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Proportional Representation

I am not sure it matters what system you have so long as it’s corruption free, politics is one of the worst examples of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, so we get monumental waste on a local and national level. HS2, aircraft carriers we cannot afford to defend etc...
 
A good political system makes a politican's job a precarious one.

The many people who criticise PR for creating "weak, unstable" governments are missing the point entirely: a government should never be complacent and lazy, and they should never be unopposed. Coalition is a form of soft opposition: you want to govern, you have to compromise with groups who represent different interests to yours.
 
A good political system makes a politican's job a precarious one.

The many people who criticise PR for creating "weak, unstable" governments are missing the point entirely: a government should never be complacent and lazy, and they should never be unopposed. Coalition is a form of soft opposition: you want to govern, you have to compromise with groups who represent different interests to yours.
This is very true but ‘centrist’ has become a pejorative term of late, compromise does tend to lead to a middle way. I am fine with this, lots of people are not unfortunately.
 
"Centrist" is indeed a pejorative term, used by politicians who want to leverage a broad appeal to impose a narrow agenda of their own. Petty fascists from both ends of the left-right divide, whose idea of what's best for the people has never been sullied by actually asking them.
 
This is very true but ‘centrist’ has become a pejorative term of late, compromise does tend to lead to a middle way. I am fine with this, lots of people are not unfortunately.

Can someone explain the principle of 'centrism'. Is it an absolute position - true centre of the left-right political spectrum or is variable and sits in the centre of the Overton Window?
 
The Labour Party has chosen to use STV for some elections to the NEC, previously FPTP was used. This decision has not been universally welcomed.
 
STV is utter bollocks, it won’t help kill the two dinosaur parties at all. We need a system that will obtain representation for Green votes etc etc. I realise that also probably means the racist far-right will get representation, but that is democracy and what we currently have just isn’t. I utterly detest Farage and his ilk, he is the absolute worst kind of elite racist playing with fascism, racial scapegoating and division to make himself and his pimps exceptionally rich, but the simple fact is his brand of shit got a heck of a lot of votes that never translated into representation. It showed the system failed. The knuckle-dragging racist shit that vote for the far-right are just as disenfranchised and unrepresented as green liberal types such as myself, and whilst they’d likely start throwing some of my friends in concentration camps given half a chance I’ll still defend democracy as a core concept.
 
I imagine this is not where Drood thought his PR thread would end up - debating the Maffia.
Nope, didn't see that coming. Getting it back on track:

https://www.compassonline.org.uk/corbynism-and-electoral-reform-will-labour-ever-back-pr/

Good, thoughtful article which, I think, is fair to all involved. I agree that Corbyn had a blind spot about voting reform but it's interesting that, as the above article implies, it's a blind spot shared by his opponents on the right of the party. Still, there is much interest in PR within Labour, most of it concentrated among younger members, including Momentum.

Starmer has committed to an internal debate about constitutional reform but, like most of his commitments, it's so lukewarm, one's expectations are pre-emptively lowered.

I'm still disappointed that Clive Lewis' campaign to be Labour leader didn't get support from enough members of the PLP for him to get to the next stage. Of all the candidates, he was, by far, the most interested in increasing democracy both within the party and in the country as a whole. It's a shame that debate never happened during the leadership election.
 
I'm surprised you are so positive about Italian reforms! Do you pay taxes in Italy? Have you ever been involved in a law suit? Do you not notice that almost every day a group of politicians/businessmen/wideboys is arrested for corruption involving state institutions?
Frequent arrests of the big fish for corruption is a good thing, the system is working.
All too often the ruling party do as they want and the system protects them.
See the various PPE purchase irregularities in the UK
 


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