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this

is the fundamental reason we need some form of PR, FPTP means the parties are primarily required to appeal to fairly right wing voters in the home counties, everyone else is largely ignored.

Cunts who drive Ford Focus and think those foreigners nick all our jobs, basically.

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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:30, archived)

Proportional Representation

means an end to having a local representative on national issues. There is no possible form of PR that would allow for that.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:39, archived)

How about Alternative Vote?

that's the one the Jenkins report recomended, seemed to make sense.

(although technically it's not PR, but makes more sense than the FPTP)

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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:41, archived)

That's just an unnecessarily complicated version of Instant-Runoff voting

and would still produce exactly the same results as the current system.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:43, archived)

seemed pretty straightforward to me

and I think it'll change some results. Even if it doesn't, the winning candidate has to get to 50%, which gives them more legitimacy.

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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:45, archived)

Or could just lead to anarchy

Since it's very rare for anyone to ever got more than 50% of the vote. We'd just end up with coalition governments, which have less legitimacy.

But you still haven't justified why you believe that FPTP makes parties right wing - surely it just makes them appeal to the majority, who happen to be a bit right wing on some issues anyway. That's just democracy in action.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:51, archived)

Frankly

I would rather have that state of affairs than the elected dictatorship that we have at the moment. The UK government have way to much power right now, this is how we ended up going into Iraq.

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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:53, archived)

You assume that the war in Iraq is a bad thing.

My understanding is that we got a lot of oil out of it, which is worth quite a bit of money. You may be against the war, but don't assume the majority of people are. The vast majority of people in Britain have no strong opinion either way - if they did, there would have been 63 million people marching in protest, not a mere 1 million.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:57, archived)

Bad argument

You'd have a hard time fitting more people into the streets of central London at the same time. Myself, I opposed it, but was a student at the time and had no money to spend on such a long train journey.

(Whitepaw I write computer games for a living, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:02, archived)

Of the people I know

About 10% of people strongly oppose it.
About 10% of people are in favour of it.
The other 80% want to know what's for tea. Most people just don't care about the reasoning behind the war. Generally people feel sad for the soldiers and their families who've been killed or injured, but by and large have more important things to think about. That's my anecdotal evidence - and in the absence of empirical evidence, anecdotal evidence is all we have.

One thing is for certain; there is certainly no clear majority consensus among the population that it was wrong, which is why it pisses me off when I hear anti-war protesters claiming that the majority of people were against the war when there is absolutely no evidence to support this. Until all 63 million people have been asked, you can't know that. If 1 million people march in protest, all you can prove is that 1 million people are against it.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:09, archived)

Or you could look at protests on other issues and compare turnout

to public support.
That way you'll get at least a good approximation of numbers, anecdotally speaking.

Fortunately most of the people I know care about how their government represents them internationally. Most of them care as much, if not more, for the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were killed in Iraq as for the soldiers.

And as for "there is certainly no clear majority consensus among the population that it was wrong"...
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/20/iraq.iraq

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chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 12:55, archived)

Agreed

but my point is the war in iraq was based on evidence that was at best dubious (and turned out to be bullshit). Tony Blair was able to force it through because there were no checks, Parliament was whipped into submission.

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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:52, archived)

that's where devolution comes in

and instead of writing to your local mp, you just write to whoever is actually relevent to your complaint, rather than whoever is closest.

Not that I actually support the above viewpoint...

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mr ginglymus has something in his pance, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:43, archived)

Which means there is no local input on legislative issues.

MPs aren't there to be a complaints box, they are there to be our local representative in the legislature - and that's all, no more no less. If you have a complaint, you should already be sending it to the relevant person now, as it's not your MP's job to deal with it even under the current system. The Daily Mail, however, are happy to hear from you.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:47, archived)

But on issues which affect all areas equally

what's the point in a local representative? And on local issues, it's the council's job to look out for you.

Disclaimer again, only playing the devil's avocado here...

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mr ginglymus has something in his pance, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:54, archived)

It's the council's job to look after me on local matters, yes.

Which is why I wish my MP would stop talking about fly-tipping all the time. It annoys me. But he's done loads of other stuff that I approve of, so I let it slide.

As for why we need local representatives; I don't know. I just fancy having one. That's democracy in action - we don't need reasons for our opinions; gut instinct is sufficient justification for me.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 11:02, archived)

After the second homes scandal

I no longer think we have local representatives even in FPTP. I am however a techie, so I see it as quite easy to make a direct democracy website where everyone gets to vote on exactly those issues which are relevant to themselves. The only issues I can think of are social - do we want it to work like that?

(Whitepaw I write computer games for a living, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:57, archived)

PR is a joke though, look at Italy

What we need is BC-STV

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Tom OBedlam I have control of a tank, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:43, archived)

I don't know about that

I approve of Berlusconi's policy of having all of his party's candidates be fit MILFs and former prostitutes.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:45, archived)

not too mention relatives of Mussolini

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Tom OBedlam I have control of a tank, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:46, archived)

Everyone's got to be related to someone.

Except orphans. A lot of them aren't. It's very sad.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:48, archived)

I don't think Italy is a lesson in the horrors of PR

I think Italy is a lesson in the horrors of corruption, organised crime and facism.

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Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:52, archived)

All good clean family fun.

(Seance Trumpet has got no beef with a man enjoying a croissant, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:53, archived)

ok then, take Brazil, or Germany

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Tom OBedlam I have control of a tank, Tue 18 Aug 2009, 10:54, archived)