Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Democratic involvement and representation
I'VE LONG been of the view that there are wise, decent, sensible individuals in all the major parties. The body politic suffers from an electoral system that does not allow this truth to manifest itself for the benefit of the Borough or country as a whole. As a case in point, the Conservatives have a significant vote in our Borough, but until recently had not a single representative on the Council.
The recent exception was an accident and the individual involved is likely to lose his seat come the next election (notwithstanding the likely swing nationally to the Conservatives) because in the previous election he was voted in as a representative of a different party.
Locally at least, the Conservative party is severely disadvantaged by the first-past-the-post system and yet that party does not support a system of proportional representation.
Such a system is a more accurate reflection of the will of the people and avoids the wild swings of the pendulum that the long-term future of the country suffers from. The pendulum swings too far one way and then there is the over-correction.
All players are obliged to work with the FPTP system. The exaggerated effect of the pendulum also tends to reflect the general feeling that either one or other class is in power. Is this mature politics?
The recent exception was an accident and the individual involved is likely to lose his seat come the next election (notwithstanding the likely swing nationally to the Conservatives) because in the previous election he was voted in as a representative of a different party.
Locally at least, the Conservative party is severely disadvantaged by the first-past-the-post system and yet that party does not support a system of proportional representation.
Such a system is a more accurate reflection of the will of the people and avoids the wild swings of the pendulum that the long-term future of the country suffers from. The pendulum swings too far one way and then there is the over-correction.
All players are obliged to work with the FPTP system. The exaggerated effect of the pendulum also tends to reflect the general feeling that either one or other class is in power. Is this mature politics?
Tags for Forum Posts: Democracy, First-past-the-post, PR
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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B2, the parties in the UK are generally not capable of coalition.. 1/ because they are tribal.. 2/ they always think they know what's best for everyone.. 3/and because they want to get their hands on power.. 4/and won't share that power with anyone else..
The tories last taste of coalition government was I think in the wartime national government and they got stung quite badly afterwards..
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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This is speculation. Wait and see the scramble if we have a hung parliament (still as possible as a Conservative victory). If you can't form a government then you compromise.
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I'm for PR because, as you say, it more reflects the will of the people..
I lived for many years in the Wanstead & Woodford constituency which was a safe tory seat.. (now fiddled about with, but still the seat of Ian Dunkin-Donut). I might just as well stayed at home at elections, because my vote was binned and had no value (on a national level whatsoever)... vote for the winner and your vote is worth something.. vote for someone else and it's worthless. That isn't democracy..!
Over many years of watching and voting within the German System of PR, I have come to realise that consensus politics is the best way of providing stable, but not too extreme governments.. which is best for the country in the long term.
BTW, we have a two vote system - 1. for the constituency candidate 2. for the party nationally. Which allows you to vote for your choice of candidate - even if he's not in the party you support nationally..
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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I am removing the last part of this debate as it has degenerated into a slanging match.
Please refrain from this manner of debate and stick to the issues. Be aware of how you are coming across to readers and how you may be doing yourselves no favours by resorting to point scoring and incivilty. No matter how strongly you feel, take some time away from the debate if you feel yourself becoming angry and resist the impulse to attack the person. Stick to the ideas.
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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I suppose once you've spent half a millennium or more running the world, or at least its pink bits, and picking quarrels with the rest, it's a bit hard to adjust to the level of co-operation that coalition implies. If only Churchill, rather than Adenauer or (in his own haughty fashion) De Gaulle, had caught the Euro-bug rather than his American-flu maybe fewer English party leaders over the past half-century would have found themselves squirming at the mercy of their europhobes - and maybe, just maybe, some of the more benign trans-Manche peculiarities such as PR in one form or another could have gained a foothold. Of course it was always easy to scoff and say look at Italy with (?) fifty governments in fifty years or whatever. Not the fault of PR, I'm sure, more to do with Italian history, geography and itialianicity.
Maybe a few outbreaks of PR should be nurtured in Scotland and Wales, then pushed ever so gently southwards and eastwards. Given another half-century/millenium, it just might take hold.
Meanwhile we have poor little Davy Cameron, stripped of his last Irish Lisbon figleaf, writing a postcard begging his Czechmate Klaus to delay signing what his democratically elected government has already ratified. All a bit demeaning, isn't it? Hardly the best way to put the 'great' back into Britain.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Hinchcliffe on
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Regardless of the merits, all 3 parties promised a referendum. One didn't meet its promise, one will never be in a position to meet its promise (or any other) and the third will deliver on it. Simple.
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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The BNP isn't a right wing party - they're socialists
Sorry Justin you're completely wrong, they are far right and yes they might have had certain twisted 'socialist' historical elements to their policies but they are fundamentally nationalistic, loyalist & populists, whether it be Mosley, Tydall, Griffin. They may have used the term National Socialists, but it was in fact anything but.
In fact when they tried to join the ultra nationalist right wing block in Europe, they were turned down for being too right wing.
I believe the countless books I have read on the BNP, NF, BUF, LEL, GBM, C18 over your opinion, thanks anyway.
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Permalink Reply by John on
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The BNP are not socialists, but I can understand why Conservatives become agitated at them being referred to as "Far Right", as though they were a legitimite cousin to British Conservatism. I don't like the Conservative Party, wouldn't vote for them, and actively campaign to prevent them being elected. All that said, I would never deny they are legitimate players in the political field: there was once a racist fringe to the Tory Party but it has been more or less removed, and they are a party who respect the liberal democratic trappings of the state, and aim to achieve political goals which I might think are profoundly damaging to the country, but are not, of themselves, necessarily anti-democratic. Their ideology is one I disagree with, based on notions of human nature I don't subscribe too, but it is fairly consistent and reasonably clear, even when their policies are not (for the sake of balance, I will point out that much the same sentence could be said by a Tory about Labour).
The BNP, on the other hand, are a group of liars, thugs, fantacists, and thieves, in thrall to a series of dangerous and deranged conspiracy theories, including ones that are racist and antisemitic (also less racist ones like stuff to do with the construction of the pyramids - those ones are just stupid). The BNP will happily lie to anyone and everyone (such as when Nick Griffin suggested he wasn't a Holocaust denier on the Today programme) in the sure knowledge that their "true believers" know that it is is a lie and that they all think it is fine to lie to the BBC, and will still vote for them anyway. I don't think we should silence them, but I do think we should say loudly and often that they are criminals who have no idea how to achieve any of even the less lunatic policies they spout, because they aren't interested in improving anything, just in getting a spotlight shined on them. Their policies (beyond the racist ones) whether they appear left-wing or right-wing, are just window-dressing which could be changed at any moment.
They aren't left or right - they're just wrong.
Political decs: Labour Party
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But if the undemocratic arch-eurosceptic Klaus (president of a European parliamentary democracy) can't, or decides not to, humour UK Conservative eurosceptics for at least the next 7/8 months, your party will not have a chance to deliver a referendum on 'Lisbon' or its successor for perhaps a 'generation'. As a pro-europe Conservative, Justin, you wouldn't want the sort of referendum the europhobe rump would settle for? I'm sure Dave and his 'We're all in this together' wannabe Chancellor would have enough on their plate not to want to unpick post-lisbon Europe - whatever Boris may say, though he's no europhobe. They couldn't get him on that train out of Manchester fast enough!
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Is this mature politics?
No, it's clearly not and it also makes for incredibly boring politics. PR is what we need even if there's the threat of smaller extreme parties joining a future coalition.
Btw, tonight on TV (More4): When Boris met Dave. Blurb: 'This drama-doc looks at how their time at Eton and Oxford influenced Tory leader David Cameron and his contemporary Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London.'
Will they end a drunken night in some god forsaken lap dancing club on the outskirts of Oxford ?.... (a Bullingdon Club 'get to know the people' experience.)
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Do we really need the next PM to be nineteenth Etonian to be the leader of this country? This is why we need more realism and more choice in politics, not just old Etonians, Private and Grammar school graduates.
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Snzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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