Your voting intentions

[uk66fastback]

Lefty Guardian bks as usual …

You say we’ll never know, well you seem to know … (mistakenly)

[uk66fastback]

President Merkin said:

uk66fastback said:

Remoaners …

.

Always a reliable signifier of a fully rounded grown up.

Ha, after some of the name-calling guff in the Reform thread by you lefties (is that description okay?) - being called Remoaners is a) lame and b) dead accurate as it sums them up nicely.

[President Merkin]

Two wrongs make a right. Always a reliable signifier of a fully rounded grown up.

[CivicDuties]

uk66fastback said:

Lefty Guardian bks as usual …

You say we’ll never know, well you seem to know … (mistakenly)

What I know is that some people voted Leave as a protest. I never claimed this factor won the referendum for Leave on its own. Try putting your reading glasses on. And try thinking critically instead of dismissing everything just because it's in a publication you don't like.

[Otispunkmeyer]

CivicDuties said:

Otispunkmeyer said:

Went to the booth this morning still undecided.

In the end voted cons because of all the people on the list I'd actually heard of and known of the cons representative and what she's achieved. The others were totally faceless (or completely batst like the local independent who is one of these "5G" people).

But also because I just decided that whilst the conservatives are st. At least their brand of st is a known quantity and I can, so far, tolerate it and life isn't too bad. Reform, no. Even if their headlines look palatable to some I doubt they'd be capable of forming a competent crew if they actually got something. It'd be deer in the headlights. Labour do worry me because their headlines are kinda wooly (or pointless eg private schools tax) and seem like more of the same. I think they'd only show their true form once in power and it won't be good. Starmer is entirely beige.

Either way...the cons aren't winning anyway are they so I can't see my vote counting for much. But I'll be dammed if I'm doing tactical votes. You shouldn't have to do that. Labour with a strong opposition would the best to hope for I think. Perhaps having any one party with too much control isn't good however you cut it.

Lots to unpick there.

But I'll try to address the bold bit...it was said Leave wouldn't win in 2016, so votes aren't going to count for much, might as well vote Leave as a protest. And look what happened.

Secondly, if you don't like the electoral system, then you have to prioritise that in your voting behaviour, and vote for a party which offers electoral reform, regardless of all else. You haven't, and if we keep on doing so, it's never going to change.

Thirdly, outside the bold, if Labour do win a majority, it's immaterial whether it's 30 or 300. There's no such thing as "too much control" in our electoral system. There's control, and no control. Outside of a hung Parliament, that is.

Do any of the parties offer electoral reform? (wait, do any parties with a look-in offer electoral reform? They all like FPTP once they're in there)

[Pan Pan Pan]

CivicDuties said:

uk66fastback said:

Lefty Guardian bks as usual …

You say we’ll never know, well you seem to know … (mistakenly)

What I know is that some people voted Leave as a protest. I never claimed this factor won the referendum for Leave on its own. Try putting your reading glasses on. And try thinking critically instead of dismissing everything just because it's in a publication you don't like.

Your last sentence applies equally, to those who whine about the DM. Just depends on the viewpoint.

[uk66fastback]

CivicDuties said:

uk66fastback said:

Lefty Guardian bks as usual …

You say we’ll never know, well you seem to know … (mistakenly)

What I know is that some people voted Leave as a protest. I never claimed this factor won the referendum for Leave on its own. Try putting your reading glasses on. And try thinking critically instead of dismissing everything just because it's in a publication you don't like.

n

No, you know what the Guardian put in a story seven years ago … whoopy do.

[CivicDuties]

uk66fastback said:

CivicDuties said:

uk66fastback said:

Lefty Guardian bks as usual …

You say we’ll never know, well you seem to know … (mistakenly)

What I know is that some people voted Leave as a protest. I never claimed this factor won the referendum for Leave on its own. Try putting your reading glasses on. And try thinking critically instead of dismissing everything just because it's in a publication you don't like.

n

No, you know what the Guardian put in a story seven years ago … whoopy do.

Well that was one piece of published evidence I found...I'm sure there are others. There's no point telling you I know people who have said the same to me personally, because that's anecdotal and you'll just claim I'm lying.

Take a chill pill, and enjoy election day. Hopefully this'll be the funniest one ever.

[uk66fastback]

I’ll be up all night don’t worry - it’ll be entertaining for sure. Lots of Portillo moments let’s hope …

[CivicDuties]

Otispunkmeyer said:

CivicDuties said:

Otispunkmeyer said:

Went to the booth this morning still undecided.

In the end voted cons because of all the people on the list I'd actually heard of and known of the cons representative and what she's achieved. The others were totally faceless (or completely batst like the local independent who is one of these "5G" people).

But also because I just decided that whilst the conservatives are st. At least their brand of st is a known quantity and I can, so far, tolerate it and life isn't too bad. Reform, no. Even if their headlines look palatable to some I doubt they'd be capable of forming a competent crew if they actually got something. It'd be deer in the headlights. Labour do worry me because their headlines are kinda wooly (or pointless eg private schools tax) and seem like more of the same. I think they'd only show their true form once in power and it won't be good. Starmer is entirely beige.

Either way...the cons aren't winning anyway are they so I can't see my vote counting for much. But I'll be dammed if I'm doing tactical votes. You shouldn't have to do that. Labour with a strong opposition would the best to hope for I think. Perhaps having any one party with too much control isn't good however you cut it.

Lots to unpick there.

But I'll try to address the bold bit...it was said Leave wouldn't win in 2016, so votes aren't going to count for much, might as well vote Leave as a protest. And look what happened.

Secondly, if you don't like the electoral system, then you have to prioritise that in your voting behaviour, and vote for a party which offers electoral reform, regardless of all else. You haven't, and if we keep on doing so, it's never going to change.

Thirdly, outside the bold, if Labour do win a majority, it's immaterial whether it's 30 or 300. There's no such thing as "too much control" in our electoral system. There's control, and no control. Outside of a hung Parliament, that is.

Do any of the parties offer electoral reform? (wait, do any parties with a look-in offer electoral reform? They all like FPTP once they're in there)

LibDems quite explicitly offer PR and House of Lords reform. I believe if they won a majority they'd stand by that commitment. But they won't get the chance to prove me right or wrong until we vote for it. It's the single biggest reason I've mainly voted for them sine I turned 18 almost 40 years ago.

[Amateurish]

I'm not a fan of the Reform Party but if they achieve 15% of the vote but only get a handful of MPs it will be an absolute travesty for our democracy.

[Hippea]

Amateurish said:

I'm not a fan of the Reform Party but if they achieve 15% of the vote but only get a handful of MPs it will be an absolute travesty for our democracy.

What about the Lib Dem’s and Greens, they always get good numbers but very little representation in parliament

[Amateurish]

Hippea said:

Amateurish said:

I'm not a fan of the Reform Party but if they achieve 15% of the vote but only get a handful of MPs it will be an absolute travesty for our democracy.

What about the Lib Dem’s and Greens, they always get good numbers but very little representation in parliament

Yes absolutely. But for Reform it is even more stark. Today's Yougov says Reform will get 15% vote share and 3 seats. Whereas libdems are predicted 12% and 72 seats.

[valiant]

Amateurish said:

I'm not a fan of the Reform Party but if they achieve 15% of the vote but only get a handful of MPs it will be an absolute travesty for our democracy.

UKIP won 4 million votes pre-referendum and won no new seats.

Don’t remember huge calls for PR or claiming affronts to democracy then. There was no big outcry. People just got on with it.

It’s our system. It ain’t changing anytime soon despite those that were happy with a ‘super majority’ when Boris won suddenly becoming standard bearers for PR now that the tables are being turned.

[Stick Legs]

The problem is that you (are meant to) vote for your local MP.

People don’t of course & vote for the party they hate the least / PM they’d like / Party they are tribally affiliated to.

This causes a problem because if PR was to be enacted then who decides which constituencies get their elected representatives ousted and someone else put in so that each party’s vote share is honoured.

It’s obviously not insurmountable but it is the nub of the problem.

[Amateurish]

Well Farage certainly wasn't happy about it in 2015, and I'm sure lots of the 4 million voters would have been pretty cheesed off.

I'm sure it will be on the national agenda this year.

[fat80b]

valiant said:

UKIP won 4 million votes pre-referendum and won no new seats.

Don’t remember huge calls for PR or claiming affronts to democracy then. There was no big outcry. People just got on with it.

It’s our system. It ain’t changing anytime soon despite those that were happy with a ‘super majority’ when Boris won suddenly becoming standard bearers for PR now that the tables are being turned.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit in the last couple of days. PR initally seems like a great answer in many ways, especially today and especially if you "feel" like you are losing.


But, I'm pretty sure it would be far far worse than the current system with its faults - Yes, you get representation of the smaller parties at the top table, but this also means that parties you really don't like also get seats this way. Imagine the BNP having 5 seats for example.

We then end up swapping a system where 1 party gets to make the decisions (and can be shown the door when they fail, just as we are seeing today) to one where the fringe whack jobs are always in charge, as they always end up bartering their support to get the largest party to a working majority.

The current system (far be it from perfect) gives us the ability to turn a national 35% vote into a working majority, and it means that you have a local MP and a national party that you can directly chuck out. This is a good feature of the system and one that we should keep imho. c.f. that with PR and a list based system which effectively gives zero accountability as the people you hate at the top of each list are untouchable.


I'd imagine that most people would recognise that PR would likely make things much worse in reality whichever side you are actually on. - Using today's (predicted) example - It would not be inconceivable that the cons + reform + DUP + more nutjobs would actually get to >50%. And I'd probably say that today, this is not what the country actually would want.

[hidetheelephants]

Stick Legs said:

The problem is that you (are meant to) vote for your local MP.

People don’t of course & vote for the party they hate the least / PM they’d like / Party they are tribally affiliated to.

This causes a problem because if PR was to be enacted then who decides which constituencies get their elected representatives ousted and someone else put in so that each party’s vote share is honoured.

It’s obviously not insurmountable but it is the nub of the problem.

We've had PR for 25 years, it works. There are flaws, particularly the list system which is a source of corruption, but the sky did not fall as a result of proportional representation and the feet of clay displayed by MSPs are not because of the voting system. Something like the australian model seems close to the ideal.

[BikeBikeBIke]

Agree PR sucks, its been a disaster in Israel.

However, not a concern since you need a majority to implement PR and if you have a majority you won't want PR.

[PurplePenguin]

fat80b said:

valiant said:

UKIP won 4 million votes pre-referendum and won no new seats.

Don’t remember huge calls for PR or claiming affronts to democracy then. There was no big outcry. People just got on with it.

It’s our system. It ain’t changing anytime soon despite those that were happy with a ‘super majority’ when Boris won suddenly becoming standard bearers for PR now that the tables are being turned.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit in the last couple of days. PR initally seems like a great answer in many ways, especially today and especially if you "feel" like you are losing.


But, I'm pretty sure it would be far far worse than the current system with its faults - Yes, you get representation of the smaller parties at the top table, but this also means that parties you really don't like also get seats this way. Imagine the BNP having 5 seats for example.

We then end up swapping a system where 1 party gets to make the decisions (and can be shown the door when they fail, just as we are seeing today) to one where the fringe whack jobs are always in charge, as they always end up bartering their support to get the largest party to a working majority.

The current system (far be it from perfect) gives us the ability to turn a national 35% vote into a working majority, and it means that you have a local MP and a national party that you can directly chuck out. This is a good feature of the system and one that we should keep imho. c.f. that with PR and a list based system which effectively gives zero accountability as the people you hate at the top of each list are untouchable.


I'd imagine that most people would recognise that PR would likely make things much worse in reality whichever side you are actually on. - Using today's (predicted) example - It would not be inconceivable that the cons + reform + DUP + more nutjobs would actually get to >50%. And I'd probably say that today, this is not what the country actually would want.

Or perhaps you would make a government where there would have to be cooperation to produce policies that benefit the country as opposed to the adversarial baying that goes on in parliament at present.