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'far superior D'Hondt system'?!?

Fuck the fuck off. Right off. D'Hondt is possibly the worst electoral system ever devised.

It creates arbitrary cliff-edges and almost always relies on fixed lists that can make it impossible to elect a candidate you like without also electing one you don't like, and the vote for the one you like risks electing the one you don't like but not the one you like!

Awful, awful, horrible manky system! It completely devalues the individual candidate; sacrificed upon the altar of party machine and pisses and shits upon all that is good about politics.

(And it's not even particularly proportional - in the last UK Euro-elections, the LibDems got twice as many votes as the Tories but four times as many seats under D'Hondt.)

I like Milei a lot, but I'd like him even more if he spared the poor Argentinians the abject nonsense of this apology for an electoral system.

STV is better still, but D'Hondt is better than FPTP in a multiparty system, particularly if there is an open Primary to set the order of candidates. I think this is the case in Argentina normally, but not this time for some reason. D'Hondt works best if there are larger constituencies, so more proportional in BA region than the smaller provinces.

KnightOut overtes his case, which comes down to an unrealistic idea of most voters selecting candidates rather than parties. I was a reasonably successful candidate, turning a safe Tory seat into a Labour marginal, but I was never under any illusions that most voters were weighing up the virtues of the candidates - the difference was due to the minority who did.

Most people vote for a preferred party, and it's reasonable that the result should reflect that.

No it is not. Whatever the voters think they are voting for, they want to be able to dump their MP if they turn out to be worse than expected. Something that is very difficult to do with D'hondt if the MP is liked by the party.

Moreover in the D'hondt system the seat belongs to the party not the candidate. What price rebellion under such circumstances. That may not be a problem for a 'my party right or wrong' MP like yourself but it is something we should be fighting against all the way.

Doesn't work that way in Holyrood. A number of MSPs changed party or went to independent even while on the list. And at least one fought an election thereafter and won (Dennis Canavan of late lamented memory).

The exception rather than the rule.

FPTP is just a closed list d’Hondt election with the constituency only electing one legislator.

No it isn't. In FPTP the electorate chooses who they elect. In D'hondt that choice is made by the parties.

But the point is that, as I have said many times on here before, we should be reducing - breaking would be preferable - the power of the parties not increasing it. The way you do this is through reform in Parliament. Reduce the ability of parties to blackmail or bribe the MPs to vote along party lines. Start by making every vote a free vote. The Government wins by force of argument and persuasion not by threat. D'hondt and any other system that assigns the seat by party increases the power of parties, not reduces it.

STV in multi-member constituencies is better at that.

As I said I prefer AV but could live with STV. As long as the parties have now place in it. We should not formalise voting for parties.

'far superior D'Hondt system'?!?

Fuck the fuck off. Right off. D'Hondt is possibly the worst electoral system ever devised.

It creates arbitrary cliff-edges and almost always relies on fixed lists that can make it impossible to elect a candidate you like without also electing one you don't like, and the vote for the one you like risks electing the one you don't like but not the one you like!

Awful, awful, horrible manky system! It completely devalues the individual candidate; sacrificed upon the altar of party machine and pisses and shits upon all that is good about politics.

(And it's not even particularly proportional - in the last UK Euro-elections, the LibDems got twice as many votes as the Tories but four times as many seats under D'Hondt.)

I like Milei a lot, but I'd like him even more if he spared the poor Argentinians the abject nonsense of this apology for an electoral system.

STV is better still, but D'Hondt is better than FPTP in a multiparty system, particularly if there is an open Primary to set the order of candidates. I think this is the case in Argentina normally, but not this time for some reason. D'Hondt works best if there are larger constituencies, so more proportional in BA region than the smaller provinces.

KnightOut overtes his case, which comes down to an unrealistic idea of most voters selecting candidates rather than parties. I was a reasonably successful candidate, turning a safe Tory seat into a Labour marginal, but I was never under any illusions that most voters were weighing up the virtues of the candidates - the difference was due to the minority who did.

Most people vote for a preferred party, and it's reasonable that the result should reflect that.

No it is not. Whatever the voters think they are voting for, they want to be able to dump their MP if they turn out to be worse than expected. Something that is very difficult to do with D'hondt if the MP is liked by the party.

Moreover in the D'hondt system the seat belongs to the party not the candidate. What price rebellion under such circumstances. That may not be a problem for a 'my party right or wrong' MP like yourself but it is something we should be fighting against all the way.

Doesn't work that way in Holyrood. A number of MSPs changed party or went to independent even while on the list. And at least one fought an election thereafter and won (Dennis Canavan of late lamented memory).

The exception rather than the rule.

FPTP is just a closed list d’Hondt election with the constituency only electing one legislator.

No it isn't. In FPTP the electorate chooses who they elect. In D'hondt that choice is made by the parties.

But the point is that, as I have said many times on here before, we should be reducing - breaking would be preferable - the power of the parties not increasing it. The way you do this is through reform in Parliament. Reduce the ability of parties to blackmail or bribe the MPs to vote along party lines. Start by making every vote a free vote. The Government wins by force of argument and persuasion not by threat. D'hondt and any other system that assigns the seat by party increases the power of parties, not reduces it.

Who picks who the Conservative Party candidate is going to be under FPTP? Why, it’s the Conservative Party. Who picks the Labour candidate. The Labour Party. Parties pick candidates under FPTP. You need some sort of ordinal system to break the parties control over that, like STV (bigger constituencies helping), an open list system or maybe primaries.

'far superior D'Hondt system'?!?

Fuck the fuck off. Right off. D'Hondt is possibly the worst electoral system ever devised.

It creates arbitrary cliff-edges and almost always relies on fixed lists that can make it impossible to elect a candidate you like without also electing one you don't like, and the vote for the one you like risks electing the one you don't like but not the one you like!

Awful, awful, horrible manky system! It completely devalues the individual candidate; sacrificed upon the altar of party machine and pisses and shits upon all that is good about politics.

(And it's not even particularly proportional - in the last UK Euro-elections, the LibDems got twice as many votes as the Tories but four times as many seats under D'Hondt.)

I like Milei a lot, but I'd like him even more if he spared the poor Argentinians the abject nonsense of this apology for an electoral system.

STV is better still, but D'Hondt is better than FPTP in a multiparty system, particularly if there is an open Primary to set the order of candidates. I think this is the case in Argentina normally, but not this time for some reason. D'Hondt works best if there are larger constituencies, so more proportional in BA region than the smaller provinces.

KnightOut overtes his case, which comes down to an unrealistic idea of most voters selecting candidates rather than parties. I was a reasonably successful candidate, turning a safe Tory seat into a Labour marginal, but I was never under any illusions that most voters were weighing up the virtues of the candidates - the difference was due to the minority who did.

Most people vote for a preferred party, and it's reasonable that the result should reflect that.

No it is not. Whatever the voters think they are voting for, they want to be able to dump their MP if they turn out to be worse than expected. Something that is very difficult to do with D'hondt if the MP is liked by the party.

Moreover in the D'hondt system the seat belongs to the party not the candidate. What price rebellion under such circumstances. That may not be a problem for a 'my party right or wrong' MP like yourself but it is something we should be fighting against all the way.

Doesn't work that way in Holyrood. A number of MSPs changed party or went to independent even while on the list. And at least one fought an election thereafter and won (Dennis Canavan of late lamented memory).

The exception rather than the rule.

FPTP is just a closed list d’Hondt election with the constituency only electing one legislator.

And in many (most?) cases the winner is a foregone conclusion. Even in the exceptional circumstances of the last election, and with a candidate who had had some, shall we say, personal difficulties, the blue rosette trumped any other considerations in determining the outcome. Had I wanted to vote for the party, but against the man in first position on the list, my dilemma would have been exactly the same as for the theoretical d'Hondt voter above.

At least in the case of the theoretical d'Hondt voter, it is possible to cast a vote that may influence who else might be elected in additional to the candidate you don't want. No chance of that where I am. Idiot in the Blue Rosette wins every time, and nobody else has a chance.

(I suspect next time, if nothing changes in between, it will be the Idiot in the Light Blue Rosette)

Was this really the limit of Sunak's ambition ?
Why did he even bother.

Rishi Sunak to the Times: "Clearly, I miss the levers of power. I’m proud I brought in the smoking ban for the young. I miss playing cricket in the garden with the England cricket team and the staff. But not much else."
https://x.com/JAHeale/status/1982114041196609600

It was a nice interview piece but I thought that too about that bit. I'd have thought he'd be proud of steadying the ship after Truss pointed it at the rocks.

I suspect history will turn out to look more favourably on Sunak than it will on Truss, Johnson, May and Cameron.

Sunak screwed up HS2 which is going to have long term economic impact.

I suspect he won't be looked as favourably as Brown, Blair or Major..

To be fair to Sunak (and I was angry with him too) it was Johnson and Shapps that doomed HS2 by scrapping the north eastern leg to Leeds and HS3 from Newcastle to Liverpool, without which HS2 couldn't function.

The Integrated Rail Plan was a deliberate forgery, as it was undeliverable, and unless he is as stupid as he comes across (which seems improbable) Shapps knew that when he presented it to the Commons. Sunak was left to clear up the mess, which he did badly.

Where he absolutely screwed up and can't be excused was in the highly illegal fire sale of the land that had been purchased to ensure that nobody else could ever build it - a move so dumb even Cummings would have blinked at it.

Edited for a muddle on the alphabet soup.

Cute that you think there was ever a snowball's chance in hell of the northern leg actually getting built.

It was doomed years ago, the writing was on the wall the second it was agreed to begin construction in the South and only start investing in the North once the London leg was complete.

The only chance there would have been for the northern leg of HS2 is for them to either be built concurrently or to do the northern leg first and the London one last.

Once the London leg was past the point of no return, the Treasury no longer had a reason to keep up the pretence of investing in the North.

Sunak just said the quiet part out loud.

Sigh.

It was not possible to build the northern leg first because without the southern leg, there would have been nowhere for the trains to actually go to. The northern section of the WCML is congested but the southern was ram packed.

I agree the Treasury are either crooks or morons, and I would like to see them relocated to Darlington or Carlisle at which point I think thing ps would radically alter. But engineering reasons made your proposed solution impossible.

Nowhere?

So you couldn't have trains going between say Preston, Manchester, Stoke, Leeds and Birmingham without the southern leg? Why on earth not?

The idea that London is the only place that isn't nowhere is precisely why the northern leg was doomed from the start.

Because you can't fill the northern leg without the traffic to the south.

For good or for ill (I'd argue principally for ill) most traffic in England and Wales flows to London. Not Stoke or Birmingham.

And you couldn't put the extra traffic to the south without more tracks.

That is not true. Most journeys within the North West remain within the North West, and if it were better connected then there would be even more.

And building the Northern leg first, or concurrently, is not the same as saying never build the London leg, whereas by building the London one first ...

Yes, poor connections in the north are just taken as a given.

Someone recently noted that Sheffield and Manchester are the two largest near neighbour cities in Europe without either decent road or rail connections.

Meanwhile, we're building a new line between Cambridge and Oxford.

Last time I was getting the train from Glasgow to Sheffield - it was cheaper and quicker to get the train down to London, then back up to Sheffield than to just book a 'direct' train that was more 'as the crow flies'.

Glasgow to Sheffield is Cross Country. They are the fare setter. They set high fares to discourage too many people from travelling on their inadequately short trains.

Worst UK train operator IMHO.

.

I know it is a crowded fielded but Trump has posted something truly batshit crazy, which will cost lives.

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1982544010054164961/photo/1

When and why did the right wing decide self professed medical expertise was the way to go?

Only a matter of time before Reform go that route (if not already) and the Tories follow suit. My most Trumpian acquaintance is all over it already.

It's long bubbling on the American right but Covid sent them mad.

Plus they've been conditioned to accept every lie Trump utters.

It predates him, but he has demonstrated he can change their minds, he does not simply follow on all issues, so on this one he's playing to the gallery.

And we're a long time past anyone on his side questioning anything he says, even inconsequential stuff.

It’s actually quite difficult to obtain the chicken pox vaccine for your child in this country. Until 2017 Hepatitis B was a private vaccine given upon request if you were travelling to high risk areas. Breaking the mmr into separate shots is an inconvenience the Blairs reportedly put upon themselves. I’ve not a doctor but I’ve not heard of anyone dying because of paracetamol avoidance. But yeah we hate Trump! Boooo to Trump!

The really dangerous political intervention of recent years into the vaccine debate was forcing the Covid vaccine onto the young, for very unclear net health benefit, even when it was known it did not provide effective herd immunity either.

Don't be a low IQ moron.

You're not a doctor, I know plenty who exasperated by Trump and RFK Jr.

I have also praised Trump on this thread for his initial approach to the vaccine.

Trump's comments today will be seen even more damaging then when he suggested drinking bleach to combat Covid.

'far superior D'Hondt system'?!?

Fuck the fuck off. Right off. D'Hondt is possibly the worst electoral system ever devised.

It creates arbitrary cliff-edges and almost always relies on fixed lists that can make it impossible to elect a candidate you like without also electing one you don't like, and the vote for the one you like risks electing the one you don't like but not the one you like!

Awful, awful, horrible manky system! It completely devalues the individual candidate; sacrificed upon the altar of party machine and pisses and shits upon all that is good about politics.

(And it's not even particularly proportional - in the last UK Euro-elections, the LibDems got twice as many votes as the Tories but four times as many seats under D'Hondt.)

I like Milei a lot, but I'd like him even more if he spared the poor Argentinians the abject nonsense of this apology for an electoral system.

STV is better still, but D'Hondt is better than FPTP in a multiparty system, particularly if there is an open Primary to set the order of candidates. I think this is the case in Argentina normally, but not this time for some reason. D'Hondt works best if there are larger constituencies, so more proportional in BA region than the smaller provinces.

KnightOut overtes his case, which comes down to an unrealistic idea of most voters selecting candidates rather than parties. I was a reasonably successful candidate, turning a safe Tory seat into a Labour marginal, but I was never under any illusions that most voters were weighing up the virtues of the candidates - the difference was due to the minority who did.

Most people vote for a preferred party, and it's reasonable that the result should reflect that.

No it is not. Whatever the voters think they are voting for, they want to be able to dump their MP if they turn out to be worse than expected. Something that is very difficult to do with D'hondt if the MP is liked by the party.

Moreover in the D'hondt system the seat belongs to the party not the candidate. What price rebellion under such circumstances. That may not be a problem for a 'my party right or wrong' MP like yourself but it is something we should be fighting against all the way.

Doesn't work that way in Holyrood. A number of MSPs changed party or went to independent even while on the list. And at least one fought an election thereafter and won (Dennis Canavan of late lamented memory).

The exception rather than the rule.

FPTP is just a closed list d’Hondt election with the constituency only electing one legislator.

Quite obviously most people vote for the party, not the individual. How else do we have "safe seats"?

'far superior D'Hondt system'?!?

Fuck the fuck off. Right off. D'Hondt is possibly the worst electoral system ever devised.

It creates arbitrary cliff-edges and almost always relies on fixed lists that can make it impossible to elect a candidate you like without also electing one you don't like, and the vote for the one you like risks electing the one you don't like but not the one you like!

Awful, awful, horrible manky system! It completely devalues the individual candidate; sacrificed upon the altar of party machine and pisses and shits upon all that is good about politics.

(And it's not even particularly proportional - in the last UK Euro-elections, the LibDems got twice as many votes as the Tories but four times as many seats under D'Hondt.)

I like Milei a lot, but I'd like him even more if he spared the poor Argentinians the abject nonsense of this apology for an electoral system.

STV is better still, but D'Hondt is better than FPTP in a multiparty system, particularly if there is an open Primary to set the order of candidates. I think this is the case in Argentina normally, but not this time for some reason. D'Hondt works best if there are larger constituencies, so more proportional in BA region than the smaller provinces.

KnightOut overtes his case, which comes down to an unrealistic idea of most voters selecting candidates rather than parties. I was a reasonably successful candidate, turning a safe Tory seat into a Labour marginal, but I was never under any illusions that most voters were weighing up the virtues of the candidates - the difference was due to the minority who did.

Most people vote for a preferred party, and it's reasonable that the result should reflect that.

No it is not. Whatever the voters think they are voting for, they want to be able to dump their MP if they turn out to be worse than expected. Something that is very difficult to do with D'hondt if the MP is liked by the party.

Moreover in the D'hondt system the seat belongs to the party not the candidate. What price rebellion under such circumstances. That may not be a problem for a 'my party right or wrong' MP like yourself but it is something we should be fighting against all the way.

Doesn't work that way in Holyrood. A number of MSPs changed party or went to independent even while on the list. And at least one fought an election thereafter and won (Dennis Canavan of late lamented memory).

The exception rather than the rule.

FPTP is just a closed list d’Hondt election with the constituency only electing one legislator.

No it isn't. In FPTP the electorate chooses who they elect. In D'hondt that choice is made by the parties.

But the point is that, as I have said many times on here before, we should be reducing - breaking would be preferable - the power of the parties not increasing it. The way you do this is through reform in Parliament. Reduce the ability of parties to blackmail or bribe the MPs to vote along party lines. Start by making every vote a free vote. The Government wins by force of argument and persuasion not by threat. D'hondt and any other system that assigns the seat by party increases the power of parties, not reduces it.

I was eating at a hotel in Greece when, upon learning I was British, the nice Belgian lady next to me immediately asked if i had supported Brexit, despite us not exchanging words until that moment. I thought such things only happened in obviously made up twitter stories.

Maybe all those Albanian taxi driver 'testimonials' weren't bullsh*t after all?

I'm in Italy every few weeks and no one has ever asked me this.

Hence my complete surprise.

I tried to swerve the question but they seemed insistent so i took the coward's way out and just implied I'd been against ftom the start and chuckled appreciatively at a joke about angry Brits and passport lines.

I think that eventually no one would admit to voting for Brexit was a bit of a meme..

A hundred years from now, I doubt we'll be able to find person who would admit to being a Brexit voter.

At least one poster (actually several) who definitely voted for Brexit will have their consciousness uploaded to AI, and will still be posting about it. Constantly.

Funny given just about the only person who continually harps on about Brexit from either side is... you. The rest of us have moved on.

I am not the one that mentioned it

You are the one hapring on about it and trying to make a political point out of someone's holiday anecdote. You are also the one who never misses an opportuity to harp on about it. Brexit is living rent free in your head.

Brexit continues to make life worse than it used to be on a daily basis, but it seems I am living rent free in your head

I dont know anything about you other than you seem to think and talk about Brexit every day of your life.

I know it is a crowded fielded but Trump has posted something truly batshit crazy, which will cost lives.

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1982544010054164961/photo/1

When and why did the right wing decide self professed medical expertise was the way to go?

Only a matter of time before Reform go that route (if not already) and the Tories follow suit. My most Trumpian acquaintance is all over it already.

It's long bubbling on the American right but Covid sent them mad.

The Blairs were fucking dangerous on vaccines

Nothing remotely compared to Trump and RFK Jnr.

Blair: not as bad as Trump

What a glorious legacy