Off Topic Political Debate

Your making the assumption that the lurch to the left won't lose labour any votes, which is wrong, plenty of labour supporters won't vote for jeremy corbyn.

 

I claim that England is naturally Conservative by the results of recent elections. Look at a political map of England, it is almost all blue. When the government has corrected the unfair electoral boundaries within the next year the country will be even more blue. If, the SNP keep acting up and the Scots go it alone then Tory heaven for England.

 

It will gain and lose votes. Do you imagine that if Labour had continued as Tories mark 2 with Burnham, Liz Kendall or Yvette Cooper at the helm that this would have been successfull for them ? Were any of those other candidates suited to become PM ? The lost millions had deserted 'New Labour', which had become a tainted brand and do you propose a continuation of the same ? The people need a range of choice, and a real opposition, if only to rejuvinate political life in the UK. The problem in Britain is not right or left but political inertia and Corbyn may be able to address that.

 

Amazing that you can use the description 'unfair' to describe present electoral boundaries but not to describe the first past the post voting system - very selective.

 

First past the post can be unfair but the voters would cast their votes differently under a PR system. They would not use the protest vote so much if it actually elected some of these losers in the Greens etc.

However the public recently voted against changing our voting system so as a democratic person I'm perfectly happy with keeping the status quo.

 

It hasn't done the French any harm. Tourists flock to what were royal palaces in Paris in greater numbers than they do to London.

 

I wonder what % it was of the electorate as a whole who voted not to change it? Does anyone have that info?

 

Royal wedding, one off event, £2billion generated for tourism industry, 4 million additional visitors to the country. That is an incredible asset to have at our disposal as a country.

No royals = no royal events = giving up a valuable asset.

The argument that people will still visit palaces without the royals there completely ignores that the royals are able to generate tourism seperately to the buildings they live in.

 

Isn't it a big assumption on your part that the new poor with follow the old industrial working class in supporting a more radical labour party? Problem is we are entering into the quick-sand of massive generalisations - where I use the chav white underclass as an example of a group that would not care who was in power as long as they can buy ***s and diamond white and you use a different group that you believe would become active with the rebirth of New New Labour?
But you are probably more correct in saying that it is the political establishment that has moved to the right, although I would say this is mainly the Labour Party - the Greens were much more Left at the GE than Labour as were the SNP and the Lib-Dems are making lots of noises at their conference this week to disassociate themselves from the Tories and move more Left of centre (whilst desparately trying to claim the centre).

 

They might go and have a wander round palaces in Paris, but the smallest piece of news about the British royal family is covered in great depth over here. The thought that they could have a similar system rather than a career politician at the head is very popular.

 

I have noticed on this board that non supporters of winning parties revet back to percentages or non voters. The only thing that matters is being successful in the UK's present system. People have a right to vote and currently a right not to vote. The Conservatives have a mandate to carry out their manifesto until 2020. The Conservatives and the Labour Party do not have the slightest interest in changing our political system so talk of a 'new' PR system is wishful thinking so no chance of change for an awfully long time.

You should accept the will of the people, its called democracy.

 

and to quote Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the writers of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister "no government is going to kick away the ladder they climbed to get to the top".

 

To be fair the people weren't given a choice of a decent PR system, we were offered a ****ty AV system. Given the choice of a well thought out PR system the results may well have been different.

 

I only made this comment as you have in several posts talked about the public have decided etc. I want quite clearly to point out that some of the public have. It is the duty of the govt to cater for the needs of the entire populace not simply those who voted for it.

I think we could have a lively debate about democracy... in the UK it is the will of some of the people.

So let us all be careful about making sweeping generalisations.

 

Yes I noted that... but wondered if there was any point in saying it!

 

The only reason we had a vote at all was to appease the Lib Dems who promised to support the boundary changes, which they subsequently reneged on. No more votes on our system unless the Labour Party collapse.

 

Obviously the Tories would never put forward a PR system themselves as between them and labour they have power all tied up lol

 

The last election was the will of all of the people entitled to vote. The present government is catering for the entire populace.

 

It is up to the other parties to attract more voters, if they cannot manage it then the majority of the electorate will be quite happy with the present system.

 

Your logic is flawed. Not even everyone who votes for the party in power will agree with it's stance on every subject, let alone the millions who voted for other parties. Saying "the Tories are in power and they say X, so therefor the people think X" is just ridiculous.

It would hold more weight if we were discussing a topic which was a key campaign promise because then you could arguably guess the stance of the voters. But on PR, the Tory stance has no bearing on what the general population would think.

Your point about the lost referendum was more valid, but obviously it was a poor choice the public was given and so difficult to gauge how different things would of been if proper proportional representation was offered.