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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Time to put UK primaries to bed
A colleague told me this week that she felt let down that she couldn’t vote in the Conservative leadership contest.
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If elitism has it's place, how about we bring back the hereditaries?
A bit difficult to maintain people won't join political parties after Labour's experience. Over 100k people joining a party in just a couple of days would have been considered impossible heretofore?
I think the problem with the wider argument is the elites had control of who could enter the Labour Leadership contest. Furthermore, I also think the Democrats made a mistake in trying to help Hillary win the nomination. It has made her look weak and incapable of securing the nomination on her own merits. If I was a Democrat I'd want the nominee to come through a genuinely competitive process.
I appreciate that sometimes the nominee is obvious - and the Tories are probably happy with May as PM because it was a sensible decision - but in Bernie Sanders the Democrats did have a viable alternative who was clearly connecting with people. I don't follow it closely, but I don't think Sanders is comparable to Jeremy Corbyn. Right now I'm thinking that Sanders would have been a tougher opponent for Trump.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/andrea-leadsom-who-is-defra-secretary-theresa-may-cabinet-prime-minister-climate-change-a7137101.html
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ihg707zgux/ScottishTrackers_25-Jul-2016_Indy_W.pdf
There doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for:
a) An imminent referendum;
b) Leaving the UK to be subsumed by the EU;
c) Being part of the EU single market ahead of being in the UK.
The SNP vote is far from unified.
On voters' priorities:
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/lbzcm2uume/ScotlandintheUnionResults_160725_ScottishIndependence_W.pdf
Separate deal for Scotland - ranked 6th;
Second referendum - ranked 9th;
I'm happy to keep them there though, until wholesale reform of the upper house finally occurs (which it will one day).
I haven't heard news of the same in the Cons. Has there been a surge? Or has the long term decline in membership continued?
Interestingly the answer to 'UK vs EU' or UK vs Single Market is (virtually) identical - 55 for UK....
I'm not a Conservative supporter and was perfectly satisfied with the way the new PM was decided. Even though members may have felt annoyed at not getting the final choice, it was timely at a moment of great uncertainty for the country.
What has happened with Labour is instructive, the whole mess having been initiated by that particular elite, the PLP, misunderstanding their proper role in the nomination process.
And good morning, everyone.
Interesting article, Mr. Herdson. I'd slightly rephrase it, though. The problem isn't the width of the electorate for Labour's leadership, it's that it's too narrow for the electorate and too wide for the PLP. It's the antithesis of the Goldilocks Zone.
F1: there may be no pre-qualifying piece today. I'm unsure, but thought a heads up would prove useful in case there isn't one and people are confused and frightened. I wouldn't want wailing and gnashing of teeth on my account [it's nothing serious, just that I might have to be out for a couple of hours when I'd normally pay attention to P3 then making a guess, or not].
As a member of the Party I was quite happy with the process and the result. Whilst I would quite have liked to cast my vote for May as PM the process was fine.
Most of the voices I heard complaining about the lack of vote were from non party supporters anyway.
And how could they have agreed that full members of some months standing (before ever the election cropped up) should not be allowed to vote, but any Tom, Dick & Harriet who likes to cough up money within a brief window once the election is announced should be able to do so? That is outrageous, to my mind.
Today the story leading on Sky is blinking plastic bags...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6b2OT3C9KY
I hope Hugh F-W has success with coffee cups next #wastenot
https://twitter.com/HuffPostUK/status/758978306112794624
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/28/if-jeremy-corbyn-is-the-problem-why-is-owen-smith-so-keen-to-cop/
I'll be an almost permanent guest on PB during the entertainment
"As for the Labour Party, “where do you start? I’ve never seen a party like it. It’s a farce.” Jeremy Corbyn “is the greatest thing for the Tory party that ever happened. He’s the gift that keeps on giving. Totally unelectable”. Labour voters thought him “unprofessional” and “too far to the left”, and the party “a right mess”, “a catastrophe”, and “a basket case”. The party was no longer representing its voters: “The membership is students, extremists, socialists, the far left;” “I hope May doesn’t call an election. We would be entirely wiped out.” Labour’s disintegration had left “a massive chasm at the centre of politics. If there was a new party, I’d give them a go.” Even Tories were worried: “It’s not good news that the party is so weak. I voted Conservative, but it means there is no debate about their plans.”
Nobody had an opinion about Corbyn’s leadership challenger (“Oliver something?”), though one said they had seen him on Newsnight: “He was good, but any of us would look good on Newsnight now that Paxman’s gone.” Even if he won and turned out to be competent, the party was such a mess that “it will take him some time to get it right.”
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/07/lord-ashcroft-my-latest-focus-groups-discuss-brexit-corbyn-cameron-and-may-the-new-iron-maiden.html
2015 SNP Vote for SIndy: 65% (35% against or undecided)
2015 SNP Vote for EU not UK: 61% (39% against or undecided)
They do look very much like English Labour numbers with a very sizeable minority that do not fit the pro-Indy, pro-EU narrative.
O/T I'm currently in County Antrim, which is stunningly beautiful, especially the Coast.
Despite the mid-term change at the top, there was very little appetite in any of our groups for an early general election. [...] And apart from anything else, it would hardly be sporting: “The Labour Party don’t know what they’re doing. It would be unfair to do one until they’ve sorted themselves out.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/36887148
An interesting thread header, but the status quo is fine.
If a party of loons want to vote in a loon as leader, then on their own heads be it. It shows they are unelectable.
Why should the Greens elect a sensible person as leader? It's an intrusion into their self-declared obsessions. Why should the SWP not elect the Labour leader if that's what the new ones want?
Gods in his heaven and all's right with the world.
But Labour's selectorate has been skewed by allowing a highly motivated but unrepresentative section of their vote (and at times, not even of their vote) to play a disproportionate role because the theoretical voting base is now far wider than the actual one.
Indeed Ms JGP, the whole leadership situation is quite mind boggling, what amounts to selling votes, which is bad enough, but changing the rules once the match has started goes against every principle of fair play in my eyes.
How can an elite be 'representative'? It's a nonsense.
And what does 'where the whole electorate cannot be engaged...' mean?
I
The weird thing is I like the idea of open primaries, except if it was common, if that makes sense.again, America shows the dangers there - the impression is they sound their time either constantly fundraising, though I guess tears due to to ad costs needing to be raised, or constantly afraid of bring challenged on their left or right, rather than knowing they can act mostly as they think best, and while they may be challenged in such a fashion, they don't gave to worry about the public or wider party getting swept up In it when they may not have any inclination to consider the nuance if the issue in question.
And yet we argue the people's choice is always right, so why not involve them? But on the hand it's about the choice to put yo the people later, why would you do that before you're ready with the final choice if there is no guaranteed benefit. But in most places a very very small group names the selection and they might need the check of the public to not pick a fool, as doing so I a safe seat might, if bad enough, make it not safe.
I don't know. Maybe it's one of those things that is only a good idea in theory.
But they could still reflect the views and concerns of their members, or the wider elector ate despite that elite status..
To paraphrase a wise man, you don't have to be a man of the people to be a man for the people.
At least though he wasn't running drivers off the track this time. I noted with interest the start of the Hungarian was very very much the same as the Hamilton overtake on Rosberg when Rosberg drove Hamilton off the track by not turning in. However even with a car on the inside Rosberg turned in and allowed ( Verstappen??) to come easily around the outside just like Hamilton should have expected.
Rosberg intentionally ran Hamilton off and it's not the first time this season as the last time Hamilton ended up on the grass and both cars went out. just like he didn't lift last week and took pole.
Rosberg had lots of form in bad racing manners. He also throws hats at his opponents.
Over the course of one lap in Q2, Raikkonen went from fastest to 14th.
The Spanish collision was a racing incident. The car ahead on track has right of way. Hamilton repeatedly ran Rosberg wide in Bahrain 2014 (and at other times, though I forget the precise races).
The incident where Rosberg failed to turn and there was a collision (I forget where but it was quite recent) was 100% Rosberg's fault.
Either way I still think Rosberg is an "Indifferential front end tit"
For our train enthusiasts.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/backing-donald-trump/493619/
I thought this was telling: "We went to Iraq because you said it was better to fight them over there than fight them over here. Then you invited them over here anyway! Then you said that we had to keep inviting them over here if we wanted to win over there. And we figured out: You care a lot more about the “inviting" part than the “winning" part. So no more"
This BBC News misrepresenation of Scientific fact on Climate and weather events is hyperbolic poppycock - as disgraceful as their misrepresentation of my brother Jeremy Corbyn and their extreme pro EU 'Remain-sulk' bias. Their talk of temperatures of 38C in Cardiff and 41C in London by 2050 is barmy and not founded on any scientific evidence-based argument
http://www.weatheraction.com/
Meanwhile over at Derry St, Oborne is looking forward to a Corbyn landslide victory:
it looks as if he will entrench his position as Labour leader and score an even more decisive victory in the forthcoming leadership election than he did last year when he won by a landslide with 59 per cent of the votes.....
For his part, I believe Corbyn should rise to the challenge by being more radical and incisive in his attacks on the Tory government.
I mentioned this to him when I met him this week — urging him to be more clinical in his critique of its foreign policies.
He agreed that the dismissal of Hilary Benn as shadow foreign secretary (who embarrassingly opposed him over intervention in the Syrian civil war) would allow him more freedom to speak up for Palestinian rights.
Corbyn told me that he plans to ask searching questions about the Government’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
He will also support families of British military victims of the Iraq war if they mount a private prosecution against Tony Blair and others.
This is a refreshing approach, because for far too long there has been an unspoken consensus over foreign policy between the two main parties (i.e. pro-EU, pro-meddling in the Middle East), which, I believe, has been profoundly damaging to Britain.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3715544/PETER-OBORNE-Lefties-loathe-truth-man-changed-history.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/like-the-spanish-armada-labour-must-realise-it-too-has-been-defe/
More generally I can't help feeling that lurking behind this article is the same distasteful attitude towards the ordinary voter/pleb that we saw throughout the EU referendum campaign - and which continues from Remain supporters now.
An elite has indeed got used to running a system they piously call 'democracy,' in their own interests, for several decades. But when the voters don't play their game, democracy is suddenly a problem for them and needs to be tempered/adjusted/ignored.
The possibility that the elite itself might be the problem, rather than the voters, never crosses their minds - beyond the usual platitudes about 'listening'.
Update - Police in #Belgium have arrested two brothers suspected of planning a terrorist attack following house searches in #Mons and #Liège
The powerful well connected MPs with the safe seats won't (apart from Labour's little difficulty) have much problem getting chosen for the plumb seats again, wherever they are. And in much of the country it won't make much difference where the lines are anyway - carve up Surrey and Hampshire - or Liverpool and Manchester - however you like, Tory and Labour won't mind too much. And any new boundaries won't be good news for the LibDems.
Take the old Co-Op, for example. In theory, this was a wonderfully democratic organisation where all members could be involved right up to board level through internal elections. In practice, it was more an excellent vehicle for those with the time and inclination to foist private hobby-horses on a retail conglomerate because the majority who might otherwise have stopped them simply weren't interested in that degree of engagemet. The new, professional structure is far less 'democratic' but delivers much more for members in term of what they're interested in: value and quality.
And who will choose this enlightened and disinterested group to lord it over the rest of us? 40 shilling freeholders perhaps, or their modern-day equivalent?
Or is even that too risky - perhaps the group should, to ensure a safe and 'professional' outcome, choose itself?
And while I think you are right about an undercurrent of disdain for voters, this is a piece about democratic involvement in the affairs of what are in essence private clubs. They've never had an obligation to make their own processes democratic, and if they didn't involve their own members or the voters it wouldn't actually harm our democratic society, since we the people woukd get our chance to express ourselves later, and other parties can put up their candidates chosen with their own methods. So with no harm, the question is is there a benefit to the parties and us for them to make their choice who to present to us more democratic? I'm uncertain, but feel you may have conflated vague upset at our elites and the electorate, with the elites and how they run their own groups.
Additionally, and to be fair, disdain for voters is probably in part line teachers moaning about students and parents and doctors moaning about patients - we all Mosn about those whom we work for and with. There are more serious parts to it admittedly.
PS: the poll I mean not your goodself.
Well just remember - each person usually only has one vote and there are a hell of a lot more common people in America than high-falutin self-styled 'elite'.
One might form the impression that Nats were impervious to data and facts.....surely not?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36932227
Priorities for Scottish Govt (SNP vote 2015):
NHS: 47
Economy: 36
Separate EU deal: 35
Immigration: 29
Sindyref2: 25
Among those who voted Indy in 2014 only 28% see SindyRef2 as a top priority......
Looks to me like Scotland is leaving the EU.....as part of the UK.....