This is now gonna get serious....

If there was 100% voter turn out in Catalunya the figures would be over 90% for independence .. and more than 90% in The Basque country when they are allowed the vote..

 

Well those that thought it was an "opinion poll" deserve what they've ended up with.

And those who "didn't know enough to decide" must feel the same when a general election comes around. As quite often do I. As indeed I did on the Brexit vote.

But that's democracy for you.

 

It's an interesting one, as if a Supermajority is required, that does effectively give the choices unequal weighting. Slightly off topic, but out of interest Mario, are you in favour of the current first past the post system or would you welcome a proportional system to make all votes worth the same? I personally think that fptp is no longer fit for purpose and that reform is long overdue.

 

I can see the merits of PR but I can also see that FPTP, in theory, gives a better chance of a stable majority government (ok so we don't exactly have a great example of this presently). PR is designed to give every vote equal representation. I'm not sure there is a perfect system as both have flaws in them. A FPTP system usually returns a centre left or centre right party to government whereas a PR system can give extreme politics a say when coalitions are formed.

As I said I think both have their merits but given the choice I think I'd stick with the current FPTP system.

 

If I'm completely honest though my judgement may be slightly clouded by my propensity to vote for one of the two main political parties. If I was a UKIP voter then I would almost certainly have changed my view. Especially after the 2015 general election.

 

JamDrop anyone who told you they thought it was basically an opinion poll is being disingenuous......Cameron clearly said the Govt would act on that decision...he and others spent more time on the referendum than on any other act of democracy the UK has ever seen...Osborne told us he would have to have an Emergency Budget the day after the vote...if it was out of course...every member of every political party that appeared in the media told the British public what this was about...I find it hard to believe that anyone seriously considered that it was no more than an opinion poll.

 

In Britain we seem to have a fundamental ideological allergy to the idea of coalition governments, viewing them as inherently unstable. However, most European countries seem to use proportional systems, with varying degrees of stability and success. In the days of multi party politics, the current system seems to skew things according to how geographically concentrated a party's support is. An obvious case in point is the number of SNP MP's relative to UKIP, the Greens, and even the Lib Dems. There is the argument that an advantage of FPTP is that it returns a local constituency MP who is answerable to people in the local area, but Germany uses a largely proportion system which still manages to get around this by having regional lists. It's not completely perfect, but it does seem to deliver a much fairer spread of MP's across the political spectrum, which in many ways is a good thing as far as checks and balances, and cross-party cooperation goes. But then as you quite rightly point out, there's the risk that extremist parties end up as kingmakers. The democrat in me shrugs, and says that under a truly democratic system, this is something that sometimes happens and we should know how to deal with it. The reality is however quite different. The DUP hold what I would consider to be quite extreme viewpoints on certain social issues. Viewpoints which in my opinion hold no place in the modern world. Currently their main aim seems to be securing extra funding for Northern Ireland, which is understandable and on the face of it not particularly sinister. But if they started trying to use abortion laws or the teaching of creationism in schools as a policy lever (unlikely, but theoretically possible), things could get quite tricky.

 

That's just not true. According to independent opinion polls, a large majority of catalonians support the holding of a proper referendum on the issue, well over 70%. However, the result with 100% turnout would be on a knife edge, with remain slightly in the lead in most polls. Referendums with a 90% majority usually only happen in places with poor democratic credentials, such as Crimea.

 

I heard tons of varying opinions from all sides and no sides of the debate. Some people really didn't care less, some cared loads, some thought they shouldn't vote as they didn't know what to decide, some thought there was no point voting as the government would do whatever they wanted anyway. I have an extremely varied circle of people as acquaintances from the paths my life has took me through.

 

The British Government (Labour) supported the Nigerian government against the Successionist Eastern Region Government (Biafra) with arms as well as political support. That resulted in over a million deaths. We should keep our beak out of it.

 

Yes you Tories should ..

 

You are right with regard to our beak.

It is fascinating to see how the SNP are dealing with this Catalan breakaway.

Let's be honest - these Barcelona types need a proper referendum like the Scots had.

If they vote to bugger off, then fair enough.

 

Along with Labour, Liberal etc.
A Tory opinion carries equally as little weight as any other in this instance.

 

Stable governments maybe, but you tend to find that the decisions they make get flip flopped, so the next government to come in just overturns the work done by the previous government.

With PR you tend to get coalitions who work cooperatively but slower and the decisions are more stable in the long term.

 

Good to see Potts coming on and having a great second half today.

 

Yep, pleased to hear that!

 

All well and good but I think Potts is a conscientious objector playing football with the weight of the world on his shoulders, which weighs him down and stops him from looking like he's 2 stone heavier than he actually is