Makom 0 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 (edited) I sincerely hope you're joking. Saying that at the best of times is a bit daft, but just after the VE day anniversary, is quite mad. Anyway, democracy is a nebulous concept, it means many things to many people. It's always worth bearing in mind that the Greeks, who supposedly invented this democracy lark, had a quite different idea of how it should operate - their system was literally the ad hoc random selection of enough people in order to make a collective decision by majority vote, whenever it was something they didn't trust an official to decide on the citizenry's behalf. No parties, no MPs, no elections, no campaigns, none of that shite. It was more like jury service than anything else we have today that's called democracy. Edited May 13, 2015 by Mako Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trophyshy 7083 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 I would accept a one party state. At least then we could all stop pretending that any of this is democratic. It's what we have. We are ruled by an Establishment. Politics is window dressing. At least in China they are honest about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makom 0 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Are you two outing yourselves as one of the 1,229 people in the whole country who voted Communist by any chance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 30611 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 They're gonna let IRISH people vote on important stuff like that?! The UK could learn a think or two on direct democracy from the Irish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex 35083 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Are you two outing yourselves as one of the 1,229 people in the whole country who voted Communist by any chance? Gay IRA communists tbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christmas Tree 4725 Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Gloom 21924 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Bank of England has revised down its productivity forecast because it sees disproportionate number of new jobs as low skilled and low output. The Tory-style recovery just keeps on truckin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex 35083 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Think the country badly needs electoral reform (and I thought that before the election). Can't see the Tories (or Labour) going for it as it would be Turkeys voting for Xmas. The FPTP system is so unfair and undemocratic. Apart from UKIP, the Greens (and even the Lib Dems) having so little to show for all their votes, it's ridiculous that the election is decided by such a small amount of people (in relative terms) in another relatively small amount of constituencies. Absolutely no appetite for it in the press either. Not that sure the electorate are ever going to get excited enough about the prospect of PR for it to happen any time soon either. I don't class AV as PR really. The Lib Dems really did sell themselves short there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Gloom 21924 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 carney downgrades the UK's economic growth forecast over the next three years. what a surprise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 44882 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 This is interesting enough if you want to see just how irrelevant your vote is under our current ridiculous electoral system: http://www.voterpower.org.uk/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 30611 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 0.035. W00T. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 44882 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Christ, that must be towards the bottom end. Mine was 0.521, and I think it said the average is about 0.3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew 4748 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 0.739, not bad really...well it sort of is I suppose since its not 1 but... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex 35083 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 0.073. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonatine 11378 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 0.594 for Durham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkeys Fist 42449 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 It's a miner coincidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Gloom 21924 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 0.168 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catmag 337 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Police investigating allegations of vote-rigging in Farage constituency.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32725167 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 30611 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 To stuff the ballot box and still lose would be a real embarrassment. Please let that be what happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew 4748 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Police investigating allegations of vote-rigging in Farage constituency.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32725167 I love the photo at the top of that article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayatollah Hermione 13869 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Think the country badly needs electoral reform (and I thought that before the election). Can't see the Tories (or Labour) going for it as it would be Turkeys voting for Xmas. The FPTP system is so unfair and undemocratic. Apart from UKIP, the Greens (and even the Lib Dems) having so little to show for all their votes, it's ridiculous that the election is decided by such a small amount of people (in relative terms) in another relatively small amount of constituencies. Absolutely no appetite for it in the press either. Not that sure the electorate are ever going to get excited enough about the prospect of PR for it to happen any time soon either. I don't class AV as PR really. The Lib Dems really did sell themselves short there. We need a sexy face of Electoral Reform. I suggest Cat Deeley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makom 0 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Electoral reform will happen as soon as someone proves it doesn't give disproportionate influence to extremists like UKIP, or proves it is better at identifying the will of the majority than the existing system. So basically, it will never happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 44882 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Anyone that can't prove that PR identifies the will of the majority better than FPTP doesn't deserve a vote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makom 0 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Prove it then. Let's see your working for how PR supposedly comes up with a better expression of what the majority wanted in this election, or the 2010 one for that matter. As far as I can tell, PR would have either forced the Conservatives into coalition with UKIP, or would have resulted in a left wing coalition of parties forming a government representing the views of 46.8% of voters (Lab-Lib-SNP-Grn), with Con/UKIP's share of 49.5% being in opposition. I can't think of any definition of the concept of majority will that makes either of those outcomes sustainable as either fair or democratic. The same issues exist for the 2010 election. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 44882 Posted May 13, 2015 Share Posted May 13, 2015 Does a better job of it than FPTP though doesn't it, which was the question that you set. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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