Interesting that Hunt is finally sticking his head above the parapet and in this context too. Is he positioning himself to be the healer?
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge.
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
What if your Labour candidate is a strong Corbyn sceptic? Or are you saying that you might vote Labour if you don't think he will end up in no10? (and how would you determine that?) Otherwise I would suggest you are being slightly disingenuous in saying that it is a difficult decision (assuming you are clear that you WILL vote, and WILL only vote for one of the two main parties). Because you are saying you will only vote Conservative or Labour, and then only Conservative. So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
Big_G - you always seem to find a reluctant reason to support the Tories. Perhaps you should rejoin?
At least if you vote Lib Dem, the candidate may not get elected but any increase in support carries the momentum onward.
If you really want what is best for Britain, you will not be finding it in the former Tory party. It is not what it once was.
You can attempt to critise me but I will not give a vote that could see a Corbynista win. If the lib dems had a chance I would vote for them but if that let in labour I would not be able to justify it
I believe there are many thousands of conservatives in the same position and I will not rejoin until after brexit and assuming the party restores its one nation attitude
Declining the offer of an election may look good for Labour but is it good for the country? It is beginning to feel ludicrous.
Some Labour strategists might think declining the election you have spent the last two years calling for is a wheeze. The sensibles in the other universe just think "twats....let us vote."
People can wait until November. They have other things to do. Brexit is not the only thing. Stopping No Deal Brexit is now more important.
How does a delayed Brexit stop No Deal, if the delayed election in say November still allows a party to say "we will try for a deal, but if an acceptable deal is not forthcoming from the EU, we will leave without a deal" and once that gets a working majority, then leaving with No Deal?
Delay delay delay - at a billion £ a month price tag plus loss of economic growth from uncertainty - is all that is being achieved.
No. Delay might rip the Tory party apart, make Johnson look a complete fool (that should not be too hard) and cause the Tories to lose the election, or fail to get a majority.
It could result in a huge delay to Brexit or even a revocation, but it will hopefully kill off the No Deal the nutters so crave.
So the delay is in the national interest.
Or it might not. Depends who the public blames, surely?
But why is Johnson allowing himself to be overruled?
Johnson is lazy, tired, desperate to be loved, and out of his depth.
Johnson is lazy
Just allow Cummings to run the show whilst you become the figurehead of Brexit ?
Furthermore Cummings only motivation is delivering Brexit. He is one of those for which the Conservative Party is acceptable collateral damage to achieve that. For Johnson the Conservative party is not acceptable collateral damage, the problem is that he has forced himself to totally buy into the argument that Oct 31st Brexit is the only way to save the Conservative party. And he is now realising with horror that the post Brexit party will be a CPINO. But can't do anything about it.
Excellent thread. The argument from the government about rail fares is that as long as rail workers get RPI then passengers have to pay for it. Worth noting that rail workers have done very well over the last decade, though there is a crisis brewing regarding their pensions scheme.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
"One nation" and "remain" don't mean the same thing and it is cheeky of remainers to try and pretend they represent the one nation wing. It isn't one nation MPs that are leaving it is remainers.
Boris is a one nation Tory. What he's not is a remainer. One nation never meant 48% of the nation.
Or 52%. Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation. It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
"One nation" and "remain" don't mean the same thing and it is cheeky of remainers to try and pretend they represent the one nation wing. It isn't one nation MPs that are leaving it is remainers.
Boris is a one nation Tory. What he's not is a remainer. One nation never meant 48% of the nation.
Or 52%. Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation. It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
The valid comparison is Maastricht and not one "bastard" voted down Maastricht. The 21 are worse than the bastards.
Excellent piece Alastair but can I suggest that there is another sleight of hand going on? Pensioners who are getting increases tied to RPI are getting more money. That money does not come from nowhere, it comes from the schemes paying or, in the case of the taxpayer for unfunded schemes, from present contributors. Index linking is supposed to protect the recipient from the ravages of inflation (in truth more of a nibble than a bite in recent decades), it is not supposed to be a method of increasing the contractual entitle
What does a government (assuming one can be found that is not terrified of one of our most active voting segments) do about this? The change you have described is one step but not sufficient. We need to incorporate NI into IT so it is paid on all income both pensions and dividends as well as money actually worked for. I expect there to be further paring back on the "tax free" lump sums. I expect eventually some of the perks enjoyed by pensioners such as the bus pass, cheaper rail fares, TV licences, additional tax relief for the elderly, etc to be trimmed back for those receiving more than the average wage. Most significantly I expect eventually a government will be brave enough to go back to May's ideas by which the elderly will have to prioritise paying for their care over handing over large sums of money and property to the next generation. M There, I feel better now. Nothing like a good rant.
A lot of us have had our pensions trashed by our firms going bust.. it is not all gold braid out there...
Sure, I appreciate that. Some of those firms also went bust because their pension liabilities were so onerous but these were contractual obligations they took on, a financial risk under estimated in times of higher returns and higher inflation which degraded the rights being granted. Most schemes have some limits on the level of increasing obligations but these are not triggered in the low inflation/deflation world we have lived in since the GFC.
Most dropped final salary schemes long ago. There are some with large liabilities but most of that is down to. Greed and them milking the schemes in the good times with no contributions to get Execs bigger bonuses.
Indeed they did making the differentiation between the private sector who have recognised they can't afford such obligations and the public sector where the poor old taxpayer underwrites it even more stark.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
Yep.
If Jeremy Corbyn were to be ousted, Boris and Brexit would be flushed away in moments.
I am not sure who I detest more.
One thing you can say about the broad and loose coalition we have currently is that it constrains both Johnson and Corbyn.
Ladies and gentlemen I bring you .... PR
Yeah, because the current period of minority parties trying to scrabble around for power has REALLY made the case for perpetual coalition governments.
Because FPTP encourages monolith parties.
If Rudd and Francois were in separate parties, and Corbyn and Starmer similarly, building a stable coalition would be easy. But the monolithic two parties and FPTP make that impossible.
Easy? Pfffft!!! Say you have six parties with equal numbers of MPs, each headed by Boris, Corbyn, Farage, Sturgeon, Starmer and Swinson. Where's your stable coalition there? Personalities would play an even bigger part.
Because you wouldn't have a garage and a Johnson party. It would be a garage and a Clarke party.
Aside from YouGov which is showing something like 14% Tory leads the recent polls don't look too bad for during Johnson's honeymoon period from a Labour perspective. Every reason to think we could make up a few percent before an election and a few percent during it.
OK. I found it. This was kind of indicated by his earlier tweet. The polls are everywhere except YouGov consistently gives the Tories big or massive leads. There could be methodological divergence. Either, the YouGov is correct and the others wrong or YouGov is wrong. Really there is only one way to find out.
Indeed there is. The polling average is probably still the best guide till the wonders in parliament decide it's time for an election though.
I'm not sure that it is. As others have said, either YouGov has better methodology than everyone else and they're wrong, or it's wrong. Averaging between right and wrong is not a good idea. We had a similar dilemma some years ago about Angus Reed, which used different methodology that had worked well in Canada and showed huge Tory leads which turned out to be incorrect.
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about this. The key factors IIRC were whether the BXP were mentioned explicitly (as opposed to among "any other parties" and what to do about the fact that more of their sample say they voted Labour than actually did so. YouGov reduce the raw sample Labour share to account for this, others mostly don't.
On the whole, since the other polls use a variety of methodologies which all come up with narrower leads, my guess is that they're right. But I really don't feel sure. We can say with confidence that the Tories are ahead, Labour is second, the LDs are doing well and the BXP are holding up better than one might expect. That's about it. The absence of data on willingness to vote tactically is a big gap, though my sense is that it's rising, because events are makiing the election more about "What do you think of Johnson and Brexit?" than "What do you think about Corbyn?"
The only reliable technique, though, is to look at the trends within each poll. There is clearly a sharp decline in Johnson's personal rating (and a small rise in Corbyn's - he was down at 17% for best PM at one point, and is now nearer 25%). There has probably been a dip in the Tory lead, but a smaller one, so far.
The problems with FPTP have been well-rehearsed... but sod it, I shall summarise again anyway.
Under the current system...
1. Most voters are stuck in safe seats with MPs that are almost immovable 2. Many of the voters in marginals still throw their votes away if they pick any party other than the two leading ones. This frequently leads to dilemmas such as that faced by Big G, where they have to pick between two choices that stink and they feel obliged to pick the one that smells slightly less rotten 3. Elections are, in fact, typically decided by the behaviour of a few hundred thousand swing voters in key marginal constituencies. The rest of us might as well not bother to turn up 4. Wildly unrepresentative Parliaments and Governments that represent a minority of public opinion are normal. Blair won a comfortable majority in 2005 with only 35% of the popular vote. It's quite possible to envision a situation in the next election where four parties separated by not much more than 10% in terms of the popular vote in England win something like 350, 220, 20 and zero seats respectively. It's bonkers 5. The major parties are free to go mental, safe in the knowledge that most of their voters will stick with them - partly out of conviction, partly out of habit, but largely because they feel they have nowhere else to go. Corbyn Labour and the Johnson Tories survive because of their voters' mutual fear of and antagonism towards each other and, crucially, the fact that shunning one means enabling the other in most of the country. A proportional voting system would allow the centre-right and centre-left to break off with a good prospect of success, and both these existing blocs would therefore lose much of their support overnight
FPTP is worse than useless and encourages polarisation. It should be binned.
To change the present electoral system, you have to win under FPTP.
All parties that win under FPTP become enamoured of its great merits.
For example, suppose the meltdown continues and the LibDems end up with 35 per cent of the vote and a 50 seat majority against Corby and Boris on 25 per cent each at the next election
My bet is that the LibDems will suddenly see the great advantages of FPTP.
Love a bit of stats and I will be back to say something relevant and insightful on the header after I've had a banana.
But for now a quickie on the political crisis -
The Queen's Speech is a farce it seems to me. The 'government' cannot get anything remotely serious through. So this event should surely be cancelled until a new government is formed, whether that be after an election or otherwise. If it goes ahead in these circumstances, the Queen is having the piss taken out of her.
You could go further. Make a 93 year old lady sit for hours, wearing punishment clothes, reading out stuff on live prime time TV that everyone and his dog knows is utter bullshit - is this not abuse?
She can send Charles to do it for her.
But really it's just advertising for the manifesto.
Interesting that Hunt is finally sticking his head above the parapet and in this context too. Is he positioning himself to be the healer?
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
This ‘them’ and ‘us’ stuff is nonsense. We voted for a divisive policy without any instructions on how it should be implemented - and then elected a hopelessly hung Parliament to sort it out. We, the electorate continue split down the middle on the issue.
The ignominy is ours every bit as much as theirs. Which goes some way to explaining our anger.
I think, on that poll. All others no change or near enough.
And a very strange and curious exception. That must at least partly refer to traffic directly from the Tories to Labour, which I don't think I've seen in any other recent polling, really.
Not really. Quite a few polls show a very small Tory lead, with Lab in the lead if Brexit delayed.
Let. Him. Stew.
But those are hypotheticals for the future, aren't they ? These seem to refer to any possible change in voters attitude to the present.
May not be significant, ofcourse. Everything is up in the air in the moment, but that also makes every potential anomaly a potentially useful guide , or helpful hint of something.
There really is some astonishing pin-head dancing gyrations on show here as Brexit fanbois try to justify events:
The law isn't the law until Monday so claims he will disobey it once passed don't count as it isn't passed yet. Its an illegitimate law which should be ignored. Thought isn't crime even if it is conspiracy to offend which is an offence in itself Its OK, he'll obey the law but ignore it Etc etc etc
If its OK for the Prime Minister to break the law, to shatter basic principles like the rule of law, then what else is OK to secure Brexit?
As the law doesn't apply if you disagree with it, and the traitors are committing treason, then perhaps you will be ok if the PM has the former Tory MPs locked up. Or flogged in the street. Or shot in front of a baying mob. After all, its an illegitimate law which is protecting treasonous traitors.
Conservatives. Cheering on a Conservative PM to break the law. You don't think you've utterly lost all perspective on what "Conservative" means?
MPs have no intention of delivering brexit, nor do they have the stomach to cancel it, it's just going to be one extension after another with the present lot. The sooner we get a fresh Parliament, the better.
On that I agree. Election - Result - New Government - Queen's Speech.
Or as very much 2nd choice - New Government without an Election, followed by Queen's Speech.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge.
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
Big_G - you always seem to find a reluctant reason to support the Tories. Perhaps you should rejoin?
At least if you vote Lib Dem, the candidate may not get elected but any increase in support carries the momentum onward.
If you really want what is best for Britain, you will not be finding it in the former Tory party. It is not what it once was.
You can attempt to critise me but I will not give a vote that could see a Corbynista win. If the lib dems had a chance I would vote for them but if that let in labour I would not be able to justify it
I believe there are many thousands of conservatives in the same position and I will not rejoin until after brexit and assuming the party restores its one nation attitude
Fine. But you don't need to publicly agonise about it being a 'difficult' decision, when, as you have clearly stated, you have no decision to make. However much you don't like how you are forced to cast your vote.
I would say that if you like the Libdems at the moment then vote for them. The greater the number of votes they get (even if notionally irrelevant under FPTP), the greater will be their moral influence over future events in Parliament. And, who know, even if they can't win in your constituency, if enough people like you vote for them it may change the equation for your voting options in the future.
Director of the MIT Media Lab falls victim to his involvement with Epstein:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors...
Interestingly, he is also on the board of the New York Times.
Amazing contrast between how those associated with paedophile sex offender Epstein are being treated, and how @Roger's mate, paedophile sex offender Roman Polanski and his associates are still being lauded and rewarded. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49623532
MPs have no intention of delivering brexit, nor do they have the stomach to cancel it, it's just going to be one extension after another with the present lot. The sooner we get a fresh Parliament, the better.
On that I agree. Election - Result - New Government - Queen's Speech.
Or as very much 2nd choice - New Government without an Election, followed by Queen's Speech.
Wait, I thought you were arguing that a government needed an election for a queen's speech.
Big_G - you always seem to find a reluctant reason to support the Tories. Perhaps you should rejoin?
At least if you vote Lib Dem, the candidate may not get elected but any increase in support carries the momentum onward.
If you really want what is best for Britain, you will not be finding it in the former Tory party. It is not what it once was.
You can attempt to critise me but I will not give a vote that could see a Corbynista win. If the lib dems had a chance I would vote for them but if that let in labour I would not be able to justify it
I believe there are many thousands of conservatives in the same position and I will not rejoin until after brexit and assuming the party restores its one nation attitude
Well they will not have much of a chance if people refuse to vote for them because they might not win. Circular reasoning at its finest.
Why not take a leap of faith?
I recall PPBs in the 1980s with John Cleese pointing out the circular fallacy.
The MSM and left are acting as though BJ has broken the law already..can i remind everybody he hasnt. This is all part of the demonization of Boris that seems to be at the forefront of any radio phone in or forum chat. There is obviously extreme concern within that cohort that Boris can still reach the voters that other voters can not reach.
I think for many a statement of willingness to break the law (notwithstanding the arguments that he has said he is prepared to defy the instruction to extend, because he doesn't think he would be actually breaking the law in so doing) is sufficient.
Can you think of any other circumstances where a Prime Minister (especially a Conservative Prime Minister) has argued from such a position - whether in relation to themselves or the actions of others? There's a big difference between expressing sympathy for a cause (eg. pursued by those breaking the law) and expressing support for/potentially encouraging the lawbreaking itself.
(It could be pointed out that this is a line oft put forward by the current Labour leadership, and I think a major part of where they find themselves today - Europe issue notwithstanding)
Where has he actually said he will break the law? Thats your and their interpretation of what he has said. Last time i checked you havent broken any law until you have. Now the "remainers" want to have a court case because in their view he may break the law... This is quite mad and people are seeing through it.
You must have failed to read the bit where I said : notwithstanding the arguments that he has said he is prepared to defy the instruction to extend, because he doesn't think he would be actually breaking the law in so doing
He has said he is prepared to defy a law passed by Parliament. He has also said "in theory" he would be breaking the law by so doing.
It is pushing it to say that people are "seeing through" false arguments that he is saying he is prepared to break the law. People backing him are those accepting him of the idea of him breaking the law (because of their views on Brexit), not because they are looking into the nuances of whether he is actually prepared to do so.
I say again in this country you have not broken the law until you have no matter what you say.
The problems with FPTP have been well-rehearsed... but sod it, I shall summarise again anyway.
Under the current system...
1. Most voters are stuck in safe seats with MPs that are almost immovable 2. Many of the voters in marginals still throw their votes away if they pick any party other than the two leading ones. This frequently leads to dilemmas such as that faced by Big G, where they have to pick between two choices that stink and they feel obliged to pick the one that smells slightly less rotten 3. Elections are, in fact, typically decided by the behaviour of a few hundred thousand swing voters in key marginal constituencies. The rest of us might as well not bother to turn up 4. Wildly unrepresentative Parliaments and Governments that represent a minority of public opinion are normal. Blair won a comfortable majority in 2005 with only 35% of the popular vote. It's quite possible to envision a situation in the next election where four parties separated by not much more than 10% in terms of the popular vote in England win something like 350, 220, 20 and zero seats respectively. It's bonkers 5. The major parties are free to go mental, safe in the knowledge that most of their voters will stick with them - partly out of conviction, partly out of habit, but largely because they feel they have nowhere else to go. Corbyn Labour and the Johnson Tories survive because of their voters' mutual fear of and antagonism towards each other and, crucially, the fact that shunning one means enabling the other in most of the country. A proportional voting system would allow the centre-right and centre-left to break off with a good prospect of success, and both these existing blocs would therefore lose much of their support overnight
FPTP is worse than useless and encourages polarisation. It should be binned.
To change the present electoral system, you have to win under FPTP.
All parties that win under FPTP become enamoured of its great merits.
For example, suppose the meltdown continues and the LibDems end up with 35 per cent of the vote and a 50 seat majority against Corby and Boris on 25 per cent each at the next election
My bet is that the LibDems will suddenly see the great advantages of FPTP.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
Easy? Pfffft!!! Say you have six parties with equal numbers of MPs, each headed by Boris, Corbyn, Farage, Sturgeon, Starmer and Swinson. Where's your stable coalition there? Personalities would play an even bigger part.
There is no universe in which Sturgeon is the leader of a sixth of the UK parliament. Even if the SNP won ever Scottish seat, that's 1 MP in 11. And, of course, even that would be utterly impossible, because under PR the SNP would deservedly get no more than a half of that seats. So 25-30 seats /maximum/, or about 1 seat in 20 UK-wide.
In any case, what you're arguing is that in a situation where the UK voting population is cleaved into 6 roughly equal parts, it's hard to produce a stable coalition. You solution is essentially to create artificial semi-permanent coalitions, which is what Labour and the Conservatives are. But they too are unstable: look around you!
All FPTP is doing these days is enforcing a near-permanent state of civil war within those two parties whilst guaranteeing one of them will have a majority or near majority next time. Do you think that is a path to good governance? I do not.
I think, on that poll. All others no change or near enough.
And a very strange and curious exception. That must at least partly refer to traffic directly from the Tories to Labour, which I don't think I've seen in any other recent polling, really.
Not really. Quite a few polls show a very small Tory lead, with Lab in the lead if Brexit delayed.
Let. Him. Stew.
But those are hypotheticals for the future, aren't they ? These seem to refer to any possible change in voters attitude to the present.
May not be significant, ofcourse. Everything is up in the air in the moment, but that also makes every potential anomaly a potentially useful guide , or helpful hint of something.
Director of the MIT Media Lab falls victim to his involvement with Epstein:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors...
Interestingly, he is also on the board of the New York Times.
Amazing contrast between how those associated with paedophile sex offender Epstein are being treated, and how @Roger's mate, paedophile sex offender Roman Polanski and his associates are still being lauded and rewarded. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49623532
That is likely to change once the extent of Epsteins associations with the elite and the '100s of names' come out
Interesting that Hunt is finally sticking his head above the parapet and in this context too. Is he positioning himself to be the healer?
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
This ‘them’ and ‘us’ stuff is nonsense. We voted for a divisive policy without any instructions on how it should be implemented - and then elected a hopelessly hung Parliament to sort it out. We, the electorate continue split down the middle on the issue.
The ignominy is ours every bit as much as theirs. Which goes some way to explaining our anger.
There is some truth in that but what has been unforgivable has been the abandonment of the middle ground and the lack of interest in pursuing a compromise that people could live with. Rory Stewart is a notable exception to this but there are damn few others. We need a soft Brexit that respects the decision made but creates as little disruption as possible. And there are hardly any proponents of such a position left in the Commons.
Easy? Pfffft!!! Say you have six parties with equal numbers of MPs, each headed by Boris, Corbyn, Farage, Sturgeon, Starmer and Swinson. Where's your stable coalition there? Personalities would play an even bigger part.
There is no universe in which Sturgeon is the leader of a sixth of the UK parliament. Even if the SNP won ever Scottish seat, that's 1 MP in 11. And, of course, even that would be utterly impossible, because under PR the SNP would deservedly get no more than a half of that seats. So 25-30 seats /maximum/, or about 1 seat in 20 UK-wide.
In any case, what you're arguing is that in a situation where the UK voting population is cleaved into 6 roughly equal parts, it's hard to produce a stable coalition. You solution is essentially to create artificial semi-permanent coalitions, which is what Labour and the Conservatives are. But they too are unstable: look around you!
All FPTP is doing these days is enforcing a near-permanent state of civil war within those two parties whilst guaranteeing one of them will have a majority or near majority next time. Do you think that is a path to good governance? I do not.
More to the point, leaders who can not accommodate the view of others would rapidly be sidelined under PR.
Love a bit of stats and I will be back to say something relevant and insightful on the header after I've had a banana.
But for now a quickie on the political crisis -
The Queen's Speech is a farce it seems to me. The 'government' cannot get anything remotely serious through. So this event should surely be cancelled until a new government is formed, whether that be after an election or otherwise. If it goes ahead in these circumstances, the Queen is having the piss taken out of her.
You could go further. Make a 93 year old lady sit for hours, wearing punishment clothes, reading out stuff on live prime time TV that everyone and his dog knows is utter bullshit - is this not abuse?
She can send Charles to do it for her.
But really it's just advertising for the manifesto.
I suggested that earlier. Whilst also pointing out that it might draw unfortunate historical comparisons..
Declining the offer of an election may look good for Labour but is it good for the country? It is beginning to feel ludicrous.
Some Labour strategists might think declining the election you have spent the last two years calling for is a wheeze. The sensibles in the other universe just think "twats....let us vote."
People can wait until November. They have other things to do. Brexit is not the only thing. Stopping No Deal Brexit is now more important.
How does a delayed Brexit stop No Deal, if the delayed election in say November still allows a party to say "we will try for a deal, but if an acceptable deal is not forthcoming from the EU, we will leave without a deal" and once that gets a working majority, then leaving with No Deal?
Delay delay delay - at a billion £ a month price tag plus loss of economic growth from uncertainty - is all that is being achieved.
No. Delay might rip the Tory party apart, make Johnson look a complete fool (that should not be too hard) and cause the Tories to lose the election, or fail to get a majority.
It could result in a huge delay to Brexit or even a revocation, but it will hopefully kill off the No Deal the nutters so crave.
So the delay is in the national interest.
Or it might not. Depends who the public blames, surely?
No Deal is not in the national interest.
As to who the public blames...? Well we shall see, but I cannot see the Tories doing well. If Magic Grandpa was bright enough to realise that he needs to stand aside then the Tories would be toast.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
Yep.
If Jeremy Corbyn were to be ousted, Boris and Brexit would be flushed away in moments.
I am not sure who I detest more.
One thing you can say about the broad and loose coalition we have currently is that it constrains both Johnson and Corbyn.
Ladies and gentlemen I bring you .... PR
Yeah, because the current period of minority parties trying to scrabble around for power has REALLY made the case for perpetual coalition governments.
Because FPTP encourages monolith parties.
If Rudd and Francois were in separate parties, and Corbyn and Starmer similarly, building a stable coalition would be easy. But the monolithic two parties and FPTP make that impossible.
Easy? Pfffft!!! Say you have six parties with equal numbers of MPs, each headed by Boris, Corbyn, Farage, Sturgeon, Starmer and Swinson. Where's your stable coalition there? Personalities would play an even bigger part.
I think as well as the unionist bit being misleading, it will be in no way conservative. As Byronic might say it is a revolutionary party. Call it the Brexit party. Simples.
The problems with FPTP have been well-rehearsed... but sod it, I shall summarise again anyway.
Under the current system...
1. Most voters are stuck in safe seats with MPs that are almost immovable 2. Many of the voters in marginals still throw their votes away if they pick any party other than the two leading ones. This frequently leads to dilemmas such as that faced by Big G, where they have to pick between two choices that stink and they feel obliged to pick the one that smells slightly less rotten 3. Elections are, in fact, typically decided by the behaviour of a few hundred thousand swing voters in key marginal constituencies. The rest of us might as well not bother to turn up 4. Wildly unrepresentative Parliaments and Governments that represent a minority of public opinion are normal. Blair won a comfortable majority in 2005 with only 35% of the popular vote. It's quite possible to envision a situation in the next election where four parties separated by not much more than 10% in terms of the popular vote in England win something like 350, 220, 20 and zero seats respectively. It's bonkers 5. The major parties are free to go mental, safe in the knowledge that most of their voters will stick with them - partly out of conviction, partly out of habit, but largely because they feel they have nowhere else to go. Corbyn Labour and the Johnson Tories survive because of their voters' mutual fear of and antagonism towards each other and, crucially, the fact that shunning one means enabling the other in most of the country. A proportional voting system would allow the centre-right and centre-left to break off with a good prospect of success, and both these existing blocs would therefore lose much of their support overnight
FPTP is worse than useless and encourages polarisation. It should be binned.
To change the present electoral system, you have to win under FPTP.
All parties that win under FPTP become enamoured of its great merits.
For example, suppose the meltdown continues and the LibDems end up with 35 per cent of the vote and a 50 seat majority against Corby and Boris on 25 per cent each at the next election
My bet is that the LibDems will suddenly see the great advantages of FPTP.
They are all in it to line their own pockets. Voting in the interests of the country or constituents is not even on their minds apart from when they are lying at election time. Lib Dems are among the worst offenders, unprincipled chancers. Heard Chums the other day, what a sleazeball, waxing about how great the lib dems and Swindon are. These people change their principles as soon as they see an opportunity to make a buck
Declining the offer of an election may look good for Labour but is it good for the country? It is beginning to feel ludicrous.
Some Labour strategists might think declining the election you have spent the last two years calling for is a wheeze. The sensibles in the other universe just think "twats....let us vote."
People can wait until November. They have other things to do. Brexit is not the only thing. Stopping No Deal Brexit is now more important.
How does a delayed Brexit stop No Deal, if the delayed election in say November still allows a party to say "we will try for a deal, but if an acceptable deal is not forthcoming from the EU, we will leave without a deal" and once that gets a working majority, then leaving with No Deal?
Delay delay delay - at a billion £ a month price tag plus loss of economic growth from uncertainty - is all that is being achieved.
No. Delay might rip the Tory party apart, make Johnson look a complete fool (that should not be too hard) and cause the Tories to lose the election, or fail to get a majority.
It could result in a huge delay to Brexit or even a revocation, but it will hopefully kill off the No Deal the nutters so crave.
So the delay is in the national interest.
Or it might not. Depends who the public blames, surely?
No Deal is not in the national interest.
As to who the public blames...? Well we shall see, but I cannot see the Tories doing well. If Magic Grandpa was bright enough to realise that he needs to stand aside then the Tories would be toast.
If Boris et al. can convince the public that Brexit was thwarted by parliament, then I can see him doing quite handsomely in a November election. Luckily for him, it'd be the truth.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
What if your Labour candidate is a strong Corbyn sceptic? Or are you saying that you might vote Labour if you don't think he will end up in no10? (and how would you determine that?) Otherwise I would suggest you are being slightly disingenuous in saying that it is a difficult decision (assuming you are clear that you WILL vote, and WILL only vote for one of the two main parties). Because you are saying you will only vote Conservative or Labour, and then only Conservative. So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
You may as well be voting for Farage. If he joins will that stop you voting "Conservative", in reality already bluekip trying to implement the least conservative policy in living memory.
In Aberconwy the only vote to stop the Corbynista is conservative and I will never be a part of electing Corbyn
The Union is finished anyway - and, from the point of view of the English as well as the Scots, the prospect of dissolution has its up sides. Making it impossible for a far left minority Government to limp across the finishing line propped up by SNP votes, for starters.
(But yes, the point about the Conservative and "Unionist" Party is not without merit.)
MPs have no intention of delivering brexit, nor do they have the stomach to cancel it, it's just going to be one extension after another with the present lot. The sooner we get a fresh Parliament, the better.
Well, yes, but as last night's polls indicated, those of us not inclined toward the Conservatives are not giving to give Johnson and his crowd a free pass to govern for the next five years. We know the Conservatives would win an election now - the way @HYUFD salivated over the YouGov numbers tells you that.
However, Boris has the polling numbers but not the Parliamentary numbers. He can't call a GE and he can't crash us out without a WA so he's trapped. He could ask for an extension but that would be the end of him and his party (no great loss).
The problem is the anti-No Deal majority is itself split between those who want to forget the referendum happened and those who want to honour the result but by means of an agreed WA. The notion of endless extensions is equally unsatisfactory for both sides but probably holds them together.
As time goes on the notion of honouring a referendum which will be like ancient history will become increasingly absurd.
Told you so. Nobody has said they will break the law.
Will you break the news to HYUFD who was positively salivating at the prospect of Alexander de Pfeffel Boris Mandela Ghandi Johnson being thrown behind bars?
Reduce time to debate Brexit? Just how many days of debate has it had on the subject over the past three years, and how many concrete proposals has that time translated in to? As for puffing up policy... well, isn't that the whole point of the Queen's speech?
Lots of time gone, yes, but the remaining time is at a premium. In any case, you're surely not seriously disputing that was the main driver?
Puffing up policy? Sure, but if it is Tory policy that cannot be implemented unless the party wins a GE, the proper place for it is the Tory manifesto for that GE, no?
MPs have no intention of delivering brexit, nor do they have the stomach to cancel it, it's just going to be one extension after another with the present lot. The sooner we get a fresh Parliament, the better.
Oh I think this lot will eventually have the stomach to cancel Brexit, it may just take a few more extensions.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
What if your Labour candidate is a strong Corbyn sceptic? Or are you saying that you might vote Labour if you don't think he will end up in no10? (and how would you determine that?) Otherwise I would suggest you are being slightly disingenuous in saying that it is a difficult decision (assuming you are clear that you WILL vote, and WILL only vote for one of the two main parties). Because you are saying you will only vote Conservative or Labour, and then only Conservative. So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
You may as well be voting for Farage. If he joins will that stop you voting "Conservative", in reality already bluekip trying to implement the least conservative policy in living memory.
In Aberconwy the only vote to stop the Corbynista is conservative and I will never be a part of electing Corbyn
What if the Conservative candidate is in favour of Foxhunting?
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
"One nation" and "remain" don't mean the same thing and it is cheeky of remainers to try and pretend they represent the one nation wing. It isn't one nation MPs that are leaving it is remainers.
Boris is a one nation Tory. What he's not is a remainer. One nation never meant 48% of the nation.
Or 52%. Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation. It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
The valid comparison is Maastricht and not one "bastard" voted down Maastricht. The 21 are worse than the bastards.
We were talking about one nation conservatism, not whether they towed the party line. Willingness to vote for a compromise (ie a soft Brexit) is a mark of that.
Director of the MIT Media Lab falls victim to his involvement with Epstein:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university. Perhaps most notably, Epstein appeared to serve as an intermediary between the lab and other wealthy donors...
Interestingly, he is also on the board of the New York Times.
Amazing contrast between how those associated with paedophile sex offender Epstein are being treated, and how @Roger's mate, paedophile sex offender Roman Polanski and his associates are still being lauded and rewarded. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49623532
That is likely to change once the extent of Epsteins associations with the elite and the '100s of names' come out
Time they were published and investigated, many will get off and kept anonymous
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
What if your Labour candidate is a strong Corbyn sceptic? Or are you saying that you might vote Labour if you don't think he will end up in no10? (and how would you determine that?) Otherwise I would suggest you are being slightly disingenuous in saying that it is a difficult decision (assuming you are clear that you WILL vote, and WILL only vote for one of the two main parties). Because you are saying you will only vote Conservative or Labour, and then only Conservative. So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
You may as well be voting for Farage. If he joins will that stop you voting "Conservative", in reality already bluekip trying to implement the least conservative policy in living memory.
In Aberconwy the only vote to stop the Corbynista is conservative and I will never be a part of electing Corbyn
What if the Conservative candidate is in favour of Foxhunting?
Ken Clarke has said that a Corbyn government would be less damaging than No Deal.
Moreover, it would be a Lab-LD-SNP C&S deal, not a Corbyn govt. Look at the polls.
Ken Clarke when he entered parliament was a perfectly average Tory MP. The Tory party has left him, not the reverse.
Ditto Stewart, Gauke, Lidington, Hammond P, Hammond S, Burt or the others.
Interesting that Hunt is finally sticking his head above the parapet and in this context too. Is he positioning himself to be the healer?
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
This ‘them’ and ‘us’ stuff is nonsense. We voted for a divisive policy without any instructions on how it should be implemented - and then elected a hopelessly hung Parliament to sort it out. We, the electorate continue split down the middle on the issue.
The ignominy is ours every bit as much as theirs. Which goes some way to explaining our anger.
There is some truth in that but what has been unforgivable has been the abandonment of the middle ground and the lack of interest in pursuing a compromise that people could live with. Rory Stewart is a notable exception to this but there are damn few others. We need a soft Brexit that respects the decision made but creates as little disruption as possible. And there are hardly any proponents of such a position left in the Commons.
Earlier this year 261 MPs voted for Common Market 2.0, with over 100 abstentions. Given all that has happened since, I find it hard to believe another 60 votes could not be found. The problem is that it would destroy the Tories forever, so no Tory government could ever propose it.
Declining the offer of an election may look good for Labour but is it good for the country? It is beginning to feel ludicrous.
Some Labour strategists might think declining the election you have spent the last two years calling for is a wheeze. The sensibles in the other universe just think "twats....let us vote."
People can wait until November. They have other things to do. Brexit is not the only thing. Stopping No Deal Brexit is now more important.
How does a delayed Brexit stop No Deal, if the delayed election in say November still allows a party to say "we will try for a deal, but if an acceptable deal is not forthcoming from the EU, we will leave without a deal" and once that gets a working majority, then leaving with No Deal?
Delay delay delay - at a billion £ a month price tag plus loss of economic growth from uncertainty - is all that is being achieved.
No. Delay might rip the Tory party apart, make Johnson look a complete fool (that should not be too hard) and cause the Tories to lose the election, or fail to get a majority.
It could result in a huge delay to Brexit or even a revocation, but it will hopefully kill off the No Deal the nutters so crave.
So the delay is in the national interest.
Or it might not. Depends who the public blames, surely?
No Deal is not in the national interest.
As to who the public blames...? Well we shall see, but I cannot see the Tories doing well. If Magic Grandpa was bright enough to realise that he needs to stand aside then the Tories would be toast.
And there you have the problem. Get rid of Corbyn and it would alter the dynamic in a heartbeat
If Johnson were serious about dying in the last ditch rather than extending, there are several things he could do that would be less drastic than disobeying the law.
He could advise the Queen to refuse royal assent to the anti-No Deal bill. He could put a bill before parliament to have a general election in October. He could table a vote of no confidence in his own government.
There doesn't seem to be any real expectation that he'll do any of those things. Why not?
They would all be problematical, but if he were really committed to No Deal on 31 October, why wouldn't he be trying every possible way of making it happen? An election bill could at least force Labour to vote against an election rather than abstaining, which would fit in with the "chicken" narrative.
Perhaps Johnson really feels that an extension would be less fatal than he is claiming, provided he can portray himself as having been forced into it. But even if so, the portrayal would be more convincing if he wasn't leaving so much undone.
More to the point, leaders who can not accommodate the view of others would rapidly be sidelined under PR.
I'm a supporter of PR, but that's mistaken. As PR systems all over the world show, what happens under PR is you get lots of niche parties who thrive on say 10% of the vote - it's an election-losing policy to try for a big tent under such systems, what you want is a crystal-clear appeal to your niche.
Of course, if you're too divisive then you struggle to get in a coalition after the election, as e.g. the AfD and Linke have found in Germany. But if you persist then the ohers eventually say oh well, I suppose so, and let you in, as the Danish People's Party found. Sometimes you then lose a lot of your niche vote, though, as the DPP also found.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
Which is quite likely given that any such government would be creaking under the weight of contradictory expectation, as we saw with the coalition.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
So cynical. Not implausible though. It's easy to find an excuse not to follow through. I wonder if Trudeau in Canada will promise to change to voting system again.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
You may as well be voting for Farage. If he joins will that stop you voting "Conservative", in reality already bluekip trying to implement the least conservative policy in living memory.
In Aberconwy the only vote to stop the Corbynista is conservative and I will never be a part of electing Corbyn
Of course your vote is entirely up to you, and I share your concerns about Corbyn.
The last couple of weeks have shown that the conservative part of the Conservative party is at best in hibernation if it has not already gone. The cheerleaders of the party embrace revolution, breaking the rule of law, zero sum diplomacy with our friends, whipping up nationalism, disloyalty to colleagues and intolerance of disagreement.
They are in no sense conservatives. I would ask all who believe in conservatism to understand there is no conservative element to this Conservative party. Do not vote for it to deliver conservatism. If you want revolution, nationalism, authoritarian government by all means support it.
At the moment the only side that has a realistic chance of a majority is the Conservatives. The question that should be asked by those who are politically homeless is which is more dangerous, the revolutionary party with a majority (Conservatives) or the revolutionary party constrained by sensible coalition (Labour).
The current answer to me is clear, but if Labour started to poll as a possible majority party I could change my mind. I shall vote for a hung parliament, with as few Tory/Labour leadership loyalists as possible.
One 'shocking' thought. With everyone running round racking their brains as to how Johnson B gets out of this, what if they really do have a plan? What if its the breathless press who are getting a surfeit of wood for the excitement each day brings and the opposition and rebels who are pleasuring themselves at their awesomeness that are missing something? Like what's happening to the country, the electorate..... Farage is moving to back the Tories in a pact, the key thing there is that regardless of what happens with the extension, that pact locks in the angry leave vote. And that vote wins. The main parties have been fracturing for a while now, labour are no longer labour, the Tories are no longer the C and U party and the LDs are morphing with this assimilation of theirs. The old guard is being swept away in front of our eyes, hence the panic in Westminster from all those stuck in the world before Corbyn and Brexit.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
Get again provided these useless twunts are only there for self interest, stuff the public just make sure they make money for themselves
Conservatives. Cheering on a Conservative PM to break the law. You don't think you've utterly lost all perspective on what "Conservative" means?
On this point, I think you're being too charitable to conservatives. Conservative ideology is about stability through hierarchy. Rule of law is simply a means to an end, which is replaceable in the right circumstances. The Conservative party is a blend of liberals and conservatives. It is the liberal wing of the Conservatives that believes in rule of law. And, I'm afraid to say, the liberal wing of the Conservatives is NOT in the ascendancy these days.
If Johnson were serious about dying in the last ditch rather than extending, there are several things he could do that would be less drastic than disobeying the law.
He could advise the Queen to refuse royal assent to the anti-No Deal bill. He could put a bill before parliament to have a general election in October. He could table a vote of no confidence in his own government.
There doesn't seem to be any real expectation that he'll do any of those things. Why not?
They would all be problematical, but if he were really committed to No Deal on 31 October, why wouldn't he be trying every possible way of making it happen? An election bill could at least force Labour to vote against an election rather than abstaining, which would fit in with the "chicken" narrative.
Perhaps Johnson really feels that an extension would be less fatal than he is claiming, provided he can portray himself as having been forced into it. But even if so, the portrayal would be more convincing if he wasn't leaving so much undone.
Hes convincingly shown he doesnt want to extend already, what more will persuade BXP? And some on here think hes panicking unnecessarily as despite a few bits of polling they reckon BXP will back him if we extend.
The QS is valid, its needed annually and this is long overdue and now scheduled. It can't be delayed further.
The two options are QS or GE. There is literally no alternative. If MPs vote down a GE there must be a QS.
But I have explained why it is NOT valid. Is there an iron rule that says we must have a QS in October 2019? No. Therefore it CAN be delayed. Of course it can.
New Government THEN a Queen's Speech - this is the correct order. The other way around is a nonsense. It's even a touch fraudulent.
I mean, would you write a cheque before you've paid any money into your account? No, I'm sure you wouldn't. Surely Boris Johnson wouldn't either. Great Man that he is.
Interesting that Hunt is finally sticking his head above the parapet and in this context too. Is he positioning himself to be the healer?
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
This ‘them’ and ‘us’ stuff is nonsense. We voted for a divisive policy without any instructions on how it should be implemented - and then elected a hopelessly hung Parliament to sort it out. We, the electorate continue split down the middle on the issue.
The ignominy is ours every bit as much as theirs. Which goes some way to explaining our anger.
There is some truth in that but what has been unforgivable has been the abandonment of the middle ground and the lack of interest in pursuing a compromise that people could live with. Rory Stewart is a notable exception to this but there are damn few others. We need a soft Brexit that respects the decision made but creates as little disruption as possible. And there are hardly any proponents of such a position left in the Commons.
Earlier this year 261 MPs voted for Common Market 2.0, with over 100 abstentions. Given all that has happened since, I find it hard to believe another 60 votes could not be found. The problem is that it would destroy the Tories forever, so no Tory government could ever propose it.
The irony being that the Tory party is being destroyed and the middle ground MPs who made up the majority and would have been very happy with soft Brexit have been duped by believing the PM would be a centrist PM rather than an ERG/Farage puppet. So the Tory party has been destroyed in a worse way than they initially feared AND failed to deliver Brexit.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
Perhaps my faith in their commitment to the principle is misplaced, but I don’t think so.
All those first time MPs would realise how unlikely it might be for them to be returned under FPTP - and the careerists would equally realise their long term prospects of government far brighter under PR.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
"One nation" and "remain" don't mean the same thing and it is cheeky of remainers to try and pretend they represent the one nation wing. It isn't one nation MPs that are leaving it is remainers.
Boris is a one nation Tory. What he's not is a remainer. One nation never meant 48% of the nation.
Or 52%. Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation. It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
The valid comparison is Maastricht and not one "bastard" voted down Maastricht. The 21 are worse than the bastards.
Boris did not make the vote a matter of confidence in either the old or new sense. If it were, he would have resigned. He has not.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
The Lib Dems aren't going to win an election, but even if they did they'd put PR through. Two points: firstly, the image of the politician acting entirely out of self-interest is now so ingrained that people often refuse to contemplate that they will act out of principle. But the Tories sitting on large majorities who were prepared to lose the whip over Brexit immolated themselves, did they not? Secondly, even if you approach the matter as a pure cynic, the LDs could always find a way to look after the surplus MPs. Seats in the Lords or an elected second chamber, an English Parliament, comfy little sinecures on quangos - the options are almost endless...
And if they don't make it part of their price for supporting a Labour minority then they're mad.
Interesting that Hunt is finally sticking his head above the parapet and in this context too. Is he positioning himself to be the healer?
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
This ‘them’ and ‘us’ stuff is nonsense. We voted for a divisive policy without any instructions on how it should be implemented - and then elected a hopelessly hung Parliament to sort it out. We, the electorate continue split down the middle on the issue.
The ignominy is ours every bit as much as theirs. Which goes some way to explaining our anger.
There is some truth in that but what has been unforgivable has been the abandonment of the middle ground and the lack of interest in pursuing a compromise that people could live with. Rory Stewart is a notable exception to this but there are damn few others. We need a soft Brexit that respects the decision made but creates as little disruption as possible. And there are hardly any proponents of such a position left in the Commons.
Earlier this year 261 MPs voted for Common Market 2.0, with over 100 abstentions. Given all that has happened since, I find it hard to believe another 60 votes could not be found. The problem is that it would destroy the Tories forever, so no Tory government could ever propose it.
The irony being that the Tory party is being destroyed and the middle ground MPs who made up the majority and would have been very happy with soft Brexit have been duped by believing the PM would be a centrist PM rather than an ERG/Farage puppet. So the Tory party has been destroyed in a worse way than they initially feared AND failed to deliver Brexit.
If they believed that they were fools. I think most of them knew it would come to this - they know the membership would prefer the do or die no deal path, and perhaps enough voters too, so accepted it even if they dislike it.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
So cynical. Not implausible though. It's easy to find an excuse not to follow through. I wonder if Trudeau in Canada will promise to change to voting system again.
If the LibDems really did win with a 50 seat majority, they will fall victim to the same kind of "We Can Not Be Killed" hubris that did for New Labour.
Changing the electoral system will not arise because there are more important things to do.
The LibDems will be on the triumphalist crest of a wave in which "they have shattered the glass paradigm of cyclical politics" (to quote the former partner of a now LibDem MP)
Told you so. Nobody has said they will break the law.
Will you break the news to HYUFD who was positively salivating at the prospect of Alexander de Pfeffel Boris Mandela Ghandi Johnson being thrown behind bars?
HYUFD has been amazing recently. He has morphed from a sensible conservative with an ecentric view of the power of opinion polls to a Boris 'Chemical Ali' type figure and his latest of comparison of Boris to Nelson Mandela is consistent with his cult like views
However, I defend his right to post and he provides a lot of discussion and to be fair is generally polite if obsessed
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
"One nation" and "remain" don't mean the same thing and it is cheeky of remainers to try and pretend they represent the one nation wing. It isn't one nation MPs that are leaving it is remainers.
Boris is a one nation Tory. What he's not is a remainer. One nation never meant 48% of the nation.
Or 52%. Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation. It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
The valid comparison is Maastricht and not one "bastard" voted down Maastricht. The 21 are worse than the bastards.
Boris did not make the vote a matter of confidence in either the old or new sense. If it were, he would have resigned. He has not.
Hes allowed to tell mps he is treating it like one as far as consequences for the whip goes.
We were talking about one nation conservatism, not whether they towed the party line. Willingness to vote for a compromise (ie a soft Brexit) is a mark of that.
We are talking a group of self-defined "One Nation" conservatives, many of them party grandees, whose One Nation is Europe. Clarke, Heseltine, Major, Hammond.... The Conservative Party's woes for the past couple of decades has been brought about by trying to placate a small, high-profile group who would not be placated. And they seemed to think that they should be placated even as far as voting against the Governemnt on a confidence matter.
Well, enough. Goodbye. The Conservative Party will be far more managable an entity with them having chosen to wave it goodbye. And make no mistake, it was their decision. One they have got wrong, thinking it would again indulge them. Tough. The Conservative Party is now a party that is determined to implement Brexit, the will of the voters, and will have no truck with those putting barricades in the way.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
You will have to hold your nose and vote Labour.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
What if your Labour candidate is a strong Corbyn sceptic? Or are you saying that you might vote Labour if you don't think he will end up in no10? (and how would you determine that?) Otherwise I would suggest you are being slightly disingenuous in saying that it is a difficult decision (assuming you are clear that you WILL vote, and WILL only vote for one of the two main parties). Because you are saying you will only vote Conservative or Labour, and then only Conservative. So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
You may as well be voting for Farage. If he joins will that stop you voting "Conservative", in reality already bluekip trying to implement the least conservative policy in living memory.
In Aberconwy the only vote to stop the Corbynista is conservative and I will never be a part of electing Corbyn
What if the Conservative candidate is in favour of Foxhunting?
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
The Lib Dems aren't going to win an election, but even if they did they'd put PR through. Two points: firstly, the image of the politician acting entirely out of self-interest is now so ingrained that people often refuse to contemplate that they will act out of principle. But the Tories sitting on large majorities who were prepared to lose the whip over Brexit immolated themselves, did they not? Secondly, even if you approach the matter as a pure cynic, the LDs could always find a way to look after the surplus MPs. Seats in the Lords or an elected second chamber, an English Parliament, comfy little sinecures on quangos - the options are almost endless...
And if they don't make it part of their price for supporting a Labour minority then they're mad.
The latter case is different. I said if parties win in FPTP, they like it.
As kle4 notes, the Liberals in Canada have followed exactly the path I sketched out !!
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
Because it is the ONLY deal we are going to get.
No Deal is dead thanks to Parliament so the only options left are the Deal or Revoke.
That is it.
That is actually not true. No Deal is dead on October 31st. And even then only if every other country in the EU agrees. But as soon as that date passes it is back on again as Parliament have only extended to January 31st. Once again if we reach that deadline and nothing has been done then it is the default result. A GE in the intervening period could very easily mske No Deal the Government policy. .
The Tories, I think, will need a high turnout to win the election as they will be increasingly reliant on demographics - white, working class, males in Midlands and northern constituencies - who are the most reluctant to vote. This will also have an effect on plans to redraw constituencies post-election and on voter suppression initiatives. I wonder if Cummings has wargamed this.
That will not happen under Corbyn under any circumstances
What if your Labour candidate is a strong Corbyn sceptic? Or are you saying that you might vote Labour if you don't think he will end up in no10? (and how would you determine that?) Otherwise I would suggest you are being slightly disingenuous in saying that it is a difficult decision (assuming you are clear that you WILL vote, and WILL only vote for one of the two main parties). Because you are saying you will only vote Conservative or Labour, and then only Conservative. So whether you do so under protest or not, you are still doing so.
It depends on the constituency. If I was in a seat that voting lib dem could beat labour I would do so. But Aberconwy is a marginal and the labour candidate is a Corbynista so I will vote conservative, but with some dismay I have to do this
Big_G - you always seem to find a reluctant reason to support the Tories. Perhaps you should rejoin?
At least if you vote Lib Dem, the candidate may not get elected but any increase in support carries the momentum onward.
If you really want what is best for Britain, you will not be finding it in the former Tory party. It is not what it once was.
You can attempt to critise me but I will not give a vote that could see a Corbynista win. If the lib dems had a chance I would vote for them but if that let in labour I would not be able to justify it
I believe there are many thousands of conservatives in the same position and I will not rejoin until after brexit and assuming the party restores its one nation attitude
You'd only have let Labour in if they won your constituency by literally one vote, though, and the election by literally one seat. The chances of that are less than you winning millions on the lottery on the same week. Without even buying a ticket.
We do tend to overthink our own votes with the squeeze. Yes, if Parties can convince enough people to squeeze their votes for them, it makes a difference, but when you're in the polling station with your ballot, you only influence one vote.
More to the point, leaders who can not accommodate the view of others would rapidly be sidelined under PR.
I'm a supporter of PR, but that's mistaken. As PR systems all over the world show, what happens under PR is you get lots of niche parties who thrive on say 10% of the vote - it's an election-losing policy to try for a big tent under such systems, what you want is a crystal-clear appeal to your niche.
Of course, if you're too divisive then you struggle to get in a coalition after the election, as e.g. the AfD and Linke have found in Germany. But if you persist then the ohers eventually say oh well, I suppose so, and let you in, as the Danish People's Party found. Sometimes you then lose a lot of your niche vote, though, as the DPP also found.
The thing about DPP is that they broadened their social policy offering to win more support, and it worked. That fits under the banner of accommodating the view of others. But more interestingly, when it came to forming a government after the 2015 election, Venstre, who finished 3rd, headed it. DPP, who finished second, couldn't. They were sidelined because of their more extreme stance, which is exactly the phenomenon we're talking about. And that is a good thing, because even though they had a higher positive share than Venstre, they were more reviled in the Danish population than Venstre. Multi-party proportional representation delivered the kind of compromise which seems to be eluding us today.
Rather comical that Clarke is considered a one nation Tory when he thinks a marxist government would be less damaging than leaving the EU with no deal. He's just an EU worshipping fanatic. The last time the supposed one nation Tories like Major, Clarke and Heseltine were running things their legacy was 13 years of Labour. Now Clarke is prepared for us to have a marxist at no 10. The Tories are well rid of Clarke and his cronies.
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
Because it is the ONLY deal we are going to get.
No Deal is dead thanks to Parliament so the only options left are the Deal or Revoke.
That is it.
That is actually not true. No Deal is dead on October 31st. And even then only if every other country in the EU agrees. But as soon as that date passes it is back on again as Parliament have only extended to January 31st. Once again if we reach that deadline and nothing has been done then it is the default result. A GE in the intervening period could very easily mske No Deal the Government policy. .
True enough. Unfortunately the battle over whether we Brexit or remain has not even gotten close to the endgame.
(I discount the possibility of a deal. Lots of people did want one but neither we nor the EU look serious about it anymore.)
Two (ish) thoughts before I go into battle with the garden:
1. The Indy has a story today about BJ “plotting” (it implies secretly) not to appoint a new Commissioner to chuck a spanner in the works. I wonder if they saw this letter from a fortnight ago?
2a. Is there any correlation between fieldwork dates on the varying polls? Because if the closer ones match the later fieldwork ones, Boris is in trouble, IMO.
2b. I’m sure he has 20+ per cent nailed-on. But the rest of the 52 per cent of leavers will split between “it is/isn’t worth X” to deliver it. Boris is taking a courageous view of what extremities of X might leave him with a majority in my view, especially with regard to left-wing Tories who feel “the party has left them”.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
The Lib Dems aren't going to win an election, but even if they did they'd put PR through. Two points: firstly, the image of the politician acting entirely out of self-interest is now so ingrained that people often refuse to contemplate that they will act out of principle. But the Tories sitting on large majorities who were prepared to lose the whip over Brexit immolated themselves, did they not? Secondly, even if you approach the matter as a pure cynic, the LDs could always find a way to look after the surplus MPs. Seats in the Lords or an elected second chamber, an English Parliament, comfy little sinecures on quangos - the options are almost endless...
And if they don't make it part of their price for supporting a Labour minority then they're mad.
The latter case is different. I said if parties win in FPTP, they like it.
As kle4 notes, the Liberals in Canada have followed exactly the path I sketched out !!
Excellent piece Alastair but can I suggest that there is another sleight of hand go.
There, I feel better now. Nothing like a good rant.
{{APPLAUSE}}
There is already massive resentment. I know Oxbridge grads from poorer backgrounds who, having worked incredibly hard to get the grades, know they will not be able to join a London middle-class which is now only on offer to those who come from money.
Poor diddums, tell the thickos to go outside London and enjoy a decent life.
Gardenwalker is right, though. For many people - clearly not you - the best life possible, in the UK, is in in London.
London is a world city. Arguably the pre-eminent city on the planet. National Geographic thought so last year, despite Brexit
London has Britain's - sometimes Europe's, sometimes the world's - best restaurants, theatres, galleries, museums, concerts, sports, social spaces, palaces, markets, skyscrapers, science, colleges, bars, art, pubs, parties, clubs, elegant Georgian terraces and opportunities to meet fascinating people from across the globe.
Obviously, if what you want is clean air, no knife attacks, low rent, minimal traffic, access to wild countryside, and a sweet quiet life, then London is not for you. But it is the place, the goal, the ultimate career move, for lots of lots of people, often the young, smart and ambitious.
But now London is so successful it is closed off to the young in the UK, no matter how clever and driven. It is bad for them, and very bad for the country, when the capital city - or its nicer bits - becomes a kind of closed playground for global super-rich and a few lucky Brits (mainly those who have some link to London property ownership already).
The building resentment of London, and the way it has been quarantined from the rest of the country, was a huge, hidden driver of Brexit.
More to the point, leaders who can not accommodate the view of others would rapidly be sidelined under PR.
I'm a supporter of PR, but that's mistaken. As PR systems all over the world show, what happens under PR is you get lots of niche parties who thrive on say 10% of the vote - it's an election-losing policy to try for a big tent under such systems, what you want is a crystal-clear appeal to your niche.
Of course, if you're too divisive then you struggle to get in a coalition after the election, as e.g. the AfD and Linke have found in Germany. But if you persist then the ohers eventually say oh well, I suppose so, and let you in, as the Danish People's Party found. Sometimes you then lose a lot of your niche vote, though, as the DPP also found.
The latter paragraph is what I mean by sidelined - not by their own parties, but usually by government.
I don’t for a moment pretend that PR has its problems, but it does actually give a properly representative forum where the conflicting interests of the electorate can be sorted out.
And in its favour it tends to oblige even those with the strongest view on given issues to work with those who might not share those views in order to get anything done.
Which is what most of us are obliged to do in our ordinary existence.
You have my sympathy. My local Tory has a huge majority (he survived the Blair landslides,) so I can put my little cross next to the plump pigeon of PR without being too concerned that I'm enabling the Marxist Jew-baiting Front.
Indeed. Who in their right mind would wish to enable the MJF.
But would you vote for radical economically redistributive policies to the disadvantage of the affluent and privileged sectors of society and in favour of the neglected working class people in neglected working class places whose votes were so crucial to the Leave 2016 win if they were being offered by a party and a leader with an impeccable record of opposing antisemitism in all its guises?
Rather comical that Clarke is considered a one nation Tory when he thinks a marxist government would be less damaging than leaving the EU with no deal. He's just an EU worshipping fanatic. The last time the supposed one nation Tories like Major, Clarke and Heseltine were running things their legacy was 13 years of Labour. Now Clarke is prepared for us to have a marxist at no 10. The Tories are well rid of Clarke and his cronies.
EU worshipping who voted to leave the eu multiple times. And it was not for BINO given JRM and Boris backed it too.
RPI should have been abolished for CPI some years ago
On Boris he is on course to destroy the one nation section which includes myself and requires each mp to sign a no deal pledge. Any conservative refusing will be deselected but the problem is that there is an army of TBP MEPs who could be used in an agreement between Farage and Boris. Farage has already announced he will not stand his candidates in the 28 spartan seats and is looking at an agreement that his party will be given free run in Doncaster to take on Ed Miliband
It also looks as if Boris is to seek a judicial review on the no deal act and no doubt John Bercow will be at the heart of the case on the grounds he failed to act impartially and assisted one side of the argument, rather than being even handed
When a GE comes around it raises a huge issue for me. In almost every case I would not vote conservative but if by doing so I put Corbyn in no 10 that would be a step too far. I suspect many thousands of conservatives face the same difficult decision.
I would say I could vote lib dem and quite like Jo Swinson and in any election I hope she does well but in Aberconwy it is a straight conservative-labour marginal
"One nation" and "remain" don't mean the same thing and it is cheeky of remainers to try and pretend they represent the one nation wing. It isn't one nation MPs that are leaving it is remainers.
Boris is a one nation Tory. What he's not is a remainer. One nation never meant 48% of the nation.
Or 52%. Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation. It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
Why do people keep bringing up May's Deal? Did May make her deal a confidence matter? If so why didn't she expel MPs? It's not comparable at all.
The valid comparison is Maastricht and not one "bastard" voted down Maastricht. The 21 are worse than the bastards.
Boris did not make the vote a matter of confidence in either the old or new sense. If it were, he would have resigned. He has not.
Hes allowed to tell mps he is treating it like one as far as consequences for the whip goes.
Yes and if Boris were treating it as a vote of confidence then, since he lost that vote, he would have resigned. He has not.
Rather comical that Clarke is considered a one nation Tory when he thinks a marxist government would be less damaging than leaving the EU with no deal. He's just an EU worshipping fanatic. The last time the supposed one nation Tories like Major, Clarke and Heseltine were running things their legacy was 13 years of Labour. Now Clarke is prepared for us to have a marxist at no 10. The Tories are well rid of Clarke and his cronies.
Far more likely that they see it as their one chance to change the system. Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
I think not.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
Get again provided these useless twunts are only there for self interest, stuff the public just make sure they make money for themselves
Malcolm, if they were there for their own self interest they wouldn't be LDs would they?
Comments
I tend to agree with those commenting on the pointlessness of the Queens Speech. It really should not be a party election broadcast on behalf of a party that has absolutely no control over the the House of Commons any longer. With Rudd's departure the government is something like 23 votes short of a majority. We simply cannot go on like this. We have no government, we have no consensus and we have no credible alternatives open to us.
This generation of politicians in general and this House of Commons in particular will live on in ignominy for decades, even generations. They have completely failed us. There is no guarantee that the public can sort this mess out for them, we may end up with yet another hopelessly hung Parliament, but I think we have to try. We are all out of other options.
I believe there are many thousands of conservatives in the same position and I will not rejoin until after brexit and assuming the party restores its one nation attitude
Anyone pursuing no deal cannot be described in any manner a one nation.
It’s not even supported by all leavers.
And I’d remind you how many of those ejected from the party actually voted for May’s deal.
Johnson has no core political belief other than his right to be at the top.
The valid comparison is Maastricht and not one "bastard" voted down Maastricht. The 21 are worse than the bastards.
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago about this. The key factors IIRC were whether the BXP were mentioned explicitly (as opposed to among "any other parties" and what to do about the fact that more of their sample say they voted Labour than actually did so. YouGov reduce the raw sample Labour share to account for this, others mostly don't.
On the whole, since the other polls use a variety of methodologies which all come up with narrower leads, my guess is that they're right. But I really don't feel sure. We can say with confidence that the Tories are ahead, Labour is second, the LDs are doing well and the BXP are holding up better than one might expect. That's about it. The absence of data on willingness to vote tactically is a big gap, though my sense is that it's rising, because events are makiing the election more about "What do you think of Johnson and Brexit?" than "What do you think about Corbyn?"
The only reliable technique, though, is to look at the trends within each poll. There is clearly a sharp decline in Johnson's personal rating (and a small rise in Corbyn's - he was down at 17% for best PM at one point, and is now nearer 25%). There has probably been a dip in the Tory lead, but a smaller one, so far.
All parties that win under FPTP become enamoured of its great merits.
For example, suppose the meltdown continues and the LibDems end up with 35 per cent of the vote and a 50 seat majority against Corby and Boris on 25 per cent each at the next election
My bet is that the LibDems will suddenly see the great advantages of FPTP.
But really it's just advertising for the manifesto.
We voted for a divisive policy without any instructions on how it should be implemented - and then elected a hopelessly hung Parliament to sort it out.
We, the electorate continue split down the middle on the issue.
The ignominy is ours every bit as much as theirs. Which goes some way to explaining our anger.
The law isn't the law until Monday so claims he will disobey it once passed don't count as it isn't passed yet.
Its an illegitimate law which should be ignored.
Thought isn't crime even if it is conspiracy to offend which is an offence in itself
Its OK, he'll obey the law but ignore it
Etc etc etc
If its OK for the Prime Minister to break the law, to shatter basic principles like the rule of law, then what else is OK to secure Brexit?
As the law doesn't apply if you disagree with it, and the traitors are committing treason, then perhaps you will be ok if the PM has the former Tory MPs locked up. Or flogged in the street. Or shot in front of a baying mob. After all, its an illegitimate law which is protecting treasonous traitors.
Conservatives. Cheering on a Conservative PM to break the law. You don't think you've utterly lost all perspective on what "Conservative" means?
Or as very much 2nd choice - New Government without an Election, followed by Queen's Speech.
I would say that if you like the Libdems at the moment then vote for them. The greater the number of votes they get (even if notionally irrelevant under FPTP), the greater will be their moral influence over future events in Parliament. And, who know, even if they can't win in your constituency, if enough people like you vote for them it may change the equation for your voting options in the future.
Why not take a leap of faith?
I recall PPBs in the 1980s with John Cleese pointing out the circular fallacy.
Likewise, should they hold the balance of power, I expect it to be part of the price of their support. The promise of a referendum on the matter is unlikely to be persuasive.
In any case, what you're arguing is that in a situation where the UK voting population is cleaved into 6 roughly equal parts, it's hard to produce a stable coalition. You solution is essentially to create artificial semi-permanent coalitions, which is what Labour and the Conservatives are. But they too are unstable: look around you!
All FPTP is doing these days is enforcing a near-permanent state of civil war within those two parties whilst guaranteeing one of them will have a majority or near majority next time. Do you think that is a path to good governance? I do not.
As to who the public blames...? Well we shall see, but I cannot see the Tories doing well. If Magic Grandpa was bright enough to realise that he needs to stand aside then the Tories would be toast.
(But yes, the point about the Conservative and "Unionist" Party is not without merit.)
However, Boris has the polling numbers but not the Parliamentary numbers. He can't call a GE and he can't crash us out without a WA so he's trapped. He could ask for an extension but that would be the end of him and his party (no great loss).
The problem is the anti-No Deal majority is itself split between those who want to forget the referendum happened and those who want to honour the result but by means of an agreed WA. The notion of endless extensions is equally unsatisfactory for both sides but probably holds them together.
As time goes on the notion of honouring a referendum which will be like ancient history will become increasingly absurd.
Willingness to vote for a compromise (ie a soft Brexit) is a mark of that.
If the LibDems have a 50 seat majority, then they have 350 seats But, on 35 per cent of the vote, they should have 227 seats.
So, you are asking for about 130 LibDem MPs to immolate themselves.
The only circumstance in which PR will be introduced is, if having governed for 4 years and found themselves back on 10 per cent of the vote, the LibDems realise they are facing a wipeout and PR will save some LibDem seats.
Moreover, it would be a Lab-LD-SNP C&S deal, not a Corbyn govt. Look at the polls.
Ken Clarke when he entered parliament was a perfectly average Tory MP. The Tory party has left him, not the reverse.
Ditto Stewart, Gauke, Lidington, Hammond P, Hammond S, Burt or the others.
He could advise the Queen to refuse royal assent to the anti-No Deal bill. He could put a bill before parliament to have a general election in October. He could table a vote of no confidence in his own government.
There doesn't seem to be any real expectation that he'll do any of those things. Why not?
They would all be problematical, but if he were really committed to No Deal on 31 October, why wouldn't he be trying every possible way of making it happen? An election bill could at least force Labour to vote against an election rather than abstaining, which would fit in with the "chicken" narrative.
Perhaps Johnson really feels that an extension would be less fatal than he is claiming, provided he can portray himself as having been forced into it. But even if so, the portrayal would be more convincing if he wasn't leaving so much undone.
Of course, if you're too divisive then you struggle to get in a coalition after the election, as e.g. the AfD and Linke have found in Germany. But if you persist then the ohers eventually say oh well, I suppose so, and let you in, as the Danish People's Party found. Sometimes you then lose a lot of your niche vote, though, as the DPP also found.
No Deal is dead thanks to Parliament so the only options left are the Deal or Revoke.
That is it.
The last couple of weeks have shown that the conservative part of the Conservative party is at best in hibernation if it has not already gone. The cheerleaders of the party embrace revolution, breaking the rule of law, zero sum diplomacy with our friends, whipping up nationalism, disloyalty to colleagues and intolerance of disagreement.
They are in no sense conservatives. I would ask all who believe in conservatism to understand there is no conservative element to this Conservative party. Do not vote for it to deliver conservatism. If you want revolution, nationalism, authoritarian government by all means support it.
At the moment the only side that has a realistic chance of a majority is the Conservatives. The question that should be asked by those who are politically homeless is which is more dangerous, the revolutionary party with a majority (Conservatives) or the revolutionary party constrained by sensible coalition (Labour).
The current answer to me is clear, but if Labour started to poll as a possible majority party I could change my mind. I shall vote for a hung parliament, with as few Tory/Labour leadership loyalists as possible.
The main parties have been fracturing for a while now, labour are no longer labour, the Tories are no longer the C and U party and the LDs are morphing with this assimilation of theirs. The old guard is being swept away in front of our eyes, hence the panic in Westminster from all those stuck in the world before Corbyn and Brexit.
The Conservative party is a blend of liberals and conservatives. It is the liberal wing of the Conservatives that believes in rule of law. And, I'm afraid to say, the liberal wing of the Conservatives is NOT in the ascendancy these days.
New Government THEN a Queen's Speech - this is the correct order. The other way around is a nonsense. It's even a touch fraudulent.
I mean, would you write a cheque before you've paid any money into your account? No, I'm sure you wouldn't. Surely Boris Johnson wouldn't either. Great Man that he is.
All those first time MPs would realise how unlikely it might be for them to be returned under FPTP - and the careerists would equally realise their long term prospects of government far brighter under PR.
And if they don't make it part of their price for supporting a Labour minority then they're mad.
Changing the electoral system will not arise because there are more important things to do.
The LibDems will be on the triumphalist crest of a wave in which "they have shattered the glass paradigm of cyclical politics" (to quote the former partner of a now LibDem MP)
However, I defend his right to post and he provides a lot of discussion and to be fair is generally polite if obsessed
Well, enough. Goodbye. The Conservative Party will be far more managable an entity with them having chosen to wave it goodbye. And make no mistake, it was their decision. One they have got wrong, thinking it would again indulge them. Tough. The Conservative Party is now a party that is determined to implement Brexit, the will of the voters, and will have no truck with those putting barricades in the way.
As kle4 notes, the Liberals in Canada have followed exactly the path I sketched out !!
We do tend to overthink our own votes with the squeeze. Yes, if Parties can convince enough people to squeeze their votes for them, it makes a difference, but when you're in the polling station with your ballot, you only influence one vote.
But more interestingly, when it came to forming a government after the 2015 election, Venstre, who finished 3rd, headed it. DPP, who finished second, couldn't. They were sidelined because of their more extreme stance, which is exactly the phenomenon we're talking about. And that is a good thing, because even though they had a higher positive share than Venstre, they were more reviled in the Danish population than Venstre. Multi-party proportional representation delivered the kind of compromise which seems to be eluding us today.
(I discount the possibility of a deal. Lots of people did want one but neither we nor the EU look serious about it anymore.)
1. The Indy has a story today about BJ “plotting” (it implies secretly) not to appoint a new Commissioner to chuck a spanner in the works. I wonder if they saw this letter from a fortnight ago?
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/827315/Nomination_of_a_Commissioner_-_FINAL.pdf
2a. Is there any correlation between fieldwork dates on the varying polls? Because if the closer ones match the later fieldwork ones, Boris is in trouble, IMO.
2b. I’m sure he has 20+ per cent nailed-on. But the rest of the 52 per cent of leavers will split between “it is/isn’t worth X” to deliver it. Boris is taking a courageous view of what extremities of X might leave him with a majority in my view, especially with regard to left-wing Tories who feel “the party has left them”.
London is a world city. Arguably the pre-eminent city on the planet. National Geographic thought so last year, despite Brexit
https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2018/10/how-london-became-centre-world
London has Britain's - sometimes Europe's, sometimes the world's - best restaurants, theatres, galleries, museums, concerts, sports, social spaces, palaces, markets, skyscrapers, science, colleges, bars, art, pubs, parties, clubs, elegant Georgian terraces and opportunities to meet fascinating people from across the globe.
Obviously, if what you want is clean air, no knife attacks, low rent, minimal traffic, access to wild countryside, and a sweet quiet life, then London is not for you. But it is the place, the goal, the ultimate career move, for lots of lots of people, often the young, smart and ambitious.
But now London is so successful it is closed off to the young in the UK, no matter how clever and driven. It is bad for them, and very bad for the country, when the capital city - or its nicer bits - becomes a kind of closed playground for global super-rich and a few lucky Brits (mainly those who have some link to London property ownership already).
The building resentment of London, and the way it has been quarantined from the rest of the country, was a huge, hidden driver of Brexit.
I don’t for a moment pretend that PR has its problems, but it does actually give a properly representative forum where the conflicting interests of the electorate can be sorted out.
And in its favour it tends to oblige even those with the strongest view on given issues to work with those who might not share those views in order to get anything done.
Which is what most of us are obliged to do in our ordinary existence.
But would you vote for radical economically redistributive policies to the disadvantage of the affluent and privileged sectors of society and in favour of the neglected working class people in neglected working class places whose votes were so crucial to the Leave 2016 win if they were being offered by a party and a leader with an impeccable record of opposing antisemitism in all its guises?