General British politics discussion thread

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972684#Comment_121972684

It's literally the implication of your post. It's called a global crash for a reason.

Let's leave it there.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972739#Comment_121972739

It's not.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972137#Comment_121972137

The Tory Party itself is a messy coalition that has taken centuries to form anyway.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972739#Comment_121972739

I don't think we do need to leave it there, though. As you point out, it was a global crash and as such it impacted both IRL and UK — IRL much more severely because we are a much more open economy. And yet there's no doubt that, with the benefit of hindsight, IRL coped and recovered more effectively than the UK, both politically and economically. Not saying we didn't make any mistakes — we did. But we are in a better place now than the UK is. We haven't done anything as stupid as Brexit; we haven't been saddled governments of the kind that the Tories have been inflicting on the UK.

So, yeah; I think the example that hotmail choose underlines my point that IRL gets better governments than UK. The UK system protects political parties from the consequences of failure; however badly they perform, Labour and the Tories are both guaranteed that they will always be either in government, or the only alternative government. This insulates them from the natural electoral consequences that should result from incompetence and dysfunction, and that licences them to be incompetent and dysfunctional on a scale that, in a normal democracy, would lead to their extinction.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972167#Comment_121972167

I would be absolutely flabbergasted if it ever became a condition. I strongly suspect your sources are telling porkies also.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972475#Comment_121972475

Not even that messy. Since early February 2011, there have been only two general elections in Ireland - 2016 and 2020…..that actually sounds incredibly stable.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972875#Comment_121972875

It's not even the norm for coalitions to take that long to form. We're not Belgium…

Taking a month or two to form a compromise program for government seems absolutely fine to me.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972785#Comment_121972785

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972684#Comment_121972684

##Mod Note##

Responses like these are not up to standard.

Either debate in good faith or don't post at all.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972925#Comment_121972925

It took nearly 5 months in 2020 before a new government was formed. And I think we'll have a repeat of that after next election particularly if Fianna Fail don't go into government with Sinn Fein. Eventually they will, but will spend months debating it.

hotmail.com

The 2016 to 2020 government was held up due to Fianna Fail providing a confidence and supply agreement which they eventually reneged on and it collapsed the government.

But true it has been stable in terms of elections compared to other recent periods in Irish history where we had 3 elections in 18 months in 81/82 and 5 in total in the 1980s.

That's if you define having regular elections as your meaning for instability.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972789#Comment_121972789

Labour too.

The Tories would benefit from PR in Scotland where they regularly post no seats because of their system.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973706#Comment_121973706

Yes, and that is incredibly unusual for Ireland.

The previous government continued, in a fairly competent manner given the issues surrounding the country, in the interim. What is really the problem?

The UK has had 3 Prime Ministers with vastly different political agendas since their last election. That seems far more unstable.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973819#Comment_121973819

Since 2011, the old 2 and a half party system is dead. We have a much more fractured political voting patterns now like most of mainland Europe. No party seem to be able to get 30% of the vote.

This seems like a pattern now and we will have protracted periods to form a government like in 2020 and 2016.

The UK don't want to bother with this. They frequently mention this as a reason against using PR. They don't even bother with a parliamentary vote to elect their PM. The day after the vote, whoever wins becomes PM.

And not relevant here, but our next election could produce up to 30 Independents. Let's see how government formation happens then.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973840#Comment_121973840

FPTP is inherently undemocratic, they have in the last 100 years only had a government elected by a majority of voters which ironically for your argument was a coalition. The UK dont want to bother with representative and fair democracy is a more accurate statement. Currently labour are polling at 45% and with that projected to win 72% of seats.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973887#Comment_121973887

True but the Brits see themselves as a large and important country with strategic interests around the world.

They can't afford to take weeks or months to form a government.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973902#Comment_121973902

The tory election process for Boris Johnson and Liz Truss each spanned 7 weeks

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973902#Comment_121973902

Why not?

Hell, the most important country in the world has a lame duck parliament and executive for 2 months by default.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973902#Comment_121973902

They're not and they can based on the quality of government we've had since 2010. If I was feeling facetious, I'd argue that the Tory party alone is a strong argument for no government.

CelticRambler

I very much doubt that more than 10% of the British electorate look at how and what governments are formed in the Republic of Ireland. :-) If they're going to take their cues from anywhere, it'd probably be German or Italy.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121973965#Comment_121973965

That's just how the Brits view it. I remember in 2010, they were annoyed it took 4 or 5 days to form the Tory/Lib Dem coalition.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121974087#Comment_121974087

Yeah having lived in the UK for a short while I was astounded about how ignorant even intelligent people were about Ireland. I worked with engineers who thought that the Republic of Ireland used the pound sterling as its currency and that the queen was our head of state. It was blatantly obvious to me that they didn't truly comprehend the difference between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, nor did it bother them that they knew so little about us. There's not a prayer that any of them would have known that we use proportional representation to elect our politicians.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121974629#Comment_121974629

I worked for a medical device company in Oxfordshire and had to endure occasional lectures about how they "civilised" us and my boss telling me about how "us Brits really kicked ass". A friend my age once asked me "Do we still own you?" on a night out.

I think the big problem with PR here is that it's not really part of the framework anywhere in the whole country. I think Holyrood uses PR and other assemblies might as well but FPTP is all people here know and it's extremely simple which gives it the edge over anything else.

We need to change it desperately. It protects the Tories from consequences and enables startlingly poor government. There's a whole suite of changes I'd love to see but even just this would make the UK a much better place.

Sam Russell

STV is blindingly simple for the voter.

Put the candidates in the order of your preference.

How could it be simpler other than the FPTP - mark your selected candidate with a "X". Of course, if you do not like the likely winner, you are disenfranchised.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121974723#Comment_121974723

In fairness, it isn't. Sure, we all on this Irish website understand the concept of ranked choice but it's the counting and the outcomes that are a bit more complicated.

I remember there being a palaver here over how the ballot of a certain referendum in 2016 was worded. As much as I'd love to have PR-STV here, there are powerful interests who'll fight tooth and nail against it.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121974723#Comment_121974723

The amount of Irish people making fun of politicians elected on X count would indicate that a lot of people here don't grasp the concept. Cant imagine the Brits would be much different. Also, it benefits both major parties to keep FPTP as it maintains the (mostly) 2 party system

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121974741#Comment_121974741

In fairness, for the voter, it could not be simpler - just vote in the order of your choice.

Now when it comes counting, well that is whole different matter. However, the games only start because we have multi-seat contests.

CelticRambler

Don't forget, though, that STV also implies several representatives for each constituency. That would mean a wholesale change to the electoral map as well as the psychological shift from "my local MP" to "one of the MPs for this area".

Then there's the ingrained tradition of voting for the Party, as done by your father, your grandfather, your great grandfather … Even younger voters will have had 16-20+ years of growing up in a system where votes are "wasted" because they were cast for the wrong tribe in a safe seat.

While I believe that PR-STV is the fairest form of electoral democracy, I think it's too big a shift for the British electorate and a list-based PR system would be an easier sell.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975583#Comment_121975583

Well, start small. STV and single seat is an acceptable point to get towards democracy.

Then perhaps they might look at a directly elected Senate based on regions to replace the unelected House of Lords, and then stretch to a written constitution. I would expect a directly elected President would be too far for them to go this century.

It is a long walk to join democracy as we know it.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121972868#Comment_121972868

Echo chamber maybe, but porkies no.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121975668#Comment_121975668

Scotland uses STV for local elections. That should be a good enough lever to get it for English locals.