On the PM.

Tony.Williams
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Tony.Williams »

Matt wrote: Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:30 pm I didn't watch either of the debates. Is that bad of me? Or is it reality TV with no relevance to my life?

Five people in a national debate:
In order to persuade a few hundred people who already know them well,
to let them be one of the two people I'm not allowed to vote for,
to lead the party I don't want to vote for.

Watching would simply be an exercise in emphasising my own impotence. Yet I'm told the the viewing figures were in excess of five million. Or in other words over 42 times as many people who have a hope of casting a vote for one of the participants to become leader.
True, but isn't that the position of the great majority of the people in a general election, thanks to FPTP? I recall reading that the outcome is usually decided by something like 60,000 voters in marginal seats - the rest have no effect on the result.

The only reason for taking an interest in the Tory leadership election is that the winner becomes PM with the urgent job of sorting out Brexit.
Matt
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Matt »

I'm not sure that any vote is wasted. For example, UKIP have been minows in Westminster but by taking votes away from the Tories they influenced policy enough to land us in the mess we see today. Maybe your vote for a third place party pushes them into second place and makes them the more viable recipient of protest votes in a subsequent election. Maybe your vote has no hope of overturning a rotten borough but you can strive towards getting onto that marginal list.

But not this vote. My vote isn't wasted because my vote doesn't exist. I don't get to participate in the decision the Tories are making on whether they want their deceitful, self serving incompetent leader to have a sense of humour or not. Sure I'm interested in the final result. Just disgusted by the tedious contortions the winner has to put themselves through to get there.
Tony.Williams
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Tony.Williams »

Well, once candidate A scores more votes than Candidate B, then any further votes for Candidate A are wasted, as they have no effect on the outcome (same applies between B and C etc). Only some form of proportional representation ensures that all of the votes count.
Croydon13013
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Croydon13013 »

Tony.Williams wrote: Thu Jun 20, 2019 2:51 pm Well, once candidate A scores more votes than Candidate B, then any further votes for Candidate A are wasted, as they have no effect on the outcome (same applies between B and C etc). Only some form of proportional representation ensures that all of the votes count.
But even with pure PR the same issue occurs, just less so. There's going to be a range of numbers that result in the same number of seats. And exactly the same number of votes can get a party a different number of seats depending on how the rest of the vote is split.

I agree with Matt. No vote is "wasted". When I stood in council elections (long, long ago) the Tories were more interested in the small number of votes for the Loony and the spoilt ballot papers than in the Labour votes. Small numbers of protest votes can have influence and are best not ignored or they can grow (Brexit Party).
thIS sIGnaTure iS an
Tony.Williams
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Tony.Williams »

Croydon13013 wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2019 8:52 pm
But even with pure PR the same issue occurs, just less so. There's going to be a range of numbers that result in the same number of seats. And exactly the same number of votes can get a party a different number of seats depending on how the rest of the vote is split.
True, but I would say "very much less so". Without going into the disadvantages of PR (every system has its pros and cons), it will at least result in a distribution of seats which quite closely reflects the views of the public.

I've been wondering whether some form of split membership might have advantages for the UK: most of the seats being constituency ones won on an FPTP basis as now (but fewer of them), but in addition a smaller number of seats allocated to parties on a straight PR basis, possibly with a 10% qualification requirement. One option is that the voting might be split, so that the public would have one vote for a constituency member, plus another vote for a party. So if there were 100 such party seats, a party which won 10% of the popular vote would be given 10 seats. That would address, to some degree, the problem of the representation of smaller parties with an even spread of support across the country.

It really comes down to what kind of governance we want. The present system is designed on a "winner takes all" basis, which has a number of problems, especially if the two major parties are very different in their polices and philosophies, leading to frequent and drastic policy changes as the government changes hands. The UK experienced this effect in the 1960s and 1970s - my formative years, and the gross inefficiencies caused by the frequent policy changes turned me against the system ever since (the newly elected government spends the first half of its tenure in undoing the work of the previous government, and the second half putting in place measures which will be undone by the next government). Another consequence is that our traditional parties only think of winning total control and are hopeless at negotiating the compromises needed in multi-party systems, as recent history has shown.
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Re: On the PM.

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Some wry amusement that after being carefully managed through the parliamentary selection process, with everyone subsequently saying that "the only person who can stop BoJo is himself" he immediately hits the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

I can't see this making much difference to his popularity with his base, though - I suspect that such antics are more or less expected of him, just as they were (and still are) with Trump: "He may be a shit but he's our shit" :roll:
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Re: On the PM.

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Among the newspaper observations concerning BoJo's tribulations I came across a comment that after frequent rows with the girlfriend, he would like a reconciliation with his wife: as "a friend" put it, he would like everything to go back to the way it was before. I assume that means with one wife and one girlfriend. Another journo observed that this was presumably the origin of his "have cake and eat it" preference. ;)
Matt
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Matt »

There's a joke about tarts there somewhere but I fear I'd be chucked out of Woke Club for even thinking of it.
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Matt »

First rule of Woke Club
Talking about Woke Club is problematic
Second rule of Woke Club
Woke Club must apologise immediately for talking about Woke Club
Tony.Williams
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Re: On the PM.

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Does the Woke Club offer joint membership with the Snowflake Club?
Croydon13013
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Croydon13013 »

Tony.Williams wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:16 am Among the newspaper observations concerning BoJo's tribulations I came across a comment that after frequent rows with the girlfriend, he would like a reconciliation with his wife: as "a friend" put it, he would like everything to go back to the way it was before. I assume that means with one wife and one girlfriend. Another journo observed that this was presumably the origin of his "have cake and eat it" preference. ;)
My understanding (and this could be complete bollocks but it seems more likely than alternatives) is that THE argument was because the girlfriend had a rummage through his laptop and discovered that he was trying to reconcile with the wife and had offered to move her into No 10.
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Croydon13013
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Croydon13013 »

Tony.Williams wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:22 am I've been wondering whether some form of split membership might have advantages for the UK: most of the seats being constituency ones won on an FPTP basis as now (but fewer of them), but in addition a smaller number of seats allocated to parties on a straight PR basis, possibly with a 10% qualification requirement. One option is that the voting might be split, so that the public would have one vote for a constituency member, plus another vote for a party. So if there were 100 such party seats, a party which won 10% of the popular vote would be given 10 seats. That would address, to some degree, the problem of the representation of smaller parties with an even spread of support across the country.

It really comes down to what kind of governance we want. The present system is designed on a "winner takes all" basis, which has a number of problems, especially if the two major parties are very different in their polices and philosophies, leading to frequent and drastic policy changes as the government changes hands. The UK experienced this effect in the 1960s and 1970s - my formative years, and the gross inefficiencies caused by the frequent policy changes turned me against the system ever since (the newly elected government spends the first half of its tenure in undoing the work of the previous government, and the second half putting in place measures which will be undone by the next government). Another consequence is that our traditional parties only think of winning total control and are hopeless at negotiating the compromises needed in multi-party systems, as recent history has shown.
One way of achieving some of the above would be Single Transferable Vote for the Commons and pure PR for the replacement Lords. The Lords/Upper House would therefore represent the country far more fairly; all the littlish parties getting something, regional parties like the SNP getting far less, nobody is likely to ever have 50%. The Commons would be much fairer with STV while retaining the advantages of the current system (such as having a personal politician to contact).
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Tony.Williams
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Re: On the PM.

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Croydon13013 wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 6:29 pm
Tony.Williams wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2019 9:22 am I've been wondering whether some form of split membership might have advantages for the UK: most of the seats being constituency ones won on an FPTP basis as now (but fewer of them), but in addition a smaller number of seats allocated to parties on a straight PR basis, possibly with a 10% qualification requirement. One option is that the voting might be split, so that the public would have one vote for a constituency member, plus another vote for a party. So if there were 100 such party seats, a party which won 10% of the popular vote would be given 10 seats. That would address, to some degree, the problem of the representation of smaller parties with an even spread of support across the country.

It really comes down to what kind of governance we want. The present system is designed on a "winner takes all" basis, which has a number of problems, especially if the two major parties are very different in their polices and philosophies, leading to frequent and drastic policy changes as the government changes hands. The UK experienced this effect in the 1960s and 1970s - my formative years, and the gross inefficiencies caused by the frequent policy changes turned me against the system ever since (the newly elected government spends the first half of its tenure in undoing the work of the previous government, and the second half putting in place measures which will be undone by the next government). Another consequence is that our traditional parties only think of winning total control and are hopeless at negotiating the compromises needed in multi-party systems, as recent history has shown.
One way of achieving some of the above would be Single Transferable Vote for the Commons and pure PR for the replacement Lords. The Lords/Upper House would therefore represent the country far more fairly; all the littlish parties getting something, regional parties like the SNP getting far less, nobody is likely to ever have 50%. The Commons would be much fairer with STV while retaining the advantages of the current system (such as having a personal politician to contact).
That would certainly be a big improvement. I can't help thinking, however, that greater tensions would arise between the two Houses. At the moment, the Commons can override the Lords as the latter has no democratic legitimacy. If both Houses had such legitimacy (albeit on different bases) then there would be the potential for fireworks. Worth taking a close look at how the US system works (or not, as the case may be).
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Tony.Williams »

Croydon13013 wrote: Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:55 pm
Tony.Williams wrote: Mon Jun 24, 2019 10:16 am Among the newspaper observations concerning BoJo's tribulations I came across a comment that after frequent rows with the girlfriend, he would like a reconciliation with his wife: as "a friend" put it, he would like everything to go back to the way it was before. I assume that means with one wife and one girlfriend. Another journo observed that this was presumably the origin of his "have cake and eat it" preference. ;)
My understanding (and this could be complete bollocks but it seems more likely than alternatives) is that THE argument was because the girlfriend had a rummage through his laptop and discovered that he was trying to reconcile with the wife and had offered to move her into No 10.
That would not surprise me. No doubt further examination of his correspondence would show that the great offices of state have been promised to various individuals several times over...
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Re: On the PM.

Post by Tony.Williams »

I am increasingly baffled by the insanity which seems to be gripping the Tory candidates as they try to outdo each other in offering goodies which are completely unaffordable, as well as planning an approach to Brexit which is either impossible or relies on the cooperation of an EU which has already flatly rejected their ideas.

The question is: which one of them will be the first to promise a captive breeding programme for unicorns to ensure that everyone in the country becomes millionaires? Of course, the second part of that might well happen, if the value of the pound collapses....
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