The media are going all out to boost Mr David Cameron (the leader of the British Conservative party). The Daily Telegraph newspaper has a front page story about how people are paying tens of thousands of Pounds to have lunch with Mr Cameron or one of his associates and how this proves that Conservatives are becoming popular (this is in the face of a declining party membership, only a quarter of whom bother to vote on the meaningless documents that are put in front of them, and opinion polls that state that about 38% intend to vote Conservative – out of the just over half of British voters who are likely to vote at all).
The Economist runs an editorial about how Mr Cameron should strip local Conservative members of what little choice they have left in choosing candidates, and how he should give up even his token policy of removing Conservatives from the ultra pro-EU European People’s Party group in the ‘European Parliament’ and totally submit to the EU in all things – oh sorry, how Mr Cameron should seek ‘influencei in the EU.
The Spectator magazine has, as its cover, a drawing of Sentator John McCain crowning Mr Cameron as King (which might interest the Queen) and, as its main story, how Senator (death-to-the-First-Amendment aka ‘Campaign Finance Reform’) McCain supports Mr Cameron.
And (of course) the BBC is still boosting Mr Cameron at every opportunity. Today Mr Cameron was given air time to explain that members of Parliament should be stripped of the power to set their own pay, and how elected governments should be stripped of power to give out honours (all those CBEs, OBEs, Kighthoods and even membership of the House of Lords) – both tasks should be done (according to Mr Cameron) outside of politics (i.e. most likely by the ‘great and the good’ who would, no doubt, give MPs even more money and make sure that no non-statist ever got an honour of any kind – certainly it would be an end to the chances of those free market types that Mrs Thatcher sometimes put into the House of Lords).
Whilst no fan of MPs getting paid lots of money (I would have been against the 1911 move to pay them at all) and no fan of how governments (especially the government led by Mr Blair) are alleged to sell honours in return for campaign money – I do find it ironic that Mr Cameron was flanked by ‘Ken’ Clarke when he launched his attack on democratically elected people deciding such things. Mr Clarke is Mr Cameron’s man in charge of producing policies to make democracy stronger and (especially) to restore power to the House of Commons.
This is ironic in its self – as Mr Clarke has a fanatical hatred of the powers of the House of Commons (of which he is a member) and wishes as much power as possible to go to the European Union.
But then Mr Clarke has just been put in charge (by Mr Cameron) of finding ways of carrying out the plan to strip elected people of both responsibility for the pay of MPs and for the honours system.
And Mr Cameron himself (with the strong support of the Economist) is busy destroying (in the name of democracy) what little democracy there is in the Conservative party and has already failed to carry out his leadership election promise to pull out Conservative members of the European Union Parliament out of the (pro-EU and anti-British House of Commons) European People’s Party group.
I can only conclude that Mr Cameron has no sense of irony.
And I can only conclude that Mr. Cameron is a scum-sucking shitbag.
Im sorry, what?
So, he’s spending time with people in exchange for money? Isn’t that more-or-less prostitution? Is this common practice for Western politicians?
Anyways, maybe the UK should switch to proportional representation instead of first-past-the-post so that next election you could actually have a decent choice.
Cryptononcomic.
The answer to your first two questions is-
Yes and Yes.
Para two, I don’t bleeding think so.
A five % rump of far left , far right or Greens
holding the ring of power?
As a friend so graphically put it-
If that happened I’d be out of here faster than shit from a wino’s ass!
There’s no reason to think that proportional representation will automatically degenerate into the fringe minorities having absolute power. No one forces the larger parties to go into a coalition with the fringe ones (they can always form a grand coalition or rule as a minority).
Besides, it’s not like the current system is working all that well. Let’s see, who shall you vote for: socialist A, or socialist B. First-past-the-post leads to a stagnation of ideas, a dumbing down of the rhetoric (e.g. “my sole real opponent engages in intercourse with farm animals,” etc.) and an entrenchment of the ruling class. Proportional representation has the potential to alleviate all of those problems.
And if minority parties bother you so much, you can always set the threshold for entering parliament to 10%-20% of the vote.
You could also add a president elected through run-off voting, thereby ensuring that they receive at least 50% of the popular vote while breaking the duopoly on power pervasive in first-past-the-post. There are many solutions to your perceived issues; it is unwise to assume that the established order is the best possible option.
I often wonder why people do three posts in a row when they could just do one.
Is it a lack of clarity in the original thought ?
All I can say at this juncture, as I wind my way up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire is-
You aint from around here are you boy!?
Don’t know if anyone else has had the misfortune of reading Cameron’s intended infliction for next week’s conference but he intends, among other agendas, to create ‘interactive’ ‘Meet The Candidates’ sessions utilizing a Dragon’s Den-style for policy ideas to be pitched to the Conservative Party. Guest speakers to include,
US Senator John McCain
UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown, designer Stephen Bayley
travel journalist Simon Calder
political commentator Janet Daley
former newspaper editor Rosie Boycott
commentators Richard D North and George Monbiot Camila Batmanghelidijh of Kids Company
Liberty campaigner Shami Chakrabarti
entrepreneur Rachel Elnaugh
Will Hutton of the Work Foundation
John Bird of Big Issue
Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali.
As they say … Pass the sickbag Alice.
“Surface detritus imbibing fertilizer receptacle”, one ineluctably has to concur with the first comment by Thaddeus Tremayne on this topic, re the Tory Primus Imbecilius. This confirms why I became a libertarian. Rock on Chris Tame.
According to official Conservative party stats membership has declined by 10% in the last six months (the real picture is most likely worse) – at this rate there will not be a Conservative party at the next general election.
Mr Cameron’s favourate pollsters (the online operation YouGov) has the Conservatives on 36% (the same as Labour – in spite of Labour party corruption, the Labour civil war, rising unemployment and declining industry). And 35% of those polled think that Mr Cameron is a good leader of the Conservative party (what percentage think he would be a good Prime Minister is not reported).
Mr Cameron has broken his promise (made, again and again, in the leadership election) to pull the Conservatives out of the European People’s Party group. And he has forgotten about his idea to have a Bill of Rights rather than the Human Rights Act (which incorporates the European human rights convention into British law). Perhaps someone told him that Britian already has a Bill of Rights (of 1689 – virtually ignored these days) or that getting rid of the Human Rights Act would achieve nothing without pulling out of the European Convention (as people could simply appeal to the European Human Rights Court).
Mr Cameron is hopeless.
As for P.R. – this would just mean that the leftist Lib Dems were in power for all time (no matter how few votes they got). No party since World War II has got a majority of votes in the United Kingdom (although the Conservatives have got a majority of votes in England at various times). So even if the Lib Dems only got a few percent of the vote they (under P.R.) would hold the balance of power.
This is the real reason that the Liberal Democrats are in favour of Proportional Representation- they would be in government for ever (even if they only got a handful of votes).
However, the two rounds of voting idea (with the second round being between the top two candidates from the first round) may have some merit – it would prevent a town being represented in Parliament by someone who the majority of voters really hate.
In America the voting system forces coalitions to be made before elections. I like that.
Second it tends to provide political stability. I like that.
RAB:
If you are truly curious I will tell you the answer. I was pressed to do another task, but wanted to provide you with some information that you might find interesting or useful. As such, I quickly typed something, then pressed post, then as I was beginning to do something else, I had another though which I thought you might find useful, which I then proceeded to type up quickly. The same thing happened one more time, leading to three separate posts. (You’ll notice that all the posts contain separate, stand-alone thoughts, and are not just a rambling continuation of the same thought. I get the feeling that you didn’t really care for the answer though, but just wanted to take a cheap shot at me without having to consider (or rebut) anything that I had posted. Am I incorrect?
No I am not. Does that bother you? I fail to see what it has to do with anything.
Paul Marks:
Glad to see some people still have an idea about how one behaves in polite society. 🙂
You mistakenly assume that the Lib Dems would be the only fringe party with enough votes to matter. Perhaps P.R. would encourage the formation of other parties e.g. a Libertarian party/a classical Liberal party. A Libertarian party (which could actually win some seats) would also have the advantage of being able to present libertarian concepts and ideas to the population, and whereas at the moment, all the Libertarian votes go to whoever is “the least socialist,” or Libertarians don’t even bother to vote, a Libertarian party could help drive the political center to the right as all the “noncryptocommies” would be able to vote for a party which actually represents their ideas, and this could drive the other parties right in hopes of capturing some of those votes.
Anyways, even if this does not happen, I find that the best antidote to leftist stupidity amongst the electorate is having their policies implemented rapidly (i.e. not over an extended period of time) allowing the people to see the results of those policies.
I’m glad you like the runoff voting idea. 🙂
Does preferential voting work? Or is it just an opportunity for a worse mess? I see they seem to use it in Australia some.
Sorry to get back to you so late crypto…
Look Why do you have such a convoluted handle?
Mine is an acronym of my initials.
Your’s , subjectivly that you are a non communist, but for some reason, hiding out in fear of communists. Hence the Crypto bit. What exactly are you hiding?
When I said, accurately, that you are not from around here, I meant that you are trying to inform your grandmother how to suck eggs.
I live in the oldest democracy in the world. The way we do things here (that’s why I said you’re not from around here are you boy?) is to elect representatives of the people on a local basis. My MP is MY MP.
If he also ends up as a Cabinet Minister, or indeed the Prime Minister, all well and good. But he is still answerable to me and my vote.
Why do you wish all these odd voting systems on us?
We have heard them all and dislike them vehamently.
The only place that proportional representation gets a look in is in the European Elections.
Why?
Because nobody gives a shit about Europe. One half assed clown is much like another around here. The fact that most of us do not even know who our MEP is or how to get hold of him is of no consequence to us, because we know that they will go native almost immediately, unless they are UKIP. Hence they are shunned and distrusted.
The point most folk on this site would make is to see as little government as possible. Domestic and Global.
So I will continue to missname you Cryptononcomic because you have no sense of humour, any understanding of the British political system, and “Being from around here” really does matter when you discuss these things in a specific context.
This has been asked before, and not by me-
Where do you live now and where are you from originally.
Now we can stereotype or sympathise-Or both.
What would you prefer?
Well, so much for Cameron. Being endorsed by McCain is like a Jewish politician being endorsed by Hafez Assad.