Politics Thread!

[pogo]

The problem with the US system is all three branches (House of Representatives, Senate, President) have a veto (the first two can override the President but only with a 66% majority in both houses which rarely happens). This was done to force the branches to compromise, to avoid the sort of dictatorship they'd left behind in Europe. The result though is gridlock. Even with just two parties where it should easy to find compromise on many issues they mostly refuse for ideological reasons.

That's why if we have a senate here the Commons still needs to have priority. Giving both houses equal footing would just be a recipe for gridlock. Giving the Senate priority, assuming it has some form of PR, would lead to another form of gridlock, breakable only by giving minority parties what they want.

Probably no need to worry though, as Labour once elected aren't going to change the system so someone can block or override an elected Labour govt. Which is also a fear as the wider debate over the Scottish referendum made it clear that serious imbalances, largely favouring Labour, have built up over time and with the devolution to Scotland of more powers. We should not now undertake further constitutional reform without addressing those imbalances.

[Dio]

It seems pretty hard to give priority to a Commons if a replacement Lords is elected via PR, because it's got a more democratic mandate than the Commons has.

[KlaxonCow]

they mostly refuse for ideological reasons.

Which, for many of "the Tea Party" candidates and supporters, simply translates to "because he's a black man".

[pogo]

It seems pretty hard to give priority to a Commons if a replacement Lords is elected via PR, because it's got a more democratic mandate than the Commons has.

That's one view

My own view is PR is in theory more representative, but in practice it can give extreme elements power well above their support. Imagine e.g. that the next election was 40% Labour, 35% Tory, 20% UKIP, and other parties were excluded by a threshold. Under PR UKIP would have a blocking minority and might only join a coalition if some of their extremist policies were enacted. Or you have a grand coalition between Labour and Tories. But that's very undemocratic. The resulting government programme looks very unlike what either party ran on, and 75% of voters can be rightly pissed off that the party they voted against is in power.

And PR only encourages small parties, single issue and extremist parties of all persuasions that have far more chance of being in government under such a system. Look e.g. at Israel. Twelve parties have MPs in the Knesset, five of which were needed to form the current government. This government is a centrist (for Israel) coalition but the one immediately before included some of the most extreme elements of the parliament. They're raising the threshold from 2% to 3.25% for the next election which will eliminate a couple of minority parties but not most of them.

[Harlequin]

… Imagine e.g. that the next election was 40% Labour, 35% Tory, 20% UKIP, and other parties were excluded by a threshold. Under PR UKIP would have a blocking minority and might only join a coalition if some of their … policies were enacted. Or you have a grand coalition between Labour and Tories. But that's very undemocratic. The resulting government programme looks very unlike what either party ran on, and 75% of voters can be rightly pissed off that the party they voted against is in power.

Disregarding for the moment the many different forms of PR that are possible, your example sounds much like the current coalition had the Lib-Dems dug their heels in and demanded more of their manifesto enacted. As it was, in the British manner that our electorate seems to approve of (at least in the early stages), they and the Tories divided power conceptually based on how much of the popular vote each had attracted.

BTW, on just how many points are the Conservative and UKIP manifestos next year likely to differ beyond any possible compatibility?

[pogo]

they mostly refuse for ideological reasons.

Which, for many of "the Tea Party" candidates and supporters, simply translates to "because he's a black man".

I think it would be little different whoever the Democrats had elected. The problem largely is the Republican party that has moved far to the right in recent years. There are a number of reasons for this

One is states are within limits allowed to pretty freely draw boundaries for the house of representatives and state senate. And this has led to lots of gerrymandering (a US term). In particular boundaries have been redrawn to create more safe seats. Republicans don't need to worry about losing to Democrats in them, they can only lose to a challenger from within their own party. So they strive not to appeal to the middle ground but to appeal to core Republican voters, and become more extreme doing so.

Another is money. The Republicans in particular are bankrolled by a few very rich businessmen. The 1% of the 1%. They're not interested in appealing to broad coalitions, just narrow special interests they can attach themselves to and bankroll.

A third is demographic. Republicans face a challenge as their core voters shrink demographically. They could and probably should try and appeal to a broader coalition, but they seem stuck with policies deeply offensive to most blacks, asians, hispanics, gays, many women, ... But instead they've doubled down on their policies to try and motivate their base, and win by getting more of their people to vote, while using electoral tricks to make it harder for opponents to vote.

With all that it's hard for them to compromise, not only as they are more extreme but as to turn out the base when you've unappealing, inconsistent policies your best policy is to demonise your opponent, not do deals with him. Some of this racist, yes, but it would happen with any Democrat president. It would be "because she's a woman" if Hilary Clinton had been elected, or "because he's liberal" applied to pretty much anyone.

[pogo]

Disregarding for the moment the many different forms of PR that are possible, your example sounds much like the current coalition had the Lib-Dems dug their heels in and demanded more of their manifesto enacted. As it was, in the British manner that our electorate seems to approve of (at least in the early stages), they and the Tories divided power conceptually based on how much of the popular vote each had attracted.

BTW, on just how many points are the Conservative and UKIP manifestos next year likely to differ beyond any possible compatibility?

My example was a guess at the support the three leading parties will get next election. The Lib Dems are neither extreme or principled, as we now now. The one thing that they demanded and weren't going to back down on was PR, for them an entirely self-serving policy with no real benefits for the country. Once the Tories agreed to that they were happy to join a coalition.

UKIP are very different. Their platform seems very slim which in theory makes them good minority coalition partners. But the things they would insist on, their distinct policies they would feel they have a mandate for, are much more extreme. Either withdrawal from the EU or some way of effectively closing our borders. Copied some recent polls below which suggest it should be a carve-up between Labour and the Conservatives next election as the other two main parties don't have enough votes to win many seats.

[Harlequin]

Disregarding for the moment the many different forms of PR that are possible, your example sounds much like the current coalition had the Lib-Dems dug their heels in and demanded more of their manifesto enacted. As it was, in the British manner that our electorate seems to approve of (at least in the early stages), they and the Tories divided power conceptually based on how much of the popular vote each had attracted.
BTW, on just how many points are the Conservative and UKIP manifestos next year likely to differ beyond any possible compatibility?

My example was a guess at the support the three leading parties will get next election. The Lib Dems are neither extreme or principled, as we now now. The one thing that they demanded and weren't going to back down on was PR, for them an entirely self-serving policy with no real benefits for the country. Once the Tories agreed to that they were happy to join a coalition.

UKIP are very different. Their platform seems very slim which in theory makes them good minority coalition partners. But the things they would insist on, their distinct policies they would feel they have a mandate for, are much more extreme. Either withdrawal from the EU or some way of effectively closing our borders. …

So if Labour and UKIP had been in the respective positions of the Tories and Lib-Dems in the last general election, with other small parties below threshold, the nightmare scenario you suggest would still exist today even with our current first-past-the-post system?

[pogo]

I can't imagine Labour would ever partner with UKIP. I would not be surprised if all parties avoid them. If that's correct, and if UKIP get enough seats to stop any party forming a govt without them (which can happen in FPTP, it's just very unlikely) then you might see a 'grand coalition' between Labour and the Conservatives.

These seem to happen in continental Europe occasionally, and in theory is a very democratic outcome as it means most voters, 70% or more, are represented in government. But voters get a very bad deal from it. The coalition programme looks little like either party's, so little like what they voted for. If they voted to oppose one of the parties they can be very unhappy to see it in power implementing its policies. Over time as parties get used to it a grand coalition can seem a good idea for the parties involved, who then move closer together and forget some of the things that made them distinctive. This can lead to voter disillusionment and the rise of populist and extremist parties.

In theory this can happen with FPTP if no party gets an overall majority. But as that's much less likely with FPTP, when it does happen parties can just refuse to form a coalition and force a new election. This may seem wasteful, especially wasting time governing, but the it can take a long time for coalitions to be negotiated. Belgium notoriously took over a year to form a government after its 2010 election (beating the record of 6 months negotiations set only 2-3 years previously).

[Harlequin]

It seemed to work well enough for us in the thirties and forties.

[pogo]

So all we need is another Great Depression, fascist threat and war to make parties forget their differences and work together in the national interest!

(you can see echoes of that time in this government – I doubt the Lib Dems and Tories would have got together so quickly without the modern Great Recession hanging over them. In normal times they might have been unable to quickly agree and forced a new election)

[Darkflame]

The breakdown of policies people support from various parties are interesting here;
http://voteforpolicies.org.uk
The BNPs most popular policies are in crime and the nhs, for example.
Also, when looking just at policies, Conservatives do pretty shit, Greens actually do a lot better.

[pogo]

Completely unrelated but much more fun:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29868458



We've got the Daily Mail to thank for this, as they sent someone out to Mauritius to check and found out the t-shirts were being produced in a sweatshop, not ethically produced in the UK as they were supposed to be. The produced in the UK has already been shown to be a lie, so it seems likely the ethically produced bit is also nonsense.

The charity's answer is to ask the manufacturer to give up 'part' of the profits to another charity.

If there is evidence that factory makers have been mistreated, the charity will ask Whistles to withdraw the range "and donate part of the profits to an ethical trading campaigning body".

The problem with that is 100% of profits go directly to the Fawcett Society. So any profits will have to come out of the Fawcett Society's share. Of course 'part of profits' could be anything. Be wary of any firm that promises to give 'part of profits' or even '100% of profits' to charity, as profits are what's left over after all your expenses, and its easy for firms to find ways to spend money so they make little or no profit. The t-shirts cost £45, and must cost under £5 to make and distribute. I doubt very much the Fawcett Society is seeing £40 from every sale, or anything close to it.

[pogo]

The breakdown of policies people support from various parties are interesting here;
http://voteforpolicies.org.uk
The BNPs most popular policies are in crime and the nhs, for example.
Also, when looking just at policies, Conservatives do pretty shit, Greens actually do a lot better.

Problem is we do vote for parties, not policies. If we voted for policies we'd be Switzerland and I don't think anyone wants that !

More seriously I think the problem is that individual policies from other parties may be good, but it's their whole platform that you elect them on. In some cases its incomplete, in some cases their priorities are wrong, in some cases it flat out impossible as it's internally contradictory or doesn't add up financially, in some cases the party can't be trusted to implement them.

So the Greens and UKIP are both single issue parties, which for most voters means their priorities are wrong. There's also some suggestion (though I've looked at neither closely) that the Greens are economically naïve and haven't costed their programme while UKIPs policies aren't thought through enough. The Lib Dems meanwhile are known for not having a clear ideological centre, standing for different things at local and national level, so they simply can't be trusted to follow through on their policies, no matter how good they sound on paper.

[Darkflame]

So the Greens and UKIP are both single issue parties

...and yet people support more Green policies in all areas then conservatives. Its not just one policy trumping the others percentage wise (which would be a lot more understandable)
They score better on Crime,Education and Health then everyone else, and better then Conservatives on everything except Europe. Environment I expected, but not everything else.

And yes, its all a compromise unless you can direct vote, and the site weighs each policy equally (whereas we all probably value some things we agree with higher then others we agree with), and yes also, theres a degree of trust issue - but despite that I think it still shows people would vote quite differently if blinded by party identities.

I mean that sites looking at 250,000 votesish. Sure, probably a lot of dups, a lot of people from other countries, but seems a significant enough sample range.
---
Also regarding trust; Thats somewhat of an interesting dilemma. Is a politician going ahead with a plan you don't like better then one with a plan you do like but not going ahead with it?