Tony L
Administrator
That’s a pub carpark brawl, not a democracy. If a given percentage of people vote for a party or ideology they should be represented. Anything less than that is fundamentally corrupt.
Voter suppression: UK Voter ID
- Thread starter Tony L
- Start date
That’s a pub carpark brawl, not a democracy. If a given percentage of people vote for a party or ideology they should be represented. Anything less than that is fundamentally corrupt.
No it gives the largest sector of opinion the right to have a government that carries out the policies it was elected to do. All the Liberals need to do is to formulate policies with some appeal.
Tony L
Administrator
It leads to the current situation where a fundamentally corrupt government which has never had any mandate can absolutely destroy the country and steal from the electorate. Basically a five year dictatorship. Your party is absolutely hated, yet the system is so morally bankrupt and corrupt they can’t be removed. Your system is that of Mugabe, Trump, Putin and every other tin-pot dictator or fascist. You fear democracy because you fully understand it would neuter your party’s grift and theft.
kensalriser
pfm Member
All UK parties are minority parties and have been for a long time.
If no one voted for the Tories then they would become history overnight. So it's down to the other parties to take them on. That's it end of argument.
Tony L
Administrator
As I say, you either believe in democracy, or you do not. As a paid-up member and door to door activist for the most corrupt and authoritarian party in the UK it is very clear where you reside. I fully understand why you fear it so. The vast majority of the population absolutely detest your ideology and always have done. You can only win power by gerrymandering and disenfranchising vast swathes of the population. So that is what you do.
So if the Tory party is the most corrupt and authoritarian, how come they win more elections than anyone else. Labour are now a Neo Tory party and they also pick up a reasonable share of the vote and the remainder pick up peanuts. You seem to imply that the public are idiots and easily fooled and that is a sure fire way to alienate yourself.
Either you change your stance (which you never will) or face political oblivion - it's your choice.
Hazelberry
sister
PR in the form of Mixed Member Proportional (while not my preferred system) works fairly well here in AO/NZ. Generally it dilutes the power of the two big parties. That said I fear we’ll have a frighteningly right wing govt after Novembers general election. For some reason, so far it appears the (relative) lefties are not even trying. 
Jubal
pfm Member
You are devaluing every vote for a minority party with that attitude. It’s not democracy, and I wasn’t talking about who wins anyway. It’s about the vote being counted, listened to and valued in some fashion thus making people care enough to vote in the first place.
Nick_G
pfm Member
"So if the Tory party is the most corrupt and authoritarian, how come they win more elections than anyone else."
Maybe you've answered your own question there.
This is what you're defending Mick:
Not a good look, is it?
PaulMB
pfm Member
You are right. But the problem is that PR produces a large number of parties, none of which have a majority. So the only solution is the formation of government coalitions made up of two or (often many) more parties. This means that it is very difficult to implement policy that is supported by all the parties in a coalition. Consequently, it can give disproportionate power to small parties, that only represent a small minority of the voters, that can threaten to drop out of the coalition if their demands are not met. There is no perfect system of democracy. One extreme is the UK's FPTP, the other is Israel's PR. Most countries have some kind of compromise system. But there is no perfect system that combines 100% fair representation and 100% efficient government.
Regarding your attacks on the Tories and Labour, I think you are perfectly right. But perhaps one should also blame the "others" who are not there, the non-existent alternatives. Who are they? What are their policies? How do they attract, or fail to attract, the voters?
In Italy people of the Left are constantly attacking the right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni. But it is not her fault if she was elected. It is the fault of the various parties of the centre-left or moderate left or liberal centre who failed to get themselves elected.
davidsrsb
pfm Member
Coalitions represent the electorate where everyone has to compromise. The power of micro parties vanishes if the coalition has a working majority. The power of tiny parties is also seen in the FPTP system. Look what happened when the NI parties had the May government to ransom
PaulMB
pfm Member
Depends what you mean by "a working majority." If you have a 4-party coalition with parties with 12%, 16%, 15% and 8% of the vote, any of these, including the 8% party, can bring the government down if their demands are not met. And demands do not simply define policy, but also, and perhaps above all, regard getting their people key jobs in the government.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
You are conflating our current electoral FPTP system with the concept of democracy. Just because what we have here is described as democratic, doesn't mean it actually conforms to any valid concept of, you know, actual democracy.
Defend the status quo because it works for you, if you must, but don't kid yourself that what you are defending is genuinely democratic. Look up a few definitions of democracy, then tell me you believe that any system which discards the wishes of up to 49% of the population can actually claim to be democratic.
No democratic system is perfect but the FPTP system is the most practical in the sense that the majority view tends to prevail over that of minority parties.
Your type trying to convince voters to come around to your type of mindset is as about as pointless as me trying to convince the pfm members to come around to mine.
What you are doing here is just preaching to the converted, you need to start convincing the electorate. I hardly come here because I know I am wasting my time. That's the reality we both have to accept.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
I'm not sure you can support that argument with facts, when you consider that for the last century, barely any party has ever won a general election with >50% of the vote. So not only is the party in power there because of a minority of the electorate, but support for the other parties often outweighs the support for the 'winning' party. So the 'not Tory' vote outweighs the Tory vote, most times around. Yet the Tories win power, sometimes on barely more than a third of the electorate giving them their support. That's not democracy, that's gerrymandering.
UK election results 1918-2019 | Statista
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
not always
PaulMB
pfm Member
Sorry but this does not make sense. Or, rather, it does, but is not a valid argument. You cannot pit "Tory" against "non-Tory," because the latter includes everything from the Greens to the UK Communist Party (does it still exist?) to the extreme right. Can you imagine a coalition of that lot?