Metropol

Critique wrote:Russell Brand thought he had some sort of power to help decide who would govern by suddenly jumping behind Miliband, but ultimately he changed nothing, and it just seems a bit embarrassing for him.

It doesn't help that most sane people already realise he's a cunt.

Gavin Scott wrote:Could you expand on your answer? Are you saying they wouldn't have an appetite for conservative governments either?

I am saying that, yes. The City of Nottingham is another area which returns Labour MPs consistently. So are whole chunks of Greater London.

It just seems to me that Scotland is a convenient border which the Scottish can draw for historic reasons, abandoning those with similar views just over Hadrians Wall. I feel the frustration you feel with Westminster and [new] Labour. I feel the utter contempt for the absolute shower that are now governing over us. Scottish Nationalism helps you with your aims but it will cause huge problems for non-Tories everywhere else.

For me, the answer is not simply carving off Scotland; the answer needs to be more regional/federal powers for everyone, as well as a fairer voting system.

How about an SNP-friendly English party with similarly social democratic views that AREN'T a bunch of yellow bellied power-crazy tuition-fee raising turncoats? One not burdened by past economic mistakes, foreign policy disasters or dalliances with paedophile groups? One not stupid enough to focus around a single issue, with a leader less charismatic than a turd?

We can dream.

Following your diversion, it'll be interesting to see what sort of Lib Dem party rises from the ashes, and what their focus will be.

Something I've found quite interesting from looking at the actual result data is the answer to the oft-repeated "none of these people get over 50% of the vote anyway so they don't have a mandate to rule".

That's kind of blown out of the water by the results - 316 MPs have been elected with at least 50% of the vote in their constituency.

CON 174
LAB 105
SNP 35
LD 1
SF 1
DUP 0
GRN 0
IND 0
PC 0
SDLP 0
UKIP 0
UUP 0

It's now Belfast South with the lowest share for the winner

JAS84 wrote:

Gavin Scott wrote:At the risk of provoking a groan, is it possible that the answer is the dissolving of the political union of the UK so that we can live and trade side by side with separate governments which speak appropriately to the people of each country?

The Independence referendum was such a close call. I get the feeling that had they done a rerun yesterday, it would've been a Yes this time. But with Scotland gone from the UK, that would make things worse for Labour, as the Conservatives would need 29 less seats to get a majority. It would effectively kill democracy in England (at least under First Past The Post, which it wouldn't be in the Tories' interest to get rid of!).

JAS84 claims that the scottish independence referendum was a close call. The result was 45% Yes, 55% No. Now if a candidate in a USA Presidential election was to get 55 % that wouldn't be a close call, that would be a landslide.

Peter Crossley wrote:

JAS84 wrote:

Gavin Scott wrote:At the risk of provoking a groan, is it possible that the answer is the dissolving of the political union of the UK so that we can live and trade side by side with separate governments which speak appropriately to the people of each country?

The Independence referendum was such a close call. I get the feeling that had they done a rerun yesterday, it would've been a Yes this time. But with Scotland gone from the UK, that would make things worse for Labour, as the Conservatives would need 29 less seats to get a majority. It would effectively kill democracy in England (at least under First Past The Post, which it wouldn't be in the Tories' interest to get rid of!).

JAS84 claims that the scottish independence referendum was a close call. The result was 45% Yes, 55% No. Now if a candidate in a USA Presidential election was to get 55 % that wouldn't be a close call, that would be a landslide.

That's because in the USA, 10% of the electorate who voted in the last presidential election is 12.7million people. The difference in the Scottish election was 380,000. Slight difference, old chap.

I think the In-Out referendum on being part of the EU (a promise that's been repeated following their majority win) will new interesting. It's clearly not something DC is that keen on personally, but rather a promise to appease the Tory hard liners and proto-UKIPers.

My suspicion was that he wasn't expecting to win a majority and the plan was to let it slip away as part of whatever coalition agreements have been made. I was still expecting them to wriggle out of it one way or another - and maybe they still will - but they've reiterated the promise.

I think the uncertainty caused by such a referendum could be one of the most damaging things for the UK in quite a while. How are we going to be treated as an equal European partner if we are busy threatening to leave? The Labour position - of a referendum if further powers were taken away - seemed to make more sense.

Of course there's a neat parallel in labour's position on EU independence as there is to most reasonable attitudes on Scottish independence; and dragging Scotland out of the EU against their will would be a heck of a change. I doubt many who voted "no" would have seriously considered that the UK might leave the EU (indeed, the nonsense about "not being able to get back into the EU" was a central tenet of the No campaign).


As for Scottish independence, it concerns me that if you ask the same question 100 times you'll eventually get an opportunity/short term set of circumstances (perhaps a particularly odious Westminster policy) where the opinion tips in favour of independence. But what you can bet there won't be is further referenda after a Yes vote asking whether Scotland should rejoin the United Kingdom. That's why a 50% threshold is reasonable if it genuinely is the only opportunity the people will have to express this opinion, but if this is a repeating thing then you either need a higher threshold or a repeated series of referendums displaying >50% appetite for independence. Otherwise, what's the point of a union if you have the risk that you'll just leave (irreversibly) the moment things get rusty?

One line that I keep hearing is "Britain rejected a change in the electoral system not that long ago", straight after talking about how the results would be under a proportional system. Alternative Vote is not a proportional system! FPTP vs AV was akin to choosing between a punch to the groin and a kick for those who want proportionality.

Alexia wrote:I wish people would stop banging on about PR. We don't vote for parties, we vote for candidates. You can see that illustrated perfectly in the polls done for Sheffield Hallam - Ashcroft's poll found less support for "LIB DEM" than ICM's poll found for "NICK CLEGG". It's not 1 big election, it's 650 little ones.

We vote for candidates because of the system we use - funnily enough, we would vote for parties if the system necessitated that.

Alexia wrote:The Greens, UKIP, Kidderminster Hospital, Respect, Blaenau Gwent Peoples' Voice, SNP have all proved how small parties can survive and thrive in our democracy, as indeed do the Northern Irish parties.

UKIP can whinge about finishing second across the board, but to finish second is to be the first of the losers. As such, UKIP can quite rightly claim to be a party of losers.

It all depends whether you think that you should divide the country into handy little pockets of support, or whether you think that the make-up of parliament should represent the views of everyone, irrespective of where they live.

I completely agree that electoral reform is necessary, even if it does give UKIP more seats, but I think we as an electorate quite like the idea of having local MPs who are supposed to represent us and our constituency, and I can't see many wanting to lose that. The issue then is what voting system to replace FPTP with, and if you want local MPs I guess it has to be the Additional Member system, which has both local MPs and 'top-up' MPs that don't have a constituency but are there to make sure that the number of MPs in parliament is proportional to vote. However, that creates two tiers of MPs and ultimately people are still going to end up with a local MP that they don't like in some cases, so this still has negatives to it.

Of course the Conservatives haven't mentioned electoral reform, so we might be stuck with FPTP.

There is a lot to think about and talk about, since the results, I was going to write a few paragraph etc but It never seems to work out: So I'm going to try something new, points: early posts may have been more hot headed...

* Nicola is a smart woman, and she is correct this win means NOTHING in-relation to another referendum about the break up of the union, it just speeds up the wheels of change. But this result has created the prefect storm, to built up alot of resentment about the union.

* I voted no, but don't think stupidly I skipped in the polling station marked my cross and skipped away happily. I spent 30 mins trying to make up my mind, "Devo max" is what I and the other don't knows really wanted. Very very foolishly I and many other believed a Tories Maj government was not possible for at least another 10 years. Nicola even acknowledge this stand point - about Devo Max.

* A second Ref, will be put under the carpet until next Mays Scottish elections. After that we can then talk about this again, since there is alot of discussion to talk place first, but being honest I can't see it being of any use. The Question about the EU ref, that is a tricky one, don't just think Scotland will vote to stay in, there are plenty of people who are not happy with it. Mind you there are plenty of Scots who agree with the UKIP views, but that just swept under the carpet.

* Has any Tory of labour government solved the problems of the black spots left since the 80s? No, and people wonder why people have changed parties.

* Why does England need a voice? its has Five times as many mps over all the other parts of the UK, Maybe you lot should get better MPS.

* Ed Mill band was crap, and he failed on a number of points, for years we and many other dislike him and labour needs to grow a pair of balls and start getting rid of crap leaders. I agree with some of the other views on here, he should never have said sorry about over spending. This just admitted there did something wrong, thus convinced people there can't be trusted. Labour NEVER overspent, its Debt was around 50% in 2007, Go back to the last Tory government: Debt was increasing and reached 50% 1996 ( there were spending it on Tax cuts instead of public spending)
.... Then the big bang came and he spent alot on bail outs and give us a VAT cut. The last Five years the national Debt has double, DC has spent more than labour ever did, Where did the money all go, especial with all the cuts that have taken place.

* Lib dems, did become to right wing for many people, The Lib dems should have made more complaints about the coalition and policy's. Alas to many just felt like the Lib dems were happy rimming the Tories. Danny Alexander and Nick just looked far to chummy with them, It destroy its chances in south west, since many went back to Labour, of course many labour people switched to UKIP. But will the concerns of the UKIP voters be resolved? Just look at this chart of the number of 2nd places:


There is one kind of PR we could get for westminster which would keep the local mps etc, Its the system used for the Scottish elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additional_Member_System

* David might get his boundary changes but will he get the reduction in MPs? some Tories might not be happy about losing there seats.

* Russell Brand, told everyone not to vote in the first place. It seems people did listen to him after all, To be fair turnout did increase by 1% to 66% but nearly 1/3 of people still went MEH.