Current Affairs The next Tory (strong and stable) leader is Boris Johnson

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woodsyni said:
Scary how low the bar has been set to be a leader of a country these days. In this country, a two party system (in all but name) facilitates this. With Proportional Representation, a vote for another party would not be wasted as it often is now. Yes, a hung parliament is likely but then the buggers might actually work together for our benefit. It is time for a huge shake up! Otherwise, go back to your constituencies and prepare for decades of Tory sleaze.
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Proportional representation creates its own problem of messy coalition governance. It could be argued that this is not desirable - people vote for a party's platform, and receive some other outcome resulting from a closed-door bargaining process.

There are more complex systems involving multiple member districts, additional seats from a party slate and what not that have some advantages over the American/British first-past-the-post system (winner-take-all to those of us on this side of the pond). The assumption that people actually know what they're voting for starts to get questionable as those systems get more equitable through increasing complexity.

It's almost certainly not a problem with a clean answer - if it were, we'd have discovered and implemented it a long time ago. If you want to argue that first-past-the-post doesn't work, I'm certainly not going to argue with you based on the American experience. I think it creates a large fraction of our current problems.
 
Martin Alvito said:
Proportional representation creates its own problem of messy coalition governance. It could be argued that this is not desirable - people vote for a party's platform, and receive some other outcome resulting from a closed-door bargaining process.

There are more complex systems involving multiple member districts, additional seats from a party slate and what not that have some advantages over the American/British first-past-the-post system (winner-take-all to those of us on this side of the pond). The assumption that people actually know what they're voting for starts to get questionable as those systems get more equitable through increasing complexity.

It's almost certainly not a problem with a clean answer - if it were, we'd have discovered and implemented it a long time ago. If you want to argue that first-past-the-post doesn't work, I'm certainly not going to argue with you based on the American experience. I think it creates a large fraction of our current problems.
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There's no doubt that coalitions may need to formed and indeed compromises made. It may or may not be a problem that would need to be solved but it may also ensure a more measured response to issues (such as the pandemic, for example). Surely this is better than 30-40% of the electorate giving free-reign to one party (who don't have the majority of people's interest at heart). Indeed, a more diverse government would be far more representative - (less prone to lobbyists, donors etc). We have been using PR for ages in Northern Ireland and at least my vote (usually) counts for something. Our executive is certainly a 'basketcase' but those basketcases are the choice of our basketcase electorate. I see PR as a check to unfettered power which is something that is recently concerning me.
 
woodsyni said:
Well, I shall acknowledge my lack of education in this respect. I thought Germany's government was well respected (and indeed was frequently said to be the dominant force in the EU). Apologies if this is wrong.
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They make cars that they sell at exorbitant prices to the rest of the Eu. They introduced massive immigration into the EU. They put in place Nord stream 2 that would put the EU at the mercy of Russia. Merkel is and always has been a Soviet agent…..
 
peteblue said:
They make cars that they sell at exorbitant prices to the rest of the Eu. They introduced massive immigration into the EU. They put in place Nord stream 2 that would put the EU at the mercy of Russia. Merkel is and always has been a Soviet agent…..
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You like them then? Good cars, to be fair. Immigration isn't necessarily a bad thing. Agree with the gas thing. Merkel being a Soviet (Russian?) agent is a bit Q-Anonny .....nonny.

Nothing to do with PR, like but it's unlikely we're going to change each other's minds on that.
 
woodsyni said:
You like them then? Good cars, to be fair. Immigration isn't necessarily a bad thing. Agree with the gas thing. Merkel being a Soviet (Russian?) agent is a bit Q-Anonny .....nonny.

Nothing to do with PR, like but it's unlikely we're going to change each other's minds on that.
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Hey, there’s plenty of evidence to show how Merkel is an agent of a foreign power - look at how much money that countries citizens have given to her party over the recent past, including hundreds of thousands to play tennis with her.

There was even that time she (whilst she was Foreign Secretary) ditched her protection officers to spend a debauched weekend at the palace of an oligarch son of a former KGB officer, then got papped in an airport afterwards looking wasted. She even gave that oligarch free access to the Upper Chamber of Germany’s parliament!

In fact when you look at the lamentable failure of her government to respond to the way Berlin has been flooded by Russian money, or the deaths of German citizens abroad and in Germany itself caused by that country (including on one occasion by some tourists interested in the height of Cologne Cathedral’s spire), it’s remarkable that so many people still support her - never mind that they make massively hypocritical attacks on others whose guilt is far less obvious.
 
tsubaki said:
Hey, there’s plenty of evidence to show how Merkel is an agent of a foreign power - look at how much money that countries citizens have given to her party over the recent past, including hundreds of thousands to play tennis with her.

There was even that time she (whilst she was Foreign Secretary) ditched her protection officers to spend a debauched weekend at the palace of an oligarch son of a former KGB officer, then got papped in an airport afterwards looking wasted. She even gave that oligarch free access to the Upper Chamber of Germany’s parliament!

In fact when you look at the lamentable failure of her government to respond to the way Berlin has been flooded by Russian money, or the deaths of German citizens abroad and in Germany itself caused by that country (including on one occasion by some tourists interested in the height of Cologne Cathedral’s spire), it’s remarkable that so many people still support her - never mind that they make massively hypocritical attacks on others whose guilt is far less obvious.
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Well done.
 
tsubaki said:
Hey, there’s plenty of evidence to show how Merkel is an agent of a foreign power - look at how much money that countries citizens have given to her party over the recent past, including hundreds of thousands to play tennis with her.

There was even that time she (whilst she was Foreign Secretary) ditched her protection officers to spend a debauched weekend at the palace of an oligarch son of a former KGB officer, then got papped in an airport afterwards looking wasted. She even gave that oligarch free access to the Upper Chamber of Germany’s parliament!

In fact when you look at the lamentable failure of her government to respond to the way Berlin has been flooded by Russian money, or the deaths of German citizens abroad and in Germany itself caused by that country (including on one occasion by some tourists interested in the height of Cologne Cathedral’s spire), it’s remarkable that so many people still support her - never mind that they make massively hypocritical attacks on others whose guilt is far less obvious.
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Just to be clear, you're talking about Johnson right?
 
tsubaki said:
Hey, there’s plenty of evidence to show how Merkel is an agent of a foreign power - look at how much money that countries citizens have given to her party over the recent past, including hundreds of thousands to play tennis with her.

There was even that time she (whilst she was Foreign Secretary) ditched her protection officers to spend a debauched weekend at the palace of an oligarch son of a former KGB officer, then got papped in an airport afterwards looking wasted. She even gave that oligarch free access to the Upper Chamber of Germany’s parliament!

In fact when you look at the lamentable failure of her government to respond to the way Berlin has been flooded by Russian money, or the deaths of German citizens abroad and in Germany itself caused by that country (including on one occasion by some tourists interested in the height of Cologne Cathedral’s spire), it’s remarkable that so many people still support her - never mind that they make massively hypocritical attacks on others whose guilt is far less obvious.
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That all sounds suspiciously like a country a fair bit closer than Germany. I'm sensing a shift in the narrative with an agenda here. Might be more appropriate to focus on corruption/russian money in Britain. Wasn't there even a pay-to-play-tennis scandal here? Might be wrong. Memory's shocking!
 
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