It's all falling apart alarmingly fast for Boris Johnson across the water. How long you reckon he has left as British Prime Minister? Hours surely?
How many parties are they talking about now? I've lost count.
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No, you're right. I was lazily using PR as a catch all for "not FPTP". They didn't vote for FPTP but they voted against "not FPTP". Perhaps if the alternative had been better - and better campaigned for - things would have been different.
But as we're voting in a representative democratic system, while the Greens may have only gotten a small number of first preferences, those going into coalition with them had large share of the vote and as the representatives of those who voted for them made the decision on their behalf that the policies the Green Party demanded in exchange for their support as a junior coalition partner were an acceptable cost.
Unless the representatives explicitly rule out another party (or policies they insist on having in a programme for government), the electorate who voted them can have no complaint about being undemocratically represented: those they chose to represent them have done so.
No, they didn't. AV is not PR.
That was a mild version of AV not PR being voted for.
They sort of did, in that they voted against bringing in Proportional Representation in the 2011 referendum.
Although the referendum was a sop to the Lib Dems that went into coalition with the Tories in 2010, and the Tories spent a fortune campaigning for NO.
And? Remain was less than 4% away from winning in 2016. The UK still left.
The Greens, the Lib Dems, Labour and the SNP are all broadly pro-EU, socially liberal and economically centre-left to left. All acknowledge climate change as a pressing matter as well. To say that there isn't something of a consensus here is highly disingenuous but that seems to be how modern conservatism seems to work nowadays.
I know how PR works and, for its quirks, it empowers the ordinary voter and is the most democratic system. Fewer people than ever here identify with either of the main parties. Something's going to have to change at some point.
At least use the right figures. The greens got 7.1% in 2020. I think you are using the figures from the previous election.
Coalitions are not a disaster - they tend to produce more mature political discourse, pragmatic decision making and consensus building. Studies have even been done which show FPTP governments are far more likely to go to war than PR governments for example
When a coalition occurs within a FPTP system that has been built on adversarial politics, extremism and ideology over pragmatism, then indeed it can prove an electoral disaster for parties like the Lib Dems when they do compromise.
But to try to claim the totally unrepresentative FPTP system is somehow more representative than a system of actual proportional representation is utter madness. The greens are a minority partner in government because that's what the people voted for - they may not have had many first preferences but they fared well on transfers while the larger number of Sinn Féin first preferences didn't put them into government because a very large proportion of voters voted "anyone but SF" and voted for parties who stated they would not work with them but would work with each other.
By the same token, the vast majority of Labour, SNP and Green voters would vote for anyone but the Tories, and a fair portion of Lib Dems would be in that bucket too. But because they're split on other issues, their combined voice, despite being much larger, is completely silenced by the minority who voted Conservative and their vote is effectively worthless, unlike the fair system we have in Ireland.
There are arguments for and against both types of democratic election.
The tyranny of the majority (of very large minority) is a weakness of FPTP, we have seen that in the UK on occasions, but STV also has its problems. If you look at Israel for example where very small minority parties have held the balance of power thanks to STV and death has resulted from Israeli aggression.
The Tories got 43.6% of the popular vote in the last election. Nigh on 6% away from 50% of the voting electorate. The other 56.4% was divided between the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems. In other words there was no 56.4% consensus.
Coalitions are a disaster. Inevitably, like when Nick Clegg had to do a U turn on university fees, the public see that ideological belief systems in coalition governments don't work in practice. It's pointless. The lesser coalition party will never get what they want.
Proportional representation gives higher weight to minority opinions. I don't see how that's right at all. As we see here with a Green in a ministerial role. If you were to use the 'didn't vote for them' argument Eamon Ryan's Green party got 2.7% of the national vote. That's 97.3% of the electorate that didn't vote for the Greens, but they are in power. How can you call that 'representative democracy'. It's anything but.
The only way I could see proportional representation working, is that after an inconclusive election, the public get to vote again, eliminating the lesser parties, like the Greens, instead of the major parties themselves forming a government though negotiation. There is absolutely nothing democratic in the way our current government was formed. Imo the way our current government was formed is way more undemocratic that the way the British government was formed.
The abolitionist just called Elizabeth "the rock modern Britain was built on" 🤣
Yes, you did.
Anyway, I think we've moved off topic. I'm leaving it there.
I never said the public chose FPTP.
I said:
"A country decides democratically what form of democracy it chooses to elect leaders."
That there have been changes over the years to how the UK selects MPs - 1950 was the first election I think with universal FPTP - demonstrates that this has been changed democratically through the democratic institutions.
For the second time, please show where the public chose FPTP.
Well, FTPT was one of many systems used over the years in the UK, the Bloc Vote was another, there was even STV for a limited number of seats.
All of them changed through the democratic process into the system they have today.
We live in representative democracies in the West, not pure democracies, so in a sense you are correct, that rules aren't inherently democratic, however, they do have to be selected democratically. You could argue that any law passed by a government that didn't have a majority of all voters (not just all votes) is inherently undemocratic, but the right not to vote is also a democratic one.
I wonder how many of our governments have had the support of the majority of voters, and not just the majority of those who voted. Some of the referenda with large majorities and reasonable turnouts would have a majority, but not a lot else. Are they therefore democratic?
You didn't answer my question. Nobody here voted for FPTP in the first place. To say that people chose it is patently untrue.
Rules aren't inherently democratic. I've no idea why you think this argument holds water.
Notwithstanding the origins, which I said could be good or bad, each country can decide at any point in time to change its electoral system through the democratic process. We have already had two referenda in that regard.
You don't have to like a system of democratic selection to accept the democratic outcome of it. The rules are the rules. For example, the contrast between Hilary Clinton's acceptance of the democratic outcome in 2016 versus the Trump reaction to losing the vote demonstrates it as clearly as possible. Respect for the systems of democracy and the democratic ways to change them are fundamental to being a democracy. Otherwise you risk being a 1930s Germany which is the big reason to fear Trump.
As for the Tories, their own selection system for leaders is going to bite them badly, and they will lose the next election. Truss may not even be leader by then as her own parliamentary party may have turned on her.
Can you link me to when the British public voted to adopt FPTP?
The US system was designed to add leverage to slaveholders by counting slaves as part of the population but not as voters. Got naff all to do with geography.
At one level I fully agree (if we had had a FPTP system last time out, we could have got a single party SF government on 33% of the vote and that would be an abomination), but at another I disagree.
A country decides democratically what form of democracy it chooses to elect leaders. Sometimes, it opts for broad representation as in our system with multi-seat STV, sometimes it opts for geographical equality as in the US, and sometimes it opts for increasing the likelihood of single party government as in FPTP. Often there are good (or bad) historical reasons for these systems, but they are the democratically agreed methods of selecting leaders, so the outcome is democratically acceptable. So when Hilary Clinton wins the popular vote, but her vote isn't geographically diverse enough to get a majority of the electoral college, that is a democratic outcome.
Well, no. Hilary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 and was denied the presidency. That's literally the opposite of democracy.
Unchecked power on the back of 42-44% of the vote is an abomination. Saying that it is what it is does not alter that.
That is the vagaries of their system. Didn't Hilary win the popular vote? Similar there. Weren't SF the biggest party here?
However, all outcomes were democratic in accordance with the democratically agreed electoral systems.
Are they? The Tories have just scraped over 40% of the vote in the last few elections.
Isn't the answer in your own post?
If the people of the US don't like their government, they vote in another one, but sometimes, e.g. Obama, they vote in their President for two terms.
If the people of the UK don't like their government, they vote in another one, but we have had 12 years of Conservative government, as the UK people have been happy with that party.
If the people of Ireland don't like their government, they vote in another one, and we have had several changes of government parties over the last few decades. In fact, we have had more changes of party in government than either of the other two. That makes the last sentence of your post very strange. We have had FF, FG, Labour, Greens, and various independents and independent groupings, all in power since 2010.
Fair play to her for appointing Heaton-Harris and Baker to the NIO. Should hasten the unification of Ireland considerably.
Sorry, but I have to disagree here.
Yes Ireland is doing ok if you happen to own your own home, have a nice job with one of those multinationals, a nice public sector position, a pensioner with nice private/public pension and not sick or dependent on care. Then yes wipee do.
But it aint doing so well if you happen to be someone looking for rental accommodation, trying to buy a first home, a student or parents of students trying to find accommodation so they can go to college, someone sick sitting on a waiting list for months if not years, a carer, someone elderly in shyte nursing home, a sick child still waiting for a world class hospital, someone facing daily harassment from scrots that our police and very lax justice system do SFA about or a small struggling farmer that the greens and the environmentalists want to drive into oblivion.
And any little cold that hits the US and other major world economies can decimate ours as our dependence on FDI has drastically increased.
So no everything is not rosy in Ireland and the vast majority of our politicians are incompetent arrogant fools, more interested in private gain or getting sycophantic gimps in the media (mainstream and social) to laud them.
BTW progressive these days seems to mean fecking out one controlling religion to throw out the welcome matt for an even worse one.
As for Truss ...
she is an ambitious eejit, devoid of leadership skills, lacking in charisma, impervious to the advice of others, headstrong and she may very well destroy Britain by starting a crusade against her own working classes and an economic war with EU.
Anyone that welcomes morons like Rees Mogg into their cabinet is dangerous.
Well you don't seem to have an interest cause you are trying to talk about anything else.
It's possible to have an interest on a topic and not have a view. Let's be honest here, we live in interesting times.
If you don't have a view on Truss why are you on the Truss thread ?
I've no idea what Truss represents.
You've lost the narrative here. The thread's about Liz truss.
You need to separate the politicians from the political system, we are all poorly served at the moment with our political leaders, something evident all over the world at the moment,
Yinno, there is a steady supply of whinging about Irish politics that doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny. Economy doing well? Seems like it, paying down foreign debt nicely and plenty of jobs going begging. Peaceful? In general, yeah, way less crime in Ireland than most other Western countries. Progressive? A bit slow here - but hard to throw off the yoke of the RCC.
Anyway, whinging about how well Irish politicians are doing, probably doesn't belong in a Liz Truss thread. No Irish politician has ever had as much on their plate as Liz Truss does, she's the PM of a much larger, more complicated country with a substantial international presence, if not as much influence as once before.
Love all the attempts to make this thread about anything except Liz Truss.
People even trying to suppress the free speech being utilized in the title 😂
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