This is the election that confirmed the power of Labours client state. Turkeys don't vote for Christmas and my god there a lot of potential roast dinners out there. This counrty is in big trouble.
Incidentally.
The reason Brown always used the expressions "our country" and "this country" when talking about policies even when they are applicable to England only. Is because he was scared to highlight the negative side of Devolution. ie. England has none.
It's the same reason he waffled on about "Britishness" and "Nations and Regions" (the nations being Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland. The regions being England chopped into nine EU chunks)
Sadly this is unlikely to change under the incoming Government, whatever form it takes.
Yesterday England as ever, voted overwhelmingly Tory
No they didn't - 61% of voters in England did not vote Tory.
Made me laugh.
As ever Daggs some good arguments backed up with some dodgy stats : - )
Look at the map Henry. It's bluer than a blue thing.
You can argue about percentage of votes V constituencies won. As was argued earlier in this thread. But on constituencies it's a landslide tory victory in England.
Yesterday England as ever, voted overwhelmingly Tory
No they didn't - 61% of voters in England did not vote Tory.
If approx 1 in 3 votes could likely decide a government, it stills seems "undemocratic" that 2 out of 3 voters are forced to accept a government that they did not vote for.
I always understood democracy to be rule by the wishes of the majority - however, it actually appears to mean
simply "rule by the people" (frequently today, "rule by representatives").
In which case, by definition of the word "democracy", any percentage of votes however low is still apparently democracy.
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]Look at the map Henry. It's bluer than a blue thing.
You can argue about percentage of votes V constituencies won. As was argued earlier in this thread. But on constituencies it's a landslide tory victory in England.
Change the map so it makes all of the constituencies as the same size...
Do you mean the same size geographically or the same size in population density. It's not easy is it ?
I think we all agree the system isn't Democratic. But finding the answer ain't easy.
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]on constituencies it's a landslide tory victory in England.
oh no it isn't!
(maybe you are getting confused by geographically big blue rural constituencies and compact red city constituencies)
Was about to say the same thing.
Daggs,
you have strong, valid points, many of which I agree with, so you don't need to undermine them like this.
My personal choice would be regional assemblies as I think England is too large, in terms of population, to replicate effectively what happens in the three other UK nations.
But that is also flawed as there are not, IMHO, easy to define regions.
For me it there would need to be a radical change in the powers of both the four nations powers and the UK parliament.
England is too big for devolution, and the regional assembly in England would either run Westminster or have a very hostile relationship with it. If it was divided up into more reasonably sized bits (say, for example, the way the BBC divide their map - Northeast, Yorkshire, Lancashire, East Mids, West Mids, London, Southeast, West Country) it would be a much more reasonable, and you'd have no case of the tail wagging the dog in either direction - Scotland affecting England or England affecting Scotland (Conservatives have one Scottish MP and no NI MPs and some people think they should have a majority government).
That's an unpopular option, so for me it's a simple choice. Grin and bear the current system (with a few modifications) or break up the Union.
Henry
I don't understand what you mean by 'undermine' I do understand i'm disliked on this forum for my political beliefs, I can live with that.
The FACT (as is often said on here) is, England has voted Tory.
Your snide remark about the ED's is what i expect from you. But i'll answer it anyway. We didn't do well at all. We were never going to form a Government. Some of us hoped we would get one MP in Westminster. It's taken 70yrs for the SNP to get where they are today. We've existed for seven years.
I do not and never will support the regionalisation of England. I will support only equality, fairness and justice for England by the creation of an English Parliament.
Having read this thread i can see why many fail to support England. They simply don't understand the problem. I'll keep working to try and improve understanding of it.
So it would seem that Clegg is flicking Brown the finger and lining up a deal with the Tories.
Given that every labour mp that was interviewed last night was trying to suck up to the lib dems by talking up electorial reform, this has really made me chuckle.
Labour aren't interseted in reform, if they were, why haven't they done something about it in the last 13 years?
[cite]Posted By: nth london addick[/cite]...didnt see 1 candidate at all and the leaflets i burned on the Chimena as they were full of shite
Must have been a bugger to light.
My own take is that this result shows that people have long memories and the Tories have yet to convince the electorate that they would be signifantly different from Labour therefore it's a better the devil you know thing.
Personally, if a hung parliament means that issues are decided on merit rather than ideology and what might prop up their core vote then that's fine. My problem is if it means they'll never make any decisions at all...
[cite]Posted By: Barn Door Varney[/cite]Labour aren't interseted in reform, if they were, why haven't they done something about it in the last 13 years?
Agree 100%. The sitting Labour MP in my constituency lost his seat by less than 500 votes. I didn't vote for him. If his party brought about electoral reform, he would've got my vote. I don't regret my decision one bit.
[cite]Posted By: Dazzler21[/cite]
[cite]Posted By: IA[/cite]break up the Union.
I'll have that one please Carol
Fair enough, as I said, it's a better option than an English Parliament within the UK, in my opinion.
Clegg seems to be acting in the right way and is hopefully genuine in trying to make a deal with the Tories. Chances of that succeeding though are maybe 50/50, so if it doesn't come off then a Lib-Lab pact is possible but they would need other support too.
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]Henry
I don't understand what you mean by 'undermine' I do understand i'm disliked on this forum for my political beliefs, I can live with that.
The FACT (as is often said on here) is, England has voted Tory.
Your snide remark about the ED's is what i expect from you. But i'll answer it anyway. We didn't do well at all. We were never going to form a Government. Some of us hoped we would get one MP in Westminster. It's taken 70yrs for the SNP to get where they are today. We've existed for seven years.
I do not and never will support the regionalisation of England. I will support only equality, fairness and justice for England by the creation of an English Parliament.
Having read this thread i can see why many fail to support England. They simply don't understand the problem. I'll keep working to try and improve understanding of it.
Daggs,
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.
I was genuinely interested in how the English Democrats had done. As you say the SNP took 70 years and it wasn't until the 70s when they re-invented themselves, dumped some of the fringe loonees and, by coincidence, took advantage of some hung/minority governments that they started to grow. I wanted to know if you hit your targets, increased your vote etc etc.
I don't dislike you for your political views and I've never seen anyone say anything similar. Some people just disagree with your views. That's politics.
Sorry but claiming that the tories had overwhelmingly won England was incorrect and not needed to support your argument hence the undermining. people were pointing out that you were wrong on that rather than discussing other points raised.
If people don't, in your opinion, understand then explain but don't assume that all of the people on here are so ignorant that they can't challenge false claims or can't come back with counter arguments.
IA made some very interesting comments on the regions which have made me think but you've not really answered him, only dismissed the regional option completely.
Is clegg going to do a deal with Cameron i thought it sounded more like you can make a government with what you have but agree to change the voting system, is that getting into bed or just fianlly a politician seeing sense
[cite]Posted By: Barn Door Varney[/cite]So it would seem that Clegg is flicking Brown the finger and lining up a deal with the Tories.
I don't know, but I don't think so. Clegg is just saying the things he should be saying. He has to go to Cameron first before Brown really.
Agreed. It's the right thing to allow the Tories to try to form a Government first. But Clegg will already know that they can't without LibDem support, which would come at an unacceptable price to Cameron. It's a show of them doing the right thing before aligning with Labour. Every other Party in the house, bar the DUP, is effectively a Conservative opposition Party, so there's very little hope that the Tories, as close as they are, can form a coalition goverment. Once they've been seen to have failed to do this, then a Labour/LibDem/Scottish & Welsh Nationalist alliance will have some legitimacy.
What a bloody mess, though. As I said elsewhere, expect Brown to stand down & a fresh General Election around November.
But if we break up the union we'd have to stop having a UK football team and play as separate England, Scotland, Wales, Nth Ireland teams.
That would mean we couldn't pick the best British players in one side and so ruin any chance we have of winning the world cup.
Plus side is that separate leagues mean we can kick Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen out of the Premier League and give teams like Hull and Burnley a chance.
[cite]Posted By: Daggs[/cite]Henry
I don't understand what you mean by 'undermine' I do understand i'm disliked on this forum for my political beliefs, I can live with that.
The FACT (as is often said on here) is, England has voted Tory.
Your snide remark about the ED's is what i expect from you. But i'll answer it anyway. We didn't do well at all. We were never going to form a Government. Some of us hoped we would get one MP in Westminster. It's taken 70yrs for the SNP to get where they are today. We've existed for seven years.
I do not and never will support the regionalisation of England. I will support only equality, fairness and justice for England by the creation of an English Parliament.
Having read this thread i can see why many fail to support England. They simply don't understand the problem. I'll keep working to try and improve understanding of it.
Daggs,
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.
I was genuinely interested in how the English Democrats had done. As you say the SNP took 70 years and it wasn't until the 70s when they re-invented themselves, dumped some of the fringe loonees and, by coincidence, took advantage of some hung/minority governments that they started to grow. I wanted to know if you hit your targets, increased your vote etc etc.
I don't dislike you for your political views and I've never seen anyone say anything similar. Some people just disagree with your views. That's politics.
Sorry but claiming that the tories had overwhelmingly won England was incorrect and not needed to support your argument hence the undermining. people were pointing out that you were wrong on that rather than discussing other points raised.
If people don't, in your opinion, understand then explain but don't assume that all of the people on here are so ignorant that they can't challenge false claims or can't come back with counter arguments.
IA made some very interesting comments on the regions which have made me think but you've not really answered him, only dismissed the regional option completely.
Having taken some criticism for my claim "England has voted overwhelmingly Tory"
I've just checked the figures. At this moment in England:
Con 292 seats
Lab 188
Lib 42
I call that overwhelming. Maybe some of you don't!
I have explained my feeling re. regions in my earlier posts.
I have no problem with sensible counter argument. But it's clear from this thread many people did not and possibly still do not understand our system of Government fully.
I think we might get a Lib-Lab coalition try to govern for a year to 18 months to see through a voting reform referendum and implement if the result is positive.
Then again Cameron knows this, he cannot offer Westminster reform but he might offer PR for the Lords and council elections ..... .... thinking off the cuff of what else he could offer ..... perhaps he could offer to devolve to Wales and Scotland the power to decide how they select their MPS, so we could get PR there, which would be advantageous to Tories and LibDems ... not sure if this is feasible though and even if it was would probably be a stepping stone to reform in England too which they don't want.
Daggs ... perhaps you can understand it if I put it this way:
England has elected a Tory majority, and if you want to call 56% of the seats overwhelming then that is fine.
England has not voted overwhelmingly Tory - nobody can say 40% of the votes is overwhelming.
[cite]Posted By: floydandharvey[/cite]I just done some maths and to have a majority of just one seat there would have to be a coalition of Labour, Liberal, SNP *and* Plaid Cymru. What a cluster**** that would end up being.
don't forget the Green and Lady Hermon parties too ;-)
Comments
Made me laugh.
As ever Daggs some good arguments backed up with some dodgy stats : - )
The reason Brown always used the expressions "our country" and "this country" when talking about policies even when they are applicable to England only. Is because he was scared to highlight the negative side of Devolution. ie. England has none.
It's the same reason he waffled on about "Britishness" and "Nations and Regions" (the nations being Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland. The regions being England chopped into nine EU chunks)
Sadly this is unlikely to change under the incoming Government, whatever form it takes.
Look at the map Henry. It's bluer than a blue thing.
You can argue about percentage of votes V constituencies won. As was argued earlier in this thread. But on constituencies it's a landslide tory victory in England.
If approx 1 in 3 votes could likely decide a government, it stills seems "undemocratic" that 2 out of 3 voters are forced to accept a government that they did not vote for.
I always understood democracy to be rule by the wishes of the majority - however, it actually appears to mean
simply "rule by the people" (frequently today, "rule by representatives").
In which case, by definition of the word "democracy", any percentage of votes however low is still apparently democracy.
Something still doesn't seem right.
I think we all agree the system isn't Democratic. But finding the answer ain't easy.
Can you not see it ? It's a blue victory in ENGLAND.
Was about to say the same thing.
Daggs,
you have strong, valid points, many of which I agree with, so you don't need to undermine them like this.
My personal choice would be regional assemblies as I think England is too large, in terms of population, to replicate effectively what happens in the three other UK nations.
But that is also flawed as there are not, IMHO, easy to define regions.
For me it there would need to be a radical change in the powers of both the four nations powers and the UK parliament.
Anyway how did the English Democrats get on?
On Votes alone who would have won then?
That's an unpopular option, so for me it's a simple choice. Grin and bear the current system (with a few modifications) or break up the Union.
I don't understand what you mean by 'undermine' I do understand i'm disliked on this forum for my political beliefs, I can live with that.
The FACT (as is often said on here) is, England has voted Tory.
Your snide remark about the ED's is what i expect from you. But i'll answer it anyway. We didn't do well at all. We were never going to form a Government. Some of us hoped we would get one MP in Westminster. It's taken 70yrs for the SNP to get where they are today. We've existed for seven years.
I do not and never will support the regionalisation of England. I will support only equality, fairness and justice for England by the creation of an English Parliament.
Having read this thread i can see why many fail to support England. They simply don't understand the problem. I'll keep working to try and improve understanding of it.
Given that every labour mp that was interviewed last night was trying to suck up to the lib dems by talking up electorial reform, this has really made me chuckle.
Labour aren't interseted in reform, if they were, why haven't they done something about it in the last 13 years?
Must have been a bugger to light.
My own take is that this result shows that people have long memories and the Tories have yet to convince the electorate that they would be signifantly different from Labour therefore it's a better the devil you know thing.
Personally, if a hung parliament means that issues are decided on merit rather than ideology and what might prop up their core vote then that's fine. My problem is if it means they'll never make any decisions at all...
Agree 100%. The sitting Labour MP in my constituency lost his seat by less than 500 votes. I didn't vote for him. If his party brought about electoral reform, he would've got my vote. I don't regret my decision one bit.
Fair enough, as I said, it's a better option than an English Parliament within the UK, in my opinion.
Chances of that succeeding though are maybe 50/50, so if it doesn't come off then a Lib-Lab pact is possible but they would need other support too.
Daggs,
I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.
I was genuinely interested in how the English Democrats had done. As you say the SNP took 70 years and it wasn't until the 70s when they re-invented themselves, dumped some of the fringe loonees and, by coincidence, took advantage of some hung/minority governments that they started to grow. I wanted to know if you hit your targets, increased your vote etc etc.
I don't dislike you for your political views and I've never seen anyone say anything similar. Some people just disagree with your views. That's politics.
Sorry but claiming that the tories had overwhelmingly won England was incorrect and not needed to support your argument hence the undermining. people were pointing out that you were wrong on that rather than discussing other points raised.
If people don't, in your opinion, understand then explain but don't assume that all of the people on here are so ignorant that they can't challenge false claims or can't come back with counter arguments.
IA made some very interesting comments on the regions which have made me think but you've not really answered him, only dismissed the regional option completely.
Break up the union? What about the Scottish Oil and the Welsh, er, lamb and wool?!
Agreed. It's the right thing to allow the Tories to try to form a Government first. But Clegg will already know that they can't without LibDem support, which would come at an unacceptable price to Cameron. It's a show of them doing the right thing before aligning with Labour. Every other Party in the house, bar the DUP, is effectively a Conservative opposition Party, so there's very little hope that the Tories, as close as they are, can form a coalition goverment. Once they've been seen to have failed to do this, then a Labour/LibDem/Scottish & Welsh Nationalist alliance will have some legitimacy.
What a bloody mess, though. As I said elsewhere, expect Brown to stand down & a fresh General Election around November.
And the Northern Irish... eh... eh...
That would mean we couldn't pick the best British players in one side and so ruin any chance we have of winning the world cup.
Plus side is that separate leagues mean we can kick Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen out of the Premier League and give teams like Hull and Burnley a chance.
He was wrong it causes more arguments than that it causes more arguments than if Parky should be boss or not
i hope that the debate on here can continue and not fall into the depths of the gutter
Having taken some criticism for my claim "England has voted overwhelmingly Tory"
I've just checked the figures. At this moment in England:
Con 292 seats
Lab 188
Lib 42
I call that overwhelming. Maybe some of you don't!
I have explained my feeling re. regions in my earlier posts.
I have no problem with sensible counter argument. But it's clear from this thread many people did not and possibly still do not understand our system of Government fully.
Then again Cameron knows this, he cannot offer Westminster reform but he might offer PR for the Lords and council elections .....
.... thinking off the cuff of what else he could offer ..... perhaps he could offer to devolve to Wales and Scotland the power to decide how they select their MPS, so we could get PR there, which would be advantageous to Tories and LibDems ... not sure if this is feasible though and even if it was would probably be a stepping stone to reform in England too which they don't want.
England has elected a Tory majority, and if you want to call 56% of the seats overwhelming then that is fine.
England has not voted overwhelmingly Tory - nobody can say 40% of the votes is overwhelming.