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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » At this critical time reflections on “Cultivating Democracy”
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » At this critical time reflections on “Cultivating Democracy”
Occasionally I have planted a gorgeous looking plant; it has flowered briefly then died. On digging it up I find the dreaded wine weevil or roots which have made no attempt to spread into the soil and find nutrition. It is a reminder that nourishing the hidden roots is by far a gardener’s most important task. A plant not strong and well anchored will be blown away by the winds, destroyed by frost or succumb to malicious bugs and parasites.
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This is just another rambling Remainiac rant as far as I can see.
What, like the Electoral Commission?
Being anti-remainiac while holding an Mayite view about it are hardly mutally exclusive.
She is also just about as moderate a Remainer (if she actually has revealed finally that she is) as it is possible to find. Maybe if even the most mild mannered Brexit, meh voter, now appears to you to be ranting, perhaps it is a sign of how badly the Brexit side has ballsed everything up, and utterly alienated and infuriated everyone else?
Let's hope Boris has the ability to understand grown-up propositions when they are put to him..........
As far as I can see....
I thought I was doing quite well on my wordsearch until I found out it was a Will Self column.
This one is just as impenetrable as the others.
I note in today's time that IDS wants a bare bones trade deal with the EU. As an trade deal will require the Backstop I'm struggling to work out exactly what he thinks he is asking for.
An attractive, but utterly illusory prospectus.
Is Stewart really the only Etoner in contention. Would make a change.
It's good isn't it. I went to bed though; seen it before.
I would have thought it would be right up the high-rolling economists of PB's street.
Are they in contention? For what?
Great post, Cyclefree. As always.
The problem with our democracy is that FPTP grants too much power to a minority. You only need to secure 35% or so of the vote to impact 100% of the country.
In an era when people no longer compromise nor take the country as a whole into account, I fear the long term damage to country, economy and democracy a narrow, ideologically obsessive Brexit Party or Labour Party government could do.
I can't be bothered with a film that does not even mention Gordon Brown.
To illustrate it another way, Boris is PM, Javid Chancellor, Priti Patel Home Secretary, Ian Duncan Smith Deputy PM, Shapps Chief Whip, a top job for Williamson too, possibly health if Hancock replaces Hunt at FO.
In terms of policy, the idea we can only leave EU with a deal is on the fire, its gone. Also we’ll have a Downing Street doing a big cuddle up with Trumps White House.
There’s no standing in the hallway blocking this door, the times are a changing.
The FPTP was just about bearable when there’s wasn’t such a polarized electorate . But now fundamental changes to the country could happen with a huge majority against that .
The stakes have become much higher now with Brexit and Trump in the WH.
If the answer to every question of our relationship with the EU is no, then we are condemning ourselves to economic and political weakness. Even Dan Hannam said he wanted to retain membership of the single market.
Since the debate has been framed in this way, since the referendum, there has been a backlash- the No dealers say no to anything and every compromise has been trashed.
The result is that the Pro_EU camp is digging in as a reaction. The battle may well be re-run and this time the uncompromising leavers will be defeated.
MPs had their chance to secure Brexit, they didn’t, and now they have to accept the consequences, whatever they may be.
Can you please translate the nonsense Burke quote for me first so I can get started given I only speak the lingua franca
OT didn't we used to call them blobs before American word-processors came along?
And yes I've read them. It's a difficult lead into them though;
Are these good things or bad things.
I'm thinking these are the bad things; they are written by someone who wants to keep weed illegal after all.
I've always been a pro-social democracy kind of guy anyway. If this is a pro-liberal democracy piece then this does kind of explain the verbiage nonsense.
I hope that is short enough for you.
You're not a Rushdie fan are you?
But don't let that stop you submitting a header of your own.
What's the difference between compromise and consensus?
We are in a very unstable place at present and something must happen on brexit to enable politics to move forward.
What that 'something' is must come into view by 31st October as it is the default date in legislation that we leave. As was commented on this morning the date is now UK law and it is also EU law.
He maintained that if he read non fiction 24 hours a day through his lifetime he still would not have exhausted the supply of non fiction. He lived to 86, bless him
But I have an appointment to go to so will check in later.
Catch ya later.
To get you started, illation is an archaic synonym for conclusion.
Are you someone who finds Shakespeare irritating because of the difficult words ?
Opposition further consolidated around the Constitutional Democrats, Socialists seem to have lost their last seat, beaten out by the Protect the People from NHK Party, who are operating a callcenter for people who are having trouble with their TV license collector.
Catch ya later.
Thanks, as always, Cyclefree for an interesting piece. My late mother always said the end of civilisation began when they got rid of the park keepers because it showed that once the cost of looking after the park was deemed more important than the unquantifiable beauty, sense of community and identity a well looked-after park provided, we were on the long slippery slope to destruction.
"The cost of everything, the value of nothing" - sums up societal and individual attitudes.
I'd argue the systematic centralisation of activities has been a huge factor in undermining democracy - Westminster is all, the local council or authority has little or no real authority but plenty of responsibility. It can't even set its own tax rates but has to build a number of new houses proscribed by Government diktat.
The Mayor of Newham (350,000) is as powerless as the leader of Surrey (1.2 million) for all they are party political polar opposites, they all too often sing the same tune.
It's not even about transparency or accountability important as they are - it's about power, pure and simple. Proper English devolution away from Westminster to existing local authorities (no need for regional assemblies) backed by PR for local elections to try to break down the one-party states (whether Surrey, Newham or Sutton) and get people back into believing their vote/opinion counts not just as a consultation tick-box exercise but as a genuine part of decision making.
Yet 'tis a question
To me that know not
To the games, my friend
Chance of greater influence at national level > Real change to the fiefdom of some local councils that just get run into the ground like Northamptonshire
Bet some of you plebs are well jell.
I don't even like golf!!!
But many of us who have played golf do like it
A leader sometimes has to decide between conflicting advise, and Parliament is not the sole, indeed, it is not the ultimate, source of democracy.
* even if it is unconstitutional, it does not automatically make it undemocratic
So much better when Sky aren't ahead and closing it down.
It means that Brexit Party could take us out of the EU without a deal, or Corbyn could embark the country on the path to full socialism with the consent of just one third of the populace.
In saner times, FPTP works. But the stakes now are much higher. Because as Cyclefree points out, parties no longer believe their duty is to the country. It is to ideological purity. Is a no deal brexit to be foist on the entire country because one third of the population believes in it? Is hard left socialism?
The kind of policies now being espoused by the main parties should require majority consent. They don't, and that will be revealed as a major failiure of our democracy when a radical party takes control of the country under FPTP.
I, for instance, would contend both Thatcher and Blair’s governments were radical.
Given the two party system now appears finished due, I would say, to the creeping towards each other of the last few governments, FPTP has become indefensible.
94% of respondents said they had now voted
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/07/our-final-next-tory-leader-survey-johnson-73-per-cent-hunt-27-per-cent-say-those-members-who-have-voted.html
I disagree with your assertion entirely. The notion that FPTP is finished because of the last few governments (ie potentially governing parties) becoming too similar is clearly wrong given the current major parties include the reds going far left.
I think it'll show fundamentally that no decision taken actually has to take place, particularly if the people who took the original decision are the "little people" for want of a better word. It might be the right decision, but like the abysmal moral hazard caused by the 2008 GFC bailouts (Which was probably fundamental to both the Brexit decision and Trump) will have profound unintended consequences into the future.
If Brexit does not go ahead in a soft form in the next couple of years, we could still head to leaving without a deal in the next decade or so - if TBP trump the Tories as Boris the bluffer "shakes with fear upon hearing the consequences of no deal" we could yet head to ship wreck waters.
It took 8 years from the crash to Trump, who knows where we might be from the non implementation of a soft Brexit ?
https://www.eorailway.co.uk/events/real-ale-festival/
Sunil maybe there though technically it is in North Weald not Epping, although there is a bus to it from Epping Station
My guess is as we have seen elsewhere there would be a centre-right grouping of parties and a centre-left grouping of parties, perhaps one or two moving between the two blocs and parties sitting wholly outside the blocs. That's called plural democracy and it's no bad thing.
Each party would be an ideologically tighter and more distinct grouping as the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat voting coalitions separated into more clearly defined groups.
I fear I failed to make my meaning entirely clear.
I meant that the coming together of the two largest parties meant that many potential voters did not want to vote for a “Tory-lite” Labour Party or a “quasi-socialist” Conservative one. Therefore other parties have grown to capture a significant part of the electorate and this widening of choice meant that no party stood a realistic chance of capturing enough of the electoral vote to be a real “party of government” any more. A government with as low a percentage of the national vote as we are likely to see next time will struggle to be able to say truthfully it has been popularly elected and every policy will be seized upon by opponents saying “You don’t have a democratic mandate with only X% of the vote”.
I hope this makes my meaning clearer.