All politicians look slimy.
Douglas Carswell quitting UKIP
- Thread starter dowie
- Start date
All politicians look slimy.
Depends, if the stance of the MP doesn't change (and leaving a party doesn't necessarily change that) then it doesn't matter what the parties manifesto is. Again, you should have voted based on your MP's views and what they campaigned for, subsequently you are represented by that MP in parliament. It's the reason we have a FPTP system, not a party PR system.
If we had the latter then I would agree with you, but we don't. Parties are essentially an easy way to group MP's together with similar mindsets. It's the same reason May got away with becoming PM without a national vote, she is essentially just a glorified representative elected by a group of MP's.
You didn't vote Conservative, Labour, UKIP etc at the last GE. You voted for a person to represent you. If you thought you were voting for a specific party/PM then you need to look up how our system works. (In essence the system does kind of work as a party proxy vote, but that's only because the current system only has two major parties. If there were more parties it's quite conceivable - as seen in other countries - the party with the most MP's wouldn't get a seat in government because they couldn't get as many MP's from different parties in a coalition).
As much as in theory your last paragraph is how it should work we all know that the majority of people vote based on which party they represent. if they didn't far more Independent candidates would win.
There are safe seats like where I live where it doesn't matter who the party puts forward as a candidate, they will always win purely because they are a Tory. In this case, after the last MP retired, the Tories shipped some young Venture capitalist from down south which nobody had ever heard of and he still won (despite being the son of an immigrant and people round here hate immigrants"
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 11,704
- Location
- Surrey
Yup.
It does annoy me that voting for your MP here is closer to supporting your flavour of football team, rather than the individual that represents you. People bicker and argue whose side is better and recall back to major players and their performance in power as if they were referencing top strikers in past tournaments.
In which case there needs to be a concerted effort to actually teach people how our system actually works, or we should actually change it to the system people think it is.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 11,704
- Location
- Surrey
If they changed it to the system people think it is, then the system will cater only politicians who dance their parties tunes and are not willing to break away from the flock to represent a different view or policy. Might as well get rid of MPs full stop and just have the party leaders whose power reflect the constituencies that side with the party...
The problem of this political system lies mainly with the voters, though we are not as bad as America when it comes to loyally following a party like it was a sports team, regardless of performance or policy.
Won't make any difference to a lot of regions. Even if they thought the other candidates party was the better man, said the right things etc they would never vote for them as it might mean that party might become the government. Same applies for both Tories and Labour.
You very often get people who have voted one party all their life. That can't be because their party's candidate has happened to be the best MP for that region. At best if they really object they dont vote election.
And I agree, the voting system needs reforming and should be PR. But we had a referendum on that (although the alternative voting system put forward wasnt my preferred choice) and the public said no, keep it as it is.
No they don't. Politicians will do anything to chase any vote.
I know I voted for the individual I'm not stupid so there is no need to treat me like I am. However if the individual was a member of a party as almost all are then I also voted for that party and I personally believe any mp who changes his or her party affiliation should give the electorate in the constituency the chance to back them or sack them. It is to bigger change for me to believe it is right to assume the constituency would still back you I do see the difference in this case as he is becoming an independent which is very different to taking another parties whip which would inevitably change his position on many things. If my local mp joined any other party I would want him out as if he took the whip for them which he would have to then he couldn't possibly still represent me or the policies which won him the seat.
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Oct 2006
- Posts
- 8,537
Exactly, they voted to keep it as it is, and in return that means an MP should be able to quit a party and not have to call a by-election.. Can't have it both ways.
Strictly speaking the country didn't say they didn't want it to change, only that they preferred FPTP to the AV system that was proposed, AV will never be PR and it was far more complicated (to the layman) than FPTP so it's not surprising that it didn't carry the vote.
As a 'supporter' of UKIP I'm neither happy nor unhappy to see Carswell go, he leant his support when it was required and now that UKIP has essentially achieved what it set out to do he's moving on, as too will a great many of UKIPs voters.