Indeed, they have every right to an opinion. That said, protesting against a freshly elected government enacting its manifesto seems to be taking umbrage with democracy.
Mr. Tyndall, I agree very much on reducing the power of the parties (which would be drastically increased by the Satanic system of PR).
MD , now you really are having a laugh, not much democracy in UK.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That's just plain wrong. All candidates were marked on the ballot as the X party candidate and used the party logo prominently.
Would be an interesting experiment to remove that and see what happens.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
Funny. I put the X in a box next to the word Conservative and with the Tory logo. You'd be right if party names and logos didn't go on the ballot paper.
Mr. Clipp, every party knew the rules under which the election would run. The same system as we've had for decades.
Was there this outraged bleating when in 2005 Labour got a majority four or five times larger on a lower percentage of the vote?
The 'registered voters' line is nonsense too because it includes those who didn't vote. If you can't be bothered to register your opinion by taking a short walk once every five years, your opinion doesn't matter.
I don't think that tells the whole story. The electorate clearly supports a broader range of smaller parties and a more diverse range of views these days. FPTP finds it hard to reflect that in the commons. That is a problem for a democracy.
Not really. The two party share was higher than in 10 and as high as 05. So that doesn't explain protests now rather than in 05.
Few of the young over 18s voted. They made up a large % of the protesters yesterday. Irony or the Darwinian process?
Indeed, they have every right to an opinion. That said, protesting against a freshly elected government enacting its manifesto seems to be taking umbrage with democracy.
Mr. Tyndall, I agree very much on reducing the power of the parties (which would be drastically increased by the Satanic system of PR).
MD , now you really are having a laugh, not much democracy in UK.
That's just being a sore loser. Had your side won the election you'd be singing a different tune.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Ed Balls thought he was in a safe seat and the voters delivered a lesson.
Point of fact you are 3 years out. The safest seat - Shropshire North - has been held since 1835 not 1832.
But your point is a good one. It is just your solution that is wrong. We should be reducing the power of the parties not increasing it. Ban whipping of votes and reduce the power of the parties over candidate selection. Make the local representative properly represent their constituency rather than their party.
I stand corrected, MrTyndall. Many thanks! That makes a lot of diference, and it is nice to have things right!
Not so on point two, though. Under FPTP, the party in the safe seat puts up a "party list" of one candidate, and the electorate have no choice at all, whatever way they decide to vote. The party´s nominee always gets elected.
Under the STV variant of PR, electors can choose not only among parties, but also among candidates of the same party. A UKIP voter coud express his preference for Mr Carswell, Mr Farage and Mrs James, for example (assuming they were all standing in the same multi-member constituency) - and still be fairly sure of getting a UKIP MP elected.
I think it about time TSE put up a thread about STV........
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
Of course they do. We have a Parliamentary Democracy and they won a majority. If not the Tories who does have a moral right to govern?
That they're still protesting using the incredibly stupid No Cuts with a No Entry sign over the top of it logo - I think a basic lack of comprehension is the problem.
Mr. Clipp, every party knew the rules under which the election would run. The same system as we've had for decades.
Was there this outraged bleating when in 2005 Labour got a majority four or five times larger on a lower percentage of the vote?
The 'registered voters' line is nonsense too because it includes those who didn't vote. If you can't be bothered to register your opinion by taking a short walk once every five years, your opinion doesn't matter.
I don't think that tells the whole story. The electorate clearly supports a broader range of smaller parties and a more diverse range of views these days. FPTP finds it hard to reflect that in the commons. That is a problem for a democracy.
Not really. The two party share was higher than in 10 and as high as 05. So that doesn't explain protests now rather than in 05.
Few of the young over 18s voted. They made up a large % of the protesters yesterday. Irony or the Darwinian process?
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
For much of that time the aid was misdirected or used for instant relief rather than long term planning. Things like the drilling of water wells, the recognition of education of women as an important driver of improving health and large scale vaccination programmes are relatively recent developments.
At the same time it is only in recent years we have started to deal with some of the underlying problems of western companies and countries bribing or coercing countries into large scale cash crop production which only benefits the elite and which leaves the majority of the population in absolute poverty unable to grow enough food to feed themselves. Further it is only a couple of decades since we had the end of the Cold War which promoted the use of Africa as a proxy battlefield for the US and Russia.
There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
With the thick end of 1m people in Libya, Egypt and other points in north Africa queuing up to climb onto plastic rafts and risk their lives to get to the EU the argument for spending money making Africa a more tolerable place to live so its people want to stay there is unanswerable. Charity has very little to do with it.
Is this debate not recognition that the choices available in this leadership election are all uninspiring with significant areas of potential weakness?
None of them look even vaguely like a PM. The hope for Labour is that one of them (ideally the winner of course) shows unexpected depths and grows into the job in a way that makes them a credible alternative to whoever the Tories put up the next time.
There is always a tendency as you get older to harp back to the giants of the past, to people who did not look particularly giantish at the time but this was the shadow cabinet after Maggie won in 1979, not a particularly high point for Labour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet_of_James_Callaghan
Callaghan, Healy, Shore, Foot, Owen, Smith, Kinnock and Hattersley amongst others. Again it may be age but all of these in their different ways made far more impact with the country and the electorate than those who are in contention now. Now we have a leading contender whose most notable achievement in government was the catastrophe of HIPs.
Labour is in a very bad place. And they know it. They have to pick the candidate who has the capacity to grow, not only themselves but to have the confidence (unlike Ed) to let others grow too. Does making the leader more vulnerable help this process? Probably not.
Their best choice would have been James Purnell if he wasn't too busy milking the public teat elsewhere.
I remember seeing him on QT years ago and thinking he would be dangerous for the Tories.
I have read the Francis report in detail, not least because I lead on Clinical Governance within my own department.
What went wrong in Stafford was not simply a cover-up, and I can recall no criticism of Burnham in the report. There were multiple factors to blame and a superficial analysis such as yours is simply wrong.
There is a desire for scapegoating, and you have clearly fixated on Burnham for this. Such a simplistic and personalised analysis risks failing to address the real issues and makes another Stafford type scandal very likely.
Similar scandals have happened before: notably the Bristol Childrens Heart Scandal; or the experiences of Dr Rita Pal on ward 87 in North Staffs, and in the private sector at Winterbourne view.
If you read what I've written passim, I'm not scapegoating Burnham over Stafford (*). I've been clearly saying that his attitude over his initial inquiry at the time was wrong-headed, and that his attitude since is sickening, especially when he is in favour of other inquiries.
Do you agree with him that the second, public, inquiry was unwelcome because of the damage it did to the trust's reputation? That is the main thing I am pointing out, and why he would be an unsuitable party leader or potential PM.
BTW, I too have read the Francis report. Reading is not just a capability reserved for doctors.
I never said it was 'simply a cover-up'; but even you must admit that it played a very large part in what happened. The culture of secrecy and defensiveness in the trust are well outlined in the report, from memory at least. It is clear from the report that if that culture had not been present there would not have been as many deaths.
As a side issue, it's a shame that the CQC's myriad of failings - for instance in relation to Shaldon - have not been better highlighted.
And yes, I've said passim that similar scandals have happened before. That does not excuse Stafford, and should not be used an excuse.
(*) Although your repeated ignorance about his previous time at the DoH in 2006-7 is rather startling.
It is possible that people do not realise how much money the Gates have pushed into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So far it is $28 billion, and they plan to give away 95% of their wealth. Whilst that will leave them very comfortable (and their children, although they appear loathed to directly give them money), the money will still do a vast amount of good.
They should be seen as a model for other billionaires. There are problems with such models (and they seem to be aware of them), but what they are doing is surely to the advantage of the world.
If Bill Gates were in charge of spending our foreign aid, there would be no concerns.
Gates's problem is that everybody, from Warren Buffet downwards, wants him to spend their money. Gates gets great value for his money. No govts do. When Bill has spent most of the money he has available, the British people will be happy to 'wedge-up' his foundation. Until then: foreign aid? No thanks.
The problem with that argument is that it conflates the principle of foreign aid with the practice.
Its direct equivalent in the UK would be to claim that because the NHS is rubbish we should not have health care. Of course that is a ludicrous argument. What you do is change the systems so you can better provide the necessary result - whether that is health care in the UK or foreign aid in Africa.
That is what Gates is both advocating and achieving and it appears that he believes the UK government under the Tories is also achieving the same thing. My view is that he is right on this and we are seeing a far more effective and targeted foreign aid policy now than we had 5 years ago.
You are clearly relaxed with how effectively our foreign aid budget is spent. Like many others, I am not.
One easy way of improving the focus our spending would be to substantially reduce it, at least until we became more adept at getting 'more bangs for our bucks'.
Buffet is happy to admit that it is difficult to spend an aid budget effectively. Too much money in total makes that harder, not easier.
That they're still protesting using the incredibly stupid No Cuts with a No Entry sign over the top of it logo - I think a basic lack of comprehension is the problem.
Mr. Clipp, every party knew the rules under which the election would run. The same system as we've had for decades.
Was there this outraged bleating when in 2005 Labour got a majority four or five times larger on a lower percentage of the vote?
The 'registered voters' line is nonsense too because it includes those who didn't vote. If you can't be bothered to register your opinion by taking a short walk once every five years, your opinion doesn't matter.
I don't think that tells the whole story. The electorate clearly supports a broader range of smaller parties and a more diverse range of views these days. FPTP finds it hard to reflect that in the commons. That is a problem for a democracy.
Not really. The two party share was higher than in 10 and as high as 05. So that doesn't explain protests now rather than in 05.
Few of the young over 18s voted. They made up a large % of the protesters yesterday. Irony or the Darwinian process?
Yes there is a logic failure but then logic and maths seem to be under rated by the lefties these days. In the long term it is the young that will suffer the most from the debts caused by earlier generations. Austerity (if we ever really get it) would be great for the future of the young.
Because, of course, we still have the disfunctional FPTP voting system. Under this system, electors have to guess who the two front runners are in their own constituency, and vote tactically according to this guess. What would happen, I wonder, if an anti-Tory alliance of parties got together and decided to put up just one candidate against the sitting Tory? That is, after all, the logic of FPTP, which Conservatives defend to the bitter end. The Tories would be massacred.
Voters elect a representative for their constituency in the House of Commons. They do not vote for a national party. I voted for the winning candidate in my constituency. I dislike her party immensely, however and reject most of its policies. The argument that first past the post is dysfunctional depends on assuming every voter for a Conservative MP backs the Conservative Party and its policies, that every voter for a Labour MP backs the Labour Party and its policies etc. That is plainly not how the public cast their votes, and only party political zealots really believe it is. Nor is the fact that the system leads to results that party political zealots dislike mean that it is broken. If anything, the reverse is true.
Many people do vote for a national party or national leader when casting their vote. Not in a literal sense (and if you seem to permit interpreting matters beyond the literal acts occurring in this instance by speculating about why people cast a vote for a party as not being an endorsement of that party), but a great many people do choose their vote without a single thought to the individual representatives actually present in their constituency or what they believe. Now, people may still think that does not mean the voting system needs to change, but too many people pretend people all vote for the same reasons. You've pointed out its a mistake to assume all voters for a party actually back that party and all its policies, but appear to have made the same misconception by combining that because people elect a representative for their area, which is true, that they do not vote for the national party, which may or may not be true as it depends on the intent of the person casting their vote which is different for everyone.
As a lot of people plainly do cast their vote with an eye purely on the national situation, there is an argument at least for other voting systems. I do not say that case is overwhelming, indeed someone might still be happy with it, but I find it bizarre to discount that people do not cast their votes in a certain way in a literal sense in one way, but then still rely on interpreting what people meant when they voted for a specific representative in another, having your cake and eating it too by not allowing speculation on one part but allowing it on the other.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
For much of that time the aid was misdirected or used for instant relief rather than long term planning. Things like the drilling of water wells, the recognition of education of women as an important driver of improving health and large scale vaccination programmes are relatively recent developments.
At the same time it is only in recent years we have started to deal with some of the underlying problems of western companies and countries bribing or coercing countries into large scale cash crop production which only benefits the elite and which leaves the majority of the population in absolute poverty unable to grow enough food to feed themselves. Further it is only a couple of decades since we had the end of the Cold War which promoted the use of Africa as a proxy battlefield for the US and Russia.
There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
Richard, still been a disaster despite some isolated successes. We have jsut poured money into despots bank accounts. There was little thought of really helping people, money wasted on the bloated admin process or given direct to wasters. They were more interested in selling them guns and limousines for self gain.
As a caveat to my point, and an extension to the arguments set against me, why restrict foreign aid to £12bn? Let's educate every poor child in the world, give them all fresh water, Ebola vaccinations etc etc.
And then retire to the nearest champagne bar to congratulate ourselves on our generosity and benevolence. In public of course.
I'm beginning to think this site is an extension of the Westminster bubble that politicians inhabit.
Your "ebola vaccinations" comment is rather laughable, given that one of the few (only?) UN / WHO successes has been worldwide vaccination schemes, paid for by rich governments, that has eradicated smallpox, and is working on doing the same for polio.
Are you really against such schemes?
Of course I'm not, are you FOR schemes for EVERY person in Africa susceptible to Ebola? Who do you think funds all this?
Deary me how weak is this argument, I point out that a multi billionaire should stop hectoring hard up UK taxpayers and the handwringing begins. And I'm the one being told to face reality.
Given the risk Ebola might pose to millions, then yes. For one thing we are developing drugs anyway: one of the few good things to come out of the recent outbreak has been increased knowledge of the disease, how it is spread, and which drugs work for whom.
And on that point: we spent hundreds of millions on the recent outbreak, from sending out medics to treating those few who contracted it. If the outbreak had been bigger, it would have been much more. It was £330 million in Sierra Leone alone.
As an example: how much might we as a government have spent combating smallpox over the years if it had not already been eradicated?
If you are obsessed with the monetary side of things, it is short-term pain for long-term gain. If you are interested in the moral side, it is simply the right thing to do.
On Ebola they did not give a crap for over 30 years , they only started work when it threatened the west. Weak weak argument. Usual stuff from Mr Pompous.
I think 'they did not give a crap' would be news to the WHO, MsF, CDC, etc, or the companies who were working on drugs for it, despite the obvious limitations and difficulties in the research.
Mr. Clipp, every party knew the rules under which the election would run. The same system as we've had for decades.
Was there this outraged bleating when in 2005 Labour got a majority four or five times larger on a lower percentage of the vote?
The 'registered voters' line is nonsense too because it includes those who didn't vote. If you can't be bothered to register your opinion by taking a short walk once every five years, your opinion doesn't matter.
I don't think that tells the whole story. The electorate clearly supports a broader range of smaller parties and a more diverse range of views these days. FPTP finds it hard to reflect that in the commons. That is a problem for a democracy.
Not really. The two party share was higher than in 10 and as high as 05. So that doesn't explain protests now rather than in 05.
Few of the young over 18s voted. They made up a large % of the protesters yesterday. Irony or the Darwinian process?
No it's just sore losers. The "few" 18-22 year old who cast a vote probably number hundreds of thousands if not a million or more. The "large %" of protestors yesterday probably number just a few thousand at most. They're squeaky wheels not representative of anyone but themselves.
Is this debate not recognition that the choices available in this leadership election are all uninspiring with significant areas of potential weakness?
None of them look even vaguely like a PM. The hope for Labour is that one of them (ideally the winner of course) shows unexpected depths and grows into the job in a way that makes them a credible alternative to whoever the Tories put up the next time.
There is always a tendency as you get older to harp back to the giants of the past, to people who did not look particularly giantish at the time but this was the shadow cabinet after Maggie won in 1979, not a particularly high point for Labour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Cabinet_of_James_Callaghan
Callaghan, Healy, Shore, Foot, Owen, Smith, Kinnock and Hattersley amongst others. Again it may be age but all of these in their different ways made far more impact with the country and the electorate than those who are in contention now. Now we have a leading contender whose most notable achievement in government was the catastrophe of HIPs.
Labour is in a very bad place. And they know it. They have to pick the candidate who has the capacity to grow, not only themselves but to have the confidence (unlike Ed) to let others grow too. Does making the leader more vulnerable help this process? Probably not.
Their best choice would have been James Purnell if he wasn't too busy milking the public teat elsewhere.
I remember seeing him on QT years ago and thinking he would be dangerous for the Tories.
Agreed. He was a major loss and head and shoulders above the current candidates. Yet another thing Labour can thank Brown for.
It needs more than one though. As I have said before one of the major problems is that there is little evidence of teams. Never mind a Cameron, where is the Osborne who is going to assume the Mandelson role and plot a way to victory shaping the story lines so the leader looks good and ditching the rubbish that does the opposite?
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Ed Balls thought he was in a safe seat and the voters delivered a lesson.
Ed Balls wasn't in a safe seat and he knew it, but he put party first and spent most of his time in Scotland. It lost him his seat, but don't ever think for one minute it was safe. His majority was only 1100
Indeed, they have every right to an opinion. That said, protesting against a freshly elected government enacting its manifesto seems to be taking umbrage with democracy.
Mr. Tyndall, I agree very much on reducing the power of the parties (which would be drastically increased by the Satanic system of PR).
MD , now you really are having a laugh, not much democracy in UK.
That's just being a sore loser. Had your side won the election you'd be singing a different tune.
Philip, what part of 56 seats out of 59 do you not understand. My side did win but as we are not in a democracy another country will decide what happens in mine not the party that won, so even worse than position in England.
He may have believed the polls and discounted Anthony Calvert [hope that's right] £10 for Balls campaign as a one-off.
Not a *safe* seat in a giant maj - but big enough and 2010 was an aberration. He wouldn't have campaigned in Scotland if he thought he'd lose the chance to be CoE in less than 4 weeks time.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Ed Balls thought he was in a safe seat and the voters delivered a lesson.
Ed Balls wasn't in a safe seat and he knew it, but he put party first and spent most of his time in Scotland. It lost him his seat, but don't ever think for one minute it was safe. His majority was only 1100
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
Oh no malc, we are the ones enjoying the fun from down here.
The SNP on their trips down to London to play musical chairs and...er...that's it.
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
If this Parliament has no "moral right" to pass laws for the United Kingdom, presumably it is legitimate to resist, if necessary, by force, its edicts?
Indeed, they have every right to an opinion. That said, protesting against a freshly elected government enacting its manifesto seems to be taking umbrage with democracy.
Mr. Tyndall, I agree very much on reducing the power of the parties (which would be drastically increased by the Satanic system of PR).
MD , now you really are having a laugh, not much democracy in UK.
That's just being a sore loser. Had your side won the election you'd be singing a different tune.
Philip, what part of 56 seats out of 59 do you not understand. My side did win but as we are not in a democracy another country will decide what happens in mine not the party that won, so even worse than position in England.
The fact that the 59 seats thing is total and utter nonsense. This is a UK Parliament not a Scottish one. As you Scots voted to stay in so it couldn't be more legitimate.
56/59 seats is a victory if that was the whole story. 56/650 seats without that ability to reach a majority with allies is a failure.
Macintosh is miles better than her and yet the dimwits will for sure elect her as regional puppet. She is useless and has little clue about anything , just a cardboard cutout moulded by foulkes. If she wins it will make them even less electable. Her and Baillie as the dream team would make it a walk over.
It may have been covered on the previous thread but the Indy on Sunday has a piece about UKIP's election expenses running out of control and leaving them with hundreds of thousands to find in a hurry.
Apparently it lost control due to massive over-spending. "Huge amounts of election spending were commissioned; we are talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds, with no money in the kitty to pay for it."
No doubt Nige will look into it and require another phalanx of party faithful to atone by falling on their swords.
What a bunch of clowns.
Running short of money after an election campaign is hardly unusual. Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems have frequently found themselves in that position.
UKIP spent the Short money. Before Carswell blocked it. You can now see why Farage was incandescent with him....
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
For much of that time the aid was misdirected or used for instant relief rather than long term planning. Things like the drilling of water wells, the recognition of education of women as an important driver of improving health and large scale vaccination programmes are relatively recent developments.
At the same time it is only in recent years we have started to deal with some of the underlying problems of western companies and countries bribing or coercing countries into large scale cash crop production which only benefits the elite and which leaves the majority of the population in absolute poverty unable to grow enough food to feed themselves. Further it is only a couple of decades since we had the end of the Cold War which promoted the use of Africa as a proxy battlefield for the US and Russia.
There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
I agree with much of this, but it's certainly not true that things like water wells and large-scale vaccination programmes are a recent innovation in foreign aid. I was taking a close interest in the DfID programme throughout the 1997-2010 period, and it was always more concerned with strengthening infrastructure than instant relief. The dilemmas were mostly on "Should we help an efficient authoritarian government (e.g. Ethiopia at the time) or an inefficient democratic government?" "Should we help an efficient fairly poor country (Vietnam) or an inefficient/corrupt desperately poor country (Haiti)?" "Should we focus on direct concrete aid (e.g. build the waterwell ourselves) or help with building up infrastructure (e.g. strengthen the health network rather than just deliver vaccines)?" These were all recognised as genuine dilemmas and were being tackled seriously.
It's easy to point to failures. But it's easy to overlook the success stories too. Most of Asia has escaped from the regular famines that were a perennial feature of the news a few decades ago, to the point that we no longer bother to aid China or start new aid programmes in India. Would we be better off in any sense - humanity, influence, wealth? - if they were still basket cases?
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
It may have been covered on the previous thread but the Indy on Sunday has a piece about UKIP's election expenses running out of control and leaving them with hundreds of thousands to find in a hurry.
Apparently it lost control due to massive over-spending. "Huge amounts of election spending were commissioned; we are talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds, with no money in the kitty to pay for it."
No doubt Nige will look into it and require another phalanx of party faithful to atone by falling on their swords.
What a bunch of clowns.
Running short of money after an election campaign is hardly unusual. Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems have frequently found themselves in that position.
UKIP spent the Short money. Before Carswell blocked it. You can now see why Farage was incandescent with him....
He may have believed the polls and discounted Anthony Calvert [hope that's right] £10 for Balls campaign as a one-off.
Not a *safe* seat in a giant maj - but big enough and 2010 was an aberration. He wouldn't have campaigned in Scotland if he thought he'd lose the chance to be CoE in less than 4 weeks time.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Ed Balls thought he was in a safe seat and the voters delivered a lesson.
Ed Balls wasn't in a safe seat and he knew it, but he put party first and spent most of his time in Scotland. It lost him his seat, but don't ever think for one minute it was safe. His majority was only 1100
No, Morley & Outwood was always marginal and had been fought like one. Andrea Jenkyns was leading teams out campaigning every week for 2+ years beforehand and in the two months or so leading up to election day there were regularly 20+ Tory activists out. It was probably our number one target in Yorkshire.
Balls was caught in something of a Catch-22. If he campaigned a lot in his constituency then it would give credence to the possibility that he might lose, which would imply at least a substantial Tory lead in seats with the possibility of an outright majority, which would blow Labour's campaign badly off course; if he didn't campaign, he ran the risk of losing.
He probably expected to win anyway but he took a calculated risk in spending so little time in M&O.
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
Oh no malc, we are the ones enjoying the fun from down here.
The SNP on their trips down to London to play musical chairs and...er...that's it.
Down there is not where the action is for us , even if it does give an opportunity to give the government a bloody nose. Given how weak labour are and fact that they will be scared to bring down the government that will be a fair time before happening, but they will get their shot at it. Our minds are on the real prize.
Macintosh is miles better than her and yet the dimwits will for sure elect her as regional puppet. She is useless and has little clue about anything , just a cardboard cutout moulded by foulkes. If she wins it will make them even less electable. Her and Baillie as the dream team would make it a walk over.
I agree Malcolm that there is a lot more substance to Ken Macintosh but female leaders seem de rigour in Scotland at the moment.
I liken it to Chris Patten in Bath. I still don't think a man with such a massive competitive streak would've put losing face during a campaign before being CoE for 5yrs.
He may have believed the polls and discounted Anthony Calvert [hope that's right] £10 for Balls campaign as a one-off.
Not a *safe* seat in a giant maj - but big enough and 2010 was an aberration. He wouldn't have campaigned in Scotland if he thought he'd lose the chance to be CoE in less than 4 weeks time.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
snip
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Ed Balls thought he was in a safe seat and the voters delivered a lesson.
Ed Balls wasn't in a safe seat and he knew it, but he put party first and spent most of his time in Scotland. It lost him his seat, but don't ever think for one minute it was safe. His majority was only 1100
No, Morley & Outwood was always marginal and had been fought like one. Andrea Jenkyns was leading teams out campaigning every week for 2+ years beforehand and in the two months or so leading up to election day there were regularly 20+ Tory activists out. It was probably our number one target in Yorkshire.
Balls was caught in something of a Catch-22. If he campaigned a lot in his constituency then it would give credence to the possibility that he might lose, which would imply at least a substantial Tory lead in seats with the possibility of an outright majority, which would blow Labour's campaign badly off course; if he didn't campaign, he ran the risk of losing.
He probably expected to win anyway but he took a calculated risk in spending so little time in M&O.
That's why I think Cooper is a good bet to be next PM at 18/1. If she wins this election she's obviously got a good chance at some point in the next 5 years, and if she loses she's always got a second chance if whoever wins resigns because of poor poll ratings and she stands again.
Ed Balls wasn't in a safe seat and he knew it, but he put party first and spent most of his time in Scotland. It lost him his seat, but don't ever think for one minute it was safe. His majority was only 1100
Ed Balls spent about 2 days in Scotland in the run up to the GE, more than your average Westminster bubble dweller perhaps, but not 'most of his time' by any stretch of the imagination.
foxinsoxuk You highlighted below the fact of a growing NHS deficit as a major problem. So in an era with no new reorganisations, a clear idea of funding over next few years, in a country that is spending on the NHS a % of its economy per head that is in the mid range of OECD countries, why are you so fearful about the NHS? What is really so wrong with the NHS that you regard it as stumbling into failure?
I do not think that it will stumble into failure systematically, but there will be a variety of localised problems. Healthcare in the UK is far more politically contentiousthan in other OECD countries because of the nature of the NHS with its direct party political control.
The problems are partly financial. Historically in austerity the NHS has dealt with financial pressure by allowing waiting lists to rise. This is no longer permitted, so it is the quality that will suffer.
There are major demographic changes with an elderly and obese population.
There are major issues of recruitment and retention (hence the need for expensive agency staff) for Doctors, Nurses and paramedical staff. In the East Midlands we are unable to recruit GPs. The GP scheme has only 25% of places filled for the August start. GPs are planning to retire in droves:
And don't get me started on the forthcoming disaster that is the "Shape of Training Review" which makes Hewitts botched MTAS/MMC changes in 2007 seem well thought through.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That's just plain wrong. All candidates were marked on the ballot as the X party candidate and used the party logo prominently.
Would be an interesting experiment to remove that and see what happens.
You don't have to do that. Just go back a few decades and there were no party emblems or names on ballots prior to the 1969 Representation of the Peoples Act. The 1970 election was the first where party name was included and emblems were not added until 1983.
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
Up here??? I thought you were a Brummie jock
what gave you that impression
That is not a denial. There is only one way to settle this: you give us a rendition of the Kipper Tie joke.....
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That's just plain wrong. All candidates were marked on the ballot as the X party candidate and used the party logo prominently.
Would be an interesting experiment to remove that and see what happens.
You don't have to do that. Just go back a few decades and there were no party emblems or names on ballots prior to the 1969 Representation of the Peoples Act. The 1970 election was the first where party name was included and emblems were not added until 1983.
There is such a thing as a 'personal vote' but a great many people vote for or against a party do they not?
Of course they do. We have a Parliamentary Democracy and they won a majority. If not the Tories who does have a moral right to govern?
Nobody, I think, Mr Thompson. Not unless they can win support for their policies from other groupings in the House of Commons.
Legally and technically, the Conservatives have a majority, and can behave like an elected dictatorship. Morally, they do not have majority support.
I want to change the voting system, but I have never agreed with this 'moral' argument. At present the British people have agreed to accept the present voting system, by not voting for one alternative when it was presented and not being so concerned about it that they voted for parties that want to change it. Therefore, the public has tacitly accepted that these are the types of result you can get and they are ok with that.
So while I do think another system would be fairer personally, I think the Tories technically, legally and morally have majority support. Not direct support with the latter, but people have not shown they want to change the system, and so must be content to accept the consequences. If it is so unmoral perhaps next time they will vote for parties that will change it, even under our system that should not be too hard to achieve.
I liken it to Chris Patten in Bath. I still don't think a man with such a massive competitive streak would've put losing face during a campaign before being CoE for 5yrs.
He may have believed the polls and discounted Anthony Calvert [hope that's right] £10 for Balls campaign as a one-off.
Not a *safe* seat in a giant maj - but big enough and 2010 was an aberration. He wouldn't have campaigned in Scotland if he thought he'd lose the chance to be CoE in less than 4 weeks time.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
snip
That may have been the end result, but I do not agree with you.. You think all those votes in safe seats are for the candidate.??. Nope they are for the party, the voters vote herd like. Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Ed Balls thought he was in a safe seat and the voters delivered a lesson.
Ed Balls wasn't in a safe seat and he knew it, but he put party first and spent most of his time in Scotland. It lost him his seat, but don't ever think for one minute it was safe. His majority was only 1100
No, Morley & Outwood was always marginal and had been fought like one. Andrea Jenkyns was leading teams out campaigning every week for 2+ years beforehand and in the two months or so leading up to election day there were regularly 20+ Tory activists out. It was probably our number one target in Yorkshire.
Balls was caught in something of a Catch-22. If he campaigned a lot in his constituency then it would give credence to the possibility that he might lose, which would imply at least a substantial Tory lead in seats with the possibility of an outright majority, which would blow Labour's campaign badly off course; if he didn't campaign, he ran the risk of losing.
He probably expected to win anyway but he took a calculated risk in spending so little time in M&O.
If Ed Balls was going to be CoE then his seat was safe. But in hindsight he was never going to be CoE.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
Funny. I put the X in a box next to the word Conservative and with the Tory logo. You'd be right if party names and logos didn't go on the ballot paper.
No he wouldn't. Back in the not-too-distant past, party names and logos didn't appear on the paper and it was still perfectly obvious that candidates were representatives of their party.
The concept of parties' position within the constitution is well-embedded and the notion that local candidates are merely representatives of their constituency and nothing more is not just a practical fiction but a theoretical nonsense too. Think of the constitutional position of the appointment of a PM. That is only made possible because parties exist and are recognised within the constitutional practice. Any absolutist position on the idea of what an MP is, is inevitably absurd because MPs have multiple and at times conflicting roles.
Parties are extremely useful to voters. Not only do they provide a convenient shorthand at election time for what each candidate stands for and how they should be held to account but also makes possible the relatively efficient passage of legislation (as an aside, if we think that passage is often too efficient - and I do, FWIW - then it's the parliamentary process that needs amending). Without them, it would be far harder to get anything done and MPs would be far more likely to demand 'pork' for their constituencies as a return for their votes on matters of otherwise little interest to them, which might be popular locally but is no way to run a country.
It may have been covered on the previous thread but the Indy on Sunday has a piece about UKIP's election expenses running out of control and leaving them with hundreds of thousands to find in a hurry.
Apparently it lost control due to massive over-spending. "Huge amounts of election spending were commissioned; we are talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds, with no money in the kitty to pay for it."
No doubt Nige will look into it and require another phalanx of party faithful to atone by falling on their swords.
What a bunch of clowns.
Running short of money after an election campaign is hardly unusual. Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems have frequently found themselves in that position.
UKIP spent the Short money. Before Carswell blocked it. You can now see why Farage was incandescent with him....
They had a purple double decker bus going around Eastleigh, empty every time I saw it. That couldn't have been cheap and that was in a constituency where they didn't stand much of a chance (by-election notwithstanding).
Describing the policy as “spiteful” and anti-aspirational, he said he knew it would lose votes when his mother Eileen phoned and told him it represented a return to the 1970s.
“It felt spiteful and went against the grain," he said. “We need to get back to communicating simple policies that will make a real difference to people.
“Labour looks like an elitist Westminster think-tank talking in language that people don’t understand. We lost our mooring.”
Under his leadership, Mr Burnham said, renters would be offered help to buy their home.
Mr. Clipp, piffle! People who don't vote forfeit the right to moan. My 'interesting seat' was a rock solid Labour seat a couple of elections ago.
Double your piffle, Mr Dancer, and raise you a pif!
Of course people do not lose the right to moan if they do not vote. That was probably written into Magna Carta. You are probably talking about a moral right.....
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
The Tories did not get ANY votes cast. Neither did Labour, the SNP or the Lib Dems. Those votes were cast for individual representatives not for parties. As I am sure we will see when MPs start crossing the floor later in the Parliament.
That's just plain wrong. All candidates were marked on the ballot as the X party candidate and used the party logo prominently.
Would be an interesting experiment to remove that and see what happens.
You don't have to do that. Just go back a few decades and there were no party emblems or names on ballots prior to the 1969 Representation of the Peoples Act. The 1970 election was the first where party name was included and emblems were not added until 1983.
There is such a thing as a 'personal vote' but a great many people vote for or against a party do they not?
Indeed. If I see 'people vote for candidates, not parties' I may scream. How many times do people joke about people not even knowing the name of their MP, who they may well have voted for? How many leaflets in a constituency say nothing about that constituency but are just national attack lines? Yes, some people do vote positively for a specific person, and everyone technically does, but the old 'donkey in a blue/red' rosette joke is funny because it's true in many places.
I think David Herdson encapsulates the subtleties far better though above/below(depending on how you're reading the thread).
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
For much of that time the aid was misdirected or used for instant relief rather than long term planning. Things like the drilling of water wells, the recognition of education of women as an important driver of improving health and large scale vaccination programmes are relatively recent developments.
At the same time it is only in recent years we have started to deal with some of the underlying problems of western companies and countries bribing or coercing countries into large scale cash crop production which only benefits the elite and which leaves the majority of the population in absolute poverty unable to grow enough food to feed themselves. Further it is only a couple of decades since we had the end of the Cold War which promoted the use of Africa as a proxy battlefield for the US and Russia.
There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
Richard, still been a disaster despite some isolated successes. We have jsut poured money into despots bank accounts. There was little thought of really helping people, money wasted on the bloated admin process or given direct to wasters. They were more interested in selling them guns and limousines for self gain.
But that kind of backs up what I was saying and what Gates is saying. The projects he is backing and that the UK is increasingly backing do not give money to the foreign governments. They give it to projects on the ground - such as vaccination programmes and water wells.
The real trick to be honest is not the problem with government funding it's with the charities these days who spend such a huge amount on non essential sections of their business and leave little for the actual work. They are businesses these days with high paid executives.
A small group of us involved in geological projects including in Africa have bypassed the charity system completely and now fund a clinic directly in the slums of Kampala. We have regular visits and get reports from the clinic on their vaccination programmes, antenatal and postnatal care programmes and general health stuff. There is also a big element of contraceptive advise and provision. We know that every penny we send goes directly to the clinic and the people in need and it is extraordinary how much difference it makes.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
For much of that time the aid was misdirected or used for instant relief rather than long term planning. Things like the drilling of water wells, the recognition of education of women as an important driver of improving health and large scale vaccination programmes are relatively recent developments.
At the same time it is only in recent years we have started to deal with some of the underlying problems of western companies and countries bribing or coercing countries into large scale cash crop production which only benefits the elite and which leaves the majority of the population in absolute poverty unable to grow enough food to feed themselves. Further it is only a couple of decades since we had the end of the Cold War which promoted the use of Africa as a proxy battlefield for the US and Russia.
There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
Richard, still been a disaster despite some isolated successes. We have jsut poured money into despots bank accounts. There was little thought of really helping people, money wasted on the bloated admin process or given direct to wasters. They were more interested in selling them guns and limousines for self gain.
But that kind of backs up what I was saying and what Gates is saying. The projects he is backing and that the UK is increasingly backing do not give money to the foreign governments. They give it to projects on the ground - such as vaccination programmes and water wells.
The real trick to be honest is not the problem with government funding it's with the charities these days who spend such a huge amount on non essential sections of their business and leave little for the actual work. They are businesses these days with high paid executives.
A small group of us involved in geological projects including in Africa have bypassed the charity system completely and now fund a clinic directly in the slums of Kampala. We have regular visits and get reports from the clinic on their vaccination programmes, antenatal and postnatal care programmes and general health stuff. There is also a big element of contraceptive advise and provision. We know that every penny we send goes directly to the clinic and the people in need and it is extraordinary how much difference it makes.
Properly directed Aid works.
Small, focussed, charities work. Big ones become bureaucracies.
A hardline vegan who has compared farming to the Holocaust has been elected to the RSPCA's ruling council.
Peta Watson-Smith's comments distressed leaders of the Jewish comunity. Nevertheless, she has been elected in a poll of the charity's 22,000 members.
Another hardliner who gained a seat on the 23-strong council is Dan Lyons. Lyons has said that he wants pet owners to sit exams. He is also the chief executive of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a charity that has been investigating ways to represent animals in parliament.
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
snip There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
Richard, still been a disaster despite some isolated successes. We have jsut poured money into despots bank accounts. There was little thought of really helping people, money wasted on the bloated admin process or given direct to wasters. They were more interested in selling them guns and limousines for self gain.
But that kind of backs up what I was saying and what Gates is saying. The projects he is backing and that the UK is increasingly backing do not give money to the foreign governments. They give it to projects on the ground - such as vaccination programmes and water wells.
The real trick to be honest is not the problem with government funding it's with the charities these days who spend such a huge amount on non essential sections of their business and leave little for the actual work. They are businesses these days with high paid executives.
A small group of us involved in geological projects including in Africa have bypassed the charity system completely and now fund a clinic directly in the slums of Kampala. We have regular visits and get reports from the clinic on their vaccination programmes, antenatal and postnatal care programmes and general health stuff. There is also a big element of contraceptive advise and provision. We know that every penny we send goes directly to the clinic and the people in need and it is extraordinary how much difference it makes.
Properly directed Aid works.
Small, focussed, charities work. Big ones become bureaucracies.
No he wouldn't. Back in the not-too-distant past, party names and logos didn't appear on the paper and it was still perfectly obvious that candidates were representatives of their party.
The concept of parties' position within the constitution is well-embedded and the notion that local candidates are merely representatives of their constituency and nothing more is not just a practical fiction but a theoretical nonsense too. Think of the constitutional position of the appointment of a PM. That is only made possible because parties exist and are recognised within the constitutional practice. Any absolutist position on the idea of what an MP is, is inevitably absurd because MPs have multiple and at times conflicting roles.
Parties are extremely useful to voters. Not only do they provide a convenient shorthand at election time for what each candidate stands for and how they should be held to account but also makes possible the relatively efficient passage of legislation (as an aside, if we think that passage is often too efficient - and I do, FWIW - then it's the parliamentary process that needs amending). Without them, it would be far harder to get anything done and MPs would be far more likely to demand 'pork' for their constituencies as a return for their votes on matters of otherwise little interest to them, which might be popular locally but is no way to run a country.
Absolutely untrue David. If that were the case then an MP would not be able to defect from his party.
Parties and the extreme power they have seized over the electoral system are the blight of our politics and the sooner we radically reduce their power the better. It is the sight of MPs putting party before constituents that has driven so many voters away from voting and as long as the current party stranglehold on our political system exists you will never get people to reengage.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
Gravitas is not the key, Brown had gravitas and lost, Heath had gravitas and lost 3/4 elections. The key is having a leader with charisma, as Cameron and Blair had, or at least likeability as Major had. Having charisma and gravitas like Thatcher and Wilson had would be the ideal, but charisma normally beats gravitas and has done since JFK beat Nixon.
As for the polls, all the polls showed Cameron preferred to Miliband as PM and most showed the election tied, they did not show a clear Labour lead, so they cannot be dismissed entirely
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
Agree with everything except you last line :-)
I prefer (1). But I feel we're currently getting the worst of both worlds.
Hard to see political parties voting for their own demise, mind...
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
My concern with such a system would be around MPs, as DH, says, focusing on bringing home the pork to a far greater extent than now. I do have issues with many MPs not being very locally focused, but MPs are not just local representatives, they also are involved with votes that only tangentially, theoretically or even are not all to do with their constituents.
I think there was a piece a year or so ago about how much constituency work people felt their MPs were doing, and how much they wanted them to be doing, which I think would be an interesting issue to look at - we need parties to some extent to help marshal the broader policy issues in what one hopes is a coherent way which the public knows about beforehand generally, but we don't want MPs to be too tightly controlled by the parties either, and we want them to focus on those larger national concerns, but also help us out locally
Couldn't find the piece I was thinking of, but this piece from a few weeks ago bemoaning 'MPs are becoming glorified councillors or social workers' and
But underpinning those discussions must be the central question: what are MPs for? Winston Churchill had a clear approach: “the honour and safety of Great Britain … constituents … the party organisation”. MPs in the last parliament drew up the same list, but reversed the order of priority.
I suppose it's a case of what should be the order or priority, or how much time to devote to them, or what else should be added. Parties are necessary for, or beneficial for some of it, less so with others, depending on the degree of control (and a present the impression is largely of ranks of bland identikit party automatons).
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
A system of MPs independent from political parties would result in less government, rather than more. It would probably be better at avoiding international entanglements. It would better reflect the genuinely chaotic nature of the country's political beliefs.
And I suspect it would also do a better job of keeping spending in check :-)
On topic, getting rid of a leader is only worth doing if:
1. It can be done cleanly and quickly. 2. The ousted leader and his or her supporters will go quietly. 3. A new leader can be elected who can unify the party and provide more effective leadership than the one to be dismissed.
Which goes a long way to explaining why Brown and Miliband weren't removed.
Labour's rules make it hard for leaders to be forced out and that's a conscious decision on their part. Removing the man (or woman) in post therefore requires either an immense amount of pressure or the incumbent's consent, not just at the time but afterwards too, for if they're not willing to play by point 2 above then any benefit gained by their removal will be more than offset by subsequent ructions.
There's also the question of whether Labour has any better options available. It's probable that David Miliband would have done a better job than Gordon Brown of leading Labour into the 2010 election, all else being equal (and all else probably wouldn't have been equal) but would Burnham or Cooper or Balls or whoever have clearly done better than EdM? The risk in defenestrating Miliband would have been that rather than being a late choice for the 2015 GE, it would have become an early one for the 2020 election. And that would have raised the stakes to a point where the event becomes self-defeating.
As for providing unity, that was why John Major survived until 1997 (and no small reason for why he won in 1990). While the Tory Party was clearly not united at the time, he was still the only person capable of papering over the cracks. Each wing of the party effectively exercised a veto over the possible alternatives - Clarke, Heseltine or Portillo - meaning that had one of them taken over it would have been outright civil war. In Labour's case, all the main options currently on the table seem much of a muchness. Unless the leader messes up spectacularly, would there be much to gain from all the disruption?
There the culture question. Labour simply doesn't do leadership coups. For all the talk about how they 'should have removed Miliband', they didn't. Nor Brown. Nor Kinnock. Nor Foot. When it comes down to it, the collectivist mind-set makes itself felt and there's a sense of betraying Labour's principles to adopt what are seen as Tory methods. It's not a trump card - I'm not suggesting Labour could never replace a leader - but it is an inhibitant.
Finally, there's the polling dynamic. Most oppositions are in the lead for much of the parliament and are gaining seats at interim elections. When that's the case, it becomes a lot harder to justify removing a leader who on the face of it is delivering the goods.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
You say "coherent government" I say "tyranny of the minority"
1. Plenty of councils get by either being run by independents or by rainbow coalitions. 2. Somebody will be able to command the support of the House of Commons, and will propose a budget.
A hardline vegan who has compared farming to the Holocaust has been elected to the RSPCA's ruling council.
Peta Watson-Smith's comments distressed leaders of the Jewish comunity. Nevertheless, she has been elected in a poll of the charity's 22,000 members.
Another hardliner who gained a seat on the 23-strong council is Dan Lyons. Lyons has said that he wants pet owners to sit exams. He is also the chief executive of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a charity that has been investigating ways to represent animals in parliament.
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
snip There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
Richard, still been a disaster despite some isolated successes. We have jsut poured money into despots bank accounts. There was little thought of really helping people, money wasted on the bloated admin process or given direct to wasters. They were more interested in selling them guns and limousines for self gain.
But that kind of backs up what I was saying and what Gates is saying. The projects he is backing and that the UK is increasingly backing do not give money to the foreign governments. They give it to projects on the ground - such as vaccination programmes and water wells.
The real trick to be honest is not the problem with government funding it's with the charities these days who spend such a huge amount on non essential sections of their business and leave little for the actual work. They are businesses these days with high paid executives.
A small group of us involved in geological projects including in Africa have bypassed the charity system completely and now fund a clinic directly in the slums of Kampala. We have regular visits and get reports from the clinic on their vaccination programmes, antenatal and postnatal care programmes and general health stuff. There is also a big element of contraceptive advise and provision. We know that every penny we send goes directly to the clinic and the people in need and it is extraordinary how much difference it makes.
Properly directed Aid works.
Small, focussed, charities work. Big ones become bureaucracies.
A system of MPs independent from political parties would result in less government, rather than more.
That's fine in theory, we could certainly use less of the tinkering 'We're in power now, ok best do something' approach to legislation, but I do think a certain level of shared focus and direction is agreeable, even if the level of party control we have currently is a bit much.
Macintosh is miles better than her and yet the dimwits will for sure elect her as regional puppet. She is useless and has little clue about anything , just a cardboard cutout moulded by foulkes. If she wins it will make them even less electable. Her and Baillie as the dream team would make it a walk over.
I agree Malcolm that there is a lot more substance to Ken Macintosh but female leaders seem de rigour in Scotland at the moment.
My concern with such a system would be around MPs, as DH, says, focusing on bringing home the pork to a far greater extent than now. I do have issues with many MPs not being very locally focused, but MPs are not just local representatives, they also are involved with votes that only tangentially, theoretically or even are not all to do with their constituents.
I think there was a piece a year or so ago about how much constituency work people felt their MPs were doing, and how much they wanted them to be doing, which I think would be an interesting issue to look at - we need parties to some extent to help marshal the broader policy issues in what one hopes is a coherent way which the public knows about beforehand generally, but we don't want MPs to be too tightly controlled by the parties either, and we want them to focus on those larger national concerns, but also help us out locally
Couldn't find the piece I was thinking of, but this piece from a few weeks ago bemoaning 'MPs are becoming glorified councillors or social workers' and
But underpinning those discussions must be the central question: what are MPs for? Winston Churchill had a clear approach: “the honour and safety of Great Britain … constituents … the party organisation”. MPs in the last parliament drew up the same list, but reversed the order of priority.
I suppose it's a case of what should be the order or priority, or how much time to devote to them, or what else should be added. Parties are necessary for, or beneficial for some of it, less so with others, depending on the degree of control (and a present the impression is largely of ranks of bland identikit party automatons).
The Pork Barrel complaint is a complete red herring in UK politics. It might work that way in the US where you have states the size of countries and where Congress has far more hands on control over appropriations but it is not the same in the UK. In the UK only a tiny fraction of the decisions made by Parliament could be swayed by such considerations. And when it comes to the bigger issues they should be voting on the basis of what they consider is best for their constituents and the country not the threats and bribes of the whips.
And the 'glorified councillors' complaint is another red herring. We are talking about MPs properly representing their constituents in Parliament. If you want to stop the agony aunt distractions then just make the rules clearer on what MPs should and should not get involved with and what they should defer to local councillors or officials.
All these arguments are designed to detract from the basic premise that the current party system is broken because it forces MPs to put party before constituency. That is what needs fixing and until you do you will never see MPs being seen as anything other than self serving shills.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
You say "coherent government" I say "tyranny of the minority"
1. Plenty of councils get by either being run by independents or by rainbow coalitions. 2. Somebody will be able to command the support of the House of Commons, and will propose a budget.
The councils run by "independents" have generally stood as a group or a party for want of a better description. 2. What drives you to that conclusion in the absence of party structures? Maybe they would have that majority on the even days of the week. Maybe they would have that majority until they actually decided to do something. It is a recipe for chaos.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
Richard Tyndall And the 'glorified councillors' complaint is another red herring. We are talking about MPs properly representing their constituents in Parliament. If you want to stop the agony aunt distractions then just make the rules clearer on what MPs should and should not get involved with and what they should defer to local councillors or officials.
All these arguments are designed to detract from the basic premise that the current party system is broken because it forces MPs to put party before constituency. That is what needs fixing and until you do you will never see MPs being seen as anything other than self serving shills.
I don't actually agree with that piece's bemoaning of MPs being glorified councillors, I happen to agree with you that clearer rules on what they should be involved with or be deferred would help (in theory anyway, the problem would be getting people who need help knowing who they should contact about specific things, and if they actually did that if they do know).
I'm certainly not trying to detract from the premise that the party system is broken - I do think MPs put party before other concerns a lot of the time - just that parties can be useful things, arguing against the idea of just getting rid of them, even if I am not yet clear on how to make it definitively better.
11/4 on a change of Labour leader before the next election is a sucker's bet. I'd want 40/1 before I considered it. Labour have no history of changing leaders, no matter how hopeless. Mutterings from a few dinosaurs that it would be a good idea to change this approach are not worth betting on. And that assumes the leader actually isn't any good. She might be.
Short of death, the winner of the leadership contest will almost certainly fight the 2020 election as leader.
[snip] The concept of parties' position within the constitution is well-embedded [snip]. Think of the constitutional position of the appointment of a PM. That is only made possible because parties exist and are recognised within the constitutional practice. Any absolutist position on the idea of what an MP is, is inevitably absurd because MPs have multiple and at times conflicting roles.
Parties are extremely useful to voters. Not only do they provide a convenient shorthand at election time for what each candidate stands for and how they should be held to account but also makes possible the relatively efficient passage of legislation (as an aside, if we think that passage is often too efficient - and I do, FWIW - then it's the parliamentary process that needs amending). Without them, it would be far harder to get anything done and MPs would be far more likely to demand 'pork' for their constituencies as a return for their votes on matters of otherwise little interest to them, which might be popular locally but is no way to run a country.
Absolutely untrue David. If that were the case then an MP would not be able to defect from his party.
Parties and the extreme power they have seized over the electoral system are the blight of our politics and the sooner we radically reduce their power the better. It is the sight of MPs putting party before constituents that has driven so many voters away from voting and as long as the current party stranglehold on our political system exists you will never get people to reengage.
I'd be happy to reduce the power that parties have; it's one reason that I support reform of the electoral system to Open Lists in constituencies of about 4-7 MPs.
However, you need to recognise that politics is practical and that no matter what the system MPs will inevitably tend compromise on one issue they don't feel particularly strongly on in order to gain elsewhere on a matter that they do rate as a priority. That is how majorities are built to get things done.
Ref your point on defections, I'd go back to not adopting absolutist positions. Yes, MPs are representatives of parties and the great majority of people vote for them as such but they're also still free agents. It's not any law that makes them act as they do; it's the dynamics of the political process. Defections take place, sometimes with the public mood, sometimes not. It's for an MP to decide how to justify that. However, I do think it's a shame (though not a surprise) that the proposal for recall elections lost momentum. If an MP does switch party, there's a strong moral case for calling a by-election to ratify that and if the MP chooses not to, then there's a strong case for his or her constituents to take the initiative instead.
Richard Tyndall And the 'glorified councillors' complaint is another red herring. We are talking about MPs properly representing their constituents in Parliament. If you want to stop the agony aunt distractions then just make the rules clearer on what MPs should and should not get involved with and what they should defer to local councillors or officials.
All these arguments are designed to detract from the basic premise that the current party system is broken because it forces MPs to put party before constituency. That is what needs fixing and until you do you will never see MPs being seen as anything other than self serving shills.
I don't actually agree with that piece's bemoaning of MPs being glorified councillors, I happen to agree with you that clearer rules on what they should be involved with or be deferred would help (in theory anyway, the problem would be getting people who need help knowing who they should contact about specific things, and if they actually did that if they do know).
I'm certainly not trying to detract from the premise that the party system is broken - I do think MPs put party before other concerns a lot of the time - just that parties can be useful things, arguing against the idea of just getting rid of them, even if I am not yet clear on how to make it definitively better.
Would you at least agree therefore that anything that increases the power of the parties - such as most of the advocated PR systems - is a bad thing?
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
You say "coherent government" I say "tyranny of the minority"
1. Plenty of councils get by either being run by independents or by rainbow coalitions. 2. Somebody will be able to command the support of the House of Commons, and will propose a budget.
The councils run by "independents" have generally stood as a group or a party for want of a better description. 2. What drives you to that conclusion in the absence of party structures? Maybe they would have that majority on the even days of the week. Maybe they would have that majority until they actually decided to do something. It is a recipe for chaos.
Jersey (and I believe Guernsey) have no political parties and survive quite nicely. Indeed I clearly remember from my time living in Jersey that occasional attempts to start them were routinely voted down at the ballot box. I haven't been there for a few years now so this may have changed but it was certainly still true 10 years ago.
A hardline vegan who has compared farming to the Holocaust has been elected to the RSPCA's ruling council.
Peta Watson-Smith's comments distressed leaders of the Jewish comunity. Nevertheless, she has been elected in a poll of the charity's 22,000 members.
Another hardliner who gained a seat on the 23-strong council is Dan Lyons. Lyons has said that he wants pet owners to sit exams. He is also the chief executive of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a charity that has been investigating ways to represent animals in parliament.
Mental note. Not a penny more.
I stopped giving my time and money when they went all political over fox hunting. What's happening now is merely the predictable end-game from all that.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
Totally disagree Richard. At the last election I was canvassing with a very pleasant chap in Perthshire. He told me he had stood for the tories in Dundee West in 2010. I had voted for him but I had absolutely no idea who the candidate was and had a similar level of interest.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents. Pretty much all of their constituents vote for a party and expect them, if elected, to broadly follow its tenants. It is naïve to believe otherwise.
I think it's understandable so many people were angry and protesting yesterday. Bloody Conservatives! What makes them think they have a mandate to enact their manifesto, apart from winning a General Election six weeks ago?!
MD perhaps the 75% of the population who did not vote for them are allowed an opinion , they are not duty bound to slavishly love every Tory cut.
Then the good people of Britain will have to rely on the SNP scuppering the Tory Govt.'s legislative programme with their squadrons of...oh sorry, they're impotent in Westminster aren't they? Because the SNP over-egged the pudding with their boast about writing the Budget. And gave us a Tory majority Govt.
Hahahahahahaha. Turnips.
Enjoy while you can, you do seem a bit deluded given the paltry vote the Tories garnered in Scotland to imagine any SNP connection. It was the deluded people in England voting and they may live to regret it, though the alternative was even worse. We will enjoy the fun from up here.
Up here??? I thought you were a Brummie jock
what gave you that impression
That is not a denial. There is only one way to settle this: you give us a rendition of the Kipper Tie joke.....
I have stated forever on here that I live in Ayrshire, born there and after many travels returned there many years ago.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
If you're going to be theoretical about it, you're wrong: they're not elected to represent their constituents. That only happens because electoral necessity for them means it's in their interests to do so.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect
A hardline vegan who has compared farming to the Holocaust has been elected to the RSPCA's ruling council.
Peta Watson-Smith's comments distressed leaders of the Jewish comunity. Nevertheless, she has been elected in a poll of the charity's 22,000 members.
Another hardliner who gained a seat on the 23-strong council is Dan Lyons. Lyons has said that he wants pet owners to sit exams. He is also the chief executive of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a charity that has been investigating ways to represent animals in parliament.
Mental note. Not a penny more.
I stopped giving my time and money when they went all political over fox hunting. What's happening now is merely the predictable end-game from all that.
DavidH Of the Tory Leadership coups Heath was removed because he had lost 2 elections and refused to go, Thatcher was removed as polls showed Heseltine and Major would win an election she would lose and IDS was removed as he failed to receive the confidence of MPs in the first place. The Tories kept Major in 1995 and Hague even when he was well behind in the polls as well as Cameron in 2007 as there was no alternative leader who polling showed would do significantly better. There is only a point removing the leader if they are behind in the polls and there is a more electable alternative
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
If you're going to be theoretical about it, you're wrong: they're not elected to represent their constituents. That only happens because electoral necessity for them means it's in their interests to do so.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect
Quite so. As Liz Kendall said recently, it is the country that comes first.
Seems to be taking a long time, been 50 years now pouring money in and yet most of Africa is still a basket case. How many trillions does it take to improve things.
There are great success stories in Africa as a result of properly targeted aid. Botswana is one good example.
Richard, still been a disaster despite some isolated successes. We have jsut poured money into despots bank accounts. There was little thought of really helping people, money wasted on the bloated admin process or given direct to wasters. They were more interested in selling them guns and limousines for self gain.
But that kind of backs up what I was saying and what Gates is saying. The projects he is backing and that the UK is increasingly backing do not give money to the foreign governments. They give it to projects on the ground - such as vaccination programmes and water wells.
The real trick to be honest is not the problem with government funding it's with the charities these days who spend such a huge amount on non essential sections of their business and leave little for the actual work. They are businesses these days with high paid executives.
A small group of us involved in geological projects including in Africa have bypassed the charity system completely and now fund a clinic directly in the slums of Kampala. We have regular visits and get reports from the clinic on their vaccination programmes, antenatal and postnatal care programmes and general health stuff. There is also a big element of contraceptive advise and provision. We know that every penny we send goes directly to the clinic and the people in need and it is extraordinary how much difference it makes.
Properly directed Aid works.
Richard, I agree, however the Tories throwing money away is not helping , between the bloated DFID and them having to give the money away to other organisations as they cannot spend it quick enough means lots of money is going down the drain.
I'd be happy to reduce the power that parties have; it's one reason that I support reform of the electoral system to Open Lists in constituencies of about 4-7 MPs.
However, you need to recognise that politics is practical and that no matter what the system MPs will inevitably tend compromise on one issue they don't feel particularly strongly on in order to gain elsewhere on a matter that they do rate as a priority. That is how majorities are built to get things done.
Ref your point on defections, I'd go back to not adopting absolutist positions. Yes, MPs are representatives of parties and the great majority of people vote for them as such but they're also still free agents. It's not any law that makes them act as they do; it's the dynamics of the political process. Defections take place, sometimes with the public mood, sometimes not. It's for an MP to decide how to justify that. However, I do think it's a shame (though not a surprise) that the proposal for recall elections lost momentum. If an MP does switch party, there's a strong moral case for calling a by-election to ratify that and if the MP chooses not to, then there's a strong case for his or her constituents to take the initiative instead.
I would agree with most of that. I very much agree with recall. I could not, however, go for any form of voting reform that included party vote share as a factor because I believe it would give more power to the parties.
One solution I believe would work would be to allow MPs to declare party affiliation during elections but then to have free votes in Parliament on all but perhaps the main budgetary issues (using the same criteria as in the 1911 Parliament Act). Parties would have to persuade their MPs that a measure was worthy of being passed (or opposed) but would not be able to coerce them to vote in a particular way.
A hardline vegan who has compared farming to the Holocaust has been elected to the RSPCA's ruling council.
Peta Watson-Smith's comments distressed leaders of the Jewish comunity. Nevertheless, she has been elected in a poll of the charity's 22,000 members.
Another hardliner who gained a seat on the 23-strong council is Dan Lyons. Lyons has said that he wants pet owners to sit exams. He is also the chief executive of the Centre for Animals and Social Justice, a charity that has been investigating ways to represent animals in parliament.
Mental note. Not a penny more.
I stopped giving my time and money when they went all political over fox hunting. What's happening now is merely the predictable end-game from all that.
Many of them won't be aware. The majority of those 22k will live in a do-goodery mental fluffball and think they are saving ikkle puppies from nasty men with sticks. They won't be examining the AGM ballot papers closely. Those will be lining cat litter trays.
Sure, if you wne political parties through some form of PR.
I don't se.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
It would still be an interesting experiment to see how many of the people in such seats were voting for the person or the party though - I mean, party's put up candidates and have a leader and a manifesto saying 'We will do these things', and maybe the local candidate thinks the leader of the party and the manifesto is a load of hogwash but is rather quiet about that during the campaign period. Maybe people thought they were voting for one type of Conservative and were getting another (I doubt that with the 'awkward squad' though, whose views are probably well known).
MPs are there to represent their constituents, but parties are still allowed to put up whoever they like and see if the public will go for that - if a party wants to deselect a candidate for lack of loyalty, they can do that and the public is not harmed as far as I can see; after all, they can vote for that same person if they stand as an independent or for someone else if they don't like the way the party acted, or they can vote for someone else if their MP kowtows to his party and ignores their wishes.
These scenarios where the only options presented are 'no parties, parties are bad' or 'party must have total control' seem a little extreme. People standing on a shared set of policies and ideals so that people even voting locally have some picture of how they might be inclined to vote on national matters seems beneficial to me, even if the control is now too much. There must surely be a middle ground.
The origins of political parties are fairly fascinating. I think I recall one historian (Ian Gentles or Mark Kishlansky? - one disputed the view of the other IIRC) suggesting the origins could be traced to a purge of particular officers of the New Model Army with more acceptable (to the grandees presume) officer representatives. Seemed to take it a bit far back I think, but an interesting idea.
I did like when looking at the various factional interests of the Protectorate Parliaments you can see these various groupings of political Presbyterians, civilian and military interest and crypto-royalists and the like, where we have to keep being reminded these were not named, firm groups of parties, but just handy indicators we use of how people, on balance, were likely to have voted together. Coming from such party heavy time, it's hard to conceptualize political interests not being as firm.
If you're going to be theoretical about it, you're wrong: they're not elected to represent their constituents. That only happens because electoral necessity for them means it's in their interests to do so.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect
And according to that he is elected as a member of Parliament to represent the community, NOT as a member of a particular political party to represent their best interests and position in Government.
You have made my point for me.
The good of the country not of the party.
That is why our system is so screwed and why both you and DavidL are so wrong.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents.
And neither are being done under the current system where the MPs first and foremost act in the interests of their party and not their constituents or the country.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
You say "coherent government" I say "tyranny of the minority"
1. Plenty of councils get by either being run by independents or by rainbow coalitions. 2. Somebody will be able to command the support of the House of Commons, and will propose a budget.
The councils run by "independents" have generally stood as a group or a party for want of a better description. 2. What drives you to that conclusion in the absence of party structures? Maybe they would have that majority on the even days of the week. Maybe they would have that majority until they actually decided to do something. It is a recipe for chaos.
Jersey (and I believe Guernsey) have no political parties and survive quite nicely. Indeed I clearly remember from my time living in Jersey that occasional attempts to start them were routinely voted down at the ballot box. I haven't been there for a few years now so this may have changed but it was certainly still true 10 years ago.
Didn't Anglesey have no political parties and was run so badly due to personal factional infighting that the government had to take power away from the elected representatives?
I guess no system is perfect.
Edit - seems is was 'partly along political party lines' according to wiki, so not completely party free it seems.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents.
And neither are being done under the current system where the MPs first and foremost act in the interests of their party and not their constituents or the country.
Surely MPs are elected as legislators, their duty to their constituents it to ensure that legislation that is passed considers local interests.
It would still be an interesting experiment to see how many of the people in such seats were voting for the person or the party though - I mean, party's put up candidates and have a leader and a manifesto saying 'We will do these things', and maybe the local candidate thinks the leader of the party and the manifesto is a load of hogwash but is rather quiet about that during the campaign period. Maybe people thought they were voting for one type of Conservative and were getting another (I doubt that with the 'awkward squad' though, whose views are probably well known).
MPs are there to represent their constituents, but parties are still allowed to put up whoever they like and see if the public will go for that - if a party wants to deselect a candidate for lack of loyalty, they can do that and the public is not harmed as far as I can see; after all, they can vote for that same person if they stand as an independent or for someone else if they don't like the way the party acted, or they can vote for someone else if their MP kowtows to his party and ignores their wishes.
These scenarios where the only options presented are 'no parties, parties are bad' or 'party must have total control' seem a little extreme. People standing on a shared set of policies and ideals so that people even voting locally have some picture of how they might be inclined to vote on national matters seems beneficial to me, even if the control is now too much. There must surely be a middle ground.
The origins of political parties are fairly fascinating. I think I recall one historian (Ian Gentles or Mark Kishlansky? - one disputed the view of the other IIRC) suggesting the origins could be traced to a purge of particular officers of the New Model Army with more acceptable (to the grandees presume) officer representatives. Seemed to take it a bit far back I think, but an interesting idea.
I did like when looking at the various factional interests of the Protectorate Parliaments you can see these various groupings of political Presbyterians, civilian and military interest and crypto-royalists and the like, where we have to keep being reminded these were not named, firm groups of parties, but just handy indicators we use of how people, on balance, were likely to have voted together. Coming from such party heavy time, it's hard to conceptualize political interests not being as firm.
A pleasant afternoon to all.
I believe the formalisation of the whips system and their payment as part of government only happened after representations by the Irish Home Rule party at the end of the 19th century.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents.
And neither are being done under the current system where the MPs first and foremost act in the interests of their party and not their constituents or the country.
Surely MPs are elected as legislators, their duty to their constituents it to ensure that legislation that is passed considers local interests.
Something which has been thoroughly corrupted by the party system as we have it today.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents.
And neither are being done under the current system where the MPs first and foremost act in the interests of their party and not their constituents or the country.
I think we may have to agree to disagree on this. I do agree that recall should be an option open to constituents in certain circumstances, I have major reservations about closed lists and PR systems which can make parties over powerful and I accept that an MP has the right to disagree with his party and rebel on a particular topic.
But parties are essential for representative democracy to work. If Jersey is the best example of where it might not apply it rather proves my point.
But then the Tories do not have a moral right to govern, when they got 51% of the seats in the Commons, having received only 36% of the votes that were cast.
If this Parliament has no "moral right" to pass laws for the United Kingdom, presumably it is legitimate to resist, if necessary, by force, its edicts?
Exactly so, Mr Town. You ought to be a lawyer!
Though probably there is a need to distinguish between "Parliament" and "Government". This Government has no moral right to take any decisions at all, since it took power with only minority support. It may, though, win majority support for its proposals, and then the decisions would be quite moral.
By the same token, everybody has the moral right to grumble and protest, regardless of whether they cast their vote or not.
Practice, however, revolves around legal and technical positions. The present government was voted in according to the law, as it stands. That the FPTP voting system is neither efficient nor moral is not the point. From a legal and technical standpoint, it would not be legitimate to resist by force. But I don´t think anybody was suggesting that.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
I don't see how you have any form of coherent government without parties. The idea of fixing a budget, for example, with no idea if your health or defence policies will be supported by a majority in the Commons is absurd. You need to have a majority in the Commons signed up for a common platform and the difference between that and a party rather escapes me.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
That is frankly atrocious. And a perfect example of what is wrong with the party system. MPs are elected to represent their constituents NOT their party.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents.
And neither are being done under the current system where the MPs first and foremost act in the interests of their party and not their constituents or the country.
Surely MPs are elected as legislators, their duty to their constituents it to ensure that legislation that is passed considers local interests.
Something which has been thoroughly corrupted by the party system as we have it today.
If we moved to separate the legislature and executive, as in the US, then parties would have far less power over MPs as they would lose to patronage of giving them jobs.
Comments
Would be an interesting experiment to remove that and see what happens.
Even if they don't like the MP they still vote for the party cause they cant stand Lab/Tory/Lib Dems. It was ever thus..
Not so on point two, though. Under FPTP, the party in the safe seat puts up a "party list" of one candidate, and the electorate have no choice at all, whatever way they decide to vote. The party´s nominee always gets elected.
Under the STV variant of PR, electors can choose not only among parties, but also among candidates of the same party. A UKIP voter coud express his preference for Mr Carswell, Mr Farage and Mrs James, for example (assuming they were all standing in the same multi-member constituency) - and still be fairly sure of getting a UKIP MP elected.
I think it about time TSE put up a thread about STV........
No To No Cuts is the clear message. thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/no_cuts_placard
I remember seeing him on QT years ago and thinking he would be dangerous for the Tories.
Do you agree with him that the second, public, inquiry was unwelcome because of the damage it did to the trust's reputation? That is the main thing I am pointing out, and why he would be an unsuitable party leader or potential PM.
BTW, I too have read the Francis report. Reading is not just a capability reserved for doctors.
I never said it was 'simply a cover-up'; but even you must admit that it played a very large part in what happened. The culture of secrecy and defensiveness in the trust are well outlined in the report, from memory at least. It is clear from the report that if that culture had not been present there would not have been as many deaths.
As a side issue, it's a shame that the CQC's myriad of failings - for instance in relation to Shaldon - have not been better highlighted.
And yes, I've said passim that similar scandals have happened before. That does not excuse Stafford, and should not be used an excuse.
(*) Although your repeated ignorance about his previous time at the DoH in 2006-7 is rather startling.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/labour-s-kezia-dugdale-holyrood-election-warning-1-3807878
One easy way of improving the focus our spending would be to substantially reduce it, at least until we became more adept at getting 'more bangs for our bucks'.
Buffet is happy to admit that it is difficult to spend an aid budget effectively. Too much money in total makes that harder, not easier.
As a lot of people plainly do cast their vote with an eye purely on the national situation, there is an argument at least for other voting systems. I do not say that case is overwhelming, indeed someone might still be happy with it, but I find it bizarre to discount that people do not cast their votes in a certain way in a literal sense in one way, but then still rely on interpreting what people meant when they voted for a specific representative in another, having your cake and eating it too by not allowing speculation on one part but allowing it on the other.
It needs more than one though. As I have said before one of the major problems is that there is little evidence of teams. Never mind a Cameron, where is the Osborne who is going to assume the Mandelson role and plot a way to victory shaping the story lines so the leader looks good and ditching the rubbish that does the opposite?
Legally and technically, the Conservatives have a majority, and can behave like an elected dictatorship. Morally, they do not have majority support.
Not a *safe* seat in a giant maj - but big enough and 2010 was an aberration. He wouldn't have campaigned in Scotland if he thought he'd lose the chance to be CoE in less than 4 weeks time.
The SNP on their trips down to London to play musical chairs and...er...that's it.
56/59 seats is a victory if that was the whole story. 56/650 seats without that ability to reach a majority with allies is a failure.
It's easy to point to failures. But it's easy to overlook the success stories too. Most of Asia has escaped from the regular famines that were a perennial feature of the news a few decades ago, to the point that we no longer bother to aid China or start new aid programmes in India. Would we be better off in any sense - humanity, influence, wealth? - if they were still basket cases?
Another example (despite being head girl of my former school) of a Labour work in progress.
So it's surely Nigel's fault here - to cut off UKIP's nose?
Balls was caught in something of a Catch-22. If he campaigned a lot in his constituency then it would give credence to the possibility that he might lose, which would imply at least a substantial Tory lead in seats with the possibility of an outright majority, which would blow Labour's campaign badly off course; if he didn't campaign, he ran the risk of losing.
He probably expected to win anyway but he took a calculated risk in spending so little time in M&O.
Our minds are on the real prize.
Are you not an Ayrshire lad?
The problems are partly financial. Historically in austerity the NHS has dealt with financial pressure by allowing waiting lists to rise. This is no longer permitted, so it is the quality that will suffer.
There are major demographic changes with an elderly and obese population.
There are major issues of recruitment and retention (hence the need for expensive agency staff) for Doctors, Nurses and paramedical staff. In the East Midlands we are unable to recruit GPs. The GP scheme has only 25% of places filled for the August start. GPs are planning to retire in droves:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33142390
And don't get me started on the forthcoming disaster that is the "Shape of Training Review" which makes Hewitts botched MTAS/MMC changes in 2007 seem well thought through.
Kezia also revealed that SLAB now have 15,500 members, I wonder how many of these are £3 Labour "supporters".
So while I do think another system would be fairer personally, I think the Tories technically, legally and morally have majority support. Not direct support with the latter, but people have not shown they want to change the system, and so must be content to accept the consequences. If it is so unmoral perhaps next time they will vote for parties that will change it, even under our system that should not be too hard to achieve.
The concept of parties' position within the constitution is well-embedded and the notion that local candidates are merely representatives of their constituency and nothing more is not just a practical fiction but a theoretical nonsense too. Think of the constitutional position of the appointment of a PM. That is only made possible because parties exist and are recognised within the constitutional practice. Any absolutist position on the idea of what an MP is, is inevitably absurd because MPs have multiple and at times conflicting roles.
Parties are extremely useful to voters. Not only do they provide a convenient shorthand at election time for what each candidate stands for and how they should be held to account but also makes possible the relatively efficient passage of legislation (as an aside, if we think that passage is often too efficient - and I do, FWIW - then it's the parliamentary process that needs amending). Without them, it would be far harder to get anything done and MPs would be far more likely to demand 'pork' for their constituencies as a return for their votes on matters of otherwise little interest to them, which might be popular locally but is no way to run a country.
Describing the policy as “spiteful” and anti-aspirational, he said he knew it would lose votes when his mother Eileen phoned and told him it represented a return to the 1970s.
“It felt spiteful and went against the grain," he said. “We need to get back to communicating simple policies that will make a real difference to people.
“Labour looks like an elitist Westminster think-tank talking in language that people don’t understand. We lost our mooring.”
Under his leadership, Mr Burnham said, renters would be offered help to buy their home.
I think David Herdson encapsulates the subtleties far better though above/below(depending on how you're reading the thread).
The real trick to be honest is not the problem with government funding it's with the charities these days who spend such a huge amount on non essential sections of their business and leave little for the actual work. They are businesses these days with high paid executives.
A small group of us involved in geological projects including in Africa have bypassed the charity system completely and now fund a clinic directly in the slums of Kampala. We have regular visits and get reports from the clinic on their vaccination programmes, antenatal and postnatal care programmes and general health stuff. There is also a big element of contraceptive advise and provision. We know that every penny we send goes directly to the clinic and the people in need and it is extraordinary how much difference it makes.
Properly directed Aid works.
Sure, if you wanted to join an organisation that campaigned on behalf of x, a genuine charity basically, that would be fine.
But political parties: no thanks.
No logos, no slogans. Make people work to understand what their local candidates stand for. Have a fluid system where the executive genuinely has to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, and where MPs can become government ministers even if they don't agree with the views of the PM 100% on all issues.
Make is so that there are different coalitions for each bit of legislation, rather than a system of whipping and blackmail.
Either that: or enshrine political parties through some form of PR.
Big ones become bureaucracies.
Parties and the extreme power they have seized over the electoral system are the blight of our politics and the sooner we radically reduce their power the better. It is the sight of MPs putting party before constituents that has driven so many voters away from voting and as long as the current party stranglehold on our political system exists you will never get people to reengage.
As for the polls, all the polls showed Cameron preferred to Miliband as PM and most showed the election tied, they did not show a clear Labour lead, so they cannot be dismissed entirely
Hard to see political parties voting for their own demise, mind...
I think there was a piece a year or so ago about how much constituency work people felt their MPs were doing, and how much they wanted them to be doing, which I think would be an interesting issue to look at - we need parties to some extent to help marshal the broader policy issues in what one hopes is a coherent way which the public knows about beforehand generally, but we don't want MPs to be too tightly controlled by the parties either, and we want them to focus on those larger national concerns, but also help us out locally
Couldn't find the piece I was thinking of, but this piece from a few weeks ago bemoaning 'MPs are becoming glorified councillors or social workers' and
But underpinning those discussions must be the central question: what are MPs for? Winston Churchill had a clear approach: “the honour and safety of Great Britain … constituents … the party organisation”. MPs in the last parliament drew up the same list, but reversed the order of priority.
I suppose it's a case of what should be the order or priority, or how much time to devote to them, or what else should be added. Parties are necessary for, or beneficial for some of it, less so with others, depending on the degree of control (and a present the impression is largely of ranks of bland identikit party automatons).
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/27/tragedy-mps-too-busy-constituency-work
It's quite amusing.
Personally, I get irritated by the tory party's tolerance of the awkward squad who generally have very safe seats. I would be looking to deselect them. They could of course stand as independents and see how much their personal vote is worth.
A system of MPs independent from political parties would result in less government, rather than more. It would probably be better at avoiding international entanglements. It would better reflect the genuinely chaotic nature of the country's political beliefs.
And I suspect it would also do a better job of keeping spending in check :-)
1. It can be done cleanly and quickly.
2. The ousted leader and his or her supporters will go quietly.
3. A new leader can be elected who can unify the party and provide more effective leadership than the one to be dismissed.
Which goes a long way to explaining why Brown and Miliband weren't removed.
Labour's rules make it hard for leaders to be forced out and that's a conscious decision on their part. Removing the man (or woman) in post therefore requires either an immense amount of pressure or the incumbent's consent, not just at the time but afterwards too, for if they're not willing to play by point 2 above then any benefit gained by their removal will be more than offset by subsequent ructions.
There's also the question of whether Labour has any better options available. It's probable that David Miliband would have done a better job than Gordon Brown of leading Labour into the 2010 election, all else being equal (and all else probably wouldn't have been equal) but would Burnham or Cooper or Balls or whoever have clearly done better than EdM? The risk in defenestrating Miliband would have been that rather than being a late choice for the 2015 GE, it would have become an early one for the 2020 election. And that would have raised the stakes to a point where the event becomes self-defeating.
As for providing unity, that was why John Major survived until 1997 (and no small reason for why he won in 1990). While the Tory Party was clearly not united at the time, he was still the only person capable of papering over the cracks. Each wing of the party effectively exercised a veto over the possible alternatives - Clarke, Heseltine or Portillo - meaning that had one of them taken over it would have been outright civil war. In Labour's case, all the main options currently on the table seem much of a muchness. Unless the leader messes up spectacularly, would there be much to gain from all the disruption?
There the culture question. Labour simply doesn't do leadership coups. For all the talk about how they 'should have removed Miliband', they didn't. Nor Brown. Nor Kinnock. Nor Foot. When it comes down to it, the collectivist mind-set makes itself felt and there's a sense of betraying Labour's principles to adopt what are seen as Tory methods. It's not a trump card - I'm not suggesting Labour could never replace a leader - but it is an inhibitant.
Finally, there's the polling dynamic. Most oppositions are in the lead for much of the parliament and are gaining seats at interim elections. When that's the case, it becomes a lot harder to justify removing a leader who on the face of it is delivering the goods.
I say "tyranny of the minority"
1. Plenty of councils get by either being run by independents or by rainbow coalitions.
2. Somebody will be able to command the support of the House of Commons, and will propose a budget.
Mental note. Not a penny more.
And the 'glorified councillors' complaint is another red herring. We are talking about MPs properly representing their constituents in Parliament. If you want to stop the agony aunt distractions then just make the rules clearer on what MPs should and should not get involved with and what they should defer to local councillors or officials.
All these arguments are designed to detract from the basic premise that the current party system is broken because it forces MPs to put party before constituency. That is what needs fixing and until you do you will never see MPs being seen as anything other than self serving shills.
2. What drives you to that conclusion in the absence of party structures? Maybe they would have that majority on the even days of the week. Maybe they would have that majority until they actually decided to do something. It is a recipe for chaos.
I'm certainly not trying to detract from the premise that the party system is broken - I do think MPs put party before other concerns a lot of the time - just that parties can be useful things, arguing against the idea of just getting rid of them, even if I am not yet clear on how to make it definitively better.
Short of death, the winner of the leadership contest will almost certainly fight the 2020 election as leader.
However, you need to recognise that politics is practical and that no matter what the system MPs will inevitably tend compromise on one issue they don't feel particularly strongly on in order to gain elsewhere on a matter that they do rate as a priority. That is how majorities are built to get things done.
Ref your point on defections, I'd go back to not adopting absolutist positions. Yes, MPs are representatives of parties and the great majority of people vote for them as such but they're also still free agents. It's not any law that makes them act as they do; it's the dynamics of the political process. Defections take place, sometimes with the public mood, sometimes not. It's for an MP to decide how to justify that. However, I do think it's a shame (though not a surprise) that the proposal for recall elections lost momentum. If an MP does switch party, there's a strong moral case for calling a by-election to ratify that and if the MP chooses not to, then there's a strong case for his or her constituents to take the initiative instead.
I'm certainly not trying to detract from the premise that the party system is broken - I do think MPs put party before other concerns a lot of the time - just that parties can be useful things, arguing against the idea of just getting rid of them, even if I am not yet clear on how to make it definitively better.
Would you at least agree therefore that anything that increases the power of the parties - such as most of the advocated PR systems - is a bad thing?
Indeed I clearly remember from my time living in Jersey that occasional attempts to start them were routinely voted down at the ballot box.
I haven't been there for a few years now so this may have changed but it was certainly still true 10 years ago.
What's happening now is merely the predictable end-game from all that.
There is a difference between acting in the interest of their constituents once elected and "representing" their constituents. Pretty much all of their constituents vote for a party and expect them, if elected, to broadly follow its tenants. It is naïve to believe otherwise.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect
One solution I believe would work would be to allow MPs to declare party affiliation during elections but then to have free votes in Parliament on all but perhaps the main budgetary issues (using the same criteria as in the 1911 Parliament Act). Parties would have to persuade their MPs that a measure was worthy of being passed (or opposed) but would not be able to coerce them to vote in a particular way.
The majority of those 22k will live in a do-goodery mental fluffball and think they are saving ikkle puppies from nasty men with sticks.
They won't be examining the AGM ballot papers closely. Those will be lining cat litter trays.
MPs are there to represent their constituents, but parties are still allowed to put up whoever they like and see if the public will go for that - if a party wants to deselect a candidate for lack of loyalty, they can do that and the public is not harmed as far as I can see; after all, they can vote for that same person if they stand as an independent or for someone else if they don't like the way the party acted, or they can vote for someone else if their MP kowtows to his party and ignores their wishes.
These scenarios where the only options presented are 'no parties, parties are bad' or 'party must have total control' seem a little extreme. People standing on a shared set of policies and ideals so that people even voting locally have some picture of how they might be inclined to vote on national matters seems beneficial to me, even if the control is now too much. There must surely be a middle ground.
The origins of political parties are fairly fascinating. I think I recall one historian (Ian Gentles or Mark Kishlansky? - one disputed the view of the other IIRC) suggesting the origins could be traced to a purge of particular officers of the New Model Army with more acceptable (to the grandees presume) officer representatives. Seemed to take it a bit far back I think, but an interesting idea.
I did like when looking at the various factional interests of the Protectorate Parliaments you can see these various groupings of political Presbyterians, civilian and military interest and crypto-royalists and the like, where we have to keep being reminded these were not named, firm groups of parties, but just handy indicators we use of how people, on balance, were likely to have voted together. Coming from such party heavy time, it's hard to conceptualize political interests not being as firm.
A pleasant afternoon to all.
You have made my point for me.
The good of the country not of the party.
That is why our system is so screwed and why both you and DavidL are so wrong.
I guess no system is perfect.
Edit - seems is was 'partly along political party lines' according to wiki, so not completely party free it seems.
But parties are essential for representative democracy to work. If Jersey is the best example of where it might not apply it rather proves my point.
Though probably there is a need to distinguish between "Parliament" and "Government". This Government has no moral right to take any decisions at all, since it took power with only minority support. It may, though, win majority support for its proposals, and then the decisions would be quite moral.
By the same token, everybody has the moral right to grumble and protest, regardless of whether they cast their vote or not.
Practice, however, revolves around legal and technical positions. The present government was voted in according to the law, as it stands. That the FPTP voting system is neither efficient nor moral is not the point. From a legal and technical standpoint, it would not be legitimate to resist by force. But I don´t think anybody was suggesting that.