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If the referendum was held today I think there'd be a different result, here's the polling
If the referendum was held today I think there'd be a different result, here's the polling– politicalbetting.com
49% of Britons support introducing proportional representation, with just 26% backing first past the postPR: 49%FPTP: 26%By party voted for in 2024Green: 72% PR vs 15% FPTPReform UK: 67% vs 20%Lib Dem: 61% vs 20%Labour: 53% vs 27%Conservative: 39% vs 42%yougov.co.uk/politics/art…
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The one silver lining with the rise of Reform is that it puts fairer voting back on the agenda.
Mr. B2, worth recalling Farage's greatest success electorally came with a PR system.
Good news: have a massive gas processing plant on fire instead!
https://x.com/sumlenny/status/1886345671256461500
https://x.com/colbybadhwar/status/1886494055166521794
I’ve been an advocate for PR for local elections for decades and it’s an idea, rather like Land Value Taxation, whose time has surely come.
I’m more ambivalent about PR for Westminster while recognising the inequalities of last July’s election, I’m persuaded ending the link between constituency and elected representative isn’t desirable. Whether there’s a hybrid system which would work I don’t know but creating more MPs wouldn’t be popular I’m certain.
Over here, a new poll this evening shows the Labour/Green/Maori bloc having a slight advantage over the incumbent National/ACT/NZF coalition. The former have a combined vote of 50.6%, the latter have 47.2% which equates to a 63-57 advantage in Parliament. As the next election isn’t until October 2026, there’s a lot of water to pass under a lot of bridges before a vote is cast.
If you were an oligarch looking for the next area to dominate, many would be in Ukraine. It'll be a battle as to which country's oligarchs get there first.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1886551674686148690
Sounds like the deal is that American military will be assisting the Mexicans, in having another serious go at dismantling the cartels.
She's either a moderately gifted conwoman, or the easiest mark ever. Hard to say which; perhaps both.
I'm coming round to the idea that *none* of the lockdowns were worth it. Yes, more people would have died, health systems would have been overwhelmed, and elected officials would have been punished for that, governments may have fallen. But suspending people's freedoms to such an degree has radicalised large numbers of people in a way that is not healthy for democracy. Why are so many young people willing to say democracy isn't all that, and maybe they'd prefer a dictatorship? They've already been kept under house arrest in a democracy.
There'd be a big boost in demand for Irish election strategists.
https://www.usip.org/publications/2024/12/ukraine-inflection-point-china-russia-axis
Chinese will have the rebuilding of Ukraine on its list so Trump may not be able to walk away as some have indicated.
It does look that the Cannabis legalisation agenda has failed. It hasn't displaced other drugs. You can't make America great again when it is too stoned to be arsed.
https://bsky.app/profile/theatlantic.com/post/3lha2rnfq4k2y
We might have avoided the necessity had we done a Taiwan, and prevented travel much sooner (they never locked down).
But beyond that I'd tend to agree with you.
And you're absolutely right that polling has showed young voters who were school age during the pandemic are way more radical in the US than those only a couple of years older.
I suspect the overwhelming majority of voters vote on a party basis and to be clear that means they vote against one or more parties so their choice is a forced negative.
That wouldn’t change with STV except with a preference base system they could vote positively for the parties about which they feel less negative so there’s a slightly more positive element.
No system is perfect or fair but for a party to win five seats with 14% of the vote is unfair. Some will argue STV rewards failure because 14% wouldn’t win any seat anywhere - true but that’s another definition of “fair” which I don’t share and the 14% who voted Reform are left unrepresented in what is called a representative democracy.
“Disease passed from person to person? Hmmm… If I stay 10 feet away from everyone….”
The public want their cake and eat it.
Ballot paper as per multi-member wards. Cross up to X candidates where X is the number of members to elect. For parliament, X approx 5-8.
Apportion member numbers by d'Hondt for the votes of each party / independent grouping (whilst allowing single candidates).
Winning candidates are those who get most votes within each grouping.
Simpler / quicker to count and understand than full AV, although giving a subtly different result, but importantly the voters still select the winners at candidate level.
For by-elections, I'd account for already elected members in the count - e.g. if the ward had 2 members elected as SNP, the SNP would need 3x the vote to elect another member. Perhaps you might restrict independent candidates to those who previously stood to close off loopholes.
That is down to the populist “One trick the politicians hate..” policies that float around on Twatter etc.
When you combine it with the Process State, where it takes 5 years and a million pounds a mile to create a bike path, the obvious answer is The Strong Man.
Who will implement all those cost & problem free policies that fix everything. Overnight.
Part of the point of my header on Sunday is that there are already very few restraints on the executive, and even fewer democratic restraints.
https://x.com/aleksandrx13/status/1886153601715937528
I am sure the "let them go" brigade will not care.
Abu Dhabi, along with its fellow UAE emirate Dubai, wants a slice of the British millionaire exodus action. Its rulers understand that the wealthy families pouring out of London, have certain lifestyle requirements the fast growing Gulf city-state cannot currently offer. Private members’ clubs are one. Top British public schools of the sort admired by the global elite the world over are another. To that end Harrow is scheduled to open two schools, one in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai, in 2026.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/exodus-could-the-last-millionaire-leaving-london-please-turn-out-the-lights/ar-AA1yl7Wm?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=3f78303d18d74396ad3dd32ed1c727a9&ei=18
Have we got to the point where these decisions are made because of fears about personal safety?
Especially in the light of Trump's decision to take away security details from people he doesn't like, even ones the Iranians want to assassinate.
https://time.com/6082058/russian-revolution-vodka/
(*) Excellent. BTW.
"It was Christmas eve and I was receiving elocution lessons and my trousers suddenly fell down and that's when my teacher dropped to her knees to try and help me pull them up"
https://x.com/keirwrong/status/1886518240467411095
While blocking new production, DESNZ is funding the development of a new CCGT power plant and hydrogen plant (with CCS). So where do they get their gas from?
There’s already a dozen or more British public schools with campuses in the sandpit (and in Singapore).
That said, there’s also a lot of movement in the other direction, this weekend there’s an exhibition of UK boarding schools out here. https://www.ukboardingschoolexhibition.com/exhibitions/uk-boarding-school-exhibition-dubai
A relevant point is that preferential systems allow voters to express preferences beyond their first choice, raising the question "proportional to what?". If there's a two-party tie with a third party, say the Greens, well in third place - but all of that third party's supporters prefer one of the major parties to the other, and hence make it their second preference, that minor party may get little or no representation - but those second preferences will tilt the outcome toward the favoured major party.
If you're assessing proportionality solely from first preferences, that above factor tilts the result away from the strict 50:50 outcome yet is undeniably a more accurate and meaningful reflection of the electorate's view.
There's this:
Would you prefer to have a single local MP or have multiple MPs from different parties covering a larger area?
which says
'a single local MP'
But ultimately i take the view you put forth that no system is perfect and some form of PR such as STV would, overall, be fairer. Not that its a form dividing line between horrendous FPTP and perfect PR.
It's just that other voters' votes elect other local MPs.
I feel that I might be turning into a bit of an HY on this topic, so I will leave it there!
Just to say, I favour d'Hondt with party primaries to determine the order of candidates on the list.
It is stupid and self-sabotaging to drive out the wealthiest especially when they pay taxes. Some people on twitter genuinely believe if they go it is no problem as they pay no tax.
And we knew could produce a vaccine in relatively short order.
I agree there should be an extremely high bar against future lockdowns - but a much lower bar and much faster reaction on travel restrictions. Along with the domestic capacity to produce test kits.
For too many of our fellow citizens, Britain is broken. An expensive Christmas is followed by extortionate fuel bills after the cold snaps and storms. Jobs are hard to find, and the government's only plan is to force millions off the sick and back into work which will make jobs even harder to find for the willing. It's hard to see a doctor and as for NHS dentists, forget it. And no-one reads newspapers anymore but if they did, it's a pound to a penny there'd be someone getting stabbed on the front page.
So can you blame the desperate voter who, even if not taken in by Nigel Farage's snake oil, thinks Reform can hardly be worse than the other parties who between them have run the country into the ground?
The argument for PR is that it's more representative than FPTP; nothing much beyond that.
But if you believe in democracy, that's a very strong argument.
For example, in the US, under Obama and Biden, the precedent that the executive branch can prevent Federal laws being applied. Even that if a *state* applies a federal law - this can be illegal!
This was because they hated laws passed by a Republican Congress on immigration.
Enter Trump…
We need much higher quality leadership in grown up opinion formation. No amount of STV and all that will suffice.
FPTP with a simple AV is all that is needed, and would effect greater change than first appears. Because it allows persistent new entrants a chance to shine political culture will change and there will be less paralysis. Being able to vote for X, the outsider, in first place without knowing you will 100% waste your vote, as you can vote for Y, the Lab/Con as well is enough.
What would you do then, eh?
You, along with plenty here on PB, were in favour of the most absurd and draconian restrictions on liberty in several generations. And you come back with a "what if".
Unless you count the Yoon cabal.
But as we all said about the likely appeal of Friday surgeries in Clacton, actually being part of the solution rather than pointing out the problems is a whole new world for Nige and, based upon this morning's evidence, it may well be something he is no good at and should have stayed out of mainstream politicss.
You come across people demanding that the government negotiates drug prices. In the U.K.
When you tell them that the government has been doing that for multiple decades…
I think a reasonable (ie British not technocratic) solution may be for multimember constituencies roughly aligned with the coming-soon Unitary Councils.
If they are to be (say) around 350k to 500k each, that leaves something like 4-6 MPs per Unitary, which sounds practical and will give a greater variety. We then also get a range of specialisms across different issues, and cannot be blocked by an MP with a bee in his bonnet.
(Example: me getting Lee Anderson to lobby the Government for more flexible and practical links to the EU single market.)
Whether there would need to be a separate national (say 5%) threshold like Germany, or by region / nation, is one point worth considering.
Pro and anti monarchists are also particularly prone to 'will magically change/preserve X as well' thinking.
The point she repeatedly put, because he never answered it, is how he addresses the fact that the majority of the public don't agree with his criticism of the government's efforts to reach a closer accommodation with Europe.
Any 'imprecision' in the questioning was completely outstripped by the vague generalities of his answers.
This is not America may need to be required reading at this rate. There are problems here, and some synergies with the US, but you can't directly transplant everything.
Also talking to all the ex MPs humiliating themselves fawning over there.
Huge infighting coupled with the arrival of Turks, Normans, and Pechenegs at the same time led to its rapid decline from a major power to one constantly on the back foot.
Edited extra bit: sleepily forgot to add that this happens to be a thousand years ago now. I suspect few people would correctly guess the most powerful state in Europe a thousand years ago.
It’s like a league competition vs a knockout. Nobody claims the winner of the Premier league is actually a loser.
So I just don't know. 10% mortality across all age groups I think would force governments to take strong measures. But it all depends. What is the aim of the lockdown? Eradicating the disease completely? Flattening the curve? Buying time for vaccines/treatments to become available?
The first lockdown was arguably justified to 'flatten the curve', and gain a bit of time. But once it became clear that there were going to be several curves, and it was impossible to completely eradicate COVID, and that the mortality rate wasn't perhaps as high as some first feared, we shouldn't have had any more blanket legal restrictions on every day activities. ie by the summer of 2020.
Democracy is a popularity contest and unfortunately telling the truth doesn’t usually make you popular.
I’m not sure how your contortions with FPTP and AV achieve that - it sounds more an excuse to be anti-PR. Have majoritarian Governments been successful in the past 30 years? Would coalitions have done any better or worse?
Yes, plus the Latins and Crusades, and the sacking of Constantinople, didn't help, when the Byzantines had actually
asked for the their help.
An enormously stupid error for Western European self-interest, without which there might still be a
fair-sized Eastern empire.
With asset prices where they are relative to incomes, young people can’t realistically aspire to 2.4 children and a home of their own. They have no stake in society. So why not vote to upend the table - after all, it couldn’t be worse could it… and they don’t have the lived experience to say otherwise. I grew up with Commando comics, Spain and Greece (?) were still dictatorships, the USSR ruled over 10s of millions. We could all (except Nick Palmer) see that democracy was far far better. The young these days don’t have those reference points. Anyone under 40 has no effective memory of life before the Berlin Wall came down or of Tiananmen Square
Pneumonic plague would seem to fit his specification quite well, for instance.
Great shame the Romans fell, but there we are.
The Americans are probably the worst at not understanding how things work in the rest of the world. Brits and Aussies are pretty well travelled, and Canadians mostly only have the US as a reference.
Plenty from all countries think their own country works more like the US than it does.
Americans appear to finally be waking up to the fact that their healthcare system is a very expensive mess.