- Jul 10, 2003
- 27,950
Of course not. There are also some (Johnson, JRM, Aaron Banks etc) hoping to make shedloads of money out of it
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[Albion] Brexit party handing out leaflets outside Falmer station..
- Thread starter Richy_Seagull
- Start date
Of course not. There are also some (Johnson, JRM, Aaron Banks etc) hoping to make shedloads of money out of it
No not all - just most of the ones I have met There isnt a single policy that makes sense politically , financially or morally . Eventhe governments own research suggests we will all be financially worse off - and there will not even be a tunnel - yet alone a light after we leave. Farage isnt stupid - i used to drink with him in the Irish bar in Place Du Luxemborg in Brussels and not even he thought it would get this far . So no not all brexiteers are stupid - but the support of Brexit is stupid as there is literally no upside in view .
My main gripe was Brexit and Brighton and Hove albion - the two should not be acquainted . Putting up posters at football matches for a right wing xenophobic party is really not clever at all - it could be construed as stupid possibly
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Nottseagull
Well-known member
That's seriously flawed because the population of Northern Ireland in 2016 comprised 2.8% of the UK, yet you've allocated 5% of seats to the DUP (and nothing to Sinn Fein, not to mention Plaid Cymru or the Green Party).
I think I worked out and posted here following the 2015 GE that in a pure PR system, the Greens should have won six seats.
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Pretty pink fairy
Banned
- Jan 30, 2008
- 31,981
Pretty pink fairy
Banned
- Jan 30, 2008
- 31,981
Pretty pink fairy
Banned
- Jan 30, 2008
- 31,981
Labour party = dead men walking
regards
DF
regards
DF
Pretty pink fairy
Banned
- Jan 30, 2008
- 31,981
D
Deleted member 2719
Guest
Did Ppf ask you to post on this thread to make him look relatively less stupid?
Because I think it may be working
Did you guys take a bit of a pasting at school
I worry for you both, insulting people all the time, is very sad.
If you need quite chat about your past, I am happy to oblige to help you in the future.
But this is a political thread.
Since when did I add politics to football
As a sensible poster....you compel me to reconsider my position....
Well my position is predicated by the time-honoured fact that PR allows minority parties to obtain seats and provide representation. For whom and to whom? Minority and vested opinion. Is that OK? Not when it includes racists and nazis. After all, it was PR in Germany that let Hitler in. It took quite a few elections to gain momentum (pun not intended) but the credibility of having a seat or two in the house is the springboard. Governments don't automatically get more stable and consensual in time with PR, they can get more extreme. This (getting his foot in the door) is a springboard (to mix metaphors) that the toad-faced spiv, Farage, has repeatedly failed to bounce on. FPTP has kept him out, precluding any credibility as a voice of 'reason' (or however he bills himself these days). (Being and MEP doesn't count because of the psychological dilutution and detatchment that comes from having a county (or double county) MEP as opposed to a proper local rep (I must confess I do not know what EU constituency I am in or who my MEP is, or what party he/she represents; but I digress)).
I would also say that any system where you don't vote directly for the talking head who you want as your rep is a poor system. If I were voting say for a small group of reps with, say, 3 votes to apply to a list of 15 candidates, four of whom (perhaps) were standing for my party of choice....knowing that in the previous election using this system we ended up with one of my four and two from other parties . . . .I might be inclined to say 'bollocks to this'. Perhaps PR is partly why turnout and interest are so poor for the elections in which it is used.
So that's what's bad about PR. But is there anything good? Well, you can design a system that provides a number of MP in exact proportion to the national vote which, on the face of it is fairer than the system we have now where getting 45% of the vote can get you 55% of the seats and a working majority. With that, I agree. However there are caveats....
......If we use PR and the outcome is 45% tory, 25% labour, 15% liberal, 5% Brexit, 5% DUP and 5% SNP, with let's say a 500 seat house, you'd then take forward (presumably from a prior published list) 225 tories, 125 labouries, 75 libdems, 25 Brexititties, 25 wee krankies and 25 no surrenderers. So to have a working majority, the tories would have to coalesce with two from the the three of Brexit, the DUP and the Libdems (or just the libdems). Well with this scenario, it could indeed force the tories to soften (and coalesce with the libs again - and that wen so well last time...). On the other hand they could of course go 'full mental jacket' and coalesce with Farrage and that horrible ulsterwoman with the disturbingly low hairline. I am not sure I'd call this a more gentle and stable political landscape.....
Another issue here is if you do PR properly fair (as above) on % support you have to delocalize representation and rely in a list. OK the list can be published, but who is going to read up on a lits of, say, 500 tories in order to consider the top 300 in published preference to see the weft of the likely blue bench after the outcome? I have only just enough time to check whether my local candidates are to be supported or actively opposed (I vote more often against one party han for another) and looking at a national list is a nonstarter.
So PR is great for retired geography teachers with plenty of time on their hands, but it is going to put a lot of others off. Turnout will fall. And in my view representation is far better with FPTP and a 70% turnout than some form of very fair PR and a 30% turnout. And, as I say, Farage will gain legitimacy and the credibility he needs to go to the next level if we use any sort of PR.
As a side issue, the idea of compulsory voting would of course mitigate gainst low turnout. However my guess is that it would pollute the election with noise or even unintended bias (I use the terms in their mathematical sense). Consider, we will soon be moving to online voting (bound to happen). If voting became compulsory this would be facilitated (laws would have to be made to make voting easier if it were compulsory - think of the housebound and the shiftworker). If I were made by law to vote when I was a lifelong nonvoter, or someone who thinks all the parties are shit at the moment, or even a bit of an awkward ******* like myself, when casting my PR vote for a selection of candidates off a list.....remember when the lottery started and 10 million people had to be told that selecting the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 would result in a very small jackpot.....countless voters would tick the first three names on the list. I probably would. I don't like PR for multiple reasons, and would not be bothered at all to muck about in a compulsory election.
I remember a TV programme where sociologists interviewed prisoners to get a better handle on their attitudes to help rehabilitation. The data came out as nonsense. At the end of the programme the lead researcher said along the lines of 'the one thing we didn't factor into the experimental design was the possibility the subjects might tell lies'. They were....prisoners. FFS. My point is: never underestimate the spikiness and resentfulness of a coerced British electorate.
No, I can't convince myself that the benefits of a parliament that exactly reflects the % of votes for each party (the only point of PR) outweighs all the downsides that come with it. But please rebut me if you will.
Every system has its flaws, voter apathy is the biggest issue to be dealt with. And needs addressing first. It should be compulsory to vote, with 'none of the above twats' as an option, if no twats win then so be it. Anarchy in the U.K. Or try again and be better.
Are you seriously questioning my argument against PR based on that?
You can rerun my calculations based on different figures. The outcome is the same - with FPTP electing a working majority government once you get above around a certain percentage that is less than 50% (say 42%), whereas you need more than 50% of the votes to get a working majority by PR, so most of the time you have a coalition.
And there is one thing none of us vote for when we vote in a GE - a coalition. We vote for a candidate or party. In PR, if you can vote for 3 or 4 candidates from a list you can of course mix and match according to your preferred coalition arrangement - say 2 Tory and one Libdem. But that won't be reflected nationally so you won't get what you want. Probably not even locally. You need to win to get what you want, and the more complicated your preference the less likely you'll win. But people won't mix and match between parties, on the whole, will they? So in PR almost nobody gets what they voted for, unless there is a landslide, in which case all of those who voted for other parties are 'disenfranchised'. Like in FPTP.
It really is a zero sum equation, and those who imagine some sort of idealised word with PR and coalitions will be disappointed. It is an illusion. Like perpetual motion machines and cold fusion.
The Clamp
Well-known member
Did you guys take a bit of a pasting at school
I worry for you both, insulting people all the time, is very sad.
If you need quite chat about your past, I am happy to oblige to help you in the future.
But this is a political thread.
Since when did I add politics to football
Pathetic.
The Clamp
Well-known member
Thankfully, yes it does.
D
Deleted member 2719
Guest
Nottseagull
Well-known member
Disappointing response. It was a complete waste of your time (but not mine, as I've not read beyond the opening sentence). Which do you think was the easier, simply quoting your (huge) post or taking the trouble to edit out the parts which weren't relevant to my reply?
I only read the first third, made my post, then my tea. I still haven't read the rest, so I didn't even know you had come down on one side or t'other!
Disappointing response. It was a complete waste of your time (but not mine, as I've not read beyond the opening sentence). Which do you think was the easier, simply quoting your (huge) post or taking the trouble to edit out the parts which weren't relevant to my reply?
I only read the first third, made my post, then my tea. I still haven't read the rest, so I didn't even know you had come down on one side or t'other!
I know people are getting fed up with abuse on NSC but...
You are a gold plated idiot.
You are innumerate.
You are the sort of person who should be subjected to lab tests before being allowed a vote.
****. And.... on ignore.
Hampster Gull
Well-known member
- Dec 22, 2010
- 13,465
Haven’t read the debate that drove this so not really commenting on that but on PR itself. For me PR is not panacea for our many political woes but its about representation. Too many people know their votes don’t directly count in a FPP. So many people talking to me about how they are trying to game their vote in this election. We have a fragmented political system now and FPTP isn’t coping. But with the two main parties having the most to lose I’m not holding my breath t o see this in my lifetime, although I am in a fortunate position this time to be in one of the hotly contested seats and with the party I will vote for in the mix.
Pretty pink fairy
Banned
- Jan 30, 2008
- 31,981
- Apr 13, 2015
- 3,884
But but but..... they must have some love for them... coming 3rd in the MEP elections in B&H... thousands more voted for them than Labour and Conservatives.
So not that unwelcome according to the stats..... whatever your view, they are surely allowed to campaign, are they not?
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
Just a garble of insults and nastiness, perhaps early onset dementia, go see your doctor, it might only be blood pressure.