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The Tories gave Nick Clegg a referendum five years ago which you personally said you were happy with at the time. We rejected it. The Tories, rightly IMO, oppose electoral reform. What possible reason would you give for Cameron making electoral reform a priority?
Electoral reform is the priority for the late Lib Dem party. They got 8/650 seats. Something tells me they're not going to be calling the shots.
Harsh tokes.Quote:
late Lib Dem party
;)
Question Time special on BBC1, Dimbleby explains at the start that they invited UKIP but they had "nobody available". Ridiculous, how could one of the countries so-called major parties have nobody available. OFCOM were premature to make UKIP a "Major Party" and after this election it should be reversed. UKIP should be linked with other one MP parties like Respect and the Greens.
UKIP are an odd case, they've got, as you say, only 1 seat but they're also the third largest party by vote share and they do well in European elections. They also made their presence felt more widely last night than the greens, coming second or third in many seats, taking voters from the Tories or Labour and thus they continue to be relevant.
Also think they're going to face serious problems actually taking seats in the house, because they scare the shit out of people on the left and center right, and thus will almost always face tactical voting. My mum despises the Conservatives, but she'd vote Tory to keep a UKIPPER from getting a seat. I'd do it. Many on the left feel the same way. I reckon that's what did for Farage.
It's pretty much the same problem in all countries with these parties; they have a negative message and are basically the vehicle of one guy with a lot of people trying to get on his coat tails, including a bunch of loonies that even the leader doesn't want to associate with. Here in Holland we have the Freedom Party of wilders, which technically isn't even a party, and which has MP's declaring themselves independent in a steady stream.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
UKIP are a major party for Euro elections and long have been. That should continue as long as UKIP are winning seats at the Euro elections.
Vote share is meaningless for Parliament, its seats that matter. FPTP is designed to make the most popular candidate (by votes) win - so racist extremists don't. Its done its job by keeping out Farage, I'm glad your mum and others across the country have had a chance to say no to UKIP. The voters of South Thanet had Farage trying to become their MP - and they've said no thanks. That's democracy in action.
Pretty sure that keeping racists out is not the reason Britain has FPTP. :o
Getting the popular mainstream view not the extremist view is. PR hands the balance of power to the extremists, FPTP does the opposite.
I'm not saying that's not the consequence; I'm saying that's not the reason Britain has the system (and it's had that system for quite a few centuries).
Also, as we all know an entrenched FPTP system with a good dose of gerrymandering does nothing to keep extremists out of office.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
http://i.imgur.com/rctJ6Ek.jpg
Science has proven that COAL = SOCIALISM.
Is science going to try and prove that water is wet, next?Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Pollsters have had an appalling election.
i think we're seeing a return to traditional two party politics now but it's going to take a while until the media realises that. The Lib Dems and UKIP have nine seats between them and should be stripped of their major party status. Parliamentary rules means that the Lib Dems should be a minor party now in Parliament. The media should revoke their major party status too, but probably won't.
The Lib Dems face a real existential crisis I think. Lost deposits on Thursday alone will have cost them nearly £200k while the loss of Short Money that is the only state funding for opposition parties will cost them a lot too. They've lost a lot of members and I suspect few donors will be interested now. They've also lost most of their Councillor base and are no longer second place in many constituencies so will struggle to come back even with the dodgiest of bar charts.
Protests concerning the Tory victory and austerity cuts in central London yesterday turned violent.
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/med...27131722-1.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/med...27130871-1.jpg
And graffiti a Women's WWII memorial in the process. On VE Day of all things.
http://i.guim.co.uk/media/w-620/h--/..._2100/1000.jpg
You had your vote. You lost. So piss off.
Just like the memorable Tory riots of 97 when we lost .... Oh wait, that never happened.
Democracy cuts both ways, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Have some self respect when you lose. And always respect war memorials, scum was the right word but for the ones who think it's OK to vandalise war memorials. Hope they get caught and locked up.
That's odd, are the tories going to enact legislation that many people believe are going to ruin their lives or something??
Continued spending cuts and austerity to balance the books.
The stupid thing is their new argument is that since 37% of the public voted for the Tories that isn't a majority for continued austerity. Except that UKIP had the same spending plans as the Tories (they actually said we weren't cutting fast enough). And the Lib Dems also had almost identical spending plans too. So almost 60% of the vote was for finishing the work of austerity.
But the reality is its just sore losers and it represents a few extremists not "many". There's a hard core of left wingers who can't accept the right as potentially being popular or correct. There have never been Tory riots against a Labour win, but this is par for the course for the far left.
There is something kinda suspect about 37% of the popular vote getting you 51% of the seats.
Why?
In 51% of the seats the Tories were the most popular candidate. Which seats should have got a candidate they didn't want? Don't forget we elect individual representatives who are members of parties, we do not elect parties.
Who's to say that if the UK had a PR system the Tories wouldn't have adjusted their campaign strategy to capture a greater portion of the popular vote? Parties play according to the electoral rules that exist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
As would other parties, getting an absolute majority is kinda hard in pr. Plus there's probably a decent bit of strategic voting going on, so you really can't say what would happen.
Yes, no way to tell. Which is why it's stupid to judge a party by what they would or wouldn't do if another system was in place.
I'm saying that it feels like that party's rule is less legitimate than it could have been and maybe you should bear that in mind when you say the "losers" should just grin and bear it. There are no excuses for violence or vandalism but I can see how there may be legitimate reasons for strong opposition.
Exactly. There is no appetite for electoral reform, we rejected it 2:1 last time and I see no reason whatsoever to suggest demand has increased since then. The people calling for PR now are the same people who were saying yes to AV. What evidence is there that we want to keep asking related questions until the "right" answer is given?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
The only party for whom PR is a key plank has just been reduced to 8/650 seats. It is simply not going to happen any time soon.
On the flip side, if they did what to said and got a majority, their platform would have to be more inclusive as well though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
But why make the results less representative to do that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Flixy
Wow, you mean UKIP wouldn't have gotten 83 seats under PR because the other parties would have campaigned differently?Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The losers were aware of the rules of the game. If they disagreed with those rules, they should have done something before the election, not afterwards. How many years was Labour in power? Why didn't it change the electoral system then? Oh right, because they benefited from the current system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
See France. The Tories would shift to the right to capture their votes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Labour benefits more than the Tories from FPTP, or at least they did in previous elections. Not sure about this one.