Election Season!

[Calin Leafshade]

Good question.

I'm pretty annoyed at the whole thing.

Now it looks like Clegg has a choice of a informal arrangement with the conservatives (who clegg says have the right to try and form a government) but without proportional representation or forming a lib/lab coalition to get proportional representation.

I don't envy him right now.

Overall i think i'd rather another year (I would guess another election will be called within 12 months) with Gordon Brown if it means we finally get rid of the unelected house of lords and get proportional representation.

[bicilotti]

Overall i think i'd rather another year (I would guess another election will be called within 12 months) with Gordon Brown if it means we finally get rid of the unelected house of lords and get proportional representation.

I'm curious: I understand why you would like to shift towards a proportional representation, but are you aware that, along with lib-dems, parties such as BNP an UKIP would get a boost and almost veto power inside a coalition?

[Calin Leafshade]

I wasn't specifically aware of that although now i think about it, it seems obvious.

However I believe it would be a price worth paying in exchange for a more valid form of democracy.

[Technocrat]

What happened to the Lid-Dem hype? I was quite surprised when I  learned they lost seats compared to previous election.

It confused me too, but at least the Greens got a seat! It's a start.

Plus, if the Libdems can get any clout as part of a coalition, then it's a little step closer to proportional representation.

[Mr Flibble]

Actually Calin, the Conservatives don't have that right. They won the most seats out of any party, but they failed to reach the threshold for forming a minority or coalition government. It's Gordon Brown's right as the incumbent to remain in office until it has been decided who would be best to form a government, and he's perfectly welcome to say that would be Labour and Lib Dem.

Cameron is piling on the pressure, claiming that his effective majority gives him the right to try to form a coalition, and it seems like Clegg agrees with him to some extent. It's certainly looking like the Lib Dems are going to control the outcome of the election after all.

Also, in response to the Lib Dem's poor election results, they actually did a lot better than you'd think. They won about 23% of the votes. Labour won 29%, and the Conservatives won 36%. And yet, the Conservatives won 6 times as many seats. Under a nominally "fairer" system, the Lib Dems would hold around 149 seats, Labour would hold 188, and the Conservatives 234.

I'm sure receiving less press is the amazing upset in Northern Ireland, so I'll tell you a bit about that. The most important news is that the leaders of two of the main parties lost their seats. The DUP's Peter Robinson lost his East Belfast seat to the Alliance party (Lib Dem) following a torrid series of personal and political scandals. Even more shocking is that the Ulster Unionist Party failed to win even a single seat, with their leader Reg Empey losing in South Antrim and likely now stepping down as the leader of the party. Their previous only MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, left the party to run as an Independent following the link with the Conservative party, and won with a massive majority of the vote in her North Down constituency. To put this in context for you, this is massive; the leaders of two of the main parties, and the two main Unionist parties at that, have lost their seats. The result for Fermanagh has yet to be returned because there were only 8 votes in it, but the shocking result is that the DUP looks to have won a seat away from Sinn Fein, in the middle of Republican heartland.

Another fascinating tidbit of news, quite fascinating, is in South Down where we see Unionists voting for the SDLP, as a tactical measure to prevent Sinn Fein's Catriona Ruane from returning to power. It really feels amazing to be living in a time where the people of Northern Ireland can put aside tribal politics for just a little while, recognising that there is a common evil who must be vanquished. For those of you who don't know, Catriona Ruane is the Stormont MLA who removed our academic selection system and replaced it with... nothing. Not even an idea that didn't work out. Just nothing.

The repurcussions of all this are likely to be a reallignment of Unionism in Northern Ireland, and a likely precedent for fielding a single Unionist candidate in each constituency to prevent the parties from splitting the unionist vote between themselves to the extent that the SDLP or Sinn Fein takes the seat.

[Calin Leafshade]

[post modernist irony]Wait there's a *northern* ireland?[/post modernist irony]

and yea I'm fully aware that in actuallity Gordon Brown has the *legal* right to hold office but I would argue that its kinda hypocritical to hold that line of thinking when you are pushing for a fairer electoral system.

And yea the Lib Dem popular vote actually went UP 1% and they still lost seats.. Hooray democracy!

[Mr Flibble]

It's amazing how you can not be elected, then lose the next election, and still be Prime Minister.

Edit:
I'd also like to point out that the House of Lords are... a really, really good thing. People tend to think "unelected decision maker" and therefore "NO DEMOCRACY!!!" but quite apart from having no real power, their most important role is to request that parliament reconsider some dubious legislation. They have saved our asses countless times.

[Calin Leafshade]

Whether or not they saved our ass is irrelevant.. the fact of the matter is that they are unelected and thus have no right to veto the legislation put forward by elected officials.

[Tuomas]

Sure they do, they're knighted. So as long as the British folk approve a monarchy, that's how long she'll be tapping some gents on the shoulder with her sword, making sure it's the upper class that keep the peasants under her foot. It's all just second hand bureaucracy.

[Mr Flibble]

Whether or not they saved our ass is irrelevant.. the fact of the matter is that they are unelected and thus have no right to veto the legislation put forward by elected officials.

They are incredibly experienced and wise men. Their right to veto comes from that they know better about what is best for the country than most of parliament and certainly most of the country.

For instance, take Harold Wilson. Legalised homosexuality and abortion in the 60s, as well as passing other important legislation on censorship and immigration. The general public was furious and hated the thought of it, but Wilson knew it was good for them, and even just a few years later, people realised he had been right. Politicians like him no longer exist, they cannot, thanks to the media. The House of Lords provides the same influence today as Wilson did then, guiding the decision making of Parliament against the context of the whole of British history, and the aspirations and philosophical imperatives of our society.

Also I think it's a bit glib of Tuomas to infer that the Queen and the Lords secretly run the country like Jews doing 9/11, I mean, neither of them have any REAL power. The Queen has none at all, and the Lords really just have the power to send a Bill back to the Commons with a post-it note on it saying "You're idiots who can't see the big picture, try again."

[Calin Leafshade]

To say they are 'wise men' is hugely biased and counter productive to democracy. Wise men according to whom?

[Stupot]

They are incredibly experienced and wise men.

And they're not short of a bob or two either.

[Mr Flibble]

Do you also think the entire civil service ought to be elected? It's civil servants who actually make the decisions which affect you, not your MPs. An MP makes some catch all law but it's the civil service who decides if you get benefits, tax credits, and so on. And the people who work out the order in the NHS waiting lists, I suppose they ought to be elected as well? How about the principals of schools, refuse collectors and the Chief Constable, or the Chief Justice?

The House of Lords, as it exists today, is mostly a traditional matter like the monarchy, but has a role in which it can not veto legislation, but delay it pending further consideration from the Commons. They can recommend changes to proposed laws. It is the Commons who actually decide finally whether to change the draft documents or not. If we didn't have them, any time a cr-aaaaaaaa-zy law got passed, we'd all ask why we didn't have some kind of system to stop The Sun and The Mirror pressuring parliament into passing some ridiculous reactionary measure law. They're good at that job. Just because we didn't hold a popularity contest beforehand doesn't change that.

[Atelier]

parties such as BNP an UKIP would get a boost and almost veto power inside a coalition?

I'm confused why you're using those two together. UKIP is not an extremist party.

Ps. Watch this BBC video, summing up beautifully the BNP.

[NsMn]

Saying "They're wise and stuff, so they don't need to be elected" is political bullshit... then we could just all form dictatorships ruled be these people. Which won't work, as every dictator in history pretended to have been.

[Mr Flibble]

I'm not saying we should be ruled by unelected officials. I'm saying that having an advisory body like the Lords be unelected shouldn't bother people as much as it does, because the very little they are allowed to do, they do it well.

I'm not defending the Lords as much as defending them against people who think they're a bad idea for very vague reasons. Like I said in a previous post, there are a plethora of unelected positions who have a much more relevant impact on your life, and people don't seem to care about that. I don't like witch hunts and efigy burnings.

[SSH]

I'm curious: I understand why you would like to shift towards a proportional representation, but are you aware that, along with lib-dems, parties such as BNP an UKIP would get a boost and almost veto power inside a coalition?

That's an inherent problem with any democracy: if enough people support ANY cause they can get a seat. Different systems just have different thresholds at different regionality levels. In some ways, the top-up system in Scotland (aka Alternative Vote) has the worst of both worlds in terms of letting fringe parties have a voice: they can get in locally OR regionally if there's enough bigots/nutters/commies in either.

Actually, the system that the Libdems want is STV I think, which means you state your first/second/third etc. preference. That means that BNP are probably LESS likely to get in as many would rather have lots of other parties than them. Not sure what it would mean for UKIP as they might be the 2nd choice for both BNP and Conservative voters, but they are unlikely to make it into the final rounds anyway.

This is little known, but it was actually in the Labour manifesto to have a referendum on the Alternative Vote system.

[m0ds]

Well, I'm not going to get drawn into political debate, I'll just add my closing thought 2-cents.

It was quite hard to take the Lib Dems "rush" seriously. A lot of those opinion polls were done online, via the red button on TV and stuff. That's what younger people would be taking part in. But come the actual day of the vote and you realise some of the people doing those online polls didn't even have any intention of going to the booth to vote.

One Facebooker who joined or liked some Lib Dem group/fan page or whatever was AT the polling booth when I was there to help his grandparents, but he "couldn't be arsed" to vote. That just seems to sum up young Lib Dem followers quite well Labour & Tory voters will go and vote. Also from the off I thought it was silly to think the Lib Dems had a chance. They put up a good fight but, have they ever come close? Never mind though. I've learnt more about the processes this time round than the last couple of times.

Also I don't understand either why people are speculating a Labour - Lib Dem government. I see no chance of that whatsoever, and to be honest if that is the case, I'll be the one revolting and protesting. Especially after Clegg showed such a dislike for Brown. Labour isn't such a bad party but that Scotsman has no great leadership qualities. And he's a Scotsman. For a country that wants so little to do with England, no idea why he's running our country

Anyway all that opinion beside, it was fun to watch. I wonder if anyone else saw Cameron's acceptance speech and then noticed the ketamine addict throw a newspaper at him at the end? It was also the only constistuency that seemed to include the Monster Raving Looney's

Does the US have a majority thing? Or do they just accept the most votes equals a winner? I wish we did in the UK, it would speed up this whole process, shut the media up quicker & prove to me just how many people we have that can't handle being beat. Majority? Hung parliment? Please :| 60 Tory consistuencies more than Labour and about 150 more than Lib Dem should just equal a Tory majority. But ohhh nooo.. Some system that predates neanderthal man still in place!

[Kweepa]

They are incredibly experienced and wise men.

And they're not short of a bob or two either.

And they're not short of a boob or two either.
"Men"? The House of Lords has some Ladies!

[bicilotti]

Actually, the system that the Libdems want is STV I think, which means you state your first/second/third etc. preference. That means that BNP are probably LESS likely to get in as many would rather have lots of other parties than them. Not sure what it would mean for UKIP as they might be the 2nd choice for both BNP and Conservative voters, but they are unlikely to make it into the final rounds anyway.

Uhh, didn't know they were aiming for STV! That kind of renders my question unimportant.