keir starmer; Our future Prime Minister?

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

19 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

The ICJ has not ruled that Israel has committed war crimes regarding South Africa's accusations against Israel. It has merely ruled the case sufficiently plausible to be fully heard.

you have not read it then, why don't you read the links being put up to it, they are direct quotes. Listening to the dim views of western propaganda merchants and warmongers is not enough, sorry.

[canarydan23 4,699]

2 hours ago, king canary said:

I'm not sure that stacks up to be honest- it doesn't really explain why voter turnout and voter numbers dropped across all three parties. If it was driven solely by disappointment in Labour you'd expect to see other parties numbers increasing. I'd argue it was more one of those elections where the country felt reasonably prosperous, the economy was going well and a result that felt like a forgone conclusion.

That the election result was a given would certainly have contributed to the low turnout, but it'd be ridiculous to suggest there wasn't more to the lowest turnout for almost a century (second lowest was 2005, common denominator?). 2019 was a foregone conclusion and go close to a 70% turnout.

There was widespread disillusionment about Labour's failure to deliver on its promises, accompanied by an uninspiring opposition and Lib Dem party. In 1997, there was an almost universal belief that there was clear water between the two parties. Four years of Tony Blair shattered that illusion and millions just couldn't be bothered to drag themselves to the polling stations. An Electoral Commission study in 2001 found that 58% of people were very or fairly interested in the election, 6% up on 1997, and only 10% of non-voters cited apathy as the reason for staying away.

Pre-1997, Labour promised to deal with the big issues of the day and to recharge the public's faith in politics. People had concluded that it was all **** so stayed home.

It's another absolute joke of British democracy that the second least popular winning government since WW2 returned such a thumping majority. At the time it was the least popular winning government since WW2, but Blair would beat his own record in 2005.

[littleyellowbirdie 3,103]

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

you have not read it then, why don't you read the links being put up to it, they are direct quotes. Listening to the dim views of western propaganda merchants and warmongers is not enough, sorry.

There's no need to go into the details of what they said to point out that you're wrong; the assertion that the ICJ has ruled Israel is committing genocide is simply false, a lie, fake news, whatever you want to call it. What they didn't do was throw out the accusations, but that's a big jump from there to guilty.

It will take years for the ICJ to come to a decision.

Edited February 1 by littleyellowbirdie

[canarydan23 4,699]

Yet another U-turn for Starmer, they won't be reinstating the cap on banker's bonuses and intend to rip up red-tape for the finance sector. We've been here before, haven't we? Have they forgotten 2008 entirely?

In other, non-related news, Starmer's Labour has been receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds for investment firms and City financiers.

Tory Lite is back.

The only hope we have is that this is Starmer doing what Starmer does best; lying to impress people. Once he gets in power we have to hope he abandons this nonsense as quickly as he abandoned pretty much every one of his "pledges" he made during his leadership campaign.

[Fen Canary 1,450]

8 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

I think you're opinion has been understandably clouded by the American experience. A British constitution would only need to provide a broad-brush overview of society's values. That they reflect them at the time they are written is absolutely correct and not a drawback. A manifesto pledge followed by a general election victory would be sufficient to remove or amend part of the constitution. The constitution could make that a requirement, so any clandestine behaviour from duplicitous politicians who pledge things just for votes and then abandons it all when they get power (sadly it would only work at government level and wouldn't present the rank dishonesty the thread's titular subject in the leadership election) would be stamped out; the Supreme Court and/or a democratically representative second chamber would have the authority to block any unconstitutional legislation that wasn't previously pledged.

Our politicians have consistently proven that they are not fit to wield the power they have, diluting it is a good thing.

Anyway, it's a pipe dream, along with PR; the majority of our MPs are power-hungry narcissists, on all sides of the House, so they won't vote anything that might limit their sway. And the lack of a written constitution allows them to do so.

A constitution doesn’t stop any government anywhere in the world from breaking their promises though. Also what would happen if a situation arose while they were in power and the government was denied the flexibility and means to act accordingly due to some rules written 50 years previously?

If the constitution can be altered by a simple majority in parliament then how is that any different to the setup we have currently? I also fail to see what having a second chamber, elected or otherwise, adds to anything. If the two chambers were headed by different factions then you’d simply end up in a situation where one constantly blocks the other and nothing would ever get done. I’d simply scrap the Lords and be done with it.

Politicians may be useless, on that most of us we’ll agree. But having their power curtailed by some rules drafted up by some different politicians who happen to be in power at the time the constitution was written in my opinion does nothing to change that.

I want parliament to have as much power as it chooses, and for those decisions to be approved or rejected by the electorate at subsequent elections. I’m already uncomfortable with the amount of political decision making that is seemingly farmed out to unaccountable bodies such as the Bank of England so I don’t want to see more taken away from the public 

[Fen Canary 1,450]

15 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Yet another U-turn for Starmer, they won't be reinstating the cap on banker's bonuses and intend to rip up red-tape for the finance sector. We've been here before, haven't we? Have they forgotten 2008 entirely?

In other, non-related news, Starmer's Labour has been receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds for investment firms and City financiers.

Tory Lite is back.

The only hope we have is that this is Starmer doing what Starmer does best; lying to impress people. Once he gets in power we have to hope he abandons this nonsense as quickly as he abandoned pretty much every one of his "pledges" he made during his leadership campaign.

He changes direction more often than a wind sock. He’s no different to Johnson, he’s simply better at hiding his lies 

[canarydan23 4,699]

49 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

A constitution doesn’t stop any government anywhere in the world from breaking their promises though. Also what would happen if a situation arose while they were in power and the government was denied the flexibility and means to act accordingly due to some rules written 50 years previously?

If the constitution can be altered by a simple majority in parliament then how is that any different to the setup we have currently? I also fail to see what having a second chamber, elected or otherwise, adds to anything. If the two chambers were headed by different factions then you’d simply end up in a situation where one constantly blocks the other and nothing would ever get done. I’d simply scrap the Lords and be done with it.

Politicians may be useless, on that most of us we’ll agree. But having their power curtailed by some rules drafted up by some different politicians who happen to be in power at the time the constitution was written in my opinion does nothing to change that.

I want parliament to have as much power as it chooses, and for those decisions to be approved or rejected by the electorate at subsequent elections. I’m already uncomfortable with the amount of political decision making that is seemingly farmed out to unaccountable bodies such as the Bank of England so I don’t want to see more taken away from the public 

You seem to want to empower our current set of politicians. That's a frightening concept, truth be told.

I've explained the difference already, a constitutional change would require a mandate through a pre-election pledge, any attempt to ride roughshod over it would be met with resistance by the Supreme Court/second chamber. A backstop for a emergency powers could be built in, though would be subject to scrutiny and the prospect of being rolled back.

Abolishing a second chamber and empowering imbeciles like Johnson, Sunak and Starmer even further is madness. Even with its hereditary privilege and rank nepotism the HoL still provides crucial checks and balances to our democratic process. Radically overhaul it for sure, even take steps to reduce the politics from it, but abolish it? Madness.

British politics is broken; whether that's down to society as a whole I don't know, but honour simply doesn't exist anymore. I couldn't stand them, but Major and Thatcher would never have contemplated a lot of the behaviours of the likes of Boris Johnson. Even Starmer has abandoned putting any stock in common, decent honesty.

These bustards needs their hands tying; the executive and the PM have too much power and not enough accountability. Win an election and you are effectively an elective dictatorship and entitled to do whatever you want until the next election,  regardless as to what you said to the nation to earn their votes. A written constitution wouldn't fix it all entirely, but it would be a significant improvement. 

[Fen Canary 1,450]

1 hour ago, canarydan23 said:

You seem to want to empower our current set of politicians. That's a frightening concept, truth be told.

I've explained the difference already, a constitutional change would require a mandate through a pre-election pledge, any attempt to ride roughshod over it would be met with resistance by the Supreme Court/second chamber. A backstop for a emergency powers could be built in, though would be subject to scrutiny and the prospect of being rolled back.

Abolishing a second chamber and empowering imbeciles like Johnson, Sunak and Starmer even further is madness. Even with its hereditary privilege and rank nepotism the HoL still provides crucial checks and balances to our democratic process. Radically overhaul it for sure, even take steps to reduce the politics from it, but abolish it? Madness.

British politics is broken; whether that's down to society as a whole I don't know, but honour simply doesn't exist anymore. I couldn't stand them, but Major and Thatcher would never have contemplated a lot of the behaviours of the likes of Boris Johnson. Even Starmer has abandoned putting any stock in common, decent honesty.

These bustards needs their hands tying; the executive and the PM have too much power and not enough accountability. Win an election and you are effectively an elective dictatorship and entitled to do whatever you want until the next election,  regardless as to what you said to the nation to earn their votes. A written constitution wouldn't fix it all entirely, but it would be a significant improvement. 

So your idea of improving the behaviour of career politicians is to elect a second chamber and fill it with even more career politicians? I’d also hate to give the unelected Supreme Court any power of creation of policy, that to be should be the job of people directly answerable to the public. It’s the courts job to simply uphold the law as it has been decided by parliament, not to set or create it. Giving power to unelected and unaccountable judges to me is madness, much more so than giving it to useless politicians who can be voted out if they do a bad job.

Who would also set the laws of this constitution? Surely it would have to be set via referendum, and would you still be in favour of it if the public voted for rules that you hated?

As I say I simply don’t see the need for it. For me it adds nothing, just another layer designed to stifle and hollow out political debate.

You complain our current system leads to people such as Johnson, but he was easily disposed once he could no longer command a majority of parliament. To me that’s a much better safeguard than any piece of paper 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

So Labour has just backtracked on their £28bn green spending pledge in a move to align themselves ever more closely to Conservative policies

[Herman 11,112]

Poor politics in my humble opinion. It's a good policy sold badly. 

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

On 01/02/2024 at 18:53, canarydan23 said:

 

These bustards needs their hands tying; the executive and the PM have too much power and not enough accountability. Win an election and you are effectively an elective dictatorship and entitled to do whatever you want until the next election,  regardless as to what you said to the nation to earn their votes. A written constitution wouldn't fix it all entirely, but it would be a significant improvement. 

And yet Dan, you are an advocate for a PR system in which it is a given that a party will negotiate away policies regardless of what they said to the voters to earn their votes. How do you tie politician's hands while allowing them to make private deals with other parties?

[Rock The Boat 1,332]

7 minutes ago, Herman said:

Poor politics in my humble opinion. It's a good policy sold badly. 

Which one is the good policy, the £28bn green spend or the backtracking thereof?

[Herman 11,112]

The investment in green/sustainable infrastructure. A very good and necessary idea. 

[canarydan23 4,699]

1 hour ago, Rock The Boat said:

And yet Dan, you are an advocate for a PR system in which it is a given that a party will negotiate away policies regardless of what they said to the voters to earn their votes. How do you tie politician's hands while allowing them to make private deals with other parties?

Do you know anything about anything?

In FPTP, the winning party, often with barely more than a quarter of votes from eligible voters, is able to implement 100% of their manifesto (they don't, of course, manifestos are tools to win votes and largely torn up once the keys to Number 10 have been seized). Under PR, a party that achieved 30% of the vote would only be able to implement some of their manifesto and would have to make concessions to a party that whose manifesto was appealing enough to get say, 10% of voters to vote for them, plus some concessions to another party whose manifesto appealed to 15% of voters.

The negotiation process would weed out bad policies from the most successful party and accommodate the better policies of the parties with fewer votes. You're likely to end up with more universally-appealing policy and coalition partners who can hold their fellow governing parties feet over the fire with regards to their pre-election pledges.

Instead, we suffer idiotic, mediocre politicians (I know they appeal to you, but we're not all so easily duped I'm afraid) who can pretty much do as they please between elections, regardless of the promises made to the electorate in which more people stayed at home than voted for the winning party and considerably more people who did vote did not choose the party that governs them.

 

Edited February 8 by canarydan23

[Fen Canary 1,450]

14 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

Do you know anything about anything?

In FPTP, the winning party, often with barely more than a quarter of votes from eligible voters, is able to implement 100% of their manifesto (they don't, of course, manifestos are tools to win votes and largely torn up once the keys to Number 10 have been seized). Under PR, a party that achieved 30% of the vote would only be able to implement some of their manifesto and would have to make concessions to a party that whose manifesto was appealing enough to get say, 10% of voters to vote for them, plus some concessions to another party whose manifesto appealed to 15% of voters.

The negotiation process would weed out bad policies from the most successful party and accommodate the better policies of the parties with fewer votes. You're likely to end up with more universally-appealing policy and coalition partners who can hold their fellow governing parties feet over the fire with regards to their pre-election pledges.

Instead, we suffer idiotic, mediocre politicians (I know they appeal to you, but we're not all so easily duped I'm afraid) who can pretty much do as they please between elections, regardless of the promises made to the electorate in which more people stayed at home than voted for the winning party and considerably more people who did vote did not choose the party that governs them.

 

I’ve lived under PR and it’s not the magic bullet you imagine. The standard of politicians is arguably worse, as many of them are list MPs, and as they aren’t directly elected they can’t be removed by the public for poor performance. As long as they toe the party line they’re largely safe.

The second problem is that parties with low % of votes can often hold the balance of power, so you end up with the tail wagging the dog. A party with 7% can end up having many more policies enacted (or stop others becoming law) than their popularity deserves, simply because they’re needed in order for the main parties to form a majority.

The upsides of PR is that it makes it much easier for minor parties to gain a foothold, so UKIP in 2015 for instance would have won around 70 MPs rather than the solitary one they won under FPTP.

Given the choice I’d say PR is maybe the slightly better system, but I don’t believe there’s as much in it as people claim 

[dylanisabaddog 5,990]

15 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

Do you know anything about anything?

In FPTP, the winning party, often with barely more than a quarter of votes from eligible voters, is able to implement 100% of their manifesto (they don't, of course, manifestos are tools to win votes and largely torn up once the keys to Number 10 have been seized). Under PR, a party that achieved 30% of the vote would only be able to implement some of their manifesto and would have to make concessions to a party that whose manifesto was appealing enough to get say, 10% of voters to vote for them, plus some concessions to another party whose manifesto appealed to 15% of voters.

The negotiation process would weed out bad policies from the most successful party and accommodate the better policies of the parties with fewer votes. You're likely to end up with more universally-appealing policy and coalition partners who can hold their fellow governing parties feet over the fire with regards to their pre-election pledges.

Instead, we suffer idiotic, mediocre politicians (I know they appeal to you, but we're not all so easily duped I'm afraid) who can pretty much do as they please between elections, regardless of the promises made to the electorate in which more people stayed at home than voted for the winning party and considerably more people who did vote did not choose the party that governs them.

 

We had a referendum in 2011 and the vote against PR was 68/32. I'm sure the numbers will have shifted since then but I still doubt it would go past 50/50. Of course, you would need some enthusiasm from the 2 main parties and that doesn't exist at the moment. 

The main advantage of PR is that it forces MPs to actually do some work. Being a constituent of Richard Bacon I could write about that all day.

The main disadvantage is that it gives a voice to nut jobs at both ends of the scale whereas at the moment we are only subjected to one lot at a time. 

At the moment, the only country in Europe that shares our system is Belarus. Sadly if you point that out to half of the UK population they will say that we are right and all the others are wrong. 

It's an interesting debate but it's probably at least 20 years away. 

[Creative Midfielder 2,200]

36 minutes ago, Fen Canary said:

I’ve lived under PR and it’s not the magic bullet you imagine. The standard of politicians is arguably worse, as many of them are list MPs, and as they aren’t directly elected they can’t be removed by the public for poor performance. As long as they toe the party line they’re largely safe.

The second problem is that parties with low % of votes can often hold the balance of power, so you end up with the tail wagging the dog. A party with 7% can end up having many more policies enacted (or stop others becoming law) than their popularity deserves, simply because they’re needed in order for the main parties to form a majority.

The upsides of PR is that it makes it much easier for minor parties to gain a foothold, so UKIP in 2015 for instance would have won around 70 MPs rather than the solitary one they won under FPTP.

Given the choice I’d say PR is maybe the slightly better system, but I don’t believe there’s as much in it as people claim 

I don't think any of us regard PR as a magic bullet, just a major upgrade on our genuinely rotten FPTP system.

Whilst I don't entirely disagree with what you say about the downsides of PR I think you are over-staing them - the list MPs for instance as far as I can see are actually no worse (or even different) to some of our own truly appalling politicians who have been fortunate enough to be selected for one of the many extremely safe seats that our FPTP system produces for both the main parties and then remain in post for decades purely on the basis of their party allegiance.

Likewise there can be elements of the tail wagging the dog but whilst there is obviously compromise between parties (which can actually be a good thing!) the really extreme 'tail wagging' type scenarios you outline I think are pretty rare in most countries with PR.

But whatever the downsides, I don't think you can get past the point that PR produces Parliaments whose composition is a good approximation of the way the whole (voting) electorate voted whereas our system doesn't ever get close to that.

In the last few years we've had a very vivid demonstration of just how damaging that can be for the country, and yet later this year our 'democracy' is going to present us with no real choice at all other than to confirm that its Buggin's turn for the Labour party - this is not democracy in any real sense of the word.

[littleyellowbirdie 3,103]

18 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

And yet Dan, you are an advocate for a PR system in which it is a given that a party will negotiate away policies regardless of what they said to the voters to earn their votes. How do you tie politician's hands while allowing them to make private deals with other parties?

You know that who you vote for will be openly negotiating for their policy platform and they also know that they'll be judged by their voters on how many of their policies they get in. Nobody has any illusion that they'll get everything of what they only want, only that their priorities will be represented in good faith in negotiations.

This is a marked contrast to the current system where you have a clear manifesto from a party and it's a complete lottery what they actually deliver from it when they enter majority government.

Labour has made a smart move rowing back on the precise numbers without rowing back on the principle I also think that deflecting by attacking the Conservatives for putting the economy in a worse position than they anticipated when they came up with the policy was pretty cute.

Besides, any Labour voters disappointed by this will be voting for Labour anyway, while they might just win some more votes from the Conservatives for appearing to be more pragmatic than idealistic.

Edited February 9 by littleyellowbirdie

[canarydan23 4,699]

1 hour ago, dylanisabaddog said:

We had a referendum in 2011 and the vote against PR was 68/32.

No we didn't.

It was FPTP vs AV; PR was not on the ballot paper. AV is overly-complicated and has the potential to actually be LESS representative than FPTP. I despise FPTP but still voted for that over AV.

[dylanisabaddog 5,990]

2 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

No we didn't.

It was FPTP vs AV; PR was not on the ballot paper. AV is overly-complicated and has the potential to actually be LESS representative than FPTP. I despise FPTP but still voted for that over AV.

Thanks, my memory is playing tricks with me. What that referendum and the lead up to it did show is that it will be an incredibly difficult thing to change. Having said that, the political demographics of the country will be completely different in 20 years time. 

[MooreMarriot 342]

John Culshaw does a very good impression of Starmer , and Sunak.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-66976069

[canarydan23 4,699]

12 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Thanks, my memory is playing tricks with me. What that referendum and the lead up to it did show is that it will be an incredibly difficult thing to change. Having said that, the political demographics of the country will be completely different in 20 years time. 

It only went to a referendum because that was the only route the Lib Dems saw to making a change as a coalition partner, and the Tories saw it as the only way to get the Lib Dems on board but not give them the electoral reform they wanted. Nick Clegg should have held firm and pushed for all out PR, which would have been a much easier sell to the electorate; however, one look at those ministerial limousines and he was putty in Cameron's hands.

I don't think these sorts of changes should be put to a referendum. Labour should have the cajones to make it a manifesto commitment and implement another Great Reform Act that introduces PR and disbands the Lords for a representative second chamber.

[dylanisabaddog 5,990]

1 hour ago, canarydan23 said:

It only went to a referendum because that was the only route the Lib Dems saw to making a change as a coalition partner, and the Tories saw it as the only way to get the Lib Dems on board but not give them the electoral reform they wanted. Nick Clegg should have held firm and pushed for all out PR, which would have been a much easier sell to the electorate; however, one look at those ministerial limousines and he was putty in Cameron's hands.

I don't think these sorts of changes should be put to a referendum. Labour should have the cajones to make it a manifesto commitment and implement another Great Reform Act that introduces PR and disbands the Lords for a representative second chamber.

Clegg's behaviour at that time will probably haunt the Lib Dems for years to come. 

Your suggestion for the Labour manifesto would be music to the ears of the Conservative Party. I quite agree with you but it would effectively give us a referendum rather than an election. Sunak would snatch your hand off for that.

The easiest advert ever - 

Do you want to be like the Italians or the French or worse still, the Germans? 

Sad to say but that would win an election for them. 

[Yellow Fever 4,388]

15 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Clegg's behaviour at that time will probably haunt the Lib Dems for years to come. 

Your suggestion for the Labour manifesto would be music to the ears of the Conservative Party. I quite agree with you but it would effectively give us a referendum rather than an election. Sunak would snatch your hand off for that.

The easiest advert ever - 

Do you want to be like the Italians or the French or worse still, the Germans? 

Sad to say but that would win an election for them. 

Yes - I think most on here would favour some form of PR - but you're right all the parties have to be onboard. At least the rump Tories might still have a few seats under PR!

[canarydan23 4,699]

29 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

Clegg's behaviour at that time will probably haunt the Lib Dems for years to come. 

Your suggestion for the Labour manifesto would be music to the ears of the Conservative Party. I quite agree with you but it would effectively give us a referendum rather than an election. Sunak would snatch your hand off for that.

The easiest advert ever - 

Do you want to be like the Italians or the French or worse still, the Germans? 

Sad to say but that would win an election for them. 

I disagree, I don't think people care a huge amount. They are going to play those dirty tricks anyone, on topics that pique the public consciousness a lot more readily that electoral systems. Think Jimmy Saville, think defending terrorists, and he'll use your Italians, French, Germans line on sovereignty, using his pro-Brexit past to scare red wall voters.

You're right, that is how the Tories would play it, but it wouldn't land. The ones it would land on will already be hoodwinked into voted the Tories for other issues more relevant to their daily lives. The ones concerned by it would also hear the simple mantra, equal votes for all. Whilst it won't be an accurate representation this year given the cluster**** that is the Tories, the general consensus is that 60% of all constituencies are considered "safe". 

The idea that everyone's trip to the ballot box means something would have wide appeal. Also, simple soundbites like "Equal Votes For All" and "One Person, One Vote" would cut through the public consciousness far more effectively than "Change is bad! We're becoming more like the French!"

And like I said, it still wouldn't register above the economy, NHS, schools, national security, immigration, etc, in what the public considers the most important issue of an election.

[dylanisabaddog 5,990]

@canarydan23 I truly wish I shared your faith in the British electorate. Sadly I don't.

Having said that, I think and hope that in 20 years time it will look very different. Basically you just need to wait for my generation to die. I'm hoping to live long enough to see the day when you're right! 

 

[canarydan23 4,699]

17 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

@canarydan23 I truly wish I shared your faith in the British electorate. Sadly I don't.

Having said that, I think and hope that in 20 years time it will look very different. Basically you just need to wait for my generation to die. I'm hoping to live long enough to see the day when you're right! 

 

I think it's a lack of faith! They don't care enough or are informed enough about something that could have quite a monumental change in how our country works. So they'd just shrug their shoulders and say "meh". Look at the AV referendum, only 40% turned out, which does kind of give you an idea of how little they care about defending the status quo where electoral reform is concerned.

Labour just needs to be the turkey that votes for Christmas and get it in their manifesto. Even Corbyn refused because he knew that a leftist seizing control of the Labour Party and winning an election was the only feasible way of having a majority quasi-socialist party in the UK. When it comes down to it, they're all about power and gaining as much of it as they can.

Ironically, he was proven completely and utterly wrong. In fact, in 2017 under PR we would have seen a Corbyn government with the Lib Dems and Greens propping him up (and reigning in his more whack job ideas). It would probably have been quite a progressive government. Single market access, free movement of people, no collapse of the NI Assembly, no lockdown ****-ups at Number 10, no Boris Johnson, no Liz Truss and her disastrous mini budget, less lives lost in Covid, the British public witnessing that a more universally socialised economy (rather that just socialism for the rich) is actually beneficial meaning that the Overton Window shifted left and the Tories would be forced to adapt and trim their looney wing.

What a different world we'd be living in but for FPTP.

[dylanisabaddog 5,990]

No @canarydan23it's not a lack of faith.

52% voted for Brexit and Farage & Johnson are heroes to half the population. 

The sad fact is that, as with everywhere, there is an average IQ in this country. Those below the average voted for Brexit and Johnson (he's quite funny) and in the USA they vote for Trump. 

I wish it wasn't so but it is. Never make the mistake of assuming that everyone else is as intelligent as you. They most definitely are not. Every time you think about politics remember that people actually like Trump and Johnson and vote for them in huge numbers. And they don't understand PR but that's what the Germans do so it's obviously wrong. 

Sad to say but it's true, our main hope at the moment is that they won't vote for Sunak because he's not white. 

Edited February 9 by dylanisabaddog

[canarydan23 4,699]

1 minute ago, dylanisabaddog said:

No @canarydan23it's not a lack of faith.

I meant it is a lack of faith from me in why I reached the conclusion I have regarding their apathy about electoral reform. I just don't think they're bright enough realise the implications and therefore won't care. They'll vote for who they would vote for regardless of whether PR was a manifesto pledge.

And I can solemnly promise you that I NEVER assume everyone else is as intelligent as me!!!

[dylanisabaddog 5,990]

5 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

I meant it is a lack of faith from me in why I reached the conclusion I have regarding their apathy about electoral reform. I just don't think they're bright enough realise the implications and therefore won't care. They'll vote for who they would vote for regardless of whether PR was a manifesto pledge.

And I can solemnly promise you that I NEVER assume everyone else is as intelligent as me!!!

Apart from LYB and RTB😂