The Politics Thread

[Lord Kangana]

Well, give us enough rope, eh?

[hisroyalgingerness]

Yeah, it'll be a gas

[Worthy4England]

You should all be shot, for some of these jokes..

[Hoboh]

PR should be used extensively in local elections to trial it first, if it does not, no real harm done to the country except maybe the roads!
Funny how the main street in Farnworth gets resurfaced after a Lib Dem leaflet drops through the door pre-election with the candidate pointing out the pot holes

[fatshaft]

PR should be used extensively in local elections to trial it first, if it does not, no real harm done to the country except maybe the roads!
Funny how the main street in Farnworth gets resurfaced after a Lib Dem leaflet drops through the door pre-election with the candidate pointing out the pot holes

It's worked very well for the devolved assemblies, and in many countries around the world. The question is not whether PR works, it clearly does, it's which system is the fairest method of PR.

[Hoboh]

PR should be used extensively in local elections to trial it first, if it does not, no real harm done to the country except maybe the roads!
Funny how the main street in Farnworth gets resurfaced after a Lib Dem leaflet drops through the door pre-election with the candidate pointing out the pot holes

It's worked very well for the devolved assemblies, and in many countries around the world. The question is not whether PR works, it clearly does, it's which system is the fairest method of PR.

well if it works for the overspending devolved assemblies it should be a cinch for local government then

[Worthy4England]

PR should be used extensively in local elections to trial it first, if it does not, no real harm done to the country except maybe the roads!
Funny how the main street in Farnworth gets resurfaced after a Lib Dem leaflet drops through the door pre-election with the candidate pointing out the pot holes

It's worked very well for the devolved assemblies, and in many countries around the world. The question is not whether PR works, it clearly does, it's which system is the fairest method of PR.

Indeed, it was in Labour's manifesto for the last 4 elections, and each time they implemented somewhere, it was discovered to have worked, so they needed to keep inventing new elections and new assemblies to "trial" it in, just to be sure. I suspect regional Mayoral elections or local elections would have been next, after which they would have had to have invented some new "election" to trial it in.

[a1]

a1 was trolling, but if not, oh my, then mummy is right, there is an awful lot of education required for people to understand PR.

no , no , i'm not. i know its proportional as it is now, its proportional by ward.

the way the "losers" want it to be proportional is to say that two second places beats a first and a third.

it doesnt.

[Lord Kangana]

Hmm, I spy feck*.

No, the problem people have is how first is being determined. You say third, and in FPTP, The Libdems are with 50-odd. But wait, under PR, that equates to 160-odd. With both the other two getting about 1/5th less. Considering they polled about 65% of the Tories vote, do you not think its a bit strange they only have about 15% of their number of seats? Does that reflect, proportionally, the proportion of the British population who believed enough to vote for them?

Its not such a clear third, then, is it really?

[Verbal]

Pure PR is unworkable, IMHO; far too many cooks. Put in a 8 to 9% threshold on the total number of votes, whoever polls above that divide seats between as per.

The PR system would at least encourage people to vote for what they believe in and not just tactically - something the conservatives should be happy for considering what those naughty waughty labour mps were advocating.

[a1]

Hmm, I spy feck.

No, the problem people have is how first is being determined. You say third, and in FPTP, The Libdems are with 50-odd. But wait, under PR, that equates to 160-odd. With both the other two getting about 1/5th less. Considering they polled about 65% of the Tories vote, do you not think its a bit strange they only have about 15% of their number of seats? Does that reflect, proportionally, the proportion of the British population who believed enough to vote for them?

Its not such a clear third, then, is it really?

i dont know what folk mean when they say they got 50 and that equates to 160 .

what the christ kinda maths are they using ?

why are you comparing the lib dems vote against the winners ? why not compare it against the whole, or by ward , or against the team that finished second to last?

it unbalances the vote towards second place and below . under "PR" second place finishes have more weight than a mixture of first and thirds.


go back to that thing i sed

if farnworth has 100k and 40% vote and labour get in and they get 1 mp

why does a similar town with 70% voters not get more MPs / seats in parliment ?

that method would "re-balance" parliment too by not watering down the second towns vote . and making it worth voting more.

all this pr bullshit reminds me of that maths paradox were three people pay 10 each and theres a 2 pound discount and the waiter frigs about with pound coins and it seems like theyve got extra money back. (carnt remember its name).

its for losers and they'll forget about it when they win.

if it was the other way about they'd go "tough shit david"

[Prufrock]

Hmm, I spy feck.

No, the problem people have is how first is being determined. You say third, and in FPTP, The Libdems are with 50-odd. But wait, under PR, that equates to 160-odd. With both the other two getting about 1/5th less. Considering they polled about 65% of the Tories vote, do you not think its a bit strange they only have about 15% of their number of seats? Does that reflect, proportionally, the proportion of the British population who believed enough to vote for them?

Its not such a clear third, then, is it really?

i dont know what folk mean when they say they got 50 that equate to 160 .

what the christ kinda maths are they using ?

why are you comparing the lib dems vote against the winners ? why not compare it against the whole, or by ward , or against the team that finished second to last?

it unbalances the vote towards second place and below . under "PR" second place finishes have more weight than a mixture of first and thirds.


go back to that thing i sed

if farnworth has 100k and 40% vote and labour get in and they get 1 mp

why does a similar town with 70% voters not get more MPs / seats in parliment ?

that method would "re-balance" parliment too by not watering down the second towns vote . and making it worth voting more.

all this pr bullshit reminds me of that maths paradox were three people pay 10 each and theres a 2 pound discount and the waiter frigs about with pound coins and it seems like theyve got extra money back. (carnt remember its name).

its for losers and they'll forget about it when they win.

if it was the other way about they'd go "tough shit david"

I assume you mean this, "Three guys go to a restaurant for a meal. They meal costs $30. They each put $10 on the table, which the waiter takes to the cook. The cook tells the waiter that the bill should only have been for $25 and gives $5 to the waiter in $1 coins. On the way back to the table the waiter realizes that he cannot divide the coins equally between the guys and puts $2 in his own pocket and give each of the guys $1.

This means that each guy has got one dollar back resulting in them paying $9 each. Three times $9 is $27. The waiter has $2 in his pocket. $2 plus $27 is $29. The guys originally handed over $30. Where is the missing dollar?"

Which isn't a paradox, people are just shite at maths. Can't be arsed changing it to £££ so just assume. You don't want to add 2 to 27 to get 30, you need to subtract two from 27 to get 25, coz the chef has given a fiver. In reality the guys should have paid £25, but have paid 27, and the waiter has nicked £2 off them. It reminds me of the argument too. Labour and the Tories saying FPTP is the only way, coz otherwise the numbers don't add up, when in reality there are stealing from you.

Only way I could see PR working is if you got rid of constituencies altogether, in which case your 40% of Farnworth vs dahn sarf doesn't work unless you assume Person A in Farnworth shares the same priorities as Persons B,C, D etc... in which case 'they' as a group might gain an advantage/disadvantage over another group dahn sarf. Even so, seems less fair than 23% of the entire country only getting 9% of a say.

[fatshaft]

a1 was trolling, but if not, oh my, then mummy is right, there is an awful lot of education required for people to understand PR.

no , no , i'm not. i know its proportional as it is now, its proportional by ward.

the way the "losers" want it to be proportional is to say that two second places beats a first and a third.

it doesnt.

Wow. First off, for parliament we have constitiuencies, not wards.

And second, it's not proportional as it is now, it is first past the post. In each of the 650 constituencies, whichever candidate gets the most votes wins the seat. In theory Labout could poll 10,000 votes in every seat, the Tories 9999, and yet Labour would have 650 seats, and the Tories none. Is that a fair system? Whatever it is, it's certainly NOT proportional.

Anyway, biggest reason for PR imo. Becasue people have to vote to 'keep someone out' rather than vote for the policies they want. It gives a skewed number of votes, and no real idea of what the people actually want.

Then you get the whole popular vote issue. The Libs under PR would total 160 seats, because as a share of the vote, ie. if all votes are counted, and then seats divided up PROPORTIONALLY to the number of votes cast, that is what they would have. There's a fair chance they'd actually get considerably more, as they tend to lose out in many seats where it is a Lab/Con fight (of course they often benefit from this too).

Seriously (and no offence intended) but if you don't understand that FPTP is not PR, please go and read up on it further before responding, I really thought you were just trolling.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportion ... ematics%29

[thebish]

This year....

A Tory seat was attainable with an average of 35,000 votes

a Labour seat was attainable with an average of 33,350 votes

A Lib Dem seat was available with an average of 120,000 votes


Three times as many votes are needed for a Lib Dem seat.....


that is not proportional

[Worthy4England]

This year....

A Tory seat was attainable with an average of 35,000 votes

a Labour seat was attainable with an average of 33,350 votes

A Lib Dem seat was available with an average of 120,000 votes


Three times as many votes are needed for a Lib Dem seat.....


that is not proportional

Except inside A1 world...allegedly.

It's almost balanced between Tory and Lab - with a slight advantage to Lab.

It's nothing like balanced between Tory/Lab and everyone else - it's designed specifically to retain a dual party system.

It requires 21,000 votes to return a Democratic Unionist Party MP..

[bedwetter2]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

All the discussion about PR is to the benefit of certain parties' politics, not the individual voter - or, in the case of Blackburn, bloater.

In this representative parliamentary 'democracy' the election of a contituency MP for, say, Bolton North East will not have a direct bearing on whether the views or wishes of his electorate are followed or implemented. The majority of elected MPs are the lobby fodder for the parties, whipped into supporting or opposing the policies of the Government. They have little or no power. Why anyone really thinks that, with the current party system, real democracy is at work is a bit of a mystery. The only real representative democracy would involve the abolition of parties, permitting at the most loose alliance between MPs for individual pieces of legislation or selecting MPs for Government positions. Governments would be formed from individual MPs voted for by their peers and subject to regular consultation as to whether they were acting in the best interests of the whole country, not the sectional interests which lobby and win concessions at the moment.

Of course turkeys would not vote for Christmas, so the saying goes.

So I can only conclude that the people, that great unwashed electorate, like the feeling of belonging in that tribal way that politics and football have in common. It ain't got much to do with democracy.

[Worthy4England]

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

All the discussion about PR is to the benefit of certain parties' politics, not the individual voter - or, in the case of Blackburn, bloater.

In this representative parliamentary 'democracy' the election of a contituency MP for, say, Bolton North East will not have a direct bearing on whether the views or wishes of his electorate are followed or implemented. The majority of elected MPs are the lobby fodder for the parties, whipped into supporting or opposing the policies of the Government. They have little or no power. Why anyone really thinks that, with the current party system, real democracy is at work is a bit of a mystery. The only real representative democracy would involve the abolition of parties, permitting at the most loose alliance between MPs for individual pieces of legislation or selecting MPs for Government positions. Governments would be formed from individual MPs voted for by their peers and subject to regular consultation as to whether they were acting in the best interests of the whole country, not the sectional interests which lobby and win concessions at the moment.

Of course turkeys would not vote for Christmas, so the saying goes.

So I can only conclude that the people, that great unwashed electorate, like the feeling of belonging in that tribal way that politics and football have in common. It ain't got much to do with democracy.

An interesting post Mr BW and one which I agree with.

Whilst I've met plenty of MP's - I've never actually met my MP.

I also doubt, if he was "instructued" by his constituents whether, if it came down to it, he'd vote with his Constituents if that meant opposing the Whip.

However, he might, if he thought there was a fair chance of him being ousted on a PR basis at the next election.

[superjohnmcginlay]

So is anybody running the bloody country yet?

[Bruce Rioja]

So is anybody running the bloody country yet?

Simon Cowell, probably!

[Worthy4England]

So is anybody running the bloody country yet?

Simon Cowell, probably!

It seems to be running itself quite ok at the minute - not heard a word about mounting debts since the election.

If they were looking to make immediate cuts, they should probably look at this aspect first.