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Faith in the British electorate - RESTORED
Comments
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silverwhistle wrote: »Don't tell me, you read the Mail, and believe everything in it.
Some of us see the waste of money and lack of productivity for ourselves.
Self interest rules. Nothing to do with politics. Just human nature.0 -
UKIP voters have been today's equivalent of Lenin's 'useful idiots'. Thought they were voting for a fresh start in UK politics, instead have ushered in 5 more years of Tory government, this time unhampered by Clegg and his mealy mouthed whinging. Not to mention the 35% of the electorate who couldn't be arsed to vote, once in five bloody years. Too busy watching Come Dancing or whatever was on?0
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there are several perceived criticisms of PR
-it leads to coalitions
-coalitions can give a lot of power to quite small parties which don't reflect their support
-PR doesn't really give people a 'local' MP as one votes for a party rather than a person
- makes it almost impossible for a local hero to arise e.g. support a local hospital or other local cause.
No reason you can't have PR based on selection from a regional/county scale though - parties put up as many MPs for the region as are current MPs (or as many as they want) and get a selection based on share of votes. That way local people can stand as necessary.
The situation in Scotland really reflects the failings of FPTP, 56/59 seats for the SNP on a tick over 50% of the vote and UKIP getting double that of SNP and getting 1 seat.
PR is always asked for after the election by the losers - I wonder if the Labour party would have been happy with ~285 seats in 1997 (number under PR with 43.2% of the vote) and ~202 for the Tories (30.7%) rather than the 418 they won? That win gave them power on 30.8% of the turnout which was 71.3% so they ruled for 5 years with a majority of 253 over the Tories despite being voted for by about 1/4 of the country!
I am glad UKIP got only 1 seat but I don't discount the fact they had so many votes, to get nearly 1/3-1/2 of the major parties and get nothing for it is a joke. I dislike UKIP because of the rhetoric and shameless misquoting of stats by their supporters reflects the need for more education and fact in election work - I've seen the "cost" of EU membership rise from £32m a day to £55m a day quoted by UKIP supporters - not only is the £55m completely false and even UKIP don't quote that, they deliberately quote the payment figure not the net balance of payments (i.e. ignore the money that comes back) and also ignore the benefits of investment in some countries e.g. developing the economy opening out new markets for us.
The fact that Labour still, on average, need vastly fewer votes to get an MP than the Tories or LD thanks to constituency sizes also needs to be looked at.Sam Vimes' Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness:
People are rich because they spend less money. A poor man buys $10 boots that last a season or two before he's walking in wet shoes and has to buy another pair. A rich man buys $50 boots that are made better and give him 10 years of dry feet. The poor man has spent $100 over those 10 years and still has wet feet.
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Outstanding election result.
Tory majority. :beer:
Let the good times roll......“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
-- President John F. Kennedy”0 -
The frightening thing is you probably really mean what you said there. There is obviously a lot of work to do!;)
Absolutely, Red Ed and Ballsup egged on by the even more left wing SNP would have made Brown and Darling seem positively prudent. Someone always has to clear up Labour's mess. There has never ever been a Labour Government who left the economy in a better state than the one they inherited.0 -
UKIP got most votes after Conservative & Labour.
They got more votes than LibDem and SNP combined.
Yet they won only 1 seat. This is not democracy, just the illusion of democracy.
Well the country was pretty clear when it rejected PR. So I guess that's about as good an example of democracy in action as you can get.0 -
The fact that Labour still, on average, need vastly fewer votes to get an MP than the Tories or LD thanks to constituency sizes also needs to be looked at.
I am sure that will be rectified. It would have been sorted out last time had the Lib Dems not reneged on their promise. Along with English votes for English laws - a matter of basic fairness for England.
If they sort out both of these issues it will be much more difficult to force a left wing agenda on an English people who have not voted for it.0 -
When did the country reject Proportional Representation?Well the country was pretty clear when it rejected PR. So I guess that's about as good an example of democracy in action as you can get.
All I can remember was a rigged vote on STVChanging the world, one sarcastic comment at a time.0
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