This thread exists to discuss British politics.
Political issues related to Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) are also considered on-topic here if there's no more appropriate OTC thread for them.
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- There is a dedicated thread to discuss LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom. That doesn't mean it's always off-topic here, but unless something's directly linked to political events, that's probably a better thread for it.
- There's also a separate thread to talk about your favourite British Prime Ministers.
Recent political stuff:
- The vote to see if Britain should adopt Alternative Voting has failed.
- Lib Dems lose lots of councils and councillors, whilst Labour make the majority of the gains in England.
- The Scottish National Party do really well in the elections.
A link to the BBC politics page containing relevant information.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 3rd 2023 at 11:15:30 AM
Figure of Hourai
Combine constituencies, some form of runoff voting and a single transferable vote. I pretty much agree with the Electoral Reform Society, I think?
AV is a miserable compromise to make it take longer to announce the results of a single constituency, but it barely changes the electoral maths and leaves you with small constituencies like this.
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Servant of the Omnissiah
So in effect, some of the hardline Brexiteers want the Empire back without any of the budget or responsibility? Glory days, if you will.
I mean, I get the appeal, but jeez - that sounds insane even to someone half-mad as I am.
I hold the secrets of the machine.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh I see.
Thanks for the link, by the way. The alternatives I see there sound really interesting. ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Edited by Lorsty on Oct 30th 2018 at 8:54:56 AM
A procrastination in of itself
Personly I’m a big fan of the additional member system, it maintains constituency links while addressing the winner takes all problem of FPTP.
As for the lords, I’d want to see it more focused on being a chamber for experts, more scientistis and such, with the lords spiritual either removed or expanded to account for all religious/non-religious groupings.
Edited by Silasw on Oct 31st 2018 at 4:41:46 PM
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Hear, hear. With the addition of "bigger fangs and talons, please".
All the better to shred idiotic white papers that could conceivably lead to driving the nation off a cliff up with, my dear.
Nice site, with good explanations on how various systems work.
Guardian article (18th September 2018).
Rightwing thinktanks unveil radical plan for US-UK Brexit trade deal
The same US thinktanks have been behind developing off-the-shelf policies favoured by big business that were adopted by the Trump administration when it took office. Several policies and staff from the Heritage Foundation were taken into the Trump transition team.
In the UK, the researchers behind the blueprint have had exceptional access to ministers in both the Department for International Trade and the Department for Exiting the European Union, with IEA staff and its head of trade policy, Shanker Singham, meeting Liam Fox, David Davis, Steve Baker and other ministers and special advisers on numerous occasions since the referendum result, government transparency data shows. Fox has given speeches at both the Heritage Foundation and the AEI before and after the referendum.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 4th 2018 at 11:47:55 AM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
There's also Instant Runoff which requires candidates to gain an actual majority rather than the plurality of the UK's first past the post. Though it would take an education campaign to get voters used to numbering their preferences.
A procrastination in of itself
I’m not a fan of any kind of runoff or transferable vote system for anything other than single individual elections (party leader, mayor, president, ect...), once you have more than a single person being elected one should try and have some kind of proportional representation.
All the transferable vote options are just a way of going “come on now, be realistic they can’t win” to third party voters, it dosnt give them a voice, it nags them into backing one of the main sides.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Figure of Hourai
But the point of STV multi-member constituencies is that it does lead to a more proportional vote, same as an additional member system, and it doesn't just go "let's keep FPTP safe seats but add a bunch of locally barely-accountable MPs". Third parties are more successful when tactical voting is mostly diminished. It's partly a matter of correctly sizing the constituencies.
Anyway, if this is anything to go by, we have a deal on financial services.
Yeah, but with single member constituencies that is what you're doing.
Of course as I've said before I'm in a weird position because I'm doing both in Australia, single member constituency and an upper house elected via proportional representation (by state).
meow
Aaron Banks has been referred to the National Crime Agency.
Is it too much to hope that something comes of this?
jamie-b-good.tumblr.com
Tracey Crouch MP has resigned as Minister for Sport, Civil Society & Loneliness. [1]
My preference is for an Additional Member system with the additional caveat that only the "additional members" can take cabinet roles*.
It comes down to the fact that one of my personal bugbears are those MP's who are on the payroll vote as well as the MP's who want to be on the payroll vote. If the incentive of a governmental position was removed, it could help MP's to become more independent of the executive. I mean, you'd still get people toadying to try and get on the additional member list but 1) they wouldn't be able to profit from it till an election and 2) they have to take the gamble of going on the list as they won't have a constituency seat to fall back into.
It also sucks for any constituent whose MP is a minister. If you live in Maidenhead you are probably simultaneously in the worst and best represented constituency. I mean, good luck getting Theresa's personal attention, she does after all have a country to run / Tory party to babysit. But if you do get her attention, then suddenly you have the entire machinery of government behind you.
- (Personally I'd also like it to apply to the shadow cabinet as well, but given that after a GE the losing party might be in a bit of disarray and so limiting leadership positions only to those the party has pre-approved in the last GE would stop insurgent campaigns such as Corbyn's dead in it's tracks.)
Figure of Hourai
That de facto allows the party to parachute in its desired cabinet with nothing the electorate can do to influence it. No matter how godawful someone in particular is, if they're at the top of the list...
Even a safe seat could develop a particular hatred for someone.
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A procrastination in of itself
It would end Cabinet parachuting wouldn’t it? As you can’t parachute into a list seat.
I’m not in favour of the idea though, firstly because it dosnt work as not everyone gets top up seats under the AMS, so you couldn’t easily end up with not enough eligible people to fill the cabinet.
If you want to disconnect the cabinet from parliamentary membership than forbid joint membership except for maybe the PM.
Personally I like having that connection, having the entire parliamentary party as potential ministers means you get a better selection than with a smaller pool, having the mobility between the front and back benches allows for proper feedback, it means that good M Ps who work hard doing grunt work can be recognised and given a chance to act with more power.
Now the problem with cabinet members being de facto absent constituency M Ps is a fair one, it’s one argument in favour of multi-member constituencies. Personally I’d like to see M Ps be given funds to specifically hire a member of staff to address constituent issues, that way the MP can be more the big gun that gets called it when needed, rather than someone who is often trying to ballence fifty different things and dropping them all.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Maybe you could have party lists...for each constituency. That is each constituency gets N MPs which are allotted to party lists in proportion to vote share of each list. That might make parliament very large though.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Figure of Hourai
That's basically their principle behind STV and multimember constituencies, though. Merge individual constituencies into single, larger, more logical divisions, then use Single Transferrable Vote to conduct the elections.
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Yeah, as said, you define the size of Parliament, then work out constituency sizes in terms of both voters and seats. Maybe you say each county is a constituency, with a number of seats proportional to its population.
The Lord Heywood of Whitehall, Head of the Home Civil Service 2014-2018, has died aged 56. He lived just eleven days after his resignation and nine after his ennoblement. [1]
Edited by TommyR01D on Nov 4th 2018 at 3:39:53 AM
Damn. That sucks.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Alright, for the British Isles in Europe, should we follow the UN's designation and include them in Northern Europe, or include them in Western Europe like most people do? I'm asking this because I'm having a hard time deciding where to put them. I do have a map including them in Western Europe on standby just in case.
If you go "got taken over by Normandy and culturally shifted continent-wards rather than islands-wards" route, Western.
If you go, "islands in the North Atlantic with Germanic and Nordic connections" route, Northern.
If you go "dammit, Bexit", dunno. However close we try to get to the US, we're on this side of the pond, not that one.
If you go purely geographically, roll dice: we can be either.
Edited by Euodiachloris on Nov 4th 2018 at 2:37:55 PM
Follow the UN designation. Northern Europe.
I tend to regard it as follows:
Western = colloquialism, Northern = official.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Nov 4th 2018 at 2:40:44 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
My boyfriend insists the Commons should remain FPTP while making the Lords completely proportional and give it back its fangs (whatever that means).
Personally I've only known the Mexican system so it's hard for me to imagine a system that could work over there since I don't know what you people would like to have.
For the record, we use Parallel Voting for both our chambers.
Of these, 300 "majority deputies" are directly elected by plurality from single-member districts, the federal electoral districts. The remaining 200 "party deputies" are assigned through rules of proportional representation. These seats are not tied to districts; rather, they are allocated to parties based on each party's share of the national vote. The 200 party deputies are intended to counterbalance the sectional interests of the district-based representatives. Substitutes are elected at the same time as each deputy, so special elections are rare.
The Senate is made up of 128 senators:
Although I'm sure that wouldn't work for you. I heard you've got over 600 M Ps!