tory narrative build up without challenge - largely because of the previous leadership election and by the time that was done the narrative had become received wisdom, despite the fact that before the crash the tories had pledged to meet labour spending pound for pound and they had argued for less regulation in the financial sector, both of which have been conveniently forgotten. Labour need to ensure that lesson has been learnt and sort out the leadership position quickly before the tories have a chance to build any more unchallenged myths
This is Bernie Sanders. He is the only American Politician telling it like it is. What he talks about is what the Tories are aiming for. I wish we had someone like him in this country.
I wonder how many of our Tory posters will take the trouble to watch that,or indeed care about the message that he is trying to gety across. The truth is that if you are rich then it has been virtually impossible NOT to get richer as asset and property prices rise. If you are in the bottom half it is virtually impossible to accumulate anything. And those of us just above the middle just get called Champagne Socialists!
The trouble is we are supposed to live in a democracy. It's absolutely stupid that because of where I choose to live I effectively don't have a vote. Yes I know I can rock up at a polling station and put a cross on a piece of paper, but the process is meaningless, as whatever I do I will end up with a Conservative MP. This is true for many people and it works both ways. The point is my and many peoples votes don't matter, dare I suggest that this is why many people are so disengaged from the political process. Yes the current process does generally tend to result in strong government either blue or red, however if that was the only purpose then we might as well have a one party state and save us the cost of an election. Under the current process the net effect on me is no different, although I accept I could move just to give my vote a value, however there aren't that many places I could move to as generally the result of elections is decided on a small number of key marginal constiuencies. I agree with you're last sentence in as far as this is what we have, but this is not what we should have. We are supposed to be a democracy where one person vote is of equal value to the next person and we don't have this. This below chart is interesting. If you combine the UKIP / Green votes then these parties received more than half the number of votes of the Labour party, but this only resulted in 2 MP's against the Labour parties 232 MP's. So what would have been the most likely result if we had had PR. Almost certainly a Conservative / UKIP coalition government, pretty much what we've got now. Only the process would have been fairer. I might still not like the result but at least my vote would have counted I also don't understand why you think coalition government is so bad. I suspect over the next year or so many people will come to regret that we don't have a Conservative / Liberal coalition government. History will reflect much better on the involvement of the Liberals in the last government than voters did on Thursday.
All I would say Canario to your to your PR based analogy is this. How many UKIP voters voted for the AV referendum in this parliament? I would suggest hardly any, they are just bleating because it doesn't suit them now. As a Lib Dem voter for many many years I have always wanted a fairer system but feel that it will not happen now in my lifetime.
To be honest what UKIP supporters or indeed supporters of any party said in the past is irrelevant to my arguement. For me our voting process it's a baisc issues of fairness and of putting the individual at the centre of the process. We will never know how many UKIP voters voted for AV and again it's irrelevant. For me UKIP and the Greens are the only mainstream parties that are actively seeking to engage people that would not normally get involved in the political process. Of course AV and proportonal representation are 2 different things and it would not be inconsistant for someone to vote against AV but still support PR. There will have been many people who voted UKIP / Green in this election that will not have been engaged at all with politics at the time or the AV vote.
PR doesn't give you a majority on 37% of the vote PR doesn't leave the result in the hands of a couple of million super voters whilst leaving the rest of the country disenfranchised PR stops governments kicking lumps out of particular regions because they will never get votes there - why should the tories do anything to help Newcastle or Liverpool? why are labour going to care if HD 2 blights a leafy Oxfordshire village? PR removes Gerrymandering PR means the politicians have to be honest about who they will deal with and what pledges they are willing to compromise on rather than just saying they will form a coalition PR means that you can vote for the party closest to your views, rather than the party most likely to beat whoever you hate. PR removes the MPs with massive majorities who can ignore their own constituents as they will get back in regardless PR allows new parties with fresh ideas to get a foothold in politics PR makes it much much more difficult for lobbyists to say government policy - they have to deal with fast more than one party to do so PR brings legitimacy to the government as they will represent the views of more than 50% of the population. PR stops parties campaigning on the basis that only we can beat x in this constituency and forces them to give positive reasons to vote for them
hear,hear. i have never voted tory in my life,but i did yesterday. the thought of milliband(who i would not trust to run a whelk stall) proped up by the bravehearts north of the border,who do not even want to be part of this country,ruining the econamy,was more than i could bear
Yes Yorkshire, I agree there are many 'democratic' reasons for having a PR system. FPTP is a blunt instrument to decide a majority government who can run the country and pass their policies into law. It's far from ideal but allows governments to enact their policies without referral to second third and forth parties they have collated with after the election and without the electorates consent.
Rather than PR, FPTP or AV, I'd quite like to see us adopt the system the German's, and many other European countries use, MMP. Seems like a better balance to me.
