Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2010
- Posts
- 5,210
- Location
- Southampton
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Except we will get a referendum on Europe before then and if we stay in ukip are as done as your bessie mate was today
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Yeah but the Tories managed to successfully exploit people's fears of a Lab/SNP coalition to win seats in England. The SNP were delighted to push those buttons too.
As he was entitled and socially obligated to do it's not like those fears didn't have any basis.
Except we will get a referendum on Europe before then and if we stay in ukip are as done as your bessie mate was today
Pretty much why i feel my first vote in a general election was wasted. Not a fair system.
I only I'm only a freelancer, but here's me sticking my oar in...
Stop me I'm wrong, but us Brits tend to vote for policies that reflect the social position we would like to occupy rather than the one we actually do occupy. For instance, the vast majority of people in the UK would never be affected by Labour policies such as a mansion tax, the 50% tax rate, and the abolition of non-dom status, but we felt they flew in the face of our sense of aspiration, which has been a key driver in British voter behaviour over the last 30-40 years. Thatcher was a genius at tapping into it, Blair was also pretty slick at this. John Major and Gordon Brown much less so. Miliband's attempt get elected on a platform of policies that weren't aimed at this sense of aspiration but at the idea of making Britain a fairer place has, I believe, been his downfall.
One thing I would say about the election result is that for the talk of "triumph" by the press, the Tory majority is wafer-thin - only 12 seats. Historically governments with such low majorities - Atlee in 1950, Wilson in 1964 and 1974, and, of course, John Major in 1992 - all ended up as weak and ineffectual and unable to implement much of their manifesto pledges. It will be fascinating to see how Cameron's government deals with such intractable issues as a new UK constitutional settlement and the referenda on the EU and (potentially) Scotland given that its majority is so small.
Interesting times...
To be honest, it's your darling Labour Party and the Tories that have perpetuated the misuse of FPTP over the last few years as it suits them both.
FPTP originates in the mid to late 19th century and was refined a couple of times but was in no way ever intended to be a fair voting system. My God, read up on the original ideas in the mid 1880's and you'll see that this is better than what was, but is far from ideal.
What the cockadoodledoo is wrong with every vote being as important as any other? FPTP leaves our so called democratic system open to 1990's Blair style Gerrymandering which simply couldn't happen under PR.
Look at one party getting 56 MPs for 1.5m votes while another party gets 1 MP for 4m votes. Scandalous is what it would be called in any other walk of life.
Food for thought.
EDIT: Just laughing my head off thinking of that Blackadder episode with Baldrick standing in the rotten borough. Scotland seems like 56 of those rotten boroughs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs
I haven't read this thread - it's too long!
So disappointed with it all to be honest. I voted UKIP. Over 4 million votes equates to just 1 seat?! Perhaps I'm too young or un-educated
Your vile venom shows what a horrible little man you are. Crying? you ****ing wish, it's at worst bitter-sweet for me and your smugness is bizarre and foolish because Labour and Lib-dems utterly crumbled and your precious Greens went absolutely nowhere, even your commie buddy in arms George Golloway lost his seat in a spectacular fashion, how i howled with laughter when that happened. The left of politics took an absolute beating last night and out of our opposing ideologies, you had the worst night in decades.
UKIP may have not had the night they were hoping for, but they did far from badly, in terms of vote share, the number of people voting for them and the number of 2nd and 3rd places they went from non-existence to now being the new 3rd party in the UK in just 5 years. I hope Farage gets re-elected now just to **
** you off. And UKIP is in a great position for the next election.
I'm glad the Tories got in on a majority because it means 5 years of winding up socialists![]()
it seems to be that most Labour voters are just upset that their benefits and free stuff are likely to be taken away. I suppose that kinda says it all.
I don't think you understand the modern Labour-voting demographic.