I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
That's a glass-half-empty view. How many people voted for the 2010-15 government? Over half in my view.
Volkswagen Group shares down 5% this morning. I wonder why that might be…?
Ah... Just bought an 'approved' used Seat fossil burner, taking it back Thursday for a couple of things to be fixed under the warranty (phoned yesterday to raise the issues). So that probably explains it
Please raise the issue with the dealer, that the VW CEO is a barely-disguised Nazi who thinks we should be appeasing Putin.
Diess somehow survived emissionsgate and even contrived to make VW prosper off it by pivoting to EVs so being insufficiently Russophobic isn't going to harm him.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
This is a fundamental part of the voting process for me: you must be able to vote for a named candidate.
Say I was a voter for party Y. I am a believer in pro-choice when it comes to abortion, as generally does Party Y - but it is not a big issue for them. They then inflict a candidate on me who is vehemently anti-abortion.
Or any other issue people feel strongly about.
Before any election, I try and look at the views of the candidates. It matters.
I don't agree with your view per se, but STV would mean you could rank all the candidates in the constituency and then vote accordingly, and as far down as you wanted.
Similarly you could just vote 1,2,3 for the Tories only if you wanted, and no further.
The statement from Mark Drakeford, the Labour leader, and Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru leader, says:
The Senedd should have 96 members - up from the current 60 It should be elected using closed proportional lists with integrated statutory gender quotas and mandatory zipping - which requires parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates and alternating between men and women when preparing their candidate lists Seats should be allocated to parties using the D’Hondt formula (which is the current formula for electing members of the Senedd)
Do we know what is to happen if a candidate is turfed out of the party under which s/he got a list seat? That was not resolved at Holyrood before it happened (the person stayed).
Just thinking, more generally, the Tories must be really panicking in Wales if they feel the need to have a d'Hondt system in order to survive at all, as in Scotland.
Also - for those of us who can't bear the thought of forever being haunted by the Drake, Mr Davies ART, etc., fill in gap for your worst dreams:
bear in mind that all they have to do is to put themselves at the head of the list for a suitable area and they can in practice never be voted out even if not one would win a FPTP. That's how a lot of ScoTories, including some of those who constituted what Ms Davidson pretentiously called the Opposition Front Bench (as if there was one at Holyrood!), managed to stay MSPs at all. .
The Sxcottish experience is that dHondt is a Tory Preservation Order.
Tories are voting against this. Drakeford could lose it as his party won't be keen on the end of FPTP portions as that's the only way they get a majority
Charles gives his first King's speech in effect, the first of many to comeas he stands in for the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament. William there too to learn the ropes
Unelected. Under a mediaeval system. Divine Right, (c) Henry VIII and Charles I.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
typical soundbite
Merely illustrating that different people want different things from an electoral system - and since all the alternatives have their own flaws (Arrow's theorem again) it's difficult to get a majority in favour of a specific named alternative to FPTP.
I wouldn't take too much notice of immediate polls. Even with Boris / Tories we saw he defied gravity for ages, yes partygate finally trashed him, but there was a build up of scandal after scandal after scandal with some ups and downs in the numbers.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
This is a fundamental part of the voting process for me: you must be able to vote for a named candidate.
Say I was a voter for party Y. I am a believer in pro-choice when it comes to abortion, as generally does Party Y - but it is not a big issue for them. They then inflict a candidate on me who is vehemently anti-abortion.
Or any other issue people feel strongly about.
Before any election, I try and look at the views of the candidates. It matters.
Indeed so. It’s fundamental that the people choose those who represent them, by name rather than affiliation.
I hate party lists with a passion, it means that prospective politicians need to appeal primarily to their own party, rather than to the electorate as a whole. I’d like the choice of, say, Dan Hannan, Ken Clark or Jacob Rees-Mogg, rather than letting the party decide in which order they should be elected.
And? He could be removed the coterie of wastrels can't.
I'm so glad you have that much faith in the quality of our politicians that you think having more of them is a good idea.
Some of our politicians are brilliant. I've got a lot of time Hunt, Starmer, Sturgeon, Davis. Just because we get twats like Boris, Corbyn, Salmond, Patel, doesn't mean they're all bad.
Oh fer fucks sake. Starmer. Not even starmer’s mum would call Starmer “a brilliant politician”
Salmond on the other hand WAS quite brilliant. Nearly single handedly broke up one of the grandest old nations in the world, pretty much by sheer force of personality
He is now a corpulent sleaze bag but all political careers end thusly
Previous post highlights why UK is so F***ed up, not one of the supposed good ones has ever done anything other than line their own pockets , lie , cheat or be incompetent.
Yes. A pretty desperate list
Vanishingly few politicians are “brilliant”. In the last 40 years of British political life I’d suggest salmond and thatcher. With the possibility of early Blair. That’s it
Hate to say it, but when you start to look back wistfully on how things were better back in the day, it's a sign
There are much bigger signs than that, my friend
I met some old pals for a drink the other day. I was shocked to see one of them - only a year or two older than me - sporting A HEARING AID
I can accept spectacles. Happens to many in later middle age. But a hearing aid? I associate that with absolute old age
I nearly abandoned him as a friend there and then! But I relented due to being middle aged and mellow
Time to get your order in for the little blue pills...
I’ve been on the viagra since my early 30s. I don’t need them - generally - I actually LIKE them. Adds to the pleasure
This is quite common. They are taken recreationally
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
typical soundbite
Merely illustrating that different people want different things from an electoral system - and since all the alternatives have their own flaws (Arrow's theorem again) it's difficult to get a majority in favour of a specific named alternative to FPTP.
The irony being that under FPTP you don't need a majority of people at any level of the process..
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
A bit like Brexit then. Not really worth the pointless chaos, despite 52% wanting it.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
Interesting quirk about the British-administered Northern Ireland election:
In no less than 12 of 18 of the five-seat constituencies, the top 5 first-preference candidates were elected.
it's not a quirk, that's what generally matters in the majority of constituencies. I saw an analysis of the Republic elections over the last few years and that was invariably the case.
So why bother with STV?
The mechanism of STV ends up ranking the candidates on 1st Preferences, and parties who put up say 2 or 3 candidates in a 5 member seat usually enhances their place in the ranking compared to putting in 5 candidates. In a 5 memebr seat candidates need to get 16.7% of the vote by either 1st preferences or after transfers from below (or above in surpluses).
A so-called proportional system where the number of seats you win depends on how many candidates you put up.
Nonsense on stilts.
You are deliberately misrepresenting the rules of STV. As mentioned earlier, the order of 1st preference votes doesn't matter, the candidates will be elected if they achieve a quota of votes. It doesn't matter when they do it, so the order is irrelevant. It would be ridiculous for a party to put up 5 candidates in a 5 member seat as they would need to achieve 100% of the vote to get them all elected. To make things easier for all concerned it is normal to put up less candidates than FPTP, which is a good thing. Less candidates required overall. Smaller parties are obviously going to put up fewer to concentrate resources. The most likeable aspect is you can prioritise candidates within your party, which d'Hondt doesn't let you. Candidates who don't achieve a quota on their own have to be transfer friendly to progress.
I'm not misrepresenting the rules. Each party has to figure out the optimum number of candidates to put up to maximise their chances of maximising the number of seats they win.
Charles gives his first King's speech in effect, the first of many to comeas he stands in for the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament. William there too to learn the ropes
Unelected. Under a mediaeval system. Divine Right, (c) Henry VIII and Charles I.
So what we have a constitutional apolitical monarchy the whole point of which is it us unelected no matter now much far left Nationalists like you whinge
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
Nobody votes for a government in that way unless they list out the cabinet on the ballot paper. How do I vote out Sajid Javid?
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
As opposed to 100% of the power based on 40% of the vote.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
That's a glass-half-empty view. How many people voted for the 2010-15 government? Over half in my view.
Zero. You've fallen into a logical fallacy, I'm afraid.
(Support for party A + support for party B ) ≠ support for (party A + party B ).
Charles gives his first King's speech in effect, the first of many to comeas he stands in for the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament. William there too to learn the ropes
Unelected. Under a mediaeval system. Divine Right, (c) Henry VIII and Charles I.
So what we have a constitutional apolitical monarchy the whole point of which is it us unelected no matter now much far left Nationalists like you whinge
When you've finished reporting Genghis Khan to the Special Branch as a dangerous commie, you might want to read up about the Duke of Rothesay and his attempts to intervene in parliamentary legislation.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
Surely resulting in nearly all cases in a government that 50%+ have voted for?
(maybe under 50% depending on thresholds for representation at all, but higher % than most FPTP governments - the 2010 coalition was one of the few that >50% voted for)
And? He could be removed the coterie of wastrels can't.
I'm so glad you have that much faith in the quality of our politicians that you think having more of them is a good idea.
Some of our politicians are brilliant. I've got a lot of time Hunt, Starmer, Sturgeon, Davis. Just because we get twats like Boris, Corbyn, Salmond, Patel, doesn't mean they're all bad.
Oh fer fucks sake. Starmer. Not even starmer’s mum would call Starmer “a brilliant politician”
Salmond on the other hand WAS quite brilliant. Nearly single handedly broke up one of the grandest old nations in the world, pretty much by sheer force of personality
He is now a corpulent sleaze bag but all political careers end thusly
Previous post highlights why UK is so F***ed up, not one of the supposed good ones has ever done anything other than line their own pockets , lie , cheat or be incompetent.
Yes. A pretty desperate list
Vanishingly few politicians are “brilliant”. In the last 40 years of British political life I’d suggest salmond and thatcher. With the possibility of early Blair. That’s it
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
It is not happening, the Tories and LDs back the monarchy. Starmer now backs a reformed monarchy. There is far more consensus amongst the parties in favour of keeping the monarchy than for keeping Brexit, especially hard Brexit.
Republicans lost their one chance in a generation to change it if the republican Corbyn had won the 2017 or 2019 general elections when he lost in 2017 and was trounced in 2019.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
No, the government in total would be at least 50%.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
Pathetic answer. Maybe it's time for open Primaries like in the US? to choose the candidates in each area.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
It is not happening, the Tories and LDs back the monarchy. Starmer now backs a reformed monarchy. There is far more consensus amongst the parties in favour of keeping the monarchy than for keeping Brexit, especially hard Brexit.
Republicans lost their one chance in a generation to change it if the republican Corbyn had won the 2017 or 2019 general elections when he lost in 2017 and was trounced in 2019.
Hey, what's this generation business?
I'd hate to go shopping with you. "If we don't buy this Buckfast British Wine today, that's our last chance for a generation!!"
Charles gives his first King's speech in effect, the first of many to comeas he stands in for the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament. William there too to learn the ropes
Does he ever crave to appear on the cover of the Daily Mail. Dressed in his Mother's bridal veil, though? I think we have a right to know.
And? He could be removed the coterie of wastrels can't.
I'm so glad you have that much faith in the quality of our politicians that you think having more of them is a good idea.
Some of our politicians are brilliant. I've got a lot of time Hunt, Starmer, Sturgeon, Davis. Just because we get twats like Boris, Corbyn, Salmond, Patel, doesn't mean they're all bad.
Oh fer fucks sake. Starmer. Not even starmer’s mum would call Starmer “a brilliant politician”
Salmond on the other hand WAS quite brilliant. Nearly single handedly broke up one of the grandest old nations in the world, pretty much by sheer force of personality
He is now a corpulent sleaze bag but all political careers end thusly
Previous post highlights why UK is so F***ed up, not one of the supposed good ones has ever done anything other than line their own pockets , lie , cheat or be incompetent.
Yes. A pretty desperate list
Vanishingly few politicians are “brilliant”. In the last 40 years of British political life I’d suggest salmond and thatcher. With the possibility of early Blair. That’s it
Tam Dalyell
Robin Cook
Michael Foot in the early years
Enoch Powell in Parliament
Margaret Thatcher
Frank Field
Peter Hain
That took me 2 minutes. It's not hard.
Foot barely gets in the last 40 years. His early years were the Attlee government Powell is well over 40 years ago for when he had any relevance
And? He could be removed the coterie of wastrels can't.
I'm so glad you have that much faith in the quality of our politicians that you think having more of them is a good idea.
Some of our politicians are brilliant. I've got a lot of time Hunt, Starmer, Sturgeon, Davis. Just because we get twats like Boris, Corbyn, Salmond, Patel, doesn't mean they're all bad.
Oh fer fucks sake. Starmer. Not even starmer’s mum would call Starmer “a brilliant politician”
Salmond on the other hand WAS quite brilliant. Nearly single handedly broke up one of the grandest old nations in the world, pretty much by sheer force of personality
He is now a corpulent sleaze bag but all political careers end thusly
Previous post highlights why UK is so F***ed up, not one of the supposed good ones has ever done anything other than line their own pockets , lie , cheat or be incompetent.
Yes. A pretty desperate list
Vanishingly few politicians are “brilliant”. In the last 40 years of British political life I’d suggest salmond and thatcher. With the possibility of early Blair. That’s it
Tam Dalyell
Robin Cook
Michael Foot in the early years
Enoch Powell in Parliament
Margaret Thatcher
Frank Field
Peter Hain
That took me 2 minutes. It's not hard.
In terms of intellectual distinction of the last forty years, I would say possibly :
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Yeah agreed. They have pressed self-destruct. When Her Maj goes all hell will break loose. Further murk about Prince Andrew's fiddling around, links to dirrrrty regimes and dodgy dealings, the hounding and death of Diana, the persecution of Meghan together with the racism. It will go on and on.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
That's true, but it's not quite the same thing - in a party list system you can never get the party's second choice candidate without also getting the first choice candidate. In FPTP you can, in theory, if they go off in a huff and stand as an independent (eg (yeah, I know it was SV, but the same would have applied under FPTP) the Labour selection for the 2000 London Mayoral election).
Charles gives his first King's speech in effect, the first of many to comeas he stands in for the Queen at the State Opening of Parliament. William there too to learn the ropes
Does he ever crave to appear on the cover of the Daily Mail. Dressed in his Mother's bridal veil, though? I think we have a right to know.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
This is a fundamental part of the voting process for me: you must be able to vote for a named candidate.
Say I was a voter for party Y. I am a believer in pro-choice when it comes to abortion, as generally does Party Y - but it is not a big issue for them. They then inflict a candidate on me who is vehemently anti-abortion.
Or any other issue people feel strongly about.
Before any election, I try and look at the views of the candidates. It matters.
Indeed so. It’s fundamental that the people choose those who represent them, by name rather than affiliation.
Each to their own, I guess.
I don't give a crap who my MP is. I can't tell you any time it's made a difference to my life whether Generic Tory Boy A or Generic Tory Boy B is the nominal MP for the constituency. He walks into the same lobby and votes the same way no matter what his name is.
What makes the difference to my life is which lobby he walks into. That sets the policies which affect how much tax I pay, how much road and rail infrastructure I get, and how well educated my kid is. And that's a function of affiliation, not name. I would be plenty happy with a party list.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Travelling from the UK to the EU is a complete pain in the ass now. Literally a 'mare. It's chaos. As most anyone who actually does it will tell you, if you bother to listen.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
typical soundbite
Merely illustrating that different people want different things from an electoral system - and since all the alternatives have their own flaws (Arrow's theorem again) it's difficult to get a majority in favour of a specific named alternative to FPTP.
The irony being that under FPTP you don't need a majority of people at any level of the process..
There is hardly an electoral system in use anywhere that guarantees needing a majority of votes. Binary-choice referendums are different.
The statement from Mark Drakeford, the Labour leader, and Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru leader, says:
The Senedd should have 96 members - up from the current 60 It should be elected using closed proportional lists with integrated statutory gender quotas and mandatory zipping - which requires parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates and alternating between men and women when preparing their candidate lists Seats should be allocated to parties using the D’Hondt formula (which is the current formula for electing members of the Senedd)
So presumably they are happy for this to go to a referendum in Wales, so that the people can decide if public money is best spent on 60% more politicians, their hangers-on, office space and generous expenses?
No, just needs 2/3 of the Senedd to get it through (Labour and PC have 43 out of 60 seats).
Aren’t they about to get into lots of hot water on the gender thing? Seems like an unnecessary introduction of a trans argument they could have ducked.
Oh I do hope so.
I'm looking forward to Drakeford ordering the Women's Equality party to increase the sausage content of its list
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
Surely resulting in nearly all cases in a government that 50%+ have voted for?
(maybe under 50% depending on thresholds for representation at all, but higher % than most FPTP governments - the 2010 coalition was one of the few that >50% voted for)
See my comment two before yours for why this is a logical fallacy. Zero people voted for the 2010 coalition.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
Nobody votes for a government in that way unless they list out the cabinet on the ballot paper. How do I vote out Sajid Javid?
Vote for your local Labour candidate. Sajid Javid only has a place in covenment because the leader of the Conservative party has a majority in parliament - so to change the government you need to vote for the alternative.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Travelling from the UK to the EU is a complete pain in the ass now. Literally a 'mare. It's chaos. As most anyone who actually does it will tell you, if you bother to listen.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
I’ve been to the EU multiple times since Brexit. Passport queues are generally a bit longer, sometimes shorter. That’s it
The only thing that annoys me is the stamp in the passport every time. I used to like getting stamps but now they are using up my spare pages
A tiny percentage of people want to holiday more than 90 days. So you’re talking about Freedom of movement to Work. A different thing entirely
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
Pathetic answer. Maybe it's time for open Primaries like in the US? to choose the candidates in each area.
Didn't that result in the Nicholson lady in Devon? Who soon hopped off to the LD's?
Yeah agreed. They have pressed self-destruct. When Her Maj goes all hell will break loose. Further murk about Prince Andrew's fiddling around, links to dirrrrty regimes and dodgy dealings, the hounding and death of Diana, the persecution of Meghan together with the racism. It will go on and on.
Rubbish.
Meghan is almost as unpopular as Andrew. The Queen passing will be no different to Victoria passing after a long reign and handing over to Edward VII.
Though of course if left liberals like you wish to push the issue it is another arrow in the bow of we Conservatives in the culture wars against you
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
As opposed to 100% of the power based on 40% of the vote.
The statement from Mark Drakeford, the Labour leader, and Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru leader, says:
The Senedd should have 96 members - up from the current 60 It should be elected using closed proportional lists with integrated statutory gender quotas and mandatory zipping - which requires parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates and alternating between men and women when preparing their candidate lists Seats should be allocated to parties using the D’Hondt formula (which is the current formula for electing members of the Senedd)
So presumably they are happy for this to go to a referendum in Wales, so that the people can decide if public money is best spent on 60% more politicians, their hangers-on, office space and generous expenses?
No, just needs 2/3 of the Senedd to get it through (Labour and PC have 43 out of 60 seats).
Aren’t they about to get into lots of hot water on the gender thing? Seems like an unnecessary introduction of a trans argument they could have ducked.
Oh I do hope so.
I'm looking forward to Drakeford ordering the Women's Equality party to increase the sausage content of its list
I thought women could have penises?
Not a day goes by without the old gammons on here coming out with this vile crap.
Why can't you just drop it? And be nice and kind and understanding to others?
Yeah agreed. They have pressed self-destruct. When Her Maj goes all hell will break loose. Further murk about Prince Andrew's fiddling around, links to dirrrrty regimes and dodgy dealings, the hounding and death of Diana, the persecution of Meghan together with the racism. It will go on and on.
Rubbish.
Meghan is almost as unpopular as Andrew. The Queen passing will be no different to Victoria passing after a long reign and handing over to Edward VII.
Though of course if left liberals like you wish to push the issue it is another arrow in the bow of we Conservatives in the culture wars against you
The culture wars won't help, though. In the long run, they're destroying Britain as they're wrecking America, and Johnson has a huge amount, if not necessarily all, of the responsibility.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
Pathetic answer. Maybe it's time for open Primaries like in the US? to choose the candidates in each area.
Didn't that result in the Nicholson lady in Devon? Who soon hopped off to the LD's?
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
Pathetic answer. Maybe it's time for open Primaries like in the US? to choose the candidates in each area.
Given the experience when the Tories tried that, I doubt either party will try it again.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
This is a fundamental part of the voting process for me: you must be able to vote for a named candidate.
Say I was a voter for party Y. I am a believer in pro-choice when it comes to abortion, as generally does Party Y - but it is not a big issue for them. They then inflict a candidate on me who is vehemently anti-abortion.
Or any other issue people feel strongly about.
Before any election, I try and look at the views of the candidates. It matters.
Indeed so. It’s fundamental that the people choose those who represent them, by name rather than affiliation.
I hate party lists with a passion, it means that prospective politicians need to appeal primarily to their own party, rather than to the electorate as a whole. I’d like the choice of, say, Dan Hannan, Ken Clark or Jacob Rees-Mogg, rather than letting the party decide in which order they should be elected.
Party lists are the worst agreed. However, the question of what do you do if you want to elect a government, but that Party's single candidate is unacceptable to you? Abortion was mentioned. But Brexit was a huge one.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
A bit like Brexit then. Not really worth the pointless chaos, despite 52% wanting it.
I'm surprised that @Leon isn't in favour of republicanism, as similarly 'pregnant' with possibilities...
Yeah agreed. They have pressed self-destruct. When Her Maj goes all hell will break loose. Further murk about Prince Andrew's fiddling around, links to dirrrrty regimes and dodgy dealings, the hounding and death of Diana, the persecution of Meghan together with the racism. It will go on and on.
Rubbish.
Meghan is almost as unpopular as Andrew. The Queen passing will be no different to Victoria passing after a long reign and handing over to Edward VII.
Though of course if left liberals like you wish to push the issue it is another arrow in the bow of we Conservatives in the culture wars against you
The culture wars won't help, though. In the long run they're destroying Britain as they're wrecking America, and Johnson has a huge amount of the responsibility.
The culture wars are here to stay as the more the Liberal left push their agenda the more we Conservatives across the west will respond.
The big political divide of the 21st century is more culture than the economy which was the divide of the 20th century
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Travelling from the UK to the EU is a complete pain in the ass now. Literally a 'mare. It's chaos. As most anyone who actually does it will tell you, if you bother to listen.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
I’ve been to the EU multiple times since Brexit. Passport queues are generally a bit longer, sometimes shorter. That’s it
The only thing that annoys me is the stamp in the passport every time. I used to like getting stamps but now they are using up my spare pages
A tiny percentage of people want to holiday more than 90 days. So you’re talking about Freedom of movement to Work. A different thing entirely
It's chaos at Dover. Just a 'mare. I know so many people who have had dreadful experiences at airports and ports.
And many of us used to like spending longer periods abroad. You know, as opposed to getting an onanistic view of a place actually spending time there, immersing. One of my happiest experiences was spending 3 months in the south of France. I've spent whole winters in several countries, including La Palma. Likewise in Italy.
For entirely spurious and spiteful reasons we decided to mutilate ourselves.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
Nobody votes for a government in that way unless they list out the cabinet on the ballot paper. How do I vote out Sajid Javid?
Vote for your local Labour candidate. Sajid Javid only has a place in covenment because the leader of the Conservative party has a majority in parliament - so to change the government you need to vote for the alternative.
How did Ed Davey become a minister, then?
Can't I vote for the opposition in a PR system too, if that's my only recourse under FPTP?
My point is that no democratic system lets you unilaterally choose a government. It's always a compromise with a few million other folks.
The statement from Mark Drakeford, the Labour leader, and Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru leader, says:
The Senedd should have 96 members - up from the current 60 It should be elected using closed proportional lists with integrated statutory gender quotas and mandatory zipping - which requires parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates and alternating between men and women when preparing their candidate lists Seats should be allocated to parties using the D’Hondt formula (which is the current formula for electing members of the Senedd)
So presumably they are happy for this to go to a referendum in Wales, so that the people can decide if public money is best spent on 60% more politicians, their hangers-on, office space and generous expenses?
No, just needs 2/3 of the Senedd to get it through (Labour and PC have 43 out of 60 seats).
Aren’t they about to get into lots of hot water on the gender thing? Seems like an unnecessary introduction of a trans argument they could have ducked.
Oh I do hope so.
I'm looking forward to Drakeford ordering the Women's Equality party to increase the sausage content of its list
I thought women could have penises?
This is true. More male identifying sausage bearers for the WEP in Drakefords utopia. Next up - Labour women votes worth twice thise of Tory men under Mark Drakefords patented 'Away votes count double' rule. Election day, all candidates line up for Mark and Adam's gusset check
Ok, it’s official, I have Covid. So much for the Superman cape. Complete waste of money.
That said I got a pathetic pale line on my test. My wife’s was solid. But, being a man, mine is obviously worse. 😉
Get well soon, hope it’s not too bad for you.
How many PBers still in the “Not had Covid” club? (Raises hand).
Me + wife + 3 out of 4 kids. We're special (apart from one kid).
I have a teacher friend who never stopped having to do in person lessons throughout the pandemic and whose own kids have had it twice. Never had it (and obviously because teaching regular testing). Got to be one of those super special types.
I dodged last month when my whole team got it after a meeting that i could only attend virtually.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
As opposed to 100% of the power based on 40% of the vote.
Anyway, I shall leave Leon to his smug self-satisfaction and I shall make sure I never read a single thing on travel he writes. He clearly drops in and out like the superficial sex writer of old.
Not my kind of thing, thanks.
I prefer real living. Real immersion in other cultures, peoples and places. No offence.
Yeah agreed. They have pressed self-destruct. When Her Maj goes all hell will break loose. Further murk about Prince Andrew's fiddling around, links to dirrrrty regimes and dodgy dealings, the hounding and death of Diana, the persecution of Meghan together with the racism. It will go on and on.
Rubbish.
Meghan is almost as unpopular as Andrew. The Queen passing will be no different to Victoria passing after a long reign and handing over to Edward VII.
Though of course if left liberals like you wish to push the issue it is another arrow in the bow of we Conservatives in the culture wars against you
The culture wars won't help, though. In the long run they're destroying Britain as they're wrecking America, and Johnson has a huge amount of the responsibility.
The culture wars are here to stay as the more the Liberal left push their agenda the more we Conservatives across the west will respond.
The big political divide of the 21st century is more culture than the economy which was the divide of the 20th century
The current Republican/Tory cultural approach isn't always responsive. A very large amount of it - though not necessarily all - is essentially short-term expediency, considering that accentuating cultural divisions is the only way to distract and redirect blame way from an unpopular economic model, which is woefully politically, and civically, short-sighted.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
That's true, but it's not quite the same thing - in a party list system you can never get the party's second choice candidate without also getting the first choice candidate. In FPTP you can, in theory, if they go off in a huff and stand as an independent (eg (yeah, I know it was SV, but the same would have applied under FPTP) the Labour selection for the 2000 London Mayoral election).
I agree with your general point. But can I take this opportunity to add: There are many variations of a party list system that give voters varying degrees of influence over the order of the party list. These are use in various countries.
You can have 2 votes: you vote for a party list and then you get a vote within the party list. This can default to the order offered or be fully open. There are other options. STV is at the end of a continuum of systems.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
“Wrecked travel”
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Brexit made it slightly harder to get into Schengen but that's about it really.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Travelling from the UK to the EU is a complete pain in the ass now. Literally a 'mare. It's chaos. As most anyone who actually does it will tell you, if you bother to listen.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
I’ve been to the EU multiple times since Brexit. Passport queues are generally a bit longer, sometimes shorter. That’s it
The only thing that annoys me is the stamp in the passport every time. I used to like getting stamps but now they are using up my spare pages
A tiny percentage of people want to holiday more than 90 days. So you’re talking about Freedom of movement to Work. A different thing entirely
It's chaos at Dover. Just a 'mare. I know so many people who have had dreadful experiences at airports and ports.
And many of us used to like spending longer periods abroad. You know, as opposed to getting an onanistic view of a place actually spending time there, immersing. One of my happiest experiences was spending 3 months in the south of France. I've spent whole winters in several countries, including La Palma. Likewise in Italy.
For entirely spurious and spiteful reasons we decided to mutilate ourselves.
The UK has been ruined by people like you.
You live in fucking Surrey you stupid, self pitying hysterectomy
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
Surely resulting in nearly all cases in a government that 50%+ have voted for?
(maybe under 50% depending on thresholds for representation at all, but higher % than most FPTP governments - the 2010 coalition was one of the few that >50% voted for)
See my comment two before yours for why this is a logical fallacy. Zero people voted for the 2010 coalition.
Ironically. A great many voted for it in 2015, though. So many that they didn't get it.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
Resulting, in nearly all cases, in a government that 0% has voted for.
As opposed to 100% of the power based on 40% of the vote.
40% > 0%, so I don't see the problem.
40% is not a majority.
Still better than 0%.
No truly democratic system provides a majority, because it turns out people have different viewpoints, so it makes sense to settle with the plurality working.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
A tiny percentage of people want to holiday more than 90 days. So you’re talking about Freedom of movement to Work. A different thing entirely
many of us used to like spending longer periods abroad. You know, as opposed to getting an onanistic view of a place actually spending time there, immersing. One of my happiest experiences was spending 3 months in the south of France. I've spent whole winters in several countries, including La Palma. Likewise in Italy.
For entirely spurious and spiteful reasons we decided to mutilate ourselves.
I'm not convinced that the difference between "three months," a "whole winter," and "90 days" constitutes self-mutilation.
I approve. A simple system that delivers proportionality (when each constituency has enough seats).
Way, way better than STV.
A the danger of starting down a rabbit hole, I wholly disagree. D'Hondt gives far too much power to parties, and too little to voters. Simplicity isn't itself a virtue.
If simplicity is a virtue, stick with FPTP...
Fairness is also a virtue. Switch to d'Hondt.
Simplicity and fairness.
Define "fairness", taking into account Arrow's theorem.
Fairness:
20% of the votes gets you 20% of the seats.
How is it fair when the candidate order is chosen by the parties themselves.
A fair system allows the voter to decide who are the people elected to represent them.
Dan Hannan did a brilliant piece on d’Hondt, sadly now lost in a Telegraph platform change, congratulating himself on his re-election a week before the vote. You see, he was Conservative list #1 in the South East, it was next to impossible for the electorate to choose not to elect him.
Who chooses the single candidate each party fields under FPTP? Party members.
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
Pathetic answer. Maybe it's time for open Primaries like in the US? to choose the candidates in each area.
Didn't that result in the Nicholson lady in Devon? Who soon hopped off to the LD's?
Ok, it’s official, I have Covid. So much for the Superman cape. Complete waste of money.
That said I got a pathetic pale line on my test. My wife’s was solid. But, being a man, mine is obviously worse. 😉
Get well soon, hope it’s not too bad for you.
How many PBers still in the “Not had Covid” club? (Raises hand).
Me + wife + 3 out of 4 kids. We're special (apart from one kid).
I have a teacher friend who never stopped having to do in person lessons throughout the pandemic and whose own kids have had it twice. Never had it (and obviously because teaching regular testing). Got to be one of those super special types.
I dodged last month when my whole team got it after a meeting that i could only attend virtually.
Is there something genetic going on? Can't believe my wife and I have dodged it, what with eldest child getting it and wife socialising widely (inc in her council role). She and I hardly ever get colds either. I may have had one, maybe two, colds in last ten years. I've also never had a headache, which people tell me is weird.
Yeah agreed. They have pressed self-destruct. When Her Maj goes all hell will break loose. Further murk about Prince Andrew's fiddling around, links to dirrrrty regimes and dodgy dealings, the hounding and death of Diana, the persecution of Meghan together with the racism. It will go on and on.
Rubbish.
Meghan is almost as unpopular as Andrew. The Queen passing will be no different to Victoria passing after a long reign and handing over to Edward VII.
Though of course if left liberals like you wish to push the issue it is another arrow in the bow of we Conservatives in the culture wars against you
The culture wars won't help, though. In the long run they're destroying Britain as they're wrecking America, and Johnson has a huge amount of the responsibility.
The culture wars are here to stay as the more the Liberal left push their agenda the more we Conservatives across the west will respond.
The big political divide of the 21st century is more culture than the economy which was the divide of the 20th century
The current Republican/Tory approach isn't always necessarily responsive. A lot of it is short-term expediency, essentially considering that accentuating cultural divisions is the only way to distract and redirect blame way from an unpopular economic model, which is woefully politically short-sighted.
The Republicans and Tories are economically actually more centrist than they were under Reagan and Thatcher.
It is the culture wars where they are still pushing the Conservative agenda to protect from the attacks of the Liberal left elite and it often works because it maximises appeal to rural and town and suburban areas, pensioners and the working and lower middle classes. So get used to it, the culture wars are here to stay.
It is also not just the US and UK either, Morrison, Salvini, Le Pen etc are all pushing the culture wars card too as are Conservatives in Canada and Poland
The statement from Mark Drakeford, the Labour leader, and Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru leader, says:
The Senedd should have 96 members - up from the current 60 It should be elected using closed proportional lists with integrated statutory gender quotas and mandatory zipping - which requires parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates and alternating between men and women when preparing their candidate lists Seats should be allocated to parties using the D’Hondt formula (which is the current formula for electing members of the Senedd)
Do we know what is to happen if a candidate is turfed out of the party under which s/he got a list seat? That was not resolved at Holyrood before it happened (the person stayed).
Just thinking, more generally, the Tories must be really panicking in Wales if they feel the need to have a d'Hondt system in order to survive at all, as in Scotland.
Also - for those of us who can't bear the thought of forever being haunted by the Drake, Mr Davies ART, etc., fill in gap for your worst dreams:
bear in mind that all they have to do is to put themselves at the head of the list for a suitable area and they can in practice never be voted out even if not one would win a FPTP. That's how a lot of ScoTories, including some of those who constituted what Ms Davidson pretentiously called the Opposition Front Bench (as if there was one at Holyrood!), managed to stay MSPs at all. .
The Sxcottish experience is that dHondt is a Tory Preservation Order.
The Tories are against d'Hondt in Wales. It's Drakeford and Adam Price that are proposing it.
I'm pro PR in principle, but I find closed list PR the worst system. Can only vote for a party and you have no single representative for smaller areas so it means the bigger settlements usually get all the attention (see EU PR regions which had 8 MEPs for the North West for example, but all the attention went to Manchester and sometimes Liverpool). There's nothing wrong with the current AMS system where you get your local representative and then a top up to make the Parliament more proportional.
PB Republicans need to imagine what a UK (except it would then be something else - the UR?) would look like
The crown is woven into every corner of our national life, from the law to parliament to the army and navy to our stamps and money and shared and collective memory
It would be an act of near-impossible vandalism to get rid of all that. A huge emotional and constitutional wrench. And for what? To what end? How would we be better? We’d need some elected figurehead so it would be president fuck knows. Ed sheeran? President Mister Tumble off of CBBC?
It’s just never going to happen. Even if republican sentiment went over 50% people would look at the pointless chaos and say Nah
I would agree, but then I look at the Brexit vote. You can argue about whether being in or out was better and whether having monarchy or republic is better, but either way there's a fair bit of pain changing it. So you'd better be sure that the alternative is better. That was a chunk of my remain vote and would make me hesitant if there was a vote to rejoin in the near future. Yet it happened.
Destroying the monarchy would be an emotional convulsion that would make Brexit look like the great Hertfordshire earthquake of 2013
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
Hardly.
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
Travelling from the UK to the EU is a complete pain in the ass now. Literally a 'mare. It's chaos. As most anyone who actually does it will tell you, if you bother to listen.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
I’ve been to the EU multiple times since Brexit. Passport queues are generally a bit longer, sometimes shorter. That’s it
The only thing that annoys me is the stamp in the passport every time. I used to like getting stamps but now they are using up my spare pages
A tiny percentage of people want to holiday more than 90 days. So you’re talking about Freedom of movement to Work. A different thing entirely
It's chaos at Dover. Just a 'mare. I know so many people who have had dreadful experiences at airports and ports.
And many of us used to like spending longer periods abroad. You know, as opposed to getting an onanistic view of a place actually spending time there, immersing. One of my happiest experiences was spending 3 months in the south of France. I've spent whole winters in several countries, including La Palma. Likewise in Italy.
For entirely spurious and spiteful reasons we decided to mutilate ourselves.
The UK has been ruined by people like you.
What proportion of people are in a financial position to pop across the France for 3 months 'immersion'? Almost anypne with that kind of dosh could still do it easily. Besides which Portugal is already relaxing some of those post-Brexit rules - with others possibly to follow.
Comments
I can only see it happening if we were horribly conquered in a war or some such utter catastrophe
If you want to influence candidate selection, join a party.
Similarly you could just vote 1,2,3 for the Tories only if you wanted, and no further.
I hate party lists with a passion, it means that prospective politicians need to appeal primarily to their own party, rather than to the electorate as a whole. I’d like the choice of, say, Dan Hannan, Ken Clark or Jacob Rees-Mogg, rather than letting the party decide in which order they should be elected.
(NOT Green)
This is quite common. They are taken recreationally
Brexit fucked the British economy, wrecked travel and stoked culture wars.
Abolishing the monarchy would be a total 'meh' for most people. It would make zero difference to our lives, except lighten the mood.
Too many candidates, you win fewer seats.
(Support for party A + support for party B ) ≠ support for (party A + party B ).
(maybe under 50% depending on thresholds for representation at all, but higher % than most FPTP governments - the 2010 coalition was one of the few that >50% voted for)
Robin Cook
Michael Foot in the early years
Enoch Powell in Parliament
Margaret Thatcher
Frank Field
Peter Hain
That took me 2 minutes. It's not hard.
There is far more consensus amongst the parties in favour of keeping the monarchy than for keeping Brexit, especially hard Brexit.
Republicans lost their one chance in a generation to change it if the republican Corbyn had won the 2017 or 2019 general elections when he lost in 2017 and was trounced in 2019.
"Once in a generation" means no referendum til the year 6867.
That said I got a pathetic pale line on my test. My wife’s was solid. But, being a man, mine is obviously worse. 😉
I'd hate to go shopping with you. "If we don't buy this Buckfast British Wine today, that's our last chance for a generation!!"
I think we have a right to know.
Powell is well over 40 years ago for when he had any relevance
Heseltine
Brown
Foot
Grieve
Willetts
Cook
Er, OK. I’ve just come directly from the USA to Turkey (with a stopover in Munich). I am now staring at my raki wondering whether to eat more pistachios. I’m sailing to Greece in a day or two. And In about ten days I will smoothly go on from there
For someone who is big on world travel you don’t know much about travel
I don't give a crap who my MP is. I can't tell you any time it's made a difference to my life whether Generic Tory Boy A or Generic Tory Boy B is the nominal MP for the constituency. He walks into the same lobby and votes the same way no matter what his name is.
What makes the difference to my life is which lobby he walks into. That sets the policies which affect how much tax I pay, how much road and rail infrastructure I get, and how well educated my kid is. And that's a function of affiliation, not name. I would be plenty happy with a party list.
And virtually impossible to live in the EU for anything more than 90 days. Godawful screw up.
How many PBers still in the “Not had Covid” club? (Raises hand).
4th jab booked for next week. Hope I continue to avoid it.
The UK is a wrecked country. Sadly. People like Leon have a LOT to answer for.
The only thing that annoys me is the stamp in the passport every time. I used to like getting stamps but now they are using up my spare pages
A tiny percentage of people want to holiday more than 90 days. So you’re talking about Freedom of movement to Work. A different thing entirely
Who soon hopped off to the LD's?
Meghan is almost as unpopular as Andrew. The Queen passing will be no different to Victoria passing after a long reign and handing over to Edward VII.
Though of course if left liberals like you wish to push the issue it is another arrow in the bow of we Conservatives in the culture wars against you
Why can't you just drop it? And be nice and kind and understanding to others?
However, the question of what do you do if you want to elect a government, but that Party's single candidate is unacceptable to you?
Abortion was mentioned. But Brexit was a huge one.
The big political divide of the 21st century is more culture than the economy which was the divide of the 20th century
And many of us used to like spending longer periods abroad. You know, as opposed to getting an onanistic view of a place actually spending time there, immersing. One of my happiest experiences was spending 3 months in the south of France. I've spent whole winters in several countries, including La Palma. Likewise in Italy.
For entirely spurious and spiteful reasons we decided to mutilate ourselves.
The UK has been ruined by people like you.
Can't I vote for the opposition in a PR system too, if that's my only recourse under FPTP?
My point is that no democratic system lets you unilaterally choose a government. It's always a compromise with a few million other folks.
Next up - Labour women votes worth twice thise of Tory men under Mark Drakefords patented 'Away votes count double' rule.
Election day, all candidates line up for Mark and Adam's gusset check
They see it as a deserved punishment on ordinary Britons, for daring to upset the second home plans of their betters
I dodged last month when my whole team got it after a meeting that i could only attend virtually.
Not my kind of thing, thanks.
I prefer real living. Real immersion in other cultures, peoples and places. No offence.
You can have 2 votes: you vote for a party list and then you get a vote within the party list. This can default to the order offered or be fully open. There are other options. STV is at the end of a continuum of systems.
So many that they didn't get it.
No truly democratic system provides a majority, because it turns out people have different viewpoints, so it makes sense to settle with the plurality working.
It is the culture wars where they are still pushing the Conservative agenda to protect from the attacks of the Liberal left elite and it often works because it maximises appeal to rural and town and suburban areas, pensioners and the working and lower middle classes. So get used to it, the culture wars are here to stay.
It is also not just the US and UK either, Morrison, Salvini, Le Pen etc are all pushing the culture wars card too as are Conservatives in Canada and Poland
I'm pro PR in principle, but I find closed list PR the worst system. Can only vote for a party and you have no single representative for smaller areas so it means the bigger settlements usually get all the attention (see EU PR regions which had 8 MEPs for the North West for example, but all the attention went to Manchester and sometimes Liverpool). There's nothing wrong with the current AMS system where you get your local representative and then a top up to make the Parliament more proportional.