[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[Sid and the Sharknados]

There is an infinity of mischief to be had.

He would double down on persecuting diversity, for starters.

No, I don't want ****s like that anywhere near parliament, let alone the cabinet.

They laughed at Hitler......

I mean, there have been far more overtly extreme people than Farage elected to the House of Commons. I don't like him, and would never vote for him, but the idea that FPTP is a catch all barrier against extremism falls apart the moment you apply any thought to it.
He could get elected if he chose to join the Conservatives and stand as an MP for them, but he can't deal with a situation that requires responsibility or dealing with other people (and nobody wants to deal with him in that sort of situation) so he sits on the outside pissing in. He'd never be appointed as a minister for the same reason.

 

[beorhthelm]

It which General Elections have RW parties totalled 50% or more of the vote?

2015 if we count the Unionists. and what did that lead to?

moreover, if we had PR the make up of parties would change, existing ones likely splinter and we'd have alternating center left/center right coalitions, with occasional sprinkling of fringe. popularist leaders of parties with 25-35 of the vote would be PM. this of course would be very positive. support PR for the process not for the anticipated outcome.

 

[chickens]

Taking this to what (I think) is the right thread. For those who lay all the blame for the Conservatives on our media, I’m less convinced. I’m not sure that newspapers are fooling anyone.

I believe people think, well, public services are nice, but I’d rather have another grand in my pocket, then I can afford private healthcare and jump the NHS queues. Or send my kids to private school.

My personal view is that the “misled by media” narrative is what a lot of those on the left want to think, but I’m not certain there’s any evidence for it.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

2015 if we count the Unionists. and what did that lead to?

moreover, if we had PR the make up of parties would change, existing ones likely splinter and we'd have alternating center left/center right coalitions, with occasional sprinkling of fringe. popularist leaders of parties with 25-35 of the vote would be PM. this of course would be very positive. support PR for the process not for the anticipated outcome.

To be fair, alternating centre left/right coalitions probably is a more productive way of governing a country than alternating between an outright right wing and an outright left wing government.

In reality, the whole reason why people always end up complaining that there's no real alternative to whoever's in power at the time is that at any given moment there's only a relatively narrow band on the political spectrum that most people consider acceptable. Most of the time we essentially do alternate between centre left and right coalitions, we just don't recognise it as such because they're labelled as whole parties.

I'm much more concerned by the threat of entryism into one of those parties dragging them to the right or left while they're in power than I am with a relatively extreme party forming part of a coalition under a PR system. It's much easier in the latter scenario for the rest of the coalition to say "you know what mate, we've had enough of this" than it is for the centrists in either Labour or the Conservatives to deal with a group dragging their party to either extreme.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Taking this to what (I think) is the right thread. For those who lay all the blame for the Conservatives on our media, I’m less convinced. I’m not sure that newspapers are fooling anyone.

I believe people think, well, public services are nice, but I’d rather have another grand in my pocket, then I can afford private healthcare and jump the NHS queues. Or send my kids to private school.

My personal view is that the “misled by media” narrative is what a lot of those on the left want to think, but I’m not certain there’s any evidence for it.

Not a newspaper but an election leaflet where the words 'The Conservatives say' has been omitted. I could find dozens of similar misleading items and articles.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Majorities would be a thing of the past.

We would have a coalition, with Farage in the cabinet.

So after decades of stopping Farage being a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for them, one of the new Conservative parties (presumably the ERG one) are going to say 'I know, let's put Farage in our cabinet'.

It's just lucky that the ERG and Nige have managed to get a sufficient majority over Corbyn's 'True Socialists', The Greens, SNP, Lib Dem's, Starmer's left centrists and Stewart's right centrists combined in order to form a Government.

Or we would have a Corbyn/SWP coalition with Callinicos in the cabinet.

But that would be far fetched wouldn't it

 

[CHAPPERS]

Benton has lost his appeal. Tories going to lose power one by byelection at a time.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Benton has lost his appeal. Tories going to lose power one by byelection at a time.

 

[A1X]

Roll up, roll up...

 

[beorhthelm]

Taking this to what (I think) is the right thread. For those who lay all the blame for the Conservatives on our media, I’m less convinced. I’m not sure that newspapers are fooling anyone.

I believe people think, well, public services are nice, but I’d rather have another grand in my pocket, then I can afford private healthcare and jump the NHS queues. Or send my kids to private school.

My personal view is that the “misled by media” narrative is what a lot of those on the left want to think, but I’m not certain there’s any evidence for it.

media is primarily in the business of selling what people want to read (to sell advertising - that's where the money is coming from). they'll be biased of course but there's a lot of people who have views that media simply reinforce rather than tell them what to think. there's also a free press, nothing to stop new media outlets targeting any political views. except the money maybe, not a receptive or lucrative audience, back to the first point.

 

[Bob!]

Benton has lost his appeal. Tories going to lose power one by byelection at a time.

He's already sitting as an Independent, so they'd already lost that bit of their majority.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

So after decades of stopping Farage being a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for them, one of the new Conservative parties (presumably the ERG one) are going to say 'I know, let's put Farage in our cabinet'.

It's just lucky that the ERG and Nige have managed to get a sufficient majority over Corbyn's 'True Socialists', The Greens, SNP, Lib Dem's, Starmer's left centrists and Stewart's right centrists combined in order to form a Government.

Or we would have a Corbyn/SWP coalition with Callinicos in the cabinet.

But that would be far fetched wouldn't it

Any coalition government of left or right would need the collaboration of parties from the far left and far right, respectively. This could very easily put an extremist into the cabinet. It is how it works in Israel.

But if you want to risk it, and imagine PR would deliver us a hegemony of fluffy centrist governments, with perhaps some new parties such as New Conservative, and New Labour, holding hands and singing Kumbaya with some Greens and Liberals, fill your boots. Campaign away.

You can mock me all you like for backing PR. You can come back and say 'told you so' when the system is changed to PR. You may have to hold a séance to get in touch with me, though

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Any coalition government of left or right would need the collaboration of parties from the far left and far right, respectively. This could very easily put an extremist into the cabinet. It is how it works in Israel.

But if you want to risk it, and imagine PR would deliver us a hegemony of fluffy centrist governments, with perhaps some new parties such as New Conservative, and New Labour, holding hands and singing Kumbaya with some Greens and Liberals, fill your boots. Campaign away.

You can mock me all you like for backing PR. You can come back and say 'told you so' when the system is changed to PR. You may have to hold a séance to get in touch with me, though

I like you, have spent my adult life defending the positives of our current electoral system. That it provides certain governments, you avoid backroom deals and that you avoid the need to reach agreement on what the alternative would look like.

But I was wrong. FPTP has given allowed the biggest bunch of clowns in modern political history to govern near unchallenged for as long as I can remember. I'm sick of it and any backroom deal struck between Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems and whoever can't produce worse results or a greater sense of paralysis than we currently have now

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I like you, have spent my adult life defending the positives of our current electoral system. That it provides certain governments, you avoid backroom deals and that you avoid the need to reach agreement on what the alternative would look like.

But I was wrong. FPTP has given allowed the biggest bunch of clowns in modern political history to govern near unchallenged for as long as I can remember. I'm sick of it and any backroom deal struck between Labour, the SNP, the Lib Dems and whoever can't produce worse results or a greater sense of paralysis than we currently have now

Keep the faith. Johnson was an aberration, and has triggered a madness in the tory party.

Starmer, by comparison, seems dull and desiccated through the current lens of perception, which is still based on the Johnson rollercoaster (that many still hanker for). But we will see that he's what we need, and we will get what we need.

Changing the system because we don't like the outcome is not the right way.

 

[Gwylan]

Johnson would have followed the way the wind was blowing, and become one of those one nation conservatives though.

Johnson's main political instinct is Johnson first and then see what follows. But, insofar as he does have political beliefs, he's more on the liberal wing of the party. He wanted an amnesty for illegal immigrants when he was Mayor of London and he was very pro-EU before there was a political advantage in being anti. I think he'd be more One Nation than ERG head banger.

 

[chickens]

media is primarily in the business of selling what people want to read (to sell advertising - that's where the money is coming from). they'll be biased of course but there's a lot of people who have views that media simply reinforce rather than tell them what to think. there's also a free press, nothing to stop new media outlets targeting any political views. except the money maybe, not a receptive or lucrative audience, back to the first point.

Except, of course, that nobody is going to advertise in a newspaper where views are expressed that are adverse to an advertiser’s viewpoint.

It would be far harder, I can’t help but feel, to start a newspaper where the views are largely “we, the population, are being royally shafted” than it would be to start a paper where the views expressed are “everything’s exactly as it should be, except for those loony lefties, what mad nonsense are they on about now?”

 

[WATFORD zero]

Any coalition government of left or right would need the collaboration of parties from the far left and far right, respectively. This could very easily put an extremist into the cabinet. It is how it works in Israel.

But if you want to risk it, and imagine PR would deliver us a hegemony of fluffy centrist governments, with perhaps some new parties such as New Conservative, and New Labour, holding hands and singing Kumbaya with some Greens and Liberals, fill your boots. Campaign away.

You can mock me all you like for backing PR. You can come back and say 'told you so' when the system is changed to PR. You may have to hold a séance to get in touch with me, though

I certainly wouldn't mock you at all for backing PR. I'm just pleased my arguments have won you over and somewhat surprised at how little alcohol was involved

 

[A1X]

 

[Machiavelli]

2015 if we count the Unionists. and what did that lead to?

moreover, if we had PR the make up of parties would change, existing ones likely splinter and we'd have alternating center left/center right coalitions, with occasional sprinkling of fringe. popularist leaders of parties with 25-35 of the vote would be PM. this of course would be very positive. support PR for the process not for the anticipated outcome.

Who are you counting as 'right'? Tories only managed 36.9% of those that voted (66%). The other parties would have to be doing some heavy lifting to get beyond the half-way point.

 

[Machiavelli]

media is primarily in the business of selling what people want to read (to sell advertising - that's where the money is coming from). they'll be biased of course but there's a lot of people who have views that media simply reinforce rather than tell them what to think. there's also a free press, nothing to stop new media outlets targeting any political views. except the money maybe, not a receptive or lucrative audience, back to the first point.

I think there's something in what @chickens says (Sun and Mail readers tend to be less loyal to the editorial party line than other papers). But the media (or press, which is what I'm talking about) really isn't 'primarily in the business of selling what people want to read'. If they did, why is it so many moguls run the press at a loss, and that they all seem to have a remarkably consistent viewpoint on economics?