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davieG

Post Election Blues

By davieG, in General Chat

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Hirsty The Blue 94

Hirsty The Blue 94

Posted
Posted

The 'First past the post' electoral system is what we have and I get sick and tired hearing about how unfair it is. Of course it is but so would any system be. 

 

You tend to find minorities always argue for change but no Government, when in Office, has been prepared to change it. Why, because when they get into power it suits them.

 

This would be the same if UKIP, The Greens, or Lib-Dems ever got into power  -  they wouldn't change a system which got them into Office.

 

If there is so much distaste for this system why doesn't someone set up a Petition, gather the 100,000 supporters and force Parliament to discuss it?

I'm yet to hear a convincing and well thought out argument for PR though. We vote for our MP to represent us in Parliament. Say UKIP have 70 odd seats as they would have through PR then what constituencies would they be representing when in every constituency but 1 they were not the most popular party? Would you be happy to be represented by someone who the majority of people in your area didn't vote for and had no link to the area you live? Also every election would lead to odd coalitions and mish-mashes of political deals between parties which I wouldn't say is very constitutional. 

With regards to discussing it people had the opportunity to vote against First Past the Post in 2011 but almost 70% chose to keep the current system. 

Benji

Benji

Posted
Posted

I think they want to do away with some of the rights regarding law meaning not everyone will be afford to pay for a solicitor. Also some privacy laws the right to protest may be changed They want to be able to refuse to abide to certain sections of the bill as they come up so no High Court judge can deem any policies a breach of the act.

However they will justify the changes by highlighting one section which will receive more media attention and will be welcome by a portion of of the general public, that is being able to hold or deport suspected terrorists. If you disagree the focus will not be on this  but other sections please rember this post and refer back to it when the time comes.

 

I'm pretty sure it hasn't been drafted yet, so a pretty wide prediction to make: "it will only do bad", essentially.

Alf Bentley

Alf Bentley

Posted
Posted

I'm yet to hear a convincing and well thought out argument for PR though. We vote for our MP to represent us in Parliament. Say UKIP have 70 odd seats as they would have through PR then what constituencies would they be representing when in every constituency but 1 they were not the most popular party? Would you be happy to be represented by someone who the majority of people in your area didn't vote for and had no link to the area you live? Also every election would lead to odd coalitions and mish-mashes of political deals between parties which I wouldn't say is very constitutional. 

With regards to discussing it people had the opportunity to vote against First Past the Post in 2011 but almost 70% chose to keep the current system. 

 

There are many different types of PR, some based on constituencies, some not.

 

I'd favour "Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Consistuencies" - similar to the system used in the European elections.

That way, you might elect 10 MPs to represent Leicester & Leicestershire. Based on current voting, you might end up with 5 Tory MPs, 3 Labour, 1 UKIP & 1 Lib Dem.

In other areas, the Con/Lab balance would be different, or there might be more or less UKIP, Greens etc, but any party with a decent level of local support (8-10%?) would have at least 1 constituency MP.

 

No system is perfect, but that would represent most views more fairly while retaining a constituency link..... Ideally it would be combined with the devolution of more power to local councils & communities, bolstering local democracy.

Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

Don't forget that the constituency boundaries are currently rigged against the Conservatives, too.

 

Made the victory even more impressive, it was shocking that the Tories needed about 5% more than Labour to win an election, at least we can now redraw these to what they were, not like they can complain about it is it?

 

I don't recall the left rioting when Labour governed from 2005-2010 with 35% of the national vote.

 

Me neither, funn that.

 

After the catastrophic job he did in education, I'm astonished he's been allowed anywhere near a government department again.

 

Jobs for the boys, I suppose.

 

It was widely considered in the government he had actually done a pretty good job, he had to go though as he was a disaster in the public eye for whatever reasoning, I have no problem with him being in the cabinet, he is often widely regarded as the most intelligent man in parliament by a lot of political commentators, if he is you don't simply allow him to rot just because a few teachers (who seem to overwhelmingly hate the Tory party anyway) didn't like him.

 

Nice to see people are giving him a fair crack at this though. lol

 

Can't believe it's been a few days now and still no sign of labour and their voters accepting this defeat with any kind of grace. Truly odious people.

 

It was a mixture of delusion and denial from the start and hasn't really got much better apart from a handful of people, they started by saying the exit poll simply couldn't be right, then we were listening to Ed Balls about 1am wjhen it was looking likely even trying to say with 316 the Tories would have losty legitimacy and Ed Miliband could still be Prime Minister, then we had the most embarrassing part of the night having to watch Neil Kinnock blame the people, it wasn't that Labour hadn't got their message across and the people were rejectign them but that the people weren't listening to Labour when they should be. What a twat.

 

They genuinely couldn't believe the people had gone out and voted for the Conservative. No wonder there are so many 'shy-Tories' out there these days when you see and hear the moral self-righteousness of a lot on the left. They are so out of touch it's incredible.

 

There's nothing wrong with protests. They're part of democracy (though, after the Iraq War protest, I'm not sure how much they achieve, beyond building morale).Of course, Class War/SWP-type extremists will seek to use such situations for their own discreditable ends and a few immature hotheads will chuck bricks through windows or whatever, but they're very much a tiny minority.

 

The Tories will also have to finally explain where they're going to find £13bn of welfare cuts and £12bn of cross-departmental spending cuts or find some other way of cutting the deficit.....unless they go back on their plan to eliminate it, as they did last time. Probably a mixture is my guess - some nasty cuts (soon - they'd have to be early in the parliament for electoral reasons) and a failure to cut the deficit as fast as they've promised.

 

I've been surprised how many on the left (Laurie Penny even called the graffiti on the war memorial acceptable) have actually gone to certain lengths to try and excuse this behaviour, being associated with these lot in any way is not good for anyone, a lot of wavering Tory voters would have seen the footage from those protests and thought that they have certainly done the right thing if it upsets those sort of people. It's important it isn't overplayed mind, it was a few hundred people from the Socialist Worker etc - they people represent no one en masse.

 

Regarding the second part, Osborne is now under no pressure whatsoever to deliver those cuts if he doesn't want to. I'd be amazed if we ever find out where the cuts came from if they even do, who is going to hold him to account? No Labour MP is going to want to ask the Tories why they didn't cut the welfare bill are they? It was a cheap populist policy designed to get votes, I think that's the last we'll ever hear of it.

 

Some good news finally for Labour today, Alan Sugar has resigned his membership.

 

 

Why would anyone listen to anything the Mirror says? They have been found to be the most biased media agency in the country, they have continually lied about Conservative MP's and make no secret of their hatred for the Tories.

Rincewind

Rincewind

Posted
Posted

Fair enough. I admit I was a little hasty to post it.But I believe it may still happen. They have little opposition now. They still plan to make 12bn cuts to the welfare bill and before the election I  cannot recall any tory MP giveing a straight answer as to where they would be made.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/10/iain-duncan-smith-conservative-cabinet-david-cameron-welfare-cuts

 

Monday 11 May 2015 08.06 BST

Hirsty The Blue 94

Hirsty The Blue 94

Posted
Posted

There are many different types of PR, some based on constituencies, some not.

I'd favour "Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Consistuencies" - similar to the system used in the European elections.

That way, you might elect 10 MPs to represent Leicester & Leicestershire. Based on current voting, you might end up with 5 Tory MPs, 3 Labour, 1 UKIP & 1 Lib Dem.

In other areas, the Con/Lab balance would be different, or there might be more or less UKIP, Greens etc, but any party with a decent level of local support (8-10%?) would have at least 1 constituency MP.

No system is perfect, but that would represent most views more fairly while retaining a constituency link..... Ideally it would be combined with the devolution of more power to local councils & communities, bolstering local democracy.

But even then it can be easily manipulated in terms of size of constituencies giving a disproportionate outcome.

Agree whole hearted with the devolution aspect though, but this an argument that has been around for decades yet there has still not been a bigger enough shift from central governance.

Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

So much for Cameron's pledge that pensiors benefis would not be touched.

One broken promise down.  Not bad after 4 days.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/iain-duncan-smith-targets-poor-3109721

 

You really need to start checking dates before you post links. This happens far too often. How do even find them? You can't exactly read an old newspaper online, they don't carry stories from 2011 on the front page.

 

You must clearly be googling something like 'Evil Tories cuts Mirror, IDS, nasty, suicide, pensions, cuts, Cameron' and then just cliking the first link you see, getting very excited and then posting it.

Benji

Benji

Posted
Posted

 

They wanted to bring it in 2010 but LD opposed it so would not have got through. It has been put on hold.

 

As a concept it was opposed but no Bill was presented. The Lib Dems blanketly said they would not agree to a repeal of the HRA and any Bill of Rights would need to be in addition to and not in place of it. If you can show me a draft of the Bill I will happily read it and criticise if there are genuine intentional loopholes, but until something is proposed it's just guesswork and simply scaremongering.

 

 

 

I can only hope you see the funny side in that article because if you don't I really worry for you - it is atroscious.

 

If the HRA is repealled and replaced with a Bill of Rights which enshrines none of these rights I promise you I will never vote Tory again in my life.  I think I'm pretty safe, though, as the muppet who wrote the Mirror article admits a couple of paragraphs after his own scaremongering that these will most likely be covered in the Bill.

 

"That may seem reasonable… but here’s what will effectively be scrapped by the Tories:

 

  • The right to life
  • The right not to be tortured
  • The right not to be a slave
  • The right to a fair trial
  • The right NOT to be punished if you haven’t broken the law
  • The right to private family life
  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
  • The right to freedom of expression
  • The right to marry and start a family
  • The right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions
  • The right to education
  • The right to free elections
  • The right NOT to be given to death penalty"

It really is no wonder degenerates get fuelled into rioting and defacing memorials when they have access to this kind of balls.

Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

 

 

 

As a concept it was opposed but no Bill was presented. The Lib Dems blanketly said they would not agree to a repeal of the HRA and any Bill of Rights would need to be in addition to and not in place of it. If you can show me a draft of the Bill I will happily read it and criticise if there are genuine intentional loopholes, but until something is proposed it's just guesswork and simply scaremongering.

 

 

 

I can only hope you see the funny side in that article because if you don't I really worry for you - it is atroscious.

 

If the HRA is repealled and replaced with a Bill of Rights which enshrines none of these rights I promise you I will never vote Tory again in my life.  I think I'm pretty safe, though, as the muppet who wrote the Mirror article admits a couple of paragraphs after his own scaremongering that these will most likely be covered in the Bill.

 

"That may seem reasonable… but here’s what will effectively be scrapped by the Tories:

 

  • The right to life
  • The right not to be tortured
  • The right not to be a slave
  • The right to a fair trial
  • The right NOT to be punished if you haven’t broken the law
  • The right to private family life
  • The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
  • The right to freedom of expression
  • The right to marry and start a family
  • The right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions
  • The right to education
  • The right to free elections
  • The right NOT to be given to death penalty"

It really is no wonder degenerates get fuelled into rioting and defacing memorials when they have access to this kind of balls.

 

 

I'll add my name to that as well.

 

The scaremongering is getting absolutely ridiculous.

Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

Listening to Kevin Maguire now and like a lot on the left still don't seem to get it - most people want to emulate the rich and successful, not envy them.

 

Labour will never win an election until they start chasing the Webbo vote rather than the Rincewind one.

Benji

Benji

Posted
Posted

Listening to Kevin Maguire now and like a lot on the left still don't seem to get it - most people want to emulate the rich and successful, not envy them.

 

Labour will never win an election until they start chasing the Webbo vote rather than the Rincewind one.

 

For me, even if people didn't want to emulate them that's there perogative - but don't take it upon yourselves to punish those that do have such aspirations.  As I just said in the other thread, it's a shame Dan Jarvis has pulled out, he seemed to get it. 

leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

Listening to Kevin Maguire now and like a lot on the left still don't seem to get it - most people want to emulate the rich and successful, not envy them.

 

Labour will never win an election until they start chasing the Webbo vote rather than the Rincewind one.

 

False duality, Matt. There's people who don't want to emulate the rich and don't envy them either (after all envy is wanting to be the the same place as the object, isn't it) because they think there's more to life than material gain and wealth. You can't take it with you and we all end up the same way, after all. Why the need for the scorecard?

 

Mind you, this has been discussed before. There should be the choice available to people to exercise ambition or not, as they desire. Neither should be punished.

Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

False duality, Matt. There's people who don't want to emulate the rich and don't envy them either (after all envy is wanting to be the the same place as the object, isn't it) because they think there's more to life than material gain and wealth. You can't take it with you and we all end up the same way, after all. Why the need for the scorecard?

 

Mind you, this has been discussed before. There should be the choice available to people to exercise ambition or not, as they desire. Neither should be punished.

 

Did you listen to the Kevin Maguire interview?

leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted

Did you listen to the Kevin Maguire interview?

 

Uh-uh, but I think my point about the false duality stands. From what I know of Maguire he merely stands on one side of it - the "envy" side.

Alf Bentley

Alf Bentley

Posted
Posted

But even then it can be easily manipulated in terms of size of constituencies giving a disproportionate outcome.

Agree whole hearted with the devolution aspect though, but this an argument that has been around for decades yet there has still not been a bigger enough shift from central governance.

 

About the only system that would offer a completely proportional outcome would be PR under a national list system. This would presumably include, maybe 1 BNP MP, 0.1 of a Monster Raving Loony MP, 0.01 of a Mebyn Kernow MP & 0.001 of an MP for "Joe Bloggs, Free Ice-Cream for all Nutters in Bognor Regis".

 

I don't think complete proportionality should be an aim - but a much fairer level of proportionality, and one that avoided giving undue power to tiny minorities, would be a good idea.

 

FPTP = Very good on constituency link, very poor on proportionality, massively favours big parties & unfair to small/medium parties

AV = As above, but slightly more proportionate, still unfair to small/medium parties

Additional Member System = Fairer/more proportionate, but a dog's breakfast, creating different types of MPs, some with constituency link, some without

PR national list = Loses constituency link, the most proportionate system, but can give disproportionate power to tiny parties with 1-2 MPs

PR national list with, say a 5% national threshold = As per PR national list, slightly less proportionate, eliminates "tiny party" problem, but discriminates against parties with highly localised support (e.g. SNP, Plaid, N. Ireland)

STV in multi-member constituencies = Retains a flexible, if slightly diluted constituency link, much fairer / more proportional than FPTP/AV, no discrimination against regional parties, fair representation for small/medium parties, but not tiny factions

 

No system is perfect, but STV in multi-member constituencies offers the best balance, I think.

 

No more reason why constituencies should vary much in size than with the current system - though boundary changes would still be needed every 20 years or so, as they are now, due to demographic change

 

If anything, government in this country has become much MORE centralised over the last 35 years (under Tory & Labour alike)

Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

I'll add my name to that as well.

 

The scaremongering is getting absolutely ridiculous.

 

are you talking about the Labour SNP coalition talk?

Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted

are you talking about the Labour SNP coalition talk?

 

No mate, I'm talking about the scare stories about everything from the NHS being shut down to the police force being disbanded.;

 

I know you are in France so I'm not sure if you watched the leadership debates but Nicola Sturgeon actually said the words "I will make you Prime Minister" to Ed Miliband, so it was far from a scare story, Miliband eventually ruled this out a few weeks later but it was clearly a total lie as Ed Balls, Andy Burham and Caroline Flint all started saying on election night within the first hour or so that if Cameron couldn't command a majority government all options were open, the British people knew he was lying and they were proven right within minutes of the exit polls being produced..

 

I took the piss out of someone moaning about the Tories in the pub on Friday, I told him Glenfield hospital had already been boarded up and he said deadly serious 'not surprised, won;t be the last' - that's the sort of nonsense we are dealing with over here at the minute.

Voll Blau

Voll Blau

Posted
Posted

One thing's for certain. Labour are doomed never to get into office again unless they start giving PR their backing pretty fvcking sharpish...

Jon the Hat

Jon the Hat

Posted
Posted

Agree Matt the scaremongering is ridiculous.  And honestly, I can quite believe that the NHS has some rough times ahead, because it would need more money than anyone is willing to pay to keep it going as is.  That is not a party political issue though, and I have a lot more faith in the Tories being able to deliver more for what is available than Labour / SNP.

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