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Topic History of: OK let's do the maths
Max. showing the last 5 posts - (Last post first)
Author Message
Barney JK2006 wrote:
if you're selling yourself as The Peoples' Government you should represent all people not just half


Couldn't quite agree with that.

Just one example - the Republic of Ireland.

Until recently, the RoI government described itself as a Catholic country; that church still does.

However, around a third of the population (and rising) have either no religion or another.



Peter But I'm not sure if adding up the votes of the other parties makes much sense. If 10 people run a race and the winner wins because he ran at 20 miles an hour and the rest at 19 or less, we don't add up the speeds of the other nine and say they should have won instead.

Exactly, Jo, you give a literal definition of First Past The Post. Which is still the best way to decide who gets the cup on sports day, but the worst possible way to manage an inclusive and tolerant society. (IMHO!)

PS: I see the vote totals are notably different at the BBC, Google & Wikipedia - and the official government page is currently down! But JK's point stands. "We the 43.6% of the people who were eligible and bothered to vote" is NOT "We the People..."
JK2006 The point being, Jo; if you're selling yourself as The Peoples' Government you should represent all people not just half.
Jo According to Wikipedia, Labour plus Lib Dems got fewer votes than the Tories (Labour + Lib Dems: 13,965,499; Tories: 13,966,451).

But I'm not sure if adding up the votes of the other parties makes much sense. If 10 people run a race and the winner wins because he ran at 20 miles an hour and the rest at 19 or less, we don't add up the speeds of the other nine and say they should have won instead.
Peter Yes, Hedda, I wholly agree about compulsory voting, which (as in the Aussie model) is only justifiable if every vote has value, which means some form of PR.

As it is, most citizens feel a certain hopelessness about voting. Every now and again there is a brief upsurge of hope:

Example 1) In 1981 the SDP/Lib alliance was polling an unprecedented 50%, which would have triggered the landslide of all landslides (even without PR), and would have represented the “common sensical / middle-of-the-road British spirit” so much better than the Olde Left / Right Tango. This brief hope was destroyed (and forgotten to history) by Thatcher launching an easily avoidable killing spree in the South Atlantic. Instant return of Jingo Tango Politics.

Example 2) On February 15th 2003, around 2,000,000 Brits braved the cold and joined “the largest protest event in human history”. Amazingly, Brits were actually marching to stop Johnny Foreigner being killed! But Blair needed to impress Bush and Bush needed to impress his dad so all hell was let loose. Memo to the people: you are powerless; and if you MUST vote, stick to Big Brother or Strictly.

Example 3) In 2015, the Labour Party wanted to flaunt how democratic and inclusive it was, so included an actual socialist in their leadership election! The unintended consequence was that all the compassion and idealism that had originally formed the Labour movement suddenly woke from its long sleep, attracted the biggest membership of any party in Europe, and even the fields of Glastonbury echoed with his name! Despite perpetual undermining by his deputy and many colleagues (who mainly dated from the Blair era) the new party members and a briefly inspired public gave him an extraordinary moral victory in the 2017 election. That was a step too far. Bang, Bang, Murdoch’s Silver Hammer came down upon his head…

The only redeeming thought at this time is that The Etonians - who triggered this virtual civil war with a referendum that was only ever intended to save some Tory seats from UKIP - are now solely and wholly responsible for clearing up the mess they created.

I would head to Australia too, but I hear it’s on fire.