UK Politics Thread V: Upon This Blasted Heath

[The Nihilistic view]

0 out of 100. I prefer representative constitutional democracy over a presidential style. As long as the leader is elected under the system in some way I'm cool.

Parliamentary democracy with First Past the Post 4lyfe.

Indeed, it was an outrage when EU elections in the UK switched from FPTP.

At least we got rid of those elections now.

[Eastfield Lodge]

No he's saying "How dare they do something for which many Brexit campaigners championed and which many supporters support". He's not the only person to have advocated the points-based system and it's perfectly legitimate of him to criticize May's position.

I mean none of us are elected and we certainly get miffed when they government doesn't do what we think is right or want and vocalize it.

The fact is there are more important issues facing the country in this regard than just how we're keeping the dirty foreigners out.

And yet the British public think its the most important issue this country faces at the moment.

[Ifreann]

That's not how you spell "PRSTV".

This is why Irish independence is a disaster. Rejoin the union.

Join the Republic.

[Hydesland]

to what extent do you guys prize directly electing the leader in democracy

random question

I don't think it matters if you vote for the party, or whoever the party decides to run as leader. But there are good arguments that it matters if your vote for your local MP is at the same time your vote for the ruling party, for which PR or something like that might be a solution.

[Wolfmanne2]

This is why Irish independence is a disaster. Rejoin the union.

Join the Republic.

If people feel disillusioned by the choice of Tory and Labour then wait until they have to decide between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

[Vassenor]

The fact is there are more important issues facing the country in this regard than just how we're keeping the dirty foreigners out.

And yet the British public think its the most important only issue this country faces at the moment.

Fixed.

[Napkiraly]

No he's saying "How dare they do something for which many Brexit campaigners championed and which many supporters support". He's not the only person to have advocated the points-based system and it's perfectly legitimate of him to criticize May's position.

I mean none of us are elected and we certainly get miffed when they government doesn't do what we think is right or want and vocalize it.

The fact is there are more important issues facing the country in this regard than just how we're keeping the dirty foreigners out.

No, the fact is you can't seem to accept that it's perfectly fine for him, both as a private citizen and influential member of the public, to criticize the position taken by May, despite not being an MP, and champion a position he and others (including Boris Johnson, an elected MP) support and supposedly a number of Brexit supporters as well.

[Celritannia]

Parliamentary democracy with First Past the Post 4lyfe.

Indeed, it was an outrage when EU elections in the UK switched from FPTP.

At least we got rid of those elections now.

STV is far superior and democratic.

FPTP is a disease.

I liked the EU elections.

[Conscentia]

This is why Irish independence is a disaster. Rejoin the union.

Join the Republic.

It'd improve the maps, keep us in the EU, and abolish the nobility. Alright.

[The Nihilistic view]

Nobody chooses the PM. They choose their local representative based on both their indervidual qualities and the manifesto they represent.

No PM has been chosen by the people, only by their own constituency.

Which is highly undemocratic. MPs should represent their constituencies and the executive should only be concerned over executing laws the legislature votes upon.

The opposition is for Parliament to nominate the PM and the public vote on which leader we wish to have. That way it is half democratic and half meritocratic.

Why should they? We have a system that works. Works better than most systems in the world and has done for longer than most. As soon as one accepts one can't make direct democracy work one has already abandoned the idea a full democracy. Once one has done the question is not what is most democratic but which balances democracy, executive accountability, the role of the head of state and the set up of the legislature best. I look around the world, I can't see a better system than we have. They all on balence have negatives to the plus points making it all rather spurious.

[Vassenor]

The fact is there are more important issues facing the country in this regard than just how we're keeping the dirty foreigners out.

No, the fact is you can't seem to accept that it's perfectly fine for him, both as a private citizen and influential member of the public, to criticize the position taken by May, despite not being an MP, and champion a position he and others (including Boris Johnson, an elected MP) support and supposedly a number of Brexit supporters as well.

We are talking about the person who wanted to make the Brexit debate entirely about immigration and nothing else.

[The Nihilistic view]

Indeed, it was an outrage when EU elections in the UK switched from FPTP.

At least we got rid of those elections now.

STV is far superior and democratic.

FPTP is a disease.

I liked the EU elections.

I did too, it was the one time I got to be naughty and vote UKIP. Sadly I can take that pleasure no longer.

[Eastfield Lodge]

And yet the British public think its the most important only issue this country faces at the moment.

Fixed.

Nah, they care about the economy as well (as in, they'll believe what the Tory-leaning media tells them ).

[The Nihilistic view]

Join the Republic.

If people feel disillusioned by the choice of Tory and Labour then wait until they have to decide between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Never vote for something with the word Fail in it. That's just asking for it!

[Olivaero]

Democratic mandate is with the elected governing party and continued confidence of the House of Commons, not the leader of said party.

IIRC you still don't even have to legally be an MP in order to be the PM, it's just a political convention that they be an MP and most today would find it politically impossible to have a PM who is not in the HoC.

To be fair, it's not something that I have a real opinion on, my comment wasn't that serious.

Very important, and it's a travesty we don't get to. And I don't give one tupenny fuck about the fact that we have a tradition of not doing so.

Why do you prize it so?

Because the leader appoints ministers who run the government. The voter can't have every decision put in front of them in a society as large as ours which is why we have a representative democracy I understand that. However all we do at the moment as far as national government goes is vote for a person who promises to vote with other people who decide who the leader of the country is who then decide how all the people who promised to vote together vote. It's convoluted and anti democratic, and i actually do prize democracy a fair bit, it's why I'm a socialist after all.

[Ifreann]

Join the Republic.

If people feel disillusioned by the choice of Tory and Labour then wait until they have to decide between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Decide between and pronounce. It'll be a time of great hardship, but you will be stronger for it.

---

Join the Republic.

It'd improve the maps, keep us in the EU, and abolish the nobility. Alright.

You'll be back in the Pope's good books, too.

[Napkiraly]

No, the fact is you can't seem to accept that it's perfectly fine for him, both as a private citizen and influential member of the public, to criticize the position taken by May, despite not being an MP, and champion a position he and others (including Boris Johnson, an elected MP) support and supposedly a number of Brexit supporters as well.

We are talking about the person who wanted to make the Brexit debate entirely about immigration and nothing else.

So bloody what? That has no bearing on whether his criticism(s) of May's government's position on immigration are somehow less valid because he's not an MP. Stop trying to shift the goalposts.

[Vassenor]

We are talking about the person who wanted to make the Brexit debate entirely about immigration and nothing else.

So bloody what? That has no bearing on whether his criticism(s) of May's government's position on immigration are somehow less valid because he's not an MP. Stop trying to shift the goalposts.

Well excuse me if I don't take that racist pile of human waste seriously.

[Imperializt Russia]

I complained that they ran an active campaign in favour of restricting pornography.
You claimed it had a liberal attitude, or similar terms, to pornography.

That is blatantly untrue.

In running this campaign, it was further blatantly hypocritical, given the Mail OnLine's sidebar which is blatant eye-candy of bikini-shots, sometimes of girls as young as sixteen.

It is a publication without narrative cohesion, without scruples, without a view. It's clickbait from before they were baiting clicks.

You haven't answered my initial question - why do you think it's worth respect?
So far, all you've done is criticise other people's worldviews for not being represented in the Mail's, valiantly defend the poor Mail readership from our vicious attacks on them, give arguments from authority about how some MPs and peers, of the literally hundreds that there are, supporting Mail causes and being Mail readers - and be wrong.

I've not defended any restrictions of pornography or the campaign you are referring to. You are assuming that every DM reader agrees with everything the DM does. That's not a realistic assumption to make.

I made no such claim of a liberal attitude. I debunked Ifreann's untrue notions towards the DM by demonstrating the DM happens to frequently run pro-drug articles. I haven't denied there will be some with the opposite stance. You seem to have this view of DM readers that they are incapable of reading articles with differing positions without taking an informed opinion on them. The difference between the Guardian and the Daily Mail is that the Guardian limits its articles to only ever being in support of one side. The Daily Mail will provide angles from various sides, and that is an innately more functional form of commentary and discussion.

I really do not care for subjective and personal standards such as "respectable".

I'm clearly not using "respect" in the same sense that you are.

I take respect, in the case of journalism, to mean an outlet that can be trusted, that is worth listening to. That presents facts with minimal spin, preferably none. The Daily Mail objectively fails this metric. Either through poor editorial oversight (incompetent) or complicit editorial stances pushing this (wilfully dishonest).

I choose to believe the latter partly out of my own personal biases, but also partly due to the fact that I'd like to believe a billion-pound company, much less a newspaper, should be above incompetent managerial (editorial) oversight.

You've now walked back from "the DM runs articles in favour of pornography and with a liberal attitude to drugs" to "I debunked... untrue notions towards the DM by demonstrating [they] frequently run pro-drug articles". The latter is a direct quote, the former is a paraphrase, because I can't be arsed to find the original. I know you did not use the term "liberal" to describe their attitude to pornography, but their attitude to drugs. But you mentioned it in the same breath, so you clearly believe they have a liberal, permissive, however you want to describe it attitude to pornography.

This is blatantly untrue. Except for the soft pornography they themselves publish.

[Celritannia]

Which is highly undemocratic. MPs should represent their constituencies and the executive should only be concerned over executing laws the legislature votes upon.

The opposition is for Parliament to nominate the PM and the public vote on which leader we wish to have. That way it is half democratic and half meritocratic.

Why should they? We have a system that works. Works better than most systems in the world and has done for longer than most. As soon as one accepts one can't make direct democracy work one has already abandoned the idea a full democracy. Once one has done the question is not what is most democratic but which balances democracy, executive accountability, the role of the head of state and the set up of the legislature best. I look around the world, I can't see a better system than we have. They all on balance have negatives to the plus points making it all rather spurious.

Because we need a fully codified constitution to remove Royal Prerogative from the PM and have actual listed powers for the Head of Government.
No, because Parliament basically bickers about the simplest of debates. In other European Parliamentary systems elect their PMs through Parliamentary vote or first selection by the speaker then Election of the Parliament.

And we still have a House of Lords that needs to be altered.

If there is to be a balance, separates the executive and legislature, write down the powers of the PM and not take them from a Royal Prerogative and take them from an actual codified constitution. You know, like well developed and modern Parliamentary systems like Sweden, Japan, Germany.

[Napkiraly]

So bloody what? That has no bearing on whether his criticism(s) of May's government's position on immigration are somehow less valid because he's not an MP. Stop trying to shift the goalposts.

Well excuse me if I don't take that racist pile of human waste seriously.

That's not what you are arguing. You are saying basically we should not take his criticisms and arguments seriously on the basis that he's not an MP. Not on the basis that's he's a racist or that his ideas are wrong, misguided, etc but on the simple basis that's he not an MP or a member of the government. An incredibly ridiculous standard and position to hold.

[Napkiraly]

Government or state?

government

Mhm, depends on the system I suppose. Low to medium perhaps.

[Conscentia]

It'd improve the maps, keep us in the EU, and abolish the nobility. Alright.

You'll be back in the Pope's good books, too.

Yeah, I expected there'd be some downsides to it like that. Still, I think it's worth it.

[Imperializt Russia]

While I like the white dominions, which are almost extensions of Britain itself, that doesn't exclude them from the same obligations as people from Pakistan or Ghana. There are probably plenty of Canadians who Don't Quite Get It.

*Sips tea in room full of union jacks, images of the Queen, and images of Churchill, mumbling about how Top Gear is now shite and how Chris Evans is a nob while looking out into my tiny garden out front where my cat is frolicking*

I'm doing it right, right?

Close enough.

Though I would say you're now trying too hard

I'm actually with Smith on this one. That's good banter.

I disagree that it's "banter" (mostly because I despise the word and the culture", but also, that's not objectively "sexist".
Sexist would be gendered, or with gendered tones.

"Bloody first minister, she should use one of these and learn her place" would be sexist "banter".
The tweet is perfectly ambiguous and could easily be applied to a windbag male politician (no-one would complain had he used it as a slam against Farage, for example) - not to say that the tweet may not have been made based on sexist personal beliefs.

I like how the Facebook comment section immediately proves him right.

I wish people would remember that this is supposed to be satire.

You can't parody reactionaries.

He's not a Member of Parliament. Being an MEP doesn't give him any say in UK government policy.

He was elected to the European Parliament, though, was he not?

Don't tell him that.

where is Yorkshire?

Also, speaking of, since Brexit, God's own country is going to be even worse off.

I mean it gets hardly any money from Westminster (which May's government wa not democratically elected. Do I smell hypocrisy with regards to Brussels which is democratically elected? I think I do).

Brexit was the worst decision for the UK.

Theresa May was elected as an MP, everybody in her Cabinet was elected as an MP, she has the backing of a majority of her MPs which were elected, and polls show a strong support for her administration.
How was her government not democratically elected?

Her government was not.

David Cameron's government was democratically elected. However you try and slice the "well, people vote for the MP of their constituency!", that's not how most people vote. See tribal voters of any persuasion or tactical voters, or swing voters. People overwhelmingly vote nationally, for the national government, and those who vote for their own MP are probably a minority. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a factor 1.5-2 difference in turnout between local and national elections.

Because the people didn't choose her as PM?

Also, I thought you opposed Brown's legitimacy?

I don't know how much you know about UK politics, but we do not elect a PM. We vote for a Party- the Conservative Party won the election, and therefore the Government, regardless who heads it, has been elected. Therefore, the Government is 100% elected.

The people who form government are 100% elected, yes.

The government is not elected.

to what extent do you guys prize directly electing the leader in democracy

random question

Irrelevant to me.

In what way do you find it "irrelevant"?

I'm sure you know more about the political machine than I do, but when you're so heavily invested in the opposition campaign for Labour leader, and do so on a belief set largely dictated by what you believe to be "Labour's electability" and "Labour's future", I don't see how you could consider it "irrelevant".

No slight against you is intended in any way in this post.

Parliamentary democracy with First Past the Post 4lyfe.

Indeed, it was an outrage when EU elections in the UK switched from FPTP.

At least we got rid of those elections now.

I don't see how it could possibly work if EU elections in the UK were run on an FPTP basis when they're run on PR elsewhere (or was it a general uniform switch made by the EU from FPTP to PR in all member states?)

When you have views as disparate as all Europe to represent, only PR can work.

Unrelated - not sure if you've said before, how old are you, out of curiosity?

[Napkiraly]

*Sips tea in room full of union jacks, images of the Queen, and images of Churchill, mumbling about how Top Gear is now shite and how Chris Evans is a nob while looking out into my tiny garden out front where my cat is frolicking*

I'm doing it right, right?

Close enough.

Though I would say you're now trying too hard

I'm never good enough for you! I'm either not trying hard enough or trying too hard; I want a divorce.