Friday, Apr 23, 2010
Some sense from a Liebor politician
Reuters: Jack Straw resists wider vote reform
This will p*ss off the Liberals who, having being out of power for 80 plus years see proportional representation as a route to power. Has it ever occurred to them that their policies might not appeal to the British voter?
Posted by mr g @ 11:00 PM (722 views) Add Comment
7 Comments
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1. markj69 str05 said...
A little off topic, but what the hell.
I respect the decision to re-assess the need for spending £100b on Trident (Albeit over 20-25yrs), but worry that we the UK may be left with an ineffective deterent.
I respect the decision to try to find the lost soles living and working under the radar, but worry that an amnesty will attract more people. If we do not know who they are or where they live now, how on earth will we be able to determine they have actually been here for 10yrs. If they have committed a crime, then why on earth have they not been deported or brought into the system? If they are working, then I bet the majority are working in an illegal trade, which could not be sustained. Find them yes, but not by means of an amnesty. Other measures required.
I respect their wish to be 'more fair'. But their tax plans do not stack up. How can a tax break be deemed fair if the wealthier are gaining more than the poor? Ok the poor get something, but not much. They should have said no tax for 1st £10K earned for anyone earning less than £20K. I'd respect that more, and I am a higher tax rate payer.
If these issues had been addressed then Nick and co (Vince Cable for one), would have my vote. Still not sure though. How much damage could they do in 4 yrs? Could it be much worse than it has been. Hmmm. I really do wonder, but one thing i'm sure of, Labour lost my vote when they decided to keep GB back end of last yr.
2. Fra Paolo said...
I'm not a Liberal Democrat voter, but mr g's comments are a trifle harsh. The problem, as the article he linked to, is that Liberal Democrat support is not concentrated by class in the way Labour and Conservative voters are. This structural problem means that their votes are 'undercounted', if mr g had let his bias get past the headline.
Great Britain should go for the Hansard Society's 1970s solution of an additional member system. There'd still be the chance for a majority government, and the undercounting of votes would be less severe.
3. luckyjim said...
Trident is good for another 15 years and can easily be extended to 25 years. I don't quite see how a nuclear weapon becomes obsolete anyway. If you can obliterate every city on earth several times over do you realy need to upgrade to something newer ?
None of the parties have tackled EU immigration anyway so that too is a non-issue. I don't agree with the amnesty, and some other policies, but could stomach it for four years to gain electoral reform. That is the big prize and that is what people want.
Jack Staw is against PR which rules him out as a possible PM in a Lib-Lab government. Serves him right for not having the balls to stand against Brown as leader.
4. vacuouspolitician said...
Jack Straw = A professional vacuous politician that switches his story more times than changing his undies (in his case Y wangers)
Time for some sun.
5. Graham said...
Jack Straw famously said 'Labour won fair and square' - after getting just 28% of the electorate (not the population) to vote for him in his constituency in 2005 - Lies, lies...
6. greenshootsandleaves said...
If PR can narrow the gap between share of the vote and seats won it is bound to be opposed by those who stand to lose in the process, so you can expect the two 'major' parties to place quite a few of these articles in the media in the next week or so (file them with the 'HOUSE PRICES/STOCK MARKET TO CRASH IF THERE IS NO OVERALL MAJORITY' stories). On the BBC's Question Time Last Thursday, Ann Leslie (Conservative, Dailymoan) dismissed PR as a good idea that was unworkable, citing as examples Israel and Belgium and claiming that Germany's FDP (in Government thanks to it) had been responsible for the war in the Balkans. Funny, I should have thought the FDP showed us just how effective PR can be in moderating the influence of the extremists in the bigger parties (in many cases much to the relief of the leaders of those parties)!
A lot depends on the share of the vote a party needs to get into Parliament. Set it too high and the views of hundreds of thousands of voters continue to be ignored. Set it too low and you let in, ahem, a few loonies.
As matters stand the Tories and, yes, Labour are hoping there won't be a hung Parliament and they'll get in unaided so, as with so many other things (interest rates, house prices, ...) it's a question of waiting until after the GE. Coalition politics might not be such a bad thing, though, serving to water down not only Tory or Labour but also LibDem policies (viz. on [no need for me to spell them out]). There's one major drawback, though. It might make it a bit more difficult to go to war on the basis of dodgy intelligence reports. When someone from your party walks out of the Cabinet in protest he or she can easily be replaced. A coalition partner, on the other hand, now that's a different matter altogether.
7. Davemb said...
i dont care about any of the other lib dem policies, i just want the lib dems in so i can have proportional representation. so in 5 years time our votes will actually count and we can vote for whom we wish.
about time this country had democracy.