General Election July 2024

Author
Discussion

hidetheelephants

30,121 posts

207 months

Friday 5th July 2024
quotequote all
FMOB said:
What you get is political paralysis, instability and inherent short-termism where every government is a coalition and a political flounce takes the government down, would we accept that happening every 6 months? I think people would lose patience with it very quickly.

FPTP everytime, if small parties don't like it then they need to grow and become big parties, if they can't grow well tough.
Because FPTP has given the UK such solid and stable govt in since 2010.

captain_cynic

15,068 posts

109 months

Friday 5th July 2024
quotequote all
FMOB said:
What you get is political paralysis, instability and inherent short-termism where every government is a coalition and a political flounce takes the government down, would we accept that happening every 6 months? I think people would lose patience with it very quickly.

FPTP everytime, if small parties don't like it then they need to grow and become big parties, if they can't grow well tough.
Indeed,

The UK is designed for FPTP, moreover, people in the UK expect local representation. Going to PR will either mean increasing the number of seats per constituency or consolidating constituencies so that you have enough seats per constituency to proportionally represent. The problem with the former is that it means the number of seats in parliament goes from 600 odd to 1200-2200 odd... The problem with the latter is that if you're in a rural area around a large town, Andover for example, the large town will just dominate. Candidates will only target the large town and leave you to rot.

My problem with FPTP in the UK is that in order for it to be first past the post, a candidate must pass said post. Simples, no? The best change we can make is to keep FPTP with local representation and change the voting system to Single Transferable Vote, Preferential Voting or some variant there of. Instead of scrawling an X on your ballot paper you order your candidates 1-5 (or 1 through whatever, depending on the number of candidates, one per party of course). That way we keep counting preferences until one candidate gets past said post.

This is simple enough for Australia, the UK should manage with no problem. It's simple. After all first preferences are counted and no-one has one, we count the second preferences... if no-one has 50%+1 vote after that, 3rd preferences, it rarely gets past that but you keep going until someone gets past the post. It also means that if Red is your absolute last preference, you can put it last.

This means that you prefer Red, then purple, then orange, then pink, it means your vote can still count if your orange wins on the second preference.

PR works well when you're electing something that works on a national level, like senators. It doesn't work for local representatives.

uk66fastback

17,336 posts

285 months

Friday 5th July 2024
quotequote all
crofty1984 said:
the-photographer said:
Very interesting, the re-built conservatives should absolutely aim for the centre in terms of leader and policy
Yes, keep Reform as the soft play areas for the trouble makers and get back to being a sensible party.
Hang on, that’s precisely the reason they didn’t do well this time round - too centre a party. And being conmen, liars, buffoons and just plain useless didn’t help either of course. This is why Reform has picked up lots of votes … they’re not right of centre enough … in fact they’re not right of centre at all.

FMOB

1,994 posts

26 months

Friday 5th July 2024
quotequote all
hidetheelephants said:
FMOB said:
What you get is political paralysis, instability and inherent short-termism where every government is a coalition and a political flounce takes the government down, would we accept that happening every 6 months? I think people would lose patience with it very quickly.

FPTP everytime, if small parties don't like it then they need to grow and become big parties, if they can't grow well tough.
Because FPTP has given the UK such solid and stable govt in since 2010.
I never said FPTP would give you a good government but each Government has lasted the distance between general elections as we vote for a party not a person.

CraigyMc

17,861 posts

250 months

Friday 5th July 2024
quotequote all
uk66fastback said:
crofty1984 said:
the-photographer said:
Very interesting, the re-built conservatives should absolutely aim for the centre in terms of leader and policy
Yes, keep Reform as the soft play areas for the trouble makers and get back to being a sensible party.
Hang on, that’s precisely the reason they didn’t do well this time round - too centre a party. And being conmen, liars, buffoons and just plain useless didn’t help either of course. This is why Reform has picked up lots of votes … they’re not right of centre enough … in fact they’re not right of centre at all.
Labour claimed the centre ground in this election, the tories moved to the right and then were flanked by reform on the far right, splitting their vote.

If you added every single reform vote to the tories, they'd still have lost the election.

The tories don't need to move further right, they need to move closer to the centre.

Countdown

44,347 posts

210 months

Friday 5th July 2024
quotequote all
uk66fastback said:
Hang on, that’s precisely the reason they didn’t do well this time round - too centre a party. And being conmen, liars, buffoons and just plain useless didn’t help either of course. This is why Reform has picked up lots of votes … they’re not right of centre enough … in fact they’re not right of centre at all.
Most Tories clearly preferred the Centre rather than the hard right message that Reform were peddling. If the Tories move to the right they will lose more votes to Labour.

Portofino

4,724 posts

205 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
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Countdown said:
Most Tories clearly preferred the Centre rather than the hard right message that Reform were peddling. If the Tories move to the right they will lose more votes to Labour.
Why do people & the media keep peddling hard right? They are not the BNP, EDF or the Old Skool National Front.

Quite a difference between the two.

uk66fastback

17,336 posts

285 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
Can someone show me what Reform policies are ‘far right’?

The Tories are central already. And look what good it did them. There’s barely a fag paper between the two main parties as it stands.

Sheets Tabuer

20,279 posts

229 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
Portofino said:
Countdown said:
Most Tories clearly preferred the Centre rather than the hard right message that Reform were peddling. If the Tories move to the right they will lose more votes to Labour.
Why do people & the media keep peddling hard right? They are not the BNP, EDF or the Old Skool National Front.

Quite a difference between the two.
It might be:
Comments about the IQ of Africans or black people are savages or describing boat people as scum or Hitler was right or candidates being members of the BNP or saying women are the sponging gender or a candidate saying Islam and Nazis are the same.

Chicken Chaser

8,467 posts

238 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
Portofino said:
Countdown said:
Most Tories clearly preferred the Centre rather than the hard right message that Reform were peddling. If the Tories move to the right they will lose more votes to Labour.
Why do people & the media keep peddling hard right? They are not the BNP, EDF or the Old Skool National Front.

Quite a difference between the two.
There's the hard right and the far right. They could have called the hard right the near right, but that would be completely wrong.

classicaholic

2,011 posts

84 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
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I am really finding it hard to see how Starmer has a true mandate when he only increased Labours vote by 2% over Corbin. I can see why 40% of the eligible votors don’t bother, perhaps time for a change whe only just over 2 out of 10 eligible vote for the ruling party.

swisstoni

19,784 posts

293 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
Chicken Chaser said:
Portofino said:
Countdown said:
Most Tories clearly preferred the Centre rather than the hard right message that Reform were peddling. If the Tories move to the right they will lose more votes to Labour.
Why do people & the media keep peddling hard right? They are not the BNP, EDF or the Old Skool National Front.

Quite a difference between the two.
There's the hard right and the far right. They could have called the hard right the near right, but that would be completely wrong.
This was a huge ‘not this Govt’ vote. People wanted them gone. They wanted Sunak and his simpering tones of nothingness gone. They wanted their seeming inability to get anything done gone. They wanted their useless bottom of the barrel ministers gone.

So who else could someone of even a slightly Right view of the world vote for? Reform were the only show in town for those people.

abzmike

10,281 posts

120 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
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Remember the postal voting issues? Well in Kemi Badenoch’s constituency the margin was 2610 votes - which apparently is very close to the number of postal votes that didn’t get sent out. No one is suggesting that every one would be against her, but it’s enough to require a by-election and stall the Tory leadership election.

p1stonhead

27,656 posts

181 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
abzmike said:
Remember the postal voting issues? Well in Kemi Badenoch’s constituency the margin was 2610 votes - which apparently is very close to the number of postal votes that didn’t get sent out. No one is suggesting that every one would be against her, but it’s enough to require a by-election and stall the Tory leadership election.
Tory party members will never vote for her anyway.

JagLover

44,709 posts

249 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
p1stonhead said:
Tory party members will never vote for her anyway.
They may have done at one point. Feeling of more than a few now though is that she sold out.

DSLiverpool

15,446 posts

216 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
Should we have a “Streeting” watch thread? Day one tell your new company it’s broken - great for morale!

How he handles the junior doctors will be fascinating however capitulation is probably the strategy.

MiniMan64

18,143 posts

204 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
Should we have a “Streeting” watch thread? Day one tell your new company it’s broken - great for morale!

How he handles the junior doctors will be fascinating however capitulation is probably the strategy.
I’d rather they spoke a truth that we all know to be true rather than lie about it. Or don’t you want honest politicians?

p1stonhead

27,656 posts

181 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
Should we have a “Streeting” watch thread? Day one tell your new company it’s broken - great for morale!

How he handles the junior doctors will be fascinating however capitulation is probably the strategy.
Yeah those doctors and nurses working 16 hour shifts around corridors full of people, think it’s all going fine.

p1stonhead

27,656 posts

181 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
JagLover said:
p1stonhead said:
Tory party members will never vote for her anyway.
They may have done at one point. Feeling of more than a few now though is that she sold out.
I wasn’t referencing her policies or loyalties.

These are the people who voted for Truss over Sunak.

bitchstewie

58,477 posts

224 months

Saturday 6th July 2024
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
Should we have a “Streeting” watch thread? Day one tell your new company it’s broken - great for morale!

How he handles the junior doctors will be fascinating however capitulation is probably the strategy.
Bit confused.

Most of the NHS threads on here are people insisting it's broken.

Is Streeting wrong or has he simply said the quiet part out loud?