Refreshing British Democracy

[Fen Canary 874]

21 hours ago, nevermind, neoliberalism has had it said:

this outdated way of building roads around Citys and towns, the donut design, just as the ring and loop systerm that was adopted is taken from a car mad US model. It does not bode well for historic centers in Cities such as Norwich. To argue that more roads are good for your children and that we do not need the thousands of trees being cut down, as we are 'promising' to grow twice as many new tree saplings, 1 in 10 who survive, will mitigate the pollution dished up for our children, then you are arguing for higher council tax, more potholes and the polluting of rare chalk rivers, of which we are blessed to have most in this county.

And you argument is that we will have to travel by horse and cart.

we can't keep up with repairs of the existing road network and you want to add ever more? once potholes become the new normal supplies by road will become more risky and dangerous, how about thinking of alternatives rather than joining the blinkered minds who can't build anything except roads?

If you are going to import a million people a year then you have build more houses, more roads and more infrastructure. These imports are supposedly a benefit to the country therefore the extra money they bring in should be more than enough to build this while maintaining existing services

[Fen Canary 874]

23 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

 

PR isn’t a magic bullet in improving MPs. Having lived in NZ in the past which has PR I’ve experienced both systems and while I prefer PR to FPTP both have their advantages and flaws.

FPTP has the obvious flaw of meaning parliament doesn’t reflect the votes cast throughout the country, where the major parties can win a majority on a third of the vote, and UKIP once winning a single seat despite winning nearly 12%. It does however make every MP directly responsible to an area.

PR means that the makeup of parliament much more closely resembles the votes cast, but due to the need for coalitions it also gives smaller parties much more influence than their vote deserves, whereby a party winning 5% can effectively decide the government (as happened in NZ) by whichever party offers them the most policies and cabinet positions. You also have a large number of MPs which aren’t directly elected, don’t represent an area and so only have to keep the top brass of the party happy in order to maintain their place on the list. You can end up with even more career politicians than the old model puts forward. 

[littleyellowbirdie 2,604]

40 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

PR isn’t a magic bullet in improving MPs. Having lived in NZ in the past which has PR I’ve experienced both systems and while I prefer PR to FPTP both have their advantages and flaws.

FPTP has the obvious flaw of meaning parliament doesn’t reflect the votes cast throughout the country, where the major parties can win a majority on a third of the vote, and UKIP once winning a single seat despite winning nearly 12%. It does however make every MP directly responsible to an area.

PR means that the makeup of parliament much more closely resembles the votes cast, but due to the need for coalitions it also gives smaller parties much more influence than their vote deserves, whereby a party winning 5% can effectively decide the government (as happened in NZ) by whichever party offers them the most policies and cabinet positions. You also have a large number of MPs which aren’t directly elected, don’t represent an area and so only have to keep the top brass of the party happy in order to maintain their place on the list. You can end up with even more career politicians than the old model puts forward. 

A party winning 5% might be able to decide something, but given that there's a wider choice of parties, the larger parties can pick which of the smaller parties offer more tolerable offers for their support. In contrast, FPTP freezes out views where the government and the main opposition aren't in disagreement. The larger parties are also accountable to their voters for what deals they choose to make and whether they find the deals satisfactory. If you voted for someone and aren't happy with their negotions, simply choose another party from a wide range on offer.

Most politicians now are career politicians anyway. There's definitely nothing to be lost on that score.

Interesting to see some resistance to tactical voting on Twitter. Jenny Jones of the Green party is going full tilt against it. Someone raised the point that if people hadn't rejected tactical voting for the liberals in the 20th century, then Labour would never have become one of the two main parties in the first place. Now that they represent a barrier to reform and actually increasingly don't differentiate from the Conservatives in many areas, tactical voting for a party that wants to keep FPTP seems short-sighted.

 

[king canary 7,680]

I did think of you @littleyellowbirdie when I saw this...

According to Harriet Harman the Lib Dems could have had PR if they'd agreed to go into Government with Labour all those years ago.

[littleyellowbirdie 2,604]

35 minutes ago, king canary said:

I did think of you @littleyellowbirdie when I saw this...

According to Harriet Harman the Lib Dems could have had PR if they'd agreed to go into Government with Labour all those years ago.

This old chestnut again.

326 seats were required for a majority in 2010. Labour had 258 seats, and the Lib Dems had 57, making 315. An 11 seat shortfall for a majority.

And it's worth remembering Labour promised PR for the commons in its own manifesto in 1997 without it materialising over the following 13 years.

Interestingly though, there seems to be a lot more hositility to Labour from the Greens at the moment than there is the Lib Dems..

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by littleyellowbirdie

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

On 31/07/2023 at 10:18, nevermind, neoliberalism has had it said:

we have a history of 'wasteful idiocy' on the NDR, NCC software and computer systems, the incinerator and much more ,hundreds of millions wasted on our 'preferred contractors'. It is not an argument to advance more wasteful idiocy to pretend that these polluters are doing anything right. Not going by past experience or going by the staffing crisis at NCC at the moment.

Spreading false hopes is not the solution, taking note of past mistakes and waste, as well as accounting for the CO2 we accrue from planned projects and developments. If you know how to stop a continuous rise in transport pollution, ill health then dogive us your alternatives. why don't you?

Roads are one of the greatest symbols of our democratic freedoms. Roads allow the common man to travel as freely as the rich man. Roads open up possibilities and choices to those would otherwise be denied. Roads allow people to trade and prosper to travel and broaden horizons.  Those that are against Roads are for the suppression of the common man. We won't be denied when the rich are exempted 

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

12 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Roads are one of the greatest symbols of our democratic freedoms. Roads allow the common man to travel as freely as the rich man. Roads open up possibilities and choices to those would otherwise be denied. Roads allow people to trade and prosper to travel and broaden horizons.  Those that are against Roads are for the suppression of the common man. We won't be denied when the rich are exempted 

That might all be very well, but should we account for the impact on our life's and health? I'm not against the road network that exists, but feel that the ignorance shown towards alternatives and the sheer denial to account for the increase in pollution has gone too far.

Add to that the utter incompetence of planning authorities who have no expertise or knowledge of building a tram, roads is all they know, so they carry on with outdated US transport models. were are the alternatives to roads and airports clogged up as they are? we used to have fast ferries to neighbouring countries, there is no money available for ferry operators to share with other existing ports.

Our mobility and freedom to travel comes at a price and the energy it takes to do so is determined by rip off oil companies who are unaccountable, they can demand to not pay taxes on kerosin to fly, get new aircraft VAT free and manipulate the prices of our roadside petrol and diesel.

 

[TheGunnShow 6,023]

Speaking of potholes, why did we cover so many roads with tarmac in the first place?

The road I live on is cobbled. It's a quiet residential street - and most here have been covered in tarmac. A short stretch of cobble driven slowly, going onto a main, tarmac road, is surely not going to cause that much damage to cars? 

I suspect we have issues with potholes simply as the budget is spread far too thinly.

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

Roads are not as important than the torrent of emergency legislation changing the laws, effectively making protests criminal, even when they are non violent or pointing to drastic changes.

The principle that 'Justice must be seen to be done' is ancient and the attempts to nobble juries and influence them, even trying to get rid of juries altogether has to be opposed and they are being opposed. That courts are now criminalising people who speak up for their right to decide according to their conscience, when doing jury service.

https://defendourjuries.org/

[Nik Vawn 159]

On 24/07/2023 at 10:36, keelansgrandad said:

Sonyc said he was taking time off but WInky has gone missing.

Had "a little bit of trouble" but back now 😄

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Nik Vawn said:

Had "a little bit of trouble" but back now 😄

Good lad.