The average constituency is 70,000 people. I assume you donāt know all of them.Even the local neighbourhood watch group for B38 is all voting reform and majority saying not Labour, they'll ruin the countryis it not ruined already?
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[Politics] General Election 2024 - 4th July
- Thread starter Bozza
- Start date
- Apr 5, 2014
- 26,331
It's a bit like those who said same sex weddings would destroy the sanctity of marriage somehow forgetting that straight folk had been making a damn good job of doing that for centuries.Even the local neighbourhood watch group for B38 is all voting reform and majority saying not Labour, they'll ruin the country
One of the best posts on this thread.
Thereās been a move on social media by the right towards what has been named shitstalga
Things change. Always have. And often because the old things were fundamentally flawed.
portlock seagull
Well-known member
- Jul 28, 2003
- 17,929
Sunak tonight saying ā24hrs to save countryā, like he and his party havenāt actually had 14 years?Even the local neighbourhood watch group for B38 is all voting reform and majority saying not Labour, they'll ruin the country
Also, Johnsonās father declaring heās voting Lib Dem tactically. Well, maybe you wouldnāt have to if your son hadnāt devastated the country? A worse PM there hasnāt been in our entire history.
In a different age, both would have been taken to the scaffold in the next few days to be properly and permanently axed!
BBassic
I changed this.
- Jul 28, 2011
- 13,202
Big fan of 'shitstalgia' as a term. It's up there with 'enshittification'
oldboyroy
Well-known member
Of course not., just the 1s who are prepared to say who they are voting for!
Truss!
It does seem that FPTP keeps the devil off your shoulder which is needed and is enjoyable in this particular election. The issue is, it also eviscerates the attractive angel perched on your other shoulder. An issue, I might add, that is not particularly evident in our current situation.FPTP you say? I like the sound of that outcome. I will have to look it up to see what FPTP means. I have spent much of the day worrying about all sorts of strange voting rubrics, AVSU, Third preference, The Gush.....it is all confusing.
If I vote for someone and they get the most votes, it means they win, right? People keep telling me this is wrong and immoral.
I am going to make a stand and say, no, I think it is appropriate. So there.
Now, I am going to look up FPTP and see if that has any merit.
Thanks for cheering me up
However, pure PR is just as brutal but in a different way. Having grappled and sometimes tamed embryonic political careers for over a decade, I do believe in a system of least worse. Not a race as such with a winner, but rather, an affirmation of what could be tolerated, in decending order.
So whilst FPTP will save us from the toad faced bag of fags, some pretty little idealistic green fairies have been stamped on in the processā¦.
Time to google AVSU
But you donāt know everyone in a 70.000 wide community whoās said who theyāre voting for, right?
Machiavelli
Well-known member
Nice response, but I'll carry on using it. You're invoking 20C episodes there, which were undoubtedly horrific. Not so sure 'the centre' necessarily helped with the lead up to either of those, but I'm less concerned about that point, and am more concerned that:
-- centrism isn't a 'thing', it moves all the time (what was it in 1948, 1982, 2006, 2016 and 2022, for instance? is it the same in Brazil, Bhutan and Britain?, etc) and anyone that thinks they can identify it is kidding themselves
-- it is deployed to shut down alternatives, and the shutting down of alternatives also constitutes a threat to or diminution of democracy
-- it's also used to ward off change; this is sometimes fine, but at other times -- like when things are broken, when long-held ideas, values and policies have proven that they no longer work (any of this sound familiar?) -- warding off change stores up problems that can become more explosive when they play out
That said, the majority identify with/as the centre, but I'll plough on with the Sisyphean task.
Nicely put.It does seem that FPTP keeps the devil off your shoulder which is needed and is enjoyable in this particular election. The issue is, it also eviscerates the attractive angel perched on your other shoulder. An issue, I might add, that is not particularly evident in our current situation.
However, pure PR is just as brutal but in a different way. Having grappled and sometimes tamed embryonic political careers for over a decade, I do believe in a system of least worse. Not a race as such with a winner, but rather, an affirmation of what could be tolerated, in decending order.
So whilst FPTP will save us from the toad faced bag of fags, some pretty little idealistic green fairies have been stamped on in the processā¦.
Time to google AVSU
The caveat is this. Little angels are lovely. But to have impact they need to achieve Power. It is no good having them as pretty ornaments, back benchers in a tiny cluster.
Who was that excellent liberal bloke, who was really insightful, in the coalition? Earlier, he was the only coherent opponent of the 'war' in Iraq (I disagreed with him only 55% which means he was very coherent). Because the Liberals did not have an overall majority, his wisdom and humanity were wasted. And labour had that MP who died recently. A man of principle who voted against his party (not Corbyn, he's still alive apparently). Sadly I forget both the names, which says something perhaps.
Politics like football is a team game. You've seen that mocking vid: "Rashford, pass it, pass it, pass it, pass it, pass it, ......... twat". And....not in the England squad. Fancy that.
I'm not saying that the occasional Green and Liberal can't be a diamond. You had one in Brighton with Caroline Lucas. But where's the team?
I cannot think of a system that generates an elected candidate, elected on merit, that is better than FPTP. Letting individual angels in by the back door (of AV voting or whatever) is gesture politics when the party of the angels is not supported across the UK and the rest of their candidates are toast. Lucas got in on merit. Let the rest pass the same test. To date they have failed.
(I am volunteering to an afternoon in a pub with you and anyone else who thinks it is worthwhile persuading me to change my mind about FPTP and if persuade would promise to join the crusado for electoral reform. I will always back a sound notion that I can defend. But only if there is a way I can do so coherently.)
clapham_gull
Legacy Fan
- Aug 20, 2003
- 25,968
- Apr 5, 2014
- 26,331
Shitstalgia is rife in the things I look at. I adore old pictures of the UK, but especially Brighton. Yet you have to endure shitstalgia in abundance.
It's like the days of Janet and John were really a thing. The wistful retro-bias in people is only a reflection of being unable to cope with age. Of course the 70s were better- because I was a kid who didn't have a shit job (actually I have a rather good one, but anyway) didn't have to think about bills, future health and all the people I was closest to would still be alive.
In one of our late Friday wind downs I was a chatting with my boss about all this. We concluded that, as always, things always lay in between where truth is concerned. The society we live in now is probably the most enlightened in history, most socially conscious, but also the most intense. I think we need take a little bit from every era to form our utopia.
portlock seagull
Well-known member
- Jul 28, 2003
- 17,929
Nope, not by a long shot compared to Johnson and the damage he did before during and even after. A special place awaits in hell for him and his kid. Largely acknowledged as THE worst PM of all time too.
portlock seagull
Well-known member
- Jul 28, 2003
- 17,929
They need to get off the fence
So who do they suggest we support? The riddle of the Rolex?
Charles Kennedy? I liked him.
ManOfSussex
We wunt be druv
Thursday's national newspaper front pages
Sky News takes a look at the stories making the headlines on Thursday's national newspaper front pages.
ManOfSussex
We wunt be druv
The Daily Mail? Arguably the best newspaper in the world - Alan Partridge
Not having that. I'm 66 and not in great health. I hate the present incarnation of the Tories, regard Brexit as ****ish self harm, and worry about our kids.
And yet . . . this is definitely the finest time for the most people to have been/be alive. Me included. I love it. There is nothing from the past I want to put in my Tardis and transport to now. Certainly not my regrets.
(But I like to look at the past and fish out joy from recollection. I'll never resurrect the absolute babe magnet and risk-taking winner I once was, but that's probably for the best
)