I love that at least 2 people he leaked the info of actually sent nude pics back to the scammers.
How stupid are these people.
As for Wragg he should be in a lot more trouble than just losing a seat.
At any other time in history, that would be a sacking offence but Sunak is weak and his majority, which should have been unassailable, gets ever weaker - 89 at peak after the Rotherham by-election, 53 now and almost certainly dropping when Blackpool South gets its by-election.
Wragg's seat is a high Lib Dem target; the Tories haven't a hope in hell of holding it at a BE let alone a GE now
As does NI, and Wales is about to introduce it, albeit in a ridiculous move, optionally - councils can pick.
Much of England is used to having multiple votes for multiple seats on councils anyway; plus NI and Scotland know about STV; Scotland, Wales and London about even weirder alternate member systems and London about IRV - vote first and second only.
Also, we crashed from FPTP to STV and figured it out pretty well.
Honestly, STV in single-seat constituencies wouldn't do much to remedy the deficiencies of the present system.
Australia has that system for elections to the House of Representatives. They still have exactly the same entrenched two-party duopoly that the UK has, with preferences — even first preferences — cast for third parties being essentially an irrelevance. The headline voting that the media, and even the Electoral Commission, focus on is the "two-party preferred" vote — meaning, of the only two parties that matter, which one did you give the higher preference to? This preserves the worst features of the FPTP system — entrenching the two dominant parties; reducing their accountability to voters; mimising the value of the vote in order to maximise the power of the parties.
The bottom line is that you can't have proportional representation in a a constituency that only elects one member. All of the represention will go to the supporters of one party/candidate; the supporters of all other parties/candidates will get zero representation. There is nothing remotely proportional about that.
It's not inevitable that this will produce incompetent, dysfunctional or unstable government. It does create conditions which tend to favour this, but this can be offset by other apsects of the political culture/system.
But in recent years those other aspects don't seem to have been functioning very well. Both Australia and the UK have seen dramatic bouts of instability, chaotic government, party in-fighting, rapid and repeated replacements of Prime Minister without any recourse to voters, etc.
Most democratic countries have their own version of democracy. It is just the way it is.
In the UK, there are safe seats where the sitting MP is getting over 50% of the votes cast. There is little chance the STV will change that unless there are multiple candidates from the major party - little chance of that.
However, where there is a three or more candidates that are getting over 20% of the vote, but none over 35%, then in that case STV will get change.
Would multi-seat constituencies be accepted by the voters?
Yes. They had them til 1950, and still do for councils. Spin it as a history thing and you can even get the far right on side with the idea
Their multi seat University Constituencies even used STV for their final decades
Ian Dunt in his wonderful book, How Westminster Works suggests merging constituencies so, for example, all the Cornish constituencies would be merged while keeping the same number of MP's. That would circumvent this issue.
There are a few major moves required to bring democracy to Westminster.
Now that is a big ask.
In a country that is currently addicted to symbols, chest beating and Rosey views of "good old days" it would be a disaster for any party to suggest any of those moves.
They have more immediate things to worry about anyway like 4 days of rolling train strikes. Mostly intercity and regional trains at first it Monday looks particularly fun with some of the big London commuter companies taking action.
Not going to happen. I'd happily add abolishing the monarchy to the list but even Irish people are sentimental about that particular relic from the medieval era. Starmer has no appetite for this sort of thing and even if he did, the idea of a written constitution in 2024 Britain makes me nervous. I trust neither main party to write it. I'd be warm towards the idea of the Lib Dems doing it but that's about as realistic as an elected head of state.
The first thing the UK voters need to do is start using their votes tactically. Coalition should be the default. I know the lib Dems made a mess of the last one but hopefully, lessons were learnt from that and having a proper coalition partnership, unlike the Lib Dems or the DUP which were nothing but lap dogs, would at least give a higher portion of the electorate a say in the running of the country.
Once that get embedded over a few elections and parliaments the appetite for additional chance will grow
Many do. The problem is that your left and liberal voters are based in cities so there are hundreds of thousands of votes that are just wasted. Most of the UK's population is based in Southern England and so that's where most constituencies are, replete with wealthy Tory voters.
Single-seat STV is identical AV and AV is what the 2011 referendum threw out.
Not really.
AV gives the idea to the uninterested that it is two votes, and it only works when there are three candidates. It would not work if Lord Buckethead and screaming Lord Such were candidates.
STV with single seats makes it clear there is only one vote that gets transferred. In very safe seats, it would allow the dominate party to field more than one candidate and allow the voters to choose [if they dare!].
Normally it wouldn't be possible to lead to that assumption; but the UK actually used a ridiculous 1/2 only "supplementary vote" system for London mayor until last time around (its FPTP next month).
Proper AV is not limited to a 2nd preference. You might be thinking of that bastardised variant called Supplementary Vote where people only get 1st and 2nd preferences, and everyone except the top two candidates are eliminated in one go.
I would strongly contest the idea that Lib Dems "made a mess" of the last coalition though it could certainly be argued they made a mess of their communications around it. The evidence is rather glaring in the turn the Conservatives took when unshackled from the LDs after 2015.
On top of disastrous Tory policy of privatisation of trains coming back to bite them another terrible Thatcher policy of privatising water is now about to hit.
Thames Water is defaulting and could go bust. Mogg ironically calling for state control (much like some train lines had to revert to)
“It would continue to be run by an administrator, the shareholders would lose their equity but they took too much cash out so deserve no sympathy and the bond holders would face a partial loss. This is capitalism, it won’t affect the water supply.”
Mogg's after cheap assets. Somerset Capital Management or one of his vulture funds will no doubt be waiting in the wings to make an absolute killing.
Indeed he's positioned in some way to profit, it is the only reason he does or says anything.
In all irony Somerset Capital is being wound down after their biggest customer gave them the boot.
In the wake of many Tories reconsidering support for Israel after the horrific targeting of a charity mid week Boris Johnson is setting himself up firmly in the pro-Israel camp:
He'll have to crawl over the likes of Suella Braverman first if he thinks he can worm his way back in by setting himself on the far-right of the party.
He's the sort of guy I have given up thinking what he might do next.
As an aside does the UK actually export in big quantities anything other than munitions these days?
Ex Prime Ministers.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/06/tories-delete-social-media-post-plugging-britain-with-a-us-jet-a-canadian-car-and-a-defeated-football-team
You could not make it up.
By export I meant stuff that stays overseas 😝
More seriously students coming into a country is classed as an "export" but the gov't will likley strangle that one as well. What left.. (moving over to After Hours..)
Wragg resigns as chairman of the constitutional affairs committee and as a vice chair of the 1922 committee, will he resign as an MP or have the whip removed?
The painting of him as a victim by Westminster has been shocking. He wasn't hacked or anything like that. He handed over other peoples info to a known blackmailer to save his own skin.
This is a good poll for Labour, some (myself included) have hypothesised their vote might suffer with how they've dealt with Gaza, and it has gone down a bit, but it's still formidable percentage that will vote Labour. I think credible independent candidates put up against them might give them a bloody nose or two, but that might be wishful thinking on my part. Even If it was just Streeting, that'll do, I'm not greedy.
