Is this what PR will be like?
We've got the Prime Minister, comprehensively rejected by the nation, still sitting in Downing Street.
We've got the Leader of a small party, a party which gained fewer seats than in the last election, and holds about 9% of the total seats, telling us that he will decide who is and is not Prime Minister, and what the Government's priorities for legislation will be.
We've got the Leader of the party that got the most votes, and the most seats, frantically scrabbling to appease the minority guy, offering him all sorts of things not in his own manifesto, while frantically looking over his shoulder, terrified that his backbenchers will rebel before they've even sat on a backbench.
We've got, in short, a total shambles. The world keeps on turning, Europe keeps on burning, and the country continues to hell in a handcart. Meanwhile, the governing and wannabe-governing classes race around London, begging, cajoling and threatening each other.
And this is what we'll get with PR is it? Every fucking time? This is what will happen every five years, if Cleggy gets his way?
The horse-trading, the negotiation, the conflicting agenda and overall, the uncertainty?
For fuck's sake.
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And this is what we'll get with PR is it? Every fucking time? This is what will happen every five years, if Cleggy gets his way?
The horse-trading, the negotiation, the conflicting agenda and overall, the uncertainty?
For fuck's sake.
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12 comments:
More often than every five years, every nine months, more like!
Just look at Italy for a role model - a place where nothing ever gets done!
And don't forget that PR also stands for Public Relations...
Oh, I think that's a bit extreme. It's only been 24 hours for heavens sakes. You are such a twisty knickers. You've gone from hysteria about some definite Lib Lab pact (which was always unlikely given Clegg's Orange Book status and pre-election rhetoric) to some other hysteria and now some more hysteria. Just take a chill pill. It can't be helped.
Having said that, I don't support PR, unless for the second house - when I do. STV seems the ideal reform to me: decisive government results, local connection, and above all, the end to tactical voting. We can just list our genuinely held preferences, and have them count.
Look at Italy for a role model where, thankfully, nothing gets done.
As a Libertarian,I think the next best thing to no Government is a government too weak to do fuck all.
s now clear , just keep repeating the phrase "The tories do not have a mandate, the tories do not have a mandate" coupled with the statement "the tories have lost" and we will suceed in distracting the people from the fact that the conservatives won this election by over 2 million votes.
Comrade Dromney is the future.
You say this like it's a bad thing.
Left alone, we might even grind to a full recovery.
If CallMeDave had any cojones he'd tell WotsIsName to eff off and walk up to Downing Street and in the full glare of the cameras, make a speech outside telling Gordon he's lost and that he has 24 hours to get out and then walk away.
He has more seats and more votes and doesnt need to bend to the others. If they can patch up some sort of deal, let them. They would be so obviously trying to thwart the voter's will they would be vilifed forever.
Just grow a pair!!
The 'bone' is control of England.
"As a Libertarian,I think the next best thing to no Government is a government too weak to do fuck all."
That would be brilliant, if what the politicians wanted to do was introduce a smoking ban or minimum pricing. But surely what this country needs most right now is a majority governmnet that will cut the deficit? If government is too weak to do that, our economy is fucked...
AT, our economy is irreparably fckd, it's all about damage limitation now and who takes the blame. A Conservative Lib-Dem coalition will be best for damage limitation but will end up taking the blame. A Labour Lib-Dem coalition will take the blame and the markets will force on it damage limitation. Whichever party the Lib-Dem allies to they will not get PR, Labour will promise it but not deliver and the Conservatives will fudge it till it goes away. In any event two parties are going to go into the next election with no hope of forming the next government and possible political oblivion and the Lib-Dems is always going to be one of them. Let it not be the Conservatives as the other one.
Clegg has to prove that under a PR system, we wouldn't end up with A) confusion and chaos, and B) someone we hadn't voted for but got in anyway through back-room deals. For this reason he is pretty much forced into a corner - he has to ally himself with Cameron, and he has to do it quickly and with minimum fuss. Anything else is just going to give ammo to anyone who opposes him over PR.
Nope. As I've been going on about in the comments at OH, this is not necessarily what PR is like. Here it's a combination of STV type PR and a form of AV. When the Libs win we get a coalition government with the Nats (in fact the Nats and Libs don't even stand in each other's constituencies usually). When Labor win we get single party government by a people who can't spell Labour correctly. And all the time we get about two thirds in safe jobs, either because the MPs are in safe seats or because party lists protect the Senators. When I first came to Oz and saw how it worked I was disappointed to find that the highly touted, considerably- more-democratic-than-yow voting systems produce a result that made me feel right at home, and not in a good sense.
Anyway, you certainly shouldn't fear coalitions just because the Italians can't make 'em last. The Coalition were running Oz when I arrived and had been for years. I think it won four elections over twelve years, and given that the law here is elections only three years apart that's as good as a single party could do anyway. That said we have the AV system in place for electing MPs from single member constituencies, and PR for the Senate. That's not unlike what Jill suggests and as far as it goes it works well for representation, but it's just as bad as the UK for allowing corrupt or useless fuckwits to keep their seats because they're loyal party men. The way to really put the hiring and firing back in the hands of the electorate I saw in The Plan - open primaries and a recall procedure to force the shitters to face a by-election.
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