Off Topic Politics Thread

That's definitely the worst possible result for the Tories. With a normal leader, you would then expect them to fall on their sword, because their position is untenable. But a normal leader likely would have fallen on their sword approximately five scandals ago, and Boris does not strike me as the type who will go easily.

 

He won’t be able to use words as he’ll be too busy gargling Johnson’s balls in his mouth

 

That’s Boris proper ****ed then. Unfortunately, while we all enjoy the sight of him bleeding out on the carpet, the country is a rudderless ship which is already very much on the rocks. Someone needs to frogmarch the fraudulent fool out of Downing Street by force.

 

There aren't. The guy promised some kind of smoking gun that would "finish" Johnson. Then posted a massive twitter stream with lots of messages that needed an explainer video to go with it. With the topic ultimately being something that was not enough to finish Johnson. At all. Not by a long shot. So Johnson over exaggerated how ill he was. So what? I really don't like the guy (as should be obvious) but it isn't exactly high crimes or evidence of extreme corruption. Just yet another piece of evidence that he is a liar. And if you don't already care about him being a liar, this isn't going to change your mind

Pretty much nothing to do with patience. More over promising and under delivering (from the tweeter)

 

It would be beneficial if MPs were limited to one term in office. At each general election, a new MP for each constituency could be selected and this would remove the issue of MPs voting simply to say their jobs. You may lose some good people at each election but, by the same token, you would lose a lot of bad MPs too. Those 211 MPs who voted for Boris would therefore have no loyalty towards the party and could vote for more democratic means.

As for the comments that Boris will remain, I do feel that the longer remains in office, the better it is for Labour. In the short term, I think yesterday's result will inspire a backlash in the two by-elections which the Conservatives will lose. For my money, the whammy will be when there is an enquiry into how the Covid pandemic was managed. I do not know if and when this will take place but I would suggest Johnson will want this after any general election. If this happens beforehand, you shudder to think what any enquiry will find in the light of "Partygate." I have said this before but all sorts of corruption and unethical decisions will be discovered and I still believe that someone will end up in prison for a scandal associated with something like procurement or bad decision making. It is debatable that Boris will last this long but maybe it is time that the Parliamentary Labou Party grew some balls and regined it's soul , ditched Starmer and changed tack to the kind of positions esposed by Corbyn / McDonnell / Momentum. When Labour get voted into office, the majority will likely be substantial. This will be an opportunity to make some substantial and real chane to this country as opposed to the New Labour status quo.

 

Term limits are one of the most-studied concepts in comparative political studies. And the universal conclusion is that they suuuuuuuuuuuck. Seriously, truly awful, because it ensures that i) no one actually knows how to do things like legislate properly (which makes them even more dependent on interest groups to write that legislation for them), and ii) their whole time in office becomes an audition tape for their next job.

 

One of the reasons we have a Civil Service is to assist politicians in how to legislate. If a politician is only serving one term, there is less time for them to develop a "profile" for any second job.

I think the opposition needs to weaponise the issue that 211 MPs voted in favour of Boris and use this to discredit the Coservatives as much as possible. Labour should make the consistuencies these MPs represent targets and simple campaign on the morality of the incumbant MPs. I really see the next election as Labour's to lose. Any campaign must stress the link between Boris and his MPs to demonstrate that they are one and the same. These 211 MPs should be shamed and identified as their support for Boris totally discredits any argument that they have any moral fibre. I would like to see them targetted as much as Boris. Let's cleanse Parliament of the Conservatives.

 

Seriously, though, term limits are impossibly bad and corrosive for good governance. For one thing, rather than leaning on the administrative state, they tend to result in even greater polarization and a reliance on outside bodies. They don't need 'profile': they just need a record of delivering on behalf of their next employer. It's all the issues that exist with regulatory capture, but compressed into a short window with people who have no subject-matter expertise in the first place.

Edit: literally every time term limits are brought up, every political scientist under the sun rushes to scream NO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NO, and for good reason.

 

You are joking with the last paragraph aren’t you? Labour aren’t winning a majority of any kind let along a substantial one as long as
the SNP has Scotland sewn up

Given the inevitable need for either coalition or confidence and supply they simply can’t go as left as they were under Corbyn

It doesn’t hurt to have some optimism but it should be based in the real world. Do you see Labour picking up circa 100 seats without loss? A good result would be the conservatives losing that number - but it won’t be just to labour

 

I think Starmer has.played a clever Game by allowing the Tories to fester in a cesspit of their own making. As for the GE, Labour will hardly gain any seats in.Scotland unless the SNP are embroiled in.a.scandal, so they are relying on most of the "Red Wall" seats returning to the fold along with others. In reality, they need to seriously think about forming a Government with the Lib Dems as places like Winchester will go that way, and become more neutral over Scottish Independence to garner the support of the SNP.

 

Yes, more Lib Dem than Labour.

 

I'm hoping for a coalition government that will somehow bring an end to FPTP with a move to a more representative parliament with a form of proportional representation.

 

Another vote for a coalition or Lab minority government.

Mainly in the hope that it results in FPTP being binned off.

Labour need such an outrageous result for a majority without Scotland, I just don’t see it happening any time soon, they can probably get around 300-310 seats though. Hopefully the Lib Dems mop up a decent number from the Conservatives.

 

Absolutely this. Let the people be represented, and get rid of the utterly outdated FPTP.

 

Some kind of proportional system needs to be priority number one and ideally in the manifesto so no referendum is needed

Because as we well know the murdoch press and other special interests are adept at convincing people to vote to reduce / not increase their own democratic power

 

I would have no problem at all with a partnership between Labour and the Lib Dem’s. As we saw in the May council elections, the latter have largely replaced the Tories in the shire counties, after decades of decline and underfunding from central government. If Labour can regain their traditional place in the urban centres, and a government representative of the entire country can be formed, then this could set the pattern for the next generation.

Of course PR has to happen, it’s been shown to work in just about every democracy in the world. It would also have the benefit of allowing more minority parties like the Greens (and, let’s admit it, the far right) into Westminster.

 

The extremist party argument for FPTP doesn’t hold as much water anymore since Brexit as UKIP showed it was effectively possible for a fringe part of (economic) extremists to capture one of the main parties and lead it to majority power under a minority of the vote, if anything it has shown FPTP to be more dangerous than simply allowing an extremist party in on low numbers.

 

That’s very well argued, thank you.

 

The thing about extreme fringes in a PR system is that if they want to be invited to help govern they will inherently have to water their positions down

If we had PR in the days when U.K. pressured the government I expect there was still a chance that the conservatives could have formed a government with another party if they really didn’t want to go along with ukip . Not least because lots of those with ukip tendencies may well have been in ukip and not the Tories under such a system