The Reform Party

[Surfer 1,547]

We may need to define gerrymandering. The term originated in Massachusetts when the Democratic Party governor adjusted the outline if constituency boundaries to capture more Irish Catholic voters than Anglo Protestant ones to improve his odds of getting elected. The outline looked like a salamander hence Gerry's  "gerrymander" 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/what-is-gerrymandering.html

This is a huge problem in the US as each State's legislative body has the authority to set the constituency boundaries, so once a party has control it can adjust these boundaries to favor their candidates in future elections. This re-drawing of boundaries happens every 10 years following the US Census, as the number of representative in Congress is driven by the number of voters in each State. 

Some States have assigned authority to independent commissions, but political party control is still more prevalent unfortunately. 

[Surfer 1,547]

18 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

We had a referendum in 2011 between FPTP and AV. Great. The two methods that can be gerrymandered. Single transferable vote or mixed-member representation is probably the better option.

There was a referendum on Brexit too. Doesn't mean the electorate fully understood the issue, and can't be asked again. The last UK general election being a perfect example of where the exist FPTP system is screwed up 🙂

Do not understand the gerrymander comment, perhaps you could amplify that point? 

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

27 minutes ago, Surfer said:

There was a referendum on Brexit too. Doesn't mean the electorate fully understood the issue, and can't be asked again. The last UK general election being a perfect example of where the exist FPTP system is screwed up 🙂

Do not understand the gerrymander comment, perhaps you could amplify that point? 

Re. the gerrymandering side, your problem is essentially this: when people have to start tactically voting, or move away from a party that's closest to their ideals when it comes to issuing their vote, then people will ipso facto start wondering how others will vote instead of focusing on what they want. Not to mention politicians tend to want the opposite of voters in that they want safe seats, whereas voters want something more competitive.

If you can draw such boundaries and group voters together, you can literally determine who goes where. That's why MMP strikes me as a particularly useful method - you can select a politician at a local level, and a party overall. At that point you can follow your own preferences and convictions far more without the spoiler effect inherent in both FPTP and AV.

Throw in Swiss elements of more direct democracy (the public initiative and indeed the ability to put newly passed laws to referendum if 50,000 signatures are collected within 100 days of the law being passed), and you not only have a more representative model in place, but you also have more tools for the populace to keep their political elites in some degree of line.

Those are the problems we groan under, both in the UK and US. Our parties are not that representative, and we have few tools to keep them in check.

 

[Surfer 1,547]

OK I agree that the ability to choose your own constituency boundary is wrong - gerrymandering - but in UK that does not happen does it? At least boundaries are not under the direct control of the government party? 

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

46 minutes ago, Surfer said:

OK I agree that the ability to choose your own constituency boundary is wrong - gerrymandering - but in UK that does not happen does it? At least boundaries are not under the direct control of the government party? 

No, we do have the Boundary Commission, but the problem remains in a slightly different way in the UK, namely force concentration. The finest example was the 2015 General Election where UKIP got over twice as many votes as the Scottish National Party (SNP), but the SNP got 56 seats to UKIP's 1. Even in this latest election, the Tories got well under half the votes, but well over half the seats!

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/its-not-just-the-boundaries-that-need-reviewing-its-first-past-the-post/

[Surfer 1,547]

That’s a good article thanks. in conclusion, I have three points. 

1. Ruling political parties should not be able to draw constituency boundaries. US allows, UK does not. 

2. Voters should be asked to rank choices so that the winner must achieve 50% of the vote. US allows in some kind of elections, UK does not. 

3. I do prefer maintaining direct representation from a single MP per constituency rather than pool party nominated candidates. It does tend to lead to strong governments, which on balance I favor, I just want the majority of voters in each constituency to be properly represented. 

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

6 minutes ago, Surfer said:

That’s a good article thanks. in conclusion, I have three points. 

1. Ruling political parties should not be able to draw constituency boundaries. US allows, UK does not. 

2. Voters should be asked to rank choices so that the winner must achieve 50% of the vote. US allows in some kind of elections, UK does not. 

3. I do prefer maintaining direct representation from a single MP per constituency rather than pool party nominated candidates. It does tend to lead to strong governments, which on balance I favor, I just want the majority of voters in each constituency to be properly represented. 

You just made the case for STV and MMP.
 

 (first one for STV)
 

(MMP)

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

Now that discussion has turned to gerrymandering, I make no apology for posting this 

"I don't really care about which way you vote, 'cos my gerrymander works out fine"

Edited November 12, 2020 by How I Wrote Elastic Man
Lyric added

[Yellow Fever 3,785]

Personally, in these days of social media, conspiracy theories, misinformation and fake news meaningful democracy itself is under threat from it's very own voters. It should come as no surprise now to anybody that Putin, Xi and other authoritarian regimes are looking with a smirk at the USA (and UK) and saying 'told you so' - our system is better!

That I suspect is the real question needing reform - how to ensure it is an informed democracy with agreed facts else it will rapidly become a meaningless mad-house.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

4 hours ago, Surfer said:

There was a referendum on Brexit too. Doesn't mean the electorate fully understood the issue, and can't be asked again. The last UK general election being a perfect example of where the exist FPTP system is screwed up 🙂

Do not understand the gerrymander comment, perhaps you could amplify that point? 

The electorate fully understood the issue of Brexit. The liberal, metropolitan media and their associated friends didn't understand the electorate and still mainly do not understand. Last December in the General Election won by a Conservative Landslide the electorate once again proved that the liberal, metropolitan media and their associated friends haven't even attempted to understand the electorate. And I can assure you that the liberal, metropolitan media and their associated friends will continue to lose elections, whether they are held under a system of PR voting or FPTP, until they give up this notion that the electorate doesn't understand, and instead try to understand the electorate.

Of course, having said all of that, the real truth is that most people who really care about losing elections know why they lost but everybody is too fearful to be the first one to speak out because of what the consequences may be. I came across Paul Embrey recently, a Labour party and Trade Union activist who has written about why the Labour party can't win and he gets it and isn't afraid to say so. So there are some exceptions. But as Embrey says, no one is listening.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

1 hour ago, Yellow Fever said:

Personally, in these days of social media, conspiracy theories, misinformation and fake news meaningful democracy itself is under threat from it's very own voters. It should come as no surprise now to anybody that Putin, Xi and other authoritarian regimes are looking with a smirk at the USA (and UK) and saying 'told you so' - our system is better!

That I suspect is the real question needing reform - how to ensure it is an informed democracy with agreed facts else it will rapidly become a meaningless mad-house.

Surely, you are not arguing that we would be better off under an authoritarian regime? One that might seize people off the streets and lock them up in camps, for example?

I think it fairly self-evident that an authoritarian leader such as Stalin, Putin and Xi would think their system is better than the USA's. For the leaders it is. They can get away with all sorts of human rights abuses for which there are independent checks and balances in the US.

But the real problem with your solution (and I'm not sure what you're saying the problem is) is who decides on what are the agreed facts, and who will be doing the informing. Because one of the beauties of a democracy as far as I see it, is everyone is allowed to chip in with their own ideas and thoughts and then open debate judges the merit of those ideas. Of course, one of the drawbacks of this system is that any old rubbish can be put out there and all sorts of agencies can try to corrupt the public arena, and current technology seems to amplify everything to the point where rational discourse is almost drowned out. But I still think that is the price to pay for freedom of expression.

I don't want to live in a world where I am given a set of agreed facts that i have to accept, thank you very much. And I'd much rather inform myself than have someone telling me what I have to believe. That's not the road I want to travel. So I will take the social media, conspiracy theories, misinformation and fake news if that's what's necessary to allow freedom of expression and I'll deal with all the bad stuff on my own terms.

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

56 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

I think it fairly self-evident that an authoritarian leader such as Stalin, Putin and Xi would think their system is better than the USA's. For the leaders it is. They can get away with all sorts of human rights abuses for which there are independent checks and balances in the US.

Yes, check and balances in the US which have totally failed to operate for the last four years, whose Supreme Court has just been subverted and whose entire democratic system is being declared fraudulent by a President who has been defeated at the ballot box but still attempts to cling to power.

Can't imagine there are many countries anywhere in the world thinking that emulating the US 'system' would be good idea.

Can't say I'd fancy living in China or Russia either but when you cast your mind back 20 - 30 years and think about how much progress those two countries have made in that time and also how much the US star has waned in the last 20 - 30 years, then maybe their systems aren't so bad after all. And for the record, no way would I want to live in the USA either.

[NFN FC 1,123]

1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Yes, check and balances in the US which have totally failed to operate for the last four years, whose Supreme Court has just been subverted and whose entire democratic system is being declared fraudulent by a President who has been defeated at the ballot box but still attempts to cling to power.

Can't imagine there are many countries anywhere in the world thinking that emulating the US 'system' would be good idea.

Can't say I'd fancy living in China or Russia either but when you cast your mind back 20 - 30 years and think about how much progress those two countries have made in that time and also how much the US star has waned in the last 20 - 30 years, then maybe their systems aren't so bad after all. And for the record, no way would I want to live in the USA either.

Rapid national development (i.e. China) comes at a cost and that cost is human. I don't think their system is something to aspire to. (nor is the USA's) 

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

2 minutes ago, NFN FC said:

Rapid national development (i.e. China) comes at a cost and that cost is human. I don't think their system is something to aspire to. (nor is the USA's) 

I agree completely and as I said I wouldn't wish to be a part of China's system but nevertheless in many respects it has performed much better than the USA for the last 20 - 30 years.

But what I was really getting at, but perhaps didn't articulate very clearly, was about the direction of travel - for all its many and serious faults I would say that the direction of travel has been broadly positive in China whereas in the case of the US the direction of travel is sadly in the opposite direction.

[Jools 584]

Just in via email from Sir Nigel:

 

Dear Supporter,

It has been just two weeks since we announced our plans to change the name of The Brexit Party to Reform UK to tackle the urgent challenges ahead. We also called for candidates to register their interest in standing for us in 2021 elections. A huge thank you! More than 3,000 of you have answered the call and want to join us in standing. We are campaigning to reform the Government's failed lockdown approach, instead adopting the Great Barrington way. 

We must also reform the approach to recovery—we must grow our way out of the crisis, not tax our way to stagnation.

 

👍

[Surfer 1,547]

So that’s a manifesto of Covid for the masses, more tax cuts for the rich.... what a surprise (not) 

[A Load of Squit 5,164]

39 minutes ago, Jools said:

Just in via email from Sir Nigel:

 

Dear Supporter,

It has been just two weeks since we announced our scam. More than 3,000 of you have been gullible enough to fall for this nonsense. Don't forget to forward your non-returnable standing fee to N Farage (Swiss Bank Account)

We must squeeze every last penny out of these mugs before it's too late.

 

👍

Just thought you needed a clarification.

 

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

On 12/11/2020 at 16:21, Surfer said:

OK I agree that the ability to choose your own constituency boundary is wrong - gerrymandering - but in UK that does not happen does it? At least boundaries are not under the direct control of the government party? 

If you can't change the boundaries, change the voters 

Homes for Votes

[horsefly 4,300]

2 hours ago, Jools said:

Just in via email from Sir Nigel:

 

Dear Supporter,

It has been just two weeks since we announced our plans to change the name of The Brexit Party to Reform UK to tackle the urgent challenges ahead. We also called for candidates to register their interest in standing for us in 2021 elections. A huge thank you! More than 3,000 of you have answered the call and want to join us in standing. We are campaigning to reform the Government's failed lockdown approach, instead adopting the Great Barrington way. 

We must also reform the approach to recovery—we must grow our way out of the crisis, not tax our way to stagnation.

 

👍

How clever, supporting the utterly discredited Barrington Bollox. Gupta said in May that most of the UK was probably already immune and that the virus was already on the way out. Only a retar*ded buffon like Jools and his ilk could support this against all the evidence currently available. I wonder if the residents of his factory farm care homes are aware of his support for the sort of herd-immunity that wiped out thousands of them out in the first wave

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

25 minutes ago, horsefly said:

How clever, supporting the utterly discredited Barrington Bollox. Gupta said in May that most of the UK was probably already immune and that the virus was already on the way out. Only a retar*ded buffon like Jools and his ilk could support this against all the evidence currently available. I wonder if the residents of his factory farm care homes are aware of his support for the sort of herd-immunity that wiped out thousands of them out in the first wave

Exactly, but to be fair to Gupta when she was expounding her theory back in the first lockdown it was just that - it was a theory that had a huge hole in the middle and which most scientists, indeed most people, thought was pretty far-fetched. But back then there was so much unknown about the virus I suppose it's just possible that there could have been something in it.

But since then it has been comprehensively debunked and it's incredible that people are still advocating such nonsense, or at least it would be if we hadn't already seen that both here in the UK with Brexit and in the US with Trump on a whole range of issues that some people are so delusional that they will believe the lies that they want to hear from Farage\Trump\ANO, no matter how ridiculous and demonstrably false they are.

To the Jools, RTBs and Swindons of the world the truth and facts are completely irrelevant, they follow the higher truths of snake oil salesmen such as Trump and Farage, and to some extent their imitators such as Johnson, Gove and Raab.

Well what goes around, comes around - they've had some fun over the last few years but it is all going to end in tears for them and I imagine that they are going to take it about as well as Trump has received the news that he is a loser, and not just an ordinary loser but the biggest loser as an incumbent President for nearly 100 years 😂😂

 

[Daz Sparks 1,154]

On 12/11/2020 at 19:46, Rock The Boat said:

The electorate fully understood the issue of Brexit.

Boris didn't.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

On 03/11/2020 at 13:06, horsefly said:

Hitler was a remarkably "successful" politician during the 30's. I wonder how that all turned out???

How does it normally turn out for socialists?

[horsefly 4,300]

5 hours ago, Daz Sparks said:

Boris didn't.

Isn't that Boris's default reply when he's accused of infidelity?

[Jools 584]

3 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

How does it normally turn out for socialists?

[Jools 584]

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Jools said:

 

He may not have Covid but he has caught the even more dangerous narcisism from his bom boy Trump.

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

7 hours ago, Jools said:

 

Me too, I sense we are going to be sold out.

[yellowrider120 762]

On 14/11/2020 at 21:13, Creative Midfielder said:

Exactly, but to be fair to Gupta when she was expounding her theory back in the first lockdown it was just that - it was a theory that had a huge hole in the middle and which most scientists, indeed most people, thought was pretty far-fetched. But back then there was so much unknown about the virus I suppose it's just possible that there could have been something in it.

But since then it has been comprehensively debunked and it's incredible that people are still advocating such nonsense, or at least it would be if we hadn't already seen that both here in the UK with Brexit and in the US with Trump on a whole range of issues that some people are so delusional that they will believe the lies that they want to hear from Farage\Trump\ANO, no matter how ridiculous and demonstrably false they are.

To the Jools, RTBs and Swindons of the world the truth and facts are completely irrelevant, they follow the higher truths of snake oil salesmen such as Trump and Farage, and to some extent their imitators such as Johnson, Gove and Raab.

Well what goes around, comes around - they've had some fun over the last few years but it is all going to end in tears for them and I imagine that they are going to take it about as well as Trump has received the news that he is a loser, and not just an ordinary loser but the biggest loser as an incumbent President for nearly 100 years 😂😂

 

At last count, the boy Trump polled 73,155,408 votes! I understand that is MORE than any other losing President in history? Kind of debunks your assertion I'd say?

[horsefly 4,300]

15 hours ago, yellowrider120 said:

At last count, the boy Trump polled 73,155,408 votes! I understand that is MORE than any other losing President in history? Kind of debunks your assertion I'd say?

NO! learn to count, Trump is more than 5-and-a-half-million votes behind Biden.

Edited November 17, 2020 by horsefly

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

23 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

At last count, the boy Trump polled 73,155,408 votes! I understand that is MORE than any other losing President in history? Kind of debunks your assertion I'd say?

Not really, there has been a huge upsurge in turnout so despite Trump getting a record number of votes for a losing candidate, Biden also got a much bigger record number of votes for a winning candidate - last time I looked he is getting close to 6m more than Trump.

If you look back at previous election results you will see that once a candidate wins a Presidential election they nearly always gone on to win a second term - from that most people would infer that being the incumbent conveys a significant advantage in US Presidental elections, and it is pretty easy to see why that would be the case.

So for a sitting President to lose an election is relatively unusual, for them to lose by 6m votes...........

Not that it's directly relevant but let's not forget that Trump also lost the popular vote last time as well. So he only made it to the White House at all by virtue of the very weird and extremely undemocratic US electoral college system. So he should think himself bl**dy lucky he got the job at all, if the US had a proper democracy he would have been two-time loser.