Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

I suspect PR would result in most proposals being watered down, even if the proposal was good. The various parties would never agree to anything even remotely radical. First past the post is certainly flawed but I feel generally provides a platform for a Government to act. One major caveat is that the Government of the day should be bound by their Election Manifesto. If that was the case they would think far more carefully about what they promised.

 

I'm not a fan of politics full stop and think party politics is the main issue, the country keeps going despite the government not because of it.
I know I'm living in a land of unicorns and fairies when I imagine the best people for the job being given the jobs, where they could actually affect change. I don't think it matters how we vote because at the end of the day we will always have people representing us that either don't have the power to do what's needed or are to scared that they will be voted out next time.

 

I remember my Nana saying in the 60s that what was needed was a “coalitition” govt like during the war…..

 

Yeah, my parents used to say that, but the coalition very quickly disappeared after the war, as far as I know.
It only really worked because in times of war everyone has the same single idea, winning.
Lots of other stuff just gets left and forgotten.

 

I was sure that Starmer wanted to announce a relaunch today. Just checked the newspapers but Guardian doesn’t mention a word. Maybe Starmer didn’t have something to tell.

 

Ireland has had proportional representation since 1920. They seem to be doing ok... it makes political parties less extreme, on the whole, since middle-of-the-road views are held by the majority of the electorate. OK, it takes longer to work out who's going to be doing the governing after an election, as the parties decide who can work together, but the country doesn't fall to bits in the meantime.

Ireland has recorded a budget surplus for several years, so it must be doing something right.

 

Looking for the best outcome leads in most cases to the worst outcome. The result is that always the same parties build coalitions at some stage. Europe is a good example for this.

 

I'm totally confused with our system, it only works for me if the MP represents his or her constituency, in practice most of them dont, they follow party lines, even get forced to by the bullies amongst the party.
Its just wrong.
Once they all aligned themselves in parties surely democracy went out the window.

 

This would make it even worse, pete. Try to imagine, 640 single parties. Of course they are candidates for a party or are Independent. The 100k+ in a constituency vote in majority one of them and the elected MP needs to follow the party line in a certain way otherwise you can't make politics. That is normal and I expect it to happen. That's why people vote one party out and the other in.

Sorry but I used to work for politicians in Germany (20 odd years ago) and I'm fed up with a voting system that requires more than 3 parties to build a coalition. Europe breaks apart for that reason.

The next coalition here is between Reform and Tories, unless Starmer turns the ship 180°, but I can't see that happening.
I would be more worried if he resigns. We would get a Rayner.

 

He won't resign ... but he may get pushed.

 

It seems to me that coalition governments are frequently more stable than single-party ones. There's an inevitable tendency for the new party in the British system to "throw out the baby with the bathwater", and overturn the previous incumbents' policies as a matter of course, rather than accepting that some of these policies were ok, and building on the good ideas. And if they do accept that any of their opponents' ideas were worth keeping, they are then accused of stealing those ideas. It's really childish.

As I said, the middle-of-the-road views held by two of the biggest parties in Ireland have led to stable government for a long time.

 

I thought the same should have applied during covid, everyone pull together to get out of the situation but that obviously didn't happen.

 

If you want to compare a 7 million country with a 67 million country then go ahead. But I think more like equal countries like France and Germany or Netherland or Belgium. Chaos at its best. You can’t make up what happens over there. West Wing is a comedy compare to the drama that happens in Europe.

Even here it’s not clear if Reform would go into a coalition. Can you imagine a coalition of Labour and Tories and LibDems? I don’t.