Few people vote for a particular candidate in the UK, just the colour of their tie.
So our situation isn't all that different to yours. There's no reason why the MP for a given constituency shouldn't hold surgeries, though I suspect that you overestimate how much impact they actually have anyway.
Coalition government is a double-edged sword but I say that one of them is blunted: you do lose some accountability but voters absolutely remember what parties do while in a coalition (just look at the Lib Dems) and having a government that can only realistically pass the legislation that a real majority of the public voted for sounds like a Good Thing to me. A fringe benefit of coalition government is that there's a larger pool of MPs to choose from when it comes to government posts. Where do you live? It seems bizarre to have heads of government departments that aren't MPs (or whatever you call them).
FPTP is definitely not an ideal solution; it allows a minority to get away with things that the majority oppose, just because of the way boundaries have been drawn. The cherry on the cake is that the direction of the UK government is about to be set by a person elected by less than 1% of the populace. Fuck that.
A presidential style of government à la USA* is patently wrong, but I'm open to the idea of a hybrid system (it's worth a try) wherein we have a reformed upper house (sorry Lord Winston, you were one of the good ones) elected by PR and a lower house elected by FPTP, but without the latter having power to overrule the former. If that works then perhaps we could continue on to PR all round. Who knows, we could even add a third chamber of old-style peers to give advice to the other two, appointed entirely by dint of wisdom rather than political backhanders.
*The filibuster rule** is just so fucking stupid. I'm all for consensus in government but expecting a supermajority in a two-party system basically means that nothing will ever get done.
**Which isn't actually a real rule. I mean come on, having people stand up and talk and talk until the clock runs out is a popular Radio 4 programme***, not a system of government.
***Insofar as any Radio 4 programme could be considered popular.
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jonbob loves you, Thu 21 Jul 2022, 3:41,
Reply)
I'm in the Netherlands
Ministers are usually (but not exclusivly) selected from elected parliamentarians, but when they become ministers, they are no longer part of the parliament and their seat goes to whatever candidate was on their party's election list but didn't get in. On the plus side, it means the government itself can't vote on their own legislation - although their parliamentary parties obviously can.
As for getting 'legislation that a real majority of the public voted for' yeah, no, that doesn't happen as all legislation will be a compromise between the ruling parties and therefore exactly what nobody voted for. Perhaps I am overestimating the importance of having a single person responisble for representation, but I do like the idea of having just the one target to pelt with various rotten fruits rather than a mass of politicians who don't have to care about losing a few hundred votes as their seat will be safe either way. The good thing is that we have litterally dozens of parties, to cater to your specific flavour, rather than just a few. I suppose the grass is always greener on the other side.
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Tusk knows where you live, Thu 21 Jul 2022, 15:06,
Reply)
