The Labour Party

I'd be quite happy for them to limp into power - even in partnership with others - if it got rid of the present bunch of clowns and thieves.

Re your earlier plug for PR, I'd be all in favour of that. But the public would still need to vote for it, and when it was put to them in 2011 the alternative vote method was rejected by 2:1. So there'd have to have been a sizeable shift in opinion.

 

Not wanting to go Trumpesque but Labour really do need to drain the swamp. Cuts across the whole vote Labour stuff beautifully. Vote for scumbags like him? That’s a hard no.

 

Why would you think that the public need to vote for it? We have a govt to make decisions. If there were a coalition and say 3 of the 4 coalition partners had it in their manifesto then you would have a mandate.

The alternative vote method was a joke. Even long time supporters of PR like myself didn’t vote for it. Cameron managed to outfox Clegg which admittedly isn’t hard.

 

I'd have a referendum on PR, but between types of PR (D'Hondt, STV, etc) and the size of the reformed constituencies - you can't have PR with one MP in each of 650 constituencies, they would need combining into larger groupings. Personally I'd go along county lines with maybe 10-15 MPs per county but not particularly bothered what way they go. Although ideally, at the same time, I'd reduce Westminster to 200, ditch mostly the HoL and have a ~400 seat England Parliament based in Birmingham or Manchester as the second devolved tier for England and give each of the devolved Parliaments a veto just to stop any of the current shenanigans.

So basically PR would be a fait accompli, but the public would be able to pick how PR was implemented.

 

So something else that was better but not perfect, so you didn't vote for it?

Government mandate states everyone must pay an extra £10 council tax by Friday unless they fill in a form, in which case it's only £5. Are you going to fill in the form, or ignore it on principle?

 

It's a major constitutional change. You couldn't possibly introduce it without a referendum. To place it on your manifesto would risk harming your election prospects on the back of a single issue - and there are many other problems.

I'm amazed you didn't vote for it. Wouldn't a bit of PR have been better than nowt?

 

Time for a politics sub-forum on here.

 

That's exactly the treatment I and many others got from the Corbynites after he was elected as leader. "**** off and join the Lib Dems" was the particular phrase that rings a bell. It was used so frequently it might has well have been a party strap-line.

 

No it isn’t, No-one makes you contribute to a thread. I don’t post in threads that I have no interest in, such as golf for example

 

Some people are just teed-off with it all.

 

The Labour party have become the most depressing entity imaginable. In fighting at a time when we have a Government that imo will have no problem with using the power they currently have to rig the system to make sure that cannot lose it.

People should be able to vote in a way that answers the question "is this party / candidate most aligned with my views?", unfortunately, given the current Government, I think the question you ask yourself when voting is "would voting this way make it more or less likely that a tory wins the seat?"

 

Yes exactly that.

 

Well you should know then it’s a stupid approach.

 

No it was a terrible system. I suspect PR will be in the manifesto of Greens / LibDems / SNP so 3 out of 4 coalition partners alongside 80% of Labour members.

Any referendum would be around what type of PR not about PR itself. Like anything else the govt can pursue policies it sees fit. Johnson and his cabal have just changed voter eligibility rules. Don’t recall a referendum on that. We don’t have a constitution to change.

 

replacing a poor system with something that’s even worse is not progress. No offence but if you had compared the different Electoral systems available you would know the one proposed is uniformly terrible. It was ok’d by Cameron on the basis that he knew no sensible person would vote in favour.

 

I think we're done Jimmy, neither is going to persuade the other.

I'll just leave it with let's say the Greens outstrip all expectations and end up with 20 seats at the election coming in the next year or two. What will that acheive (in a short term, realist fashion)? Nothing. We'll have five more years of this current government not even trying to hide their levels of corruption.

We both agree PR is desperately required. It's a stated aim for Momentum as a faction of Labour at conference.

This is where my whole argument started - the entire thing was satirised perfectly by Monty Python in the Life of Brian, various factions who want the same thing but can't agree on small variations to overcome the greater foe.

You say your politics and Labour's are c. 20%, but Green is around 70%. I don't really understand how that can be so. I also believe the Greens to be in a Clegg-era Lib Dem position of being able to say a lot about what they'd do, without fear of ever actually having to implement any of it (which is why I rated Corbyn, the costing of manifesto was excellent).

I dunno, that's my opinion anyway.

 

No worries. I think our basic difference is that I don’t vote out of hate. Been there. Done that. Voted for the least worst to keep out the tories. Now I only vote for hope. It’s time that we all stopped living in hatred and fear and just made strong arguments for the things we believe in rather than thinking things can never change.

 

It's a good outlook on life. I think the main problem is that Britain is basically about 55% small c conservative, so the Tories will have an easy time getting in, especially with their various gerrymandering over the years.

It then is made more problematic by the way that the right tend to work on a 'strong leader' model, with a party mentality of supporting that leader regardless, whereas the left tends toward democracy and consensus, which is really hard to reach anyway, and even harder to agree upon of you're looking to use it to win an election!

 

I think that's a bang-on analysis.

 

On the last GE, it was around 45% small c conservative, and about 55% left-of-centre -> Hard left. But the centre/left split the vote and gave all the power with well under hand the vote.

Another problem is the change of the "traditional seats". Towns like Barnsley are now less Labour and more Tory - while cities are going the other way and rural areas are going LibDem...