Would be interested to hear from Lib Dems hear on their views on Jo Swinson. At one point under her leadership they lead Labour in the polls
Flight of Icarus
She saw how a government could be held hostage in power, but knew that couldn't with any honour be made to last for years, that something would have to give. So, there was a choice - go into government with Corbyn in the hope of preventing Brexit, but knowing that the Tories could also hold Corbyn in a weak power long enough to show his hand - a position which would also have crucified the LDs.
Or try and defeat Brexit at the polls, legitimately, and not touch Corbyn with a 10ft bargepole.
On a fundamental level she chose right at that point, am grateful for that, and feel she was a somewhat better politician than she will be remembered.
I agree. The circumstances were impossible, and though she made mistakes, she was nothing like as bad as many on here made her out to be.
Can we all agree that it would be very funny if Brentford got promoted to the Premier League? A contender for lowest points haul ever next season
I doubt it, Bloom and Benhams clubs have improved the vast majority of years in their ownership. The value of a hundred plus people working for you watching and analysing world football is a massive benefit Brighton and Brentford enjoy. It is probably one of the few sustainable edges any small clubs have over the big clubs.
Mmmm. If they get promoted they will still feel a bit like "4th Division no-hopers Peddleworth Albion" in Billy the Fish
Why? Over the fifteen years Burnley, Bournemouth, Wigan, Swansea, Huddersfield, Barnsley have easily outperformed Leeds, Sunderland, Forest, Sheffield Wednesday. A well run small club perhaps has less to fear than a sleeping giant with over inflated expectations. Would Leeds have crossed this years finishing line ahead with the weight of the home crowds expectations, I am not sure at all.
I feel like the story must be more significant than the headline. I mean, of course someone warned there were risks when taking a decision like that. Even local authorities assess risk of significant decisions (and risks of not taking decisions. The issue wouldn't be whether someone warned there was such a risk, it would be whether they took appropriate consideration of the risk and made the right call or not. Based on rcs1000's comment earlier, it doesn't look particularly promising.
The funny thing is if you read the ministerial direction letters exchanged the Civil Servant seems more upbeat about it than rcs1000 does.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP.
Indeed that's what I was thinking. People bang on about us being unique by only thinking about Europe but there are surely more eligible voters in India alone than the whole of Europe combined!
Indonesia is an interesting one I hadn't thought about though. Is Indonesia a true democracy?
I wouldn’t know enough about it to judge, tbh. I am assuming progress since the overthrow of Suharto, but I don’t know. I simply thought of it as one of the world’s most populous countries.
You could query to what extent Brazil is a democracy too, of course.
Indeed though I'd give more credit to Brazil. Then again if voter suppression continues in the USA we might start to say it about them too.
My knowledge of Indonesia is limited, followed it more when I lived Down Under in the nineties when they reached the news more so leaders like Suharto especially was certainly shaping my thinking until you said that.
TLDR - it’s come a hell of a long way in terms of elections but big problems remain in terms of freedom of speech and the need for an independent judiciary.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
A little anecdata from East London - mask waearing remains at about 10-15% so Friday will be int eresting. I begin to suspect the rule of wearing masks in shops will be more honoured in the breach then the observance but we'll see.
At the outdoor market, signage has been put up with a one-way system and socisl distancing protocols apparently paid for by the European Development Fund so I suppose if we have to go all through this again next year we poor Council Tax payers will foot the bill.
I've started wearing a mask habitually to go shopping, in preparation for the moment of compulsion. I don't particularly like the things but I can put up with them just for going out for groceries. However, most of the population around here can't be arsed either. I think it's an accumulation of the fact that the disease has diminished to background levels here (as in most of the rest of the country,) people hate them, and the Government killed the mask strategy earlier in the year by eschewing them at the height of the plague.
It is not altogether incomprehensible that the population should question the utility of masks when the authorities rubbished their use outside of clinical settings for months, when the number of cases has fallen through the floor without this rule, and when the prevalence of the disease is very low. Anyway, if my recollection is right and (a) retailers have been told they're not obliged to enforce mask wearing and (b) the police have stated that they won't be responding to calls about incidents of people refusing to wear masks, it seems likely that mask wearing edicts will continue to be widely ignored.
I’m just back from my UK mini-vac. Masks on the Isle of Wight ferries, near 100%. But then it is compulsory (the trick being to buy a tea or coffee and nurse it through the crossing). In the Cotswolds, possibly 20%. In Cornwall, less than 2%. In coastal Dorset, possibly 15%. Britain’s coastal resorts are heaving with visitors, in this good weather; in Lyme Regis there was literally nowhere left to park at 1130. With queues into all of the car parks, I abandoned my car on the road into town and walked the rest of the way. Social distancing is almost impossible given the crush in the narrow streets of our picturesque coastal villages.
I hate to be an eeyore, but in my experience Lyme having parking spaces till 11.30 bodes pretty badly.
Biggest pub by the river reopened again today in Wareham. Result? There was space at the 2nd biggest pub.
Far fewer people than normal. My client drove from Winch to Wareham in less than an hour. That normally takes 2+ hours at this time of year.
Re: this discussion and the one down thread about Spain, where things look like they are deteriorating and the situation now appears worse than in Britain.
You have to wonder if the reason why the continual easing of lockdown doesn't (so far at least) appear to have had a significant detrimental impact on the progress of the pandemic is because the Government did such a very good job with its messaging during lockdown (both the stay at home to protect the NHS message, and through scaring the shit out of people) that the virus is now being controlled by half the population still refusing to leave the house. Or, at most, only doing it if they can't get online groceries, or make exceptions for seeing close family.
It would be interesting to know if Spain is what happens if *everyone* relaxes and goes out regularly to bars and restaurants of an evening. I've no idea what proportion of the populace there has resumed something resembling a normal social life and may just be relying on masks as a shield to protect themselves. I don't know - perhaps if the number of customers for retail and hospitality in the UK is sufficiently depressed, and if a sufficiently low percentage of those actually venturing out are over 60, then perhaps this is sufficient (outside of specific hotspots, and for the time being at least) both to squash the virus and keep large numbers of people out of the hospitals?
From your fingers to God's ears....
Well, it's not all gone pear-shaped yet, but what happens next is anybody's guess. That's arguably dependent on a chaotic system governed by the interaction between:
*remaining cases in circulation at any given time, and whether or not they continue to decrease at the current steady rate;
*the willingness or otherwise of people to leave the house and where they are going to (how many commuters start going back to work, how many self-shielding types start to feel safer to venture outside, what happens when the schools go back, and so on);
*to what extent some form of herd immunity may have been achieved in parts of the country, notably London;
*the effectiveness or otherwise of the test, trace and isolate mechanisms; and
*what effect, if any, the colder weather has on the progress of the virus
Based on the fact that we've got from the 4 July unshuttering until now without a big spike in cases, and given that the pace of office workers actually going back into the office appears to be glacial, I think we're probably OK until the schools return. After that, who knows?
The LD figure is nonsense. They will be on a negative figure by Christmas at this rate.
Why? The Liberal Democrats are a moribund party that last put in a decent GE performance in 2010. Their last three attempts yielded vote shares of 7.9%, 7.4% and (helped doubtless by the climax of the Brexit farrago) a mighty 11.6% last time.
Set against that, 6% in current polls doesn't look implausible. They could very easily bump along at around 6% for the rest of this Parliament, then come in at the now traditional ~8% in the next GE following a bit of extra media exposure during the campaign period.
In any reasonable democracy that mighty vote share would entitle the millions who backed them to a parliamentary party of 70-odd representatives.
You do realise FPTP is used by the overwhelming majority of voters globally don't you? The obnoxiousness of "any reasonable democracy" is pathetic.
(True, although India slightly distorts the numbers.)
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, US, UK, Ukraine, Burma, a smattering of African countries, some West Indies countries.
Most countries don’t use FPTP, but maybe India’s population might make the contention accurate.
On this subject, it is wise to treat PT as simply a troll.
Would be interested to hear from Lib Dems hear on their views on Jo Swinson. At one point under her leadership they lead Labour in the polls
Flight of Icarus
She saw how a government could be held hostage in power, but knew that couldn't with any honour be made to last for years, that something would have to give. So, there was a choice - go into government with Corbyn in the hope of preventing Brexit, but knowing that the Tories could also hold Corbyn in a weak power long enough to show his hand - a position which would also have crucified the LDs.
Or try and defeat Brexit at the polls, legitimately, and not touch Corbyn with a 10ft bargepole.
On a fundamental level she chose right at that point, am grateful for that, and feel she was a somewhat better politician than she will be remembered.
I agree. The circumstances were impossible, and though she made mistakes, she was nothing like as bad as many on here made her out to be.
A lot of the adverse commenting was tinged with misogyny. The Lib Dems get a lot of hate from Labour for not being their patsy, and from the Tories for being right about Brexit.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, US, UK, Ukraine, Burma, a smattering of African countries, some West Indies countries.
Most countries don’t use FPTP, but maybe India’s population might make the contention accurate.
On this every subject, it is wise to treat PT as simply a troll.
Would be interested to hear from Lib Dems hear on their views on Jo Swinson. At one point under her leadership they lead Labour in the polls
Flight of Icarus
She saw how a government could be held hostage in power, but knew that couldn't with any honour be made to last for years, that something would have to give. So, there was a choice - go into government with Corbyn in the hope of preventing Brexit, but knowing that the Tories could also hold Corbyn in a weak power long enough to show his hand - a position which would also have crucified the LDs.
Or try and defeat Brexit at the polls, legitimately, and not touch Corbyn with a 10ft bargepole.
On a fundamental level she chose right at that point, am grateful for that, and feel she was a somewhat better politician than she will be remembered.
I agree. The circumstances were impossible, and though she made mistakes, she was nothing like as bad as many on here made her out to be.
A lot of the adverse commenting was tinged with misogyny. The Lib Dems get a lot of hate from Labour for not being their patsy, and from the Tories for being right about Brexit.
Neither of them understand that as far as most lib dems are concerned they are not fit to join.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP.
Indeed that's what I was thinking. People bang on about us being unique by only thinking about Europe but there are surely more eligible voters in India alone than the whole of Europe combined!
Indonesia is an interesting one I hadn't thought about though. Is Indonesia a true democracy?
I wouldn’t know enough about it to judge, tbh. I am assuming progress since the overthrow of Suharto, but I don’t know. I simply thought of it as one of the world’s most populous countries.
You could query to what extent Brazil is a democracy too, of course.
Brazil has many problems, not least the idiot who’s currently its president, but it is certainly a democracy.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Somehow one suspects that the system introduced in West Germany was devised by the Allies with the express aim of preventing single party Government, which was not necessarily considered such a threat in countries without its recent history. Whatever your position on voting reform, one must seriously question the notion that Churchill and Attlee somehow secretly regarded FPTP as "corrupt."
The Scottish and Welsh systems were, of course, designed to preserve Labour's dominance (even if only as senior partner in a coalition) in perpetuity, provide bases of resistance from which it could harry future Tory Governments, and to "kill nationalism stone dead." A 50% success rate's not so shabby, I suppose... The Northern Irish system is, of course, a unique response to trying local circumstances.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, US, UK, Ukraine, Burma, a smattering of African countries, some West Indies countries.
Most countries don’t use FPTP, but maybe India’s population might make the contention accurate.
On this subject, it is wise to treat PT as simply a troll.
Troll? Multiple users have acknowledged what I said was true so how was that trolling? Please substantiate that.
Adding up teensie tiny European nations together and trying to say they mean more than say India is where your side of the argument fails and why my stat holds up. The overwhelming majority of voters as far as I'm aware fall under FPTP.
PR if you look by voters and don't pretend the world doesn't exist outside of Europe is the exception not the norm.
Would be interested to hear from Lib Dems hear on their views on Jo Swinson. At one point under her leadership they lead Labour in the polls
Flight of Icarus
She saw how a government could be held hostage in power, but knew that couldn't with any honour be made to last for years, that something would have to give. So, there was a choice - go into government with Corbyn in the hope of preventing Brexit, but knowing that the Tories could also hold Corbyn in a weak power long enough to show his hand - a position which would also have crucified the LDs.
Or try and defeat Brexit at the polls, legitimately, and not touch Corbyn with a 10ft bargepole.
On a fundamental level she chose right at that point, am grateful for that, and feel she was a somewhat better politician than she will be remembered.
I agree. The circumstances were impossible, and though she made mistakes, she was nothing like as bad as many on here made her out to be.
A lot of the adverse commenting was tinged with misogyny. The Lib Dems get a lot of hate from Labour for not being their patsy, and from the Tories for being right about Brexit.
Yes, all that Violet Elizabeth stuff was certainly misogynistic.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Somehow one suspects that the system introduced in West Germany was devised by the Allies with the express aim of preventing single party Government, which was not necessarily considered such a threat in countries without its recent history. Whatever your position on voting reform, one must seriously question the notion that Churchill and Attlee somehow secretly regarded FPTP as "corrupt."
The Scottish and Welsh systems were, of course, designed to preserve Labour's dominance (even if only as senior partner in a coalition) in perpetuity, provide bases of resistance from which it could harry future Tory Governments, and to "kill nationalism stone dead." A 50% success rate's not so shabby, I suppose... The Northern Irish system is, of course, a unique response to trying local circumstances.
The Weimar Republic had a PR voting system IIRC, which didn't stop Hitler (mind you, nor would FPTP have stopped him).
I tell you what let's make a bet. I haven't done it but let's sum up the number of voters in those countries and sum up the number of voters under PR. Genuine democracies not sham ones so no China etc
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
I just said FPTP isn't widely used, I didn't make any claims about number of voters
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
Sure, although just as India distorts the assessment by total population in places with FPTP, surely doing it by number of countries distorts as ther are a lot of very small countries?
Plus, lack of being totally free is more common than anything else, and that's hardly an endorsement. I think the merits, or not, of FPTP vs PR are irrelevant as to how many other places use either option.
For light relief, here is the logic of the Corbynite programme before it was Corbynite: https://youtu.be/MW9YQf6rRE8 It’s amazing how convinced Livingstone is that if Labour had put forward true socialism they would have won a 100 seat majority.
Man may come and man may go, but like Tennyson’s brook, the delusion of the Labour left goes on for ever.
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
I just said FPTP isn't widely used, I didn't make any claims about number of voters
How else would you define "widely" than the number of people using it?
Would you like to define it by square miles instead?
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Somehow one suspects that the system introduced in West Germany was devised by the Allies with the express aim of preventing single party Government, which was not necessarily considered such a threat in countries without its recent history. Whatever your position on voting reform, one must seriously question the notion that Churchill and Attlee somehow secretly regarded FPTP as "corrupt."
The Scottish and Welsh systems were, of course, designed to preserve Labour's dominance (even if only as senior partner in a coalition) in perpetuity, provide bases of resistance from which it could harry future Tory Governments, and to "kill nationalism stone dead." A 50% success rate's not so shabby, I suppose... The Northern Irish system is, of course, a unique response to trying local circumstances.
The Weimar Republic had a PR voting system IIRC, which didn't stop Hitler (mind you, nor would FPTP have stopped him).
Yes it would. The SPD would have locked out power for ten years and then been replaced by the Centre party. You wouldn’t have had the mess of chaos and instability that allowed both the President to rule by decree and later, Hitler to first flourish and then be appointed in a stitch-up coalition.
PR was a huge factor in the failure of Weimar, as it was in the failure of Italian democracy.
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
Sure, although just as India distorts the assessment by total population in places with FPTP, surely doing it by number of countries distorts as ther are a lot of very small countries?
Plus, lack of being totally free is more common than anything else, and that's hardly an endorsement. I think the merits, or not, of FPTP vs PR are irrelevant as to how many other places use either option.
I completely agree, I just said that FPTP isn't widely used and I have provided data to support that statement.
Usage as you say isn't really relevant. It shouldn't be used because it's fundamentally undemocratic to have Governments that can get such a tiny proportion of the popular vote.
And that includes Labour in 2005 as a particularly bad example. I simply don't like the idea of a Government that the majority voted against, being elected with a massive majority.
There are some particularly awful constituency examples as well, where parties have won with a tiny proportion of the vote.
Given relative population densities then going by square miles, or kilometres squared to compare how widely the voting systems are used would play even more in FPTPs favour!
I see no reasonable definition in which you can't say that most of the world that is democratic, whether by people or land, votes under FPTP.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, US, UK, Ukraine, Burma, a smattering of African countries, some West Indies countries.
Most countries don’t use FPTP, but maybe India’s population might make the contention accurate.
According to the wonder of Wikipedia (usual health warnings apply) about one third of the world's countries currently use FPTP, to quote, "mostly in the English-speaking world (the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Canada and other countries in the British Commonwealth)."
I wonder if Blair would have won a majority in 1992
Unlikely, given how far behind Labour were in the popular vote. But he might have denied Major a majority.
The irony is with hindsight Major would have been far better off losing the 1992 election, although it is as well for Labour they were not in power during Black Wednesday.
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
Told all you boing boing Baggies Baggies you had nothing to worry about.
They made heavy weather of it. I told you earlier following the Albion was hard work. Thankyou Barnsley, thankyou Wigan!
I'm absolutely gutted for Wigan, something smells very bad about that administration.
It's a good night, so I'm not going to dwell on EFL irregularities. All I would say is playoffs round one 2019, a Baggies red card in both legs against Villa!
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
Why? It denied Hitler power, which he had to force his way by means other than securing a majority. In all probability FPTP would have delivered him majority power without needing to go below and behind.
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
4-3 at Anfield...
Given how shit Liverpool have been since we won the title I think we need to discuss whether Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool as far as he can?
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
I just said FPTP isn't widely used, I didn't make any claims about number of voters
How else would you define "widely" than the number of people using it?
Would you like to define it by square miles instead?
Well it does seem as if we have an ingenious paradox:
Under FPTP, PR wins by constituencies/countries. While judged by PR the population of India wins it for FPTP...
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
4-3 at Anfield...
Given how shit Liverpool have been since we won the title I think we need to discuss whether Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool as far as he can?
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
Why? It denied Hitler power, which he had to force his way by means other than securing a majority. In all probability FPTP would have delivered him majority power without needing to go below and behind.
He got 18.25% of the vote in 1930. Whether he'd got that much under FPTP is hard to say, but I doubt he'd have got more than that.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, US, UK, Ukraine, Burma, a smattering of African countries, some West Indies countries.
Most countries don’t use FPTP, but maybe India’s population might make the contention accurate.
According to the wonder of Wikipedia (usual health warnings apply) about one third of the world's countries currently use FPTP, to quote, "mostly in the English-speaking world (the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Canada and other countries in the British Commonwealth)."
Not all countries are created equal. Only an extremely myopic European could suggest that BeNeLux (30 million people, 0.076 million km^2) counts 3x what India (1353 million people, 3.287 million km^2) counts as.
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
4-3 at Anfield...
Given how shit Liverpool have been since we won the title I think we need to discuss whether Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool as far as he can?
Losing to Arsenal really ought to be a sackable offence.
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
4-3 at Anfield...
Given how shit Liverpool have been since we won the title I think we need to discuss whether Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool as far as he can?
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
4-3 at Anfield...
Given how shit Liverpool have been since we won the title I think we need to discuss whether Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool as far as he can?
Straight swap for Billic?
Bring back Roy Hodgson.
Roy is a Baggies legend! Not so much a Liverpool legend I suspect.
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
I just said FPTP isn't widely used, I didn't make any claims about number of voters
How else would you define "widely" than the number of people using it?
Would you like to define it by square miles instead?
Well it does seem as if we have an ingenious paradox:
Under FPTP, PR wins by constituencies/countries. While judged by PR the population of India wins it for FPTP...
If FPTP was being used with a constituency the size of Luxembourg and a constituency the size of India then something would be very clearly broken!
Chelsea and ManU dropping points is setting Sunday up to be very interesting. A draw could get Leicester a CL place, and a win certainly would. Its still 2 from 3.
4-3 at Anfield...
Given how shit Liverpool have been since we won the title I think we need to discuss whether Jürgen Klopp has taken Liverpool as far as he can?
Losing to Arsenal really ought to be a sackable offence.
Indeed.
I'm reminded of what Klopp said during a pre season friendly a couple of seasons ago.
'August is too late to play football like this. PLAY FUCKING FOOTBALL!'
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
I just said FPTP isn't widely used, I didn't make any claims about number of voters
How else would you define "widely" than the number of people using it?
Would you like to define it by square miles instead?
Well it does seem as if we have an ingenious paradox:
Under FPTP, PR wins by constituencies/countries. While judged by PR the population of India wins it for FPTP...
If FPTP was being used with a constituency the size of Luxembourg and a constituency the size of India then something would be very clearly broken!
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
response to trying local circumstances.
The Weimar Republic had a PR voting system IIRC, which didn't stop Hitler (mind you, nor would FPTP have stopped him).
Yes it would. The SPD would have locked out power for ten years and then been replaced by the Centre party. You wouldn’t have had the mess of chaos and instability that allowed both the President to rule by decree and later, Hitler to first flourish and then be appointed in a stitch-up coalition.
PR was a huge factor in the failure of Weimar, as it was in the failure of Italian democracy.
The Zentrum was an exclusively Catholic Party and would never have been able to extend support beyond its consistent and and unchanging electoral base of around 12% of the vote and 70 or so Deputies in the Weimar Reichstag. And it was the Zentrum's Heinrich Bruening as Chancellor who relied on (Presidential) Article 48 decrees to pass legislation.
The Nazis would certainly have been a close second place in seats in 1930 (far more than the 107 they actually won with PR) under FPTP and definitely a clear overall majority in the first 1932 election.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
Why? It denied Hitler power, which he had to force his way by means other than securing a majority. In all probability FPTP would have delivered him majority power without needing to go below and behind.
No it didn’t. It gave him power because nobody could form a stable government. Moreover, the inability of the democratic system to provide a government in itself was a key part of his appeal. His platform was to eradicate democracy because it had failed.
That’s not to deny there were other major problems - debt from World War I, reparations, Communist insurgency and the ongoing disaffection within the Army. FPTP would not have guaranteed Weimar’s survival. But PR made it impossible to do anything about these problems, because nobody ever commanded a majority. Had the SPD held majority power from 1919 to 1925, they could have stamped down hard on the army and the Communists without having instead to play one side off against the other merely to survive.
So I stand by my assertion it was a major factor in the failure of democracy, one which is shared by every historian of the period I have read. Hitler was a symptom of its failure, not the cause of it. To quote Richard Evans, ‘there is general agreement that after 1930, Weimar was doomed. That is not to say Hitler’s rise was inevitable.’
Can we all agree that it would be very funny if Brentford got promoted to the Premier League? A contender for lowest points haul ever next season
I doubt it, Bloom and Benhams clubs have improved the vast majority of years in their ownership. The value of a hundred plus people working for you watching and analysing world football is a massive benefit Brighton and Brentford enjoy. It is probably one of the few sustainable edges any small clubs have over the big clubs.
Mmmm. If they get promoted they will still feel a bit like "4th Division no-hopers Peddleworth Albion" in Billy the Fish
Why? Over the fifteen years Burnley, Bournemouth, Wigan, Swansea, Huddersfield, Barnsley have easily outperformed Leeds, Sunderland, Forest, Sheffield Wednesday. A well run small club perhaps has less to fear than a sleeping giant with over inflated expectations. Would Leeds have crossed this years finishing line ahead with the weight of the home crowds expectations, I am not sure at all.
I've said for donkeys years that there are too many professional teams. The comedy moment that led to this was Blackburn having a stadium that could hold almost half the population of the town and finding it about half full whilst at home to Inter Milan. When you are a small town in Lancashire with other neighbouring small towns on all sides all of whom have a professional football team your catchment area is always going to be tiny.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
response to trying local circumstances.
The Weimar Republic had a PR voting system IIRC, which didn't stop Hitler (mind you, nor would FPTP have stopped him).
Yes it would. The SPD would have locked out power for ten years and then been replaced by the Centre party. You wouldn’t have had the mess of chaos and instability that allowed both the President to rule by decree and later, Hitler to first flourish and then be appointed in a stitch-up coalition.
PR was a huge factor in the failure of Weimar, as it was in the failure of Italian democracy.
The Zentrum was an exclusively Catholic Party and would never have been able to extend support beyond its consistent and and unchanging electoral base of around 12% of the vote and 70 or so Deputies in the Weimar Reichstag. And it was the Zentrum's Heinrich Bruening as Chancellor who relied on (Presidential) Article 48 decrees to pass legislation.
The Nazis would certainly have been a close second place in seats in 1930 (far more than the 107 they actually won with PR) under FPTP and definitely a clear overall majority in the first 1932 election.
No John. They would not have been. Because under FPTP they would not have had the stick of constant changing coalitions that ever had the power to make changes to beat the established parties with. They would have been UKIP, not the SNP.
The level of ignorance on here is concerning.
Anyway, I have had a long day and I am off to bed. Good night.
So not used in ~67% of countries, as Brexit is a huge mandate for 52% of the vote, I say that 67% is clearly an overwhelming number of countries that don't use FPTP
More than I expected, certainly. Anyway, the claim was number of voters which I have woefully failed to provide any insight on, I just thought it was curious that quite a large number of countries are using it. The way some people go on you'd think it was just the UK and the US.
I just said FPTP isn't widely used, I didn't make any claims about number of voters
How else would you define "widely" than the number of people using it?
Would you like to define it by square miles instead?
Well it does seem as if we have an ingenious paradox:
Under FPTP, PR wins by constituencies/countries. While judged by PR the population of India wins it for FPTP...
If FPTP was being used with a constituency the size of Luxembourg and a constituency the size of India then something would be very clearly broken!
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
response to trying local circumstances.
The Weimar Republic had a PR voting system IIRC, which didn't stop Hitler (mind you, nor would FPTP have stopped him).
Yes it would. The SPD would have locked out power for ten years and then been replaced by the Centre party. You wouldn’t have had the mess of chaos and instability that allowed both the President to rule by decree and later, Hitler to first flourish and then be appointed in a stitch-up coalition.
PR was a huge factor in the failure of Weimar, as it was in the failure of Italian democracy.
The Zentrum was an exclusively Catholic Party and would never have been able to extend support beyond its consistent and and unchanging electoral base of around 12% of the vote and 70 or so Deputies in the Weimar Reichstag. And it was the Zentrum's Heinrich Bruening as Chancellor who relied on (Presidential) Article 48 decrees to pass legislation.
The Nazis would certainly have been a close second place in seats in 1930 (far more than the 107 they actually won with PR) under FPTP and definitely a clear overall majority in the first 1932 election.
But the vote would not have been nearly as splintered in 1930 as it was had FPTP been used. Breaking through in FPTP is very hard.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
Why? It denied Hitler power, which he had to force his way by means other than securing a majority. In all probability FPTP would have delivered him majority power without needing to go below and behind.
He got 18.25% of the vote in 1930. Whether he'd got that much under FPTP is hard to say, but I doubt he'd have got more than that.
He got 37.3% of the vote in July 1932 which, given the SPD came second on 21.6%, would have given Hitler a landslide under FPTP.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
Why? It denied Hitler power, which he had to force his way by means other than securing a majority. In all probability FPTP would have delivered him majority power without needing to go below and behind.
He got 18.25% of the vote in 1930. Whether he'd got that much under FPTP is hard to say, but I doubt he'd have got more than that.
He got 37.3% of the vote in July 1932 which, given the SPD came second on 21.6%, would have given Hitler a landslide under FPTP.
But to go from 2% to 37% under FPTP is very difficult, that's the point.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
response to trying local circumstances.
The Weimar Republic had a PR voting system IIRC, which didn't stop Hitler (mind you, nor would FPTP have stopped him).
Yes it would. The SPD would have locked out power for ten years and then been replaced by the Centre party. You wouldn’t have had the mess of chaos and instability that allowed both the President to rule by decree and later, Hitler to first flourish and then be appointed in a stitch-up coalition.
PR was a huge factor in the failure of Weimar, as it was in the failure of Italian democracy.
The Zentrum was an exclusively Catholic Party and would never have been able to extend support beyond its consistent and and unchanging electoral base of around 12% of the vote and 70 or so Deputies in the Weimar Reichstag. And it was the Zentrum's Heinrich Bruening as Chancellor who relied on (Presidential) Article 48 decrees to pass legislation.
The Nazis would certainly have been a close second place in seats in 1930 (far more than the 107 they actually won with PR) under FPTP and definitely a clear overall majority in the first 1932 election.
No John. They would not have been. Because under FPTP they would not have had the stick of constant changing coalitions that ever had the power to make changes to beat the established parties with. They would have been UKIP, not the SNP.
The level of ignorance on here is concerning.
Anyway, I have had a long day and I am off to bed. Good night.
Enjoy your kip....but you really do need to revise your knowledge of Weimar politics.
I wonder what proportion of voters in democracy globally vote under FPTP and what under PR. I certainly believe FPTP is the norm for the overwhelming majority of voters but PR supporters always seem to make out like we are the exception not the norm.
I can only imagine it's due to little Europeanism and not thinking globally.
Well, India, the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all use FPTP. That must be a big chunk of the world’s voters in actually democratic states, ignoring places like Zimbabwe and China. Bangladesh does as well but I’m dubious about calling them ‘democratic’ at the moment.
However, most European countries use PR, as do Indonesia and Brazil, which means there is considerable weight on the other side too.
Interestingly, Japan’s system is mixed so about half of their MPs are FPTP and half from PR.
Edit - in the other US Pacific former colony, they also have a hybrid system, but there it’s 80/20 in favour of FPTP. Taiwan and South Korea have a similar system.
The really telling point is the leverage the UK has deployed to introduce PR into locations under its jurisdiction such as Northern Ireland or former West Germany. Somehow we were able to see that imposing our own corrupt voting system in such places would obviously be counter productive.
Well, it should be remembered in that context that the decision to introduce PR in Germany in 1919 was a vast, epochal mistake.
Why? It denied Hitler power, which he had to force his way by means other than securing a majority. In all probability FPTP would have delivered him majority power without needing to go below and behind.
He got 18.25% of the vote in 1930. Whether he'd got that much under FPTP is hard to say, but I doubt he'd have got more than that.
He got 37.3% of the vote in July 1932 which, given the SPD came second on 21.6%, would have given Hitler a landslide under FPTP.
But to go from 2% to 37% under FPTP is very difficult, that's the point.
Told all you boing boing Baggies Baggies you had nothing to worry about.
They made heavy weather of it. I told you earlier following the Albion was hard work. Thankyou Barnsley, thankyou Wigan!
I'm absolutely gutted for Wigan, something smells very bad about that administration.
It could get very messy. If Wigan lose the appeal they would seem to have a case against the EFL for allowing the change of ownership to someone without the funds. (At the most charitable interpretation). If they win then Barnsley have a case too. Either way, neither can prepare properly not knowing which division they are in. Also. Fixtures for next season are looming. Whatever happened with Bury? EFL is a shambles.
1) Voting systems - I'm less convinced about PR at Westminster elections than I was but I think PR for local elections is something which should be considered. It is absurd the 35% who don't vote Labour in Newham have absolutely no representation on the Council. I'm not disputing Labour having a majority but in a PR, 20 opposition councillors would be able to hold the administration to some kind of account.
Similar disparities exist in Councils with Conservative and LD majorities and indeed those controlled by Residents.
2) The latest Quinnipiac poll in Texas puts Biden and Trump in a dead heat (Biden ahead 45-44). The Senate race has the incumbent Republican up by 9 but he won by 24 back in 2014.
Told all you boing boing Baggies Baggies you had nothing to worry about.
They made heavy weather of it. I told you earlier following the Albion was hard work. Thankyou Barnsley, thankyou Wigan!
I'm absolutely gutted for Wigan, something smells very bad about that administration.
It could get very messy. If Wigan lose the appeal they would seem to have a case against the EFL for allowing the change of ownership to someone without the funds. (At the most charitable interpretation). If they win then Barnsley have a case too. Either way, neither can prepare properly not knowing which division they are in. Also. Fixtures for next season are looming. Whatever happened with Bury? EFL is a shambles.
The whole fit and proper test is an utter shambles.
As a Manchester United supporting friend pointed out it took around three years for Hicks & Gillette to take Liverpool from a Champions league final to the brink of administration.
If that can happen to a club like Liverpool then it can to anyone.
Comments
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1285981258665926659
https://www.afsa.org/democracy-indonesia-progress-report
TLDR - it’s come a hell of a long way in terms of elections but big problems remain in terms of freedom of speech and the need for an independent judiciary.
*remaining cases in circulation at any given time, and whether or not they continue to decrease at the current steady rate;
*the willingness or otherwise of people to leave the house and where they are going to (how many commuters start going back to work, how many self-shielding types start to feel safer to venture outside, what happens when the schools go back, and so on);
*to what extent some form of herd immunity may have been achieved in parts of the country, notably London;
*the effectiveness or otherwise of the test, trace and isolate mechanisms; and
*what effect, if any, the colder weather has on the progress of the virus
Based on the fact that we've got from the 4 July unshuttering until now without a big spike in cases, and given that the pace of office workers actually going back into the office appears to be glacial, I think we're probably OK until the schools return. After that, who knows?
This is the kind of law being referred to: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act
Implemented by *drumroll please* FDR.
The Scottish and Welsh systems were, of course, designed to preserve Labour's dominance (even if only as senior partner in a coalition) in perpetuity, provide bases of resistance from which it could harry future Tory Governments, and to "kill nationalism stone dead." A 50% success rate's not so shabby, I suppose... The Northern Irish system is, of course, a unique response to trying local circumstances.
Adding up teensie tiny European nations together and trying to say they mean more than say India is where your side of the argument fails and why my stat holds up. The overwhelming majority of voters as far as I'm aware fall under FPTP.
PR if you look by voters and don't pretend the world doesn't exist outside of Europe is the exception not the norm.
FPTP isn't widely used
I tell you what let's make a bet. I haven't done it but let's sum up the number of voters in those countries and sum up the number of voters under PR. Genuine democracies not sham ones so no China etc
£10 to whichever is higher. Deal?
And by voters is what should matter. There is somewhat a difference between the number of voters in Luxembourg and India.
Plus, lack of being totally free is more common than anything else, and that's hardly an endorsement. I think the merits, or not, of FPTP vs PR are irrelevant as to how many other places use either option.
It’s amazing how convinced Livingstone is that if Labour had put forward true socialism they would have won a 100 seat majority.
Man may come and man may go, but like Tennyson’s brook, the delusion of the Labour left goes on for ever.
Would you like to define it by square miles instead?
PR was a huge factor in the failure of Weimar, as it was in the failure of Italian democracy.
Usage as you say isn't really relevant. It shouldn't be used because it's fundamentally undemocratic to have Governments that can get such a tiny proportion of the popular vote.
And that includes Labour in 2005 as a particularly bad example. I simply don't like the idea of a Government that the majority voted against, being elected with a massive majority.
There are some particularly awful constituency examples as well, where parties have won with a tiny proportion of the vote.
I see no reasonable definition in which you can't say that most of the world that is democratic, whether by people or land, votes under FPTP.
The irony is with hindsight Major would have been far better off losing the 1992 election, although it is as well for Labour they were not in power during Black Wednesday.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/jul/07/david-squires-on-wigan-athletic-going-into-administration
Under FPTP, PR wins by constituencies/countries. While judged by PR the population of India wins it for FPTP...
By the way, I am buzzing. Boing, boing!
I'm reminded of what Klopp said during a pre season friendly a couple of seasons ago.
'August is too late to play football like this. PLAY FUCKING FOOTBALL!'
https://twitter.com/ARaghei/status/893877411129028613
The Nazis would certainly have been a close second place in seats in 1930 (far more than the 107 they actually won with PR) under FPTP and definitely a clear overall majority in the first 1932 election.
That’s not to deny there were other major problems - debt from World War I, reparations, Communist insurgency and the ongoing disaffection within the Army. FPTP would not have guaranteed Weimar’s survival. But PR made it impossible to do anything about these problems, because nobody ever commanded a majority. Had the SPD held majority power from 1919 to 1925, they could have stamped down hard on the army and the Communists without having instead to play one side off against the other merely to survive.
So I stand by my assertion it was a major factor in the failure of democracy, one which is shared by every historian of the period I have read. Hitler was a symptom of its failure, not the cause of it. To quote Richard Evans, ‘there is general agreement that after 1930, Weimar was doomed. That is not to say Hitler’s rise was inevitable.’
The level of ignorance on here is concerning.
Anyway, I have had a long day and I am off to bed. Good night.
The level of ignorance on here is concerning.
If they win then Barnsley have a case too.
Either way, neither can prepare properly not knowing which division they are in.
Also. Fixtures for next season are looming.
Whatever happened with Bury?
EFL is a shambles.
1) Voting systems - I'm less convinced about PR at Westminster elections than I was but I think PR for local elections is something which should be considered. It is absurd the 35% who don't vote Labour in Newham have absolutely no representation on the Council. I'm not disputing Labour having a majority but in a PR, 20 opposition councillors would be able to hold the administration to some kind of account.
Similar disparities exist in Councils with Conservative and LD majorities and indeed those controlled by Residents.
2) The latest Quinnipiac poll in Texas puts Biden and Trump in a dead heat (Biden ahead 45-44). The Senate race has the incumbent Republican up by 9 but he won by 24 back in 2014.
As a Manchester United supporting friend pointed out it took around three years for Hicks & Gillette to take Liverpool from a Champions league final to the brink of administration.
If that can happen to a club like Liverpool then it can to anyone.