In todays news...

[Mr. Dazzle]

Funny, isn’t it. A few weeks ago the country voted (overwhelmingly) for this lot. It’s a bit Brexit-like, except that was 52%, I think.

TBF, you could have started that petition the day after the overwhelming labour victory and still found thousands of people who'd sign it. Millions of people didn't vote for labour

[mangocrazy]

I've posted this elsewhere, but Labour didn't get an overwhelming share of the vote, they got quite a meagre one, but the votes they did get were used incredibly effectively. The electorate wanted to give the Tories a sound kicking (which they did) and Labour were the benficiaries.

Disproportional representation.JPG (99.56 KiB) Viewed 309 times

[Mr. Dazzle]

Maybe all the Reform voters should go and live in the same place. But if they did that, at least some of them would be immigrants

[Cousin Jack]

Last time I looked Twitter et al were not part of our voting system. We voted, and we had a result. Don't like it? Tough shit, try again next time.

[Wossname]

Funny, isn’t it. A few weeks ago the country voted (overwhelmingly) for this lot. It’s a bit Brexit-like, except that was 52%, I think.

No we didn't. We voted overwhelmingly against the previous lot.

Granted, but it seems we don’t want this lot either. Any (serious) suggestions?

[demographic]

Funny, isn’t it. A few weeks ago the country voted (overwhelmingly) for this lot. It’s a bit Brexit-like, except that was 52%, I think.

No we didn't. We voted overwhelmingly against the previous lot.

Granted, but it seems we don’t want this lot either. Any (serious) suggestions?

Preferential voting.
Say four parties, with the ones you want most given your number one slot, the next given the two slot and so on.

Think some parts of Australia have it.

[Count Steer]

Funny, isn’t it. A few weeks ago the country voted (overwhelmingly) for this lot. It’s a bit Brexit-like, except that was 52%, I think.

No we didn't. We voted overwhelmingly against the previous lot.

Granted, but it seems we don’t want this lot either.

What some people expect is a government to grant their heart's desire - low taxes, great infrastructure, high wages, security, good health, low prices, no crime, cheap energy, cheap houses (that still rocket in value once they have one), brilliant pensions for minimum contributions etc etc. But they don't want to pay for it. So, they want the moon on a stick, they want it now and they want it for nothing...and some of them even appear to believe the politicians that promise it. (Pretty much the definition of populism: 'What do you want? Zero - inward - migration? Bigger army? Better Health Service? Unicorns? Sunlit uplands? Vote for us and we'll give it all to you...honest we will...but don't ask how').

If politicians told the truth, the bare facts, the bottom line - they'd never get elected.

So, this is what we get. The rise of the 'moon on a stick' voters/parties and incessant whinging about not having the moon on a stick.

[Saga Lout]

No we didn't. We voted overwhelmingly against the previous lot.

Granted, but it seems we don’t want this lot either. Any (serious) suggestions?

Preferential voting.
Say four parties, with the ones you want most given your number one slot, the next given the two slot and so on.

Think some parts of Australia have it.

When I was at school our class did some mock elections. I think there were about 30 or 40 in the class and using FPTP, Conservative and Labour got about the same number of votes, the Liberals got about 3 or 4 so cam a long way third. Using preferential voting (3 points for first choice, 2 for second, 1 for third), the Liberals won,
Something like:
Labour: 8x3 + 2x2 + 8X1 = 24+4+8 = 36
Conservative: 8x3 + 2x2 + 8X1 = 24+4+8 = 36
Liberal: 4x3 + 16x2 = 12+32 =44
As a 12 or 13 year old, I wasn't particularly into politics but that didn't seem fair to me. Maybe it could be made to work e.g. by giving more points to the first choice but it would be complicated.

[Cousin Jack]

FPTP gets you a clear winner most of the time. Other systems often give no clear winner, with coalitions needed. Sometimes they fall apart every few months (Italy) or extreme minorities dictate policy (Israel). Neither offers a stable and popular government.

[Dodgy69]

The public pick a basket, but all the apple's are rotten. It's a lose-lose scenario.

[Count Steer]

FPTP gets you a clear winner most of the time. Other systems often give no clear winner, with coalitions needed. Sometimes they fall apart every few months (Italy) or extreme minorities dictate policy (Israel). Neither offers a stable and popular government.

You do tend to get flip-flopping from one ideological political mindset to another at frequent intervals with FPTP though. It's just possible that chugging along over a longer period with some sort of concensus might make for a bit more long-termism. (Provided you can stop the dick wagging the dog, as you say, when a bonkers minority holds the balance. Not that we don't get some of that effect here even with FPTP ).

Wonder where the best example of PR is?

[Cousin Jack]

Concensus would be good, but that needs sensible, pragmatic politicians with no preconceived ideas. Prepared to compromise and to listen.

Where will we find them? Not amongst the current crop of MPs nor the next generation of hopefuls.

[demographic]

So, bit late with this one and I just know some apologists will whine that I didn't put it into Iries obviously biased and badly titled thread so I'm putting it here, get over it
Itooks to me that it pulls the rug out from underneath our government for sending the Israelis weapons, doing spying flyovers from our base in Cyprus and so on, being complicit now isn't quite so easy for them.
Obviously the US have spat the dummy right out but their representative was THE ONLY one to go against the vote.

ICC issues arrest warrants over crimes against humanity...

"ICC issues warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant
Warrant also issued against Hamas official whom Israel says is dead
Move met with outrage in Israel, welcomed by Hamas
ICC has no police, arrest would depend on member states
Gaza residents hopeful Israeli suspects will face justice
THE HAGUE, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief, as well as a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza"."

More of this story here...
https://www.reuters.com/world/icc-issue ... 024-11-21/

[Cousin Jack]

I have sympathy for the idea, but Benjamin isn't going to come to any country willing to arrest him. So all a bit of a farce.

The US will continue to back Israel, because of a strong Jewish lobby and an even more numerous Christian vote that believe some tosh about the rapture and a 2nd coming. As long as the US does that Israel will keep doing just as it likes.

[demographic]

I have sympathy for the idea, but Benjamin isn't going to come to any country willing to arrest him. So all a bit of a farce.

The US will continue to back Israel, because of a strong Jewish lobby and an even more numerous Christian vote that believe some tosh about the rapture and a 2nd coming. As long as the US does that Israel will keep doing just as it likes.

I agree with all of what you said, in my eyes it just means other governments (ours included) have less excuses to hide behind when they arm a genocide.

I'm not right keen on our government being a partner in this, it disgusts me.

[Taipan]

Starmer is on daytime tv and was told about the petition which has now over 2 million signatures and that his approval rating is lower than Farages and he seemed to find the whole thing amusing! I suspect such contempt won't be well received and the petition will continue to climb, but it probably didn't need his assistance anyway!

[Mr. Dazzle]

The petition could reach 35 million and it'd mean diddly squat.

All it might mean is that an election would have to be considered for debate in parliament. Which won't happen because its pointless.

The only two ways to call a general election early would be a vote of no confidence, which needs a simple majority, or an early election vote which needs a 2/3 majority.

Given the size of labour's majority neither of those things is likely. Even if Starmer wanted to call an early election he'd face an uphill struggle. He could personally quit tomorrow and it wouldn't force an election.

[KungFooBob]

What if there was a Labour conference where all their MP's attended and got fatal food poisoning?

[Horse]

What if there was a Labour conference where all their MP's attended and got fatal food poisoning?

If we're lucky , we'd get Boris & Co back. They, of course, had absolutely no contempt for the British public.

[MyLittleStudPony]

These petition people; they lost*, they should get over it.



*By 'lost' I mean 'took one hell of a beating'.