|
|
Post by EspadaIII on Feb 2, 2022 23:13:57 GMT
If there was a General Election now my real worry would be a parliament held to ransom by Sturgeon. How? She’d command at most 59 seats out of 650. Because she could easily hold the power to form a government. Governments formed from multiple minority parties have a poor track record of doing anything constructive other than ensuring their voters get the dibs on the money or whacko policies (Germany anyone (?) - getting rid of nuclear power and walking into the arms of Putin). |
|
WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,425 
|
Post by WDB on Feb 2, 2022 23:18:43 GMT
Erm, ri-i-ight
I’ve not picked up a Telegraph in some time. Waitrose tells me it’s about to stop handing out free ones, so perhaps I ought to get one before they do and find out just how loopy its conspiracy theories have got.
To be clear, are you suggesting government by broad, albeit broadly progressive, consensus is a bad thing? Rabid dogma gives better results every time?
|
|
Rob
Full Member
Posts: 2,778
|
Post by Rob on Feb 3, 2022 1:08:24 GMT
If there was a general election soon I don't think any party will be anywhere near a majority. Unlike the surprise Con/Lib alliance in 2010 this time it will involve almost all of the other parties. Little will get done if it was a Labour plus the others coalition.... But better to be rid of Boris.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2022 2:30:29 GMT
I dunno so much, under certain circumstances 59 seats could be significant. I could see her being a proper PITA.
>>To be clear, are you suggesting government by broad, albeit broadly progressive, consensus is a bad thing? Rabid dogma gives better results every time?
I don't know what Espada was suggesting, but I'll bite.
Consensus can also be lowest common denominator. Coinbsequently of course, democratic Government always tends towards the bland/grey/LCD and an increasingly slender margin increases the effect. Actually one of the things that attracts me toward minorities running a coalition is precisely that they can generally do f.all. I would suggest that the only truly effective Government is a dictatorship, and the ultimately desirable Government is a benevolent Dictatorship with which one agrees. So whilst rabid dogma is certainly not a general goal, there are circumstances under which it could be desirable.
Were it not for the absolute power corrupts absolutely thing. Which it does.
And I don't even trust politicians I like very far, never mind most of them.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2022 8:43:18 GMT
Oh how I long for a bland and grey government.
|
|
|
|
Post by EspadaIII on Feb 3, 2022 10:06:57 GMT
Erm, ri-i-ight I’ve not picked up a Telegraph in some time. Waitrose tells me it’s about to stop handing out free ones, so perhaps I ought to get one before they do and find out just how loopy its conspiracy theories have got. To be clear, are you suggesting government by broad, albeit broadly progressive, consensus is a bad thing? Rabid dogma gives better results every time? Not at all... Imagine if three million Scots who voted for SNP managed to get say 59 seats. Then further that the way the other parties seats came down, a workable majority in parliament could only be achieved by a coalition of say Labour and SNP. The price the SNP would demand for keeping Labour in power would be huge and could easily bankrupt the UK. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2022 10:23:05 GMT
It's almost as if we should ditch FPTP for PR.
|
|
WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,425
|
Post by WDB on Feb 3, 2022 12:00:07 GMT
The price the SNP would demand for keeping Labour in power would be huge and could easily bankrupt the UK. That’s just more Telegraph hysteria. Any negotiator knows that there’s no point in demanding a price that the opposition won’t or can’t pay. It would be bluff that the SNP couldn’t afford to have called, because all the alternatives from their point of view would be worse. Leave aside its ambition for independence and the SNP is essentially another progressive, anti-Tory party. It would not let that ambition get in the way of shutting the Tories out of power, and a Labour government would let Scotland see the contrast between sound government and Tory misrule before agreeing to another referendum. |
|
|
|
Post by EspadaIII on Feb 3, 2022 13:57:34 GMT
Having witnessed the stupid decisions made by other governments in coalition, it's not Telegrpah hysteria but an informed opinion based upon facts. Look at Germany. Ditched all nuclear power without a sensible alternative in place. The result - Putin is about to climb all over Ukraine without a peep from Germany. Even worse, German politicians saying 'Oh Putin's not so bad'.
|
|
WDB
Full Member
Posts: 7,425
|
Post by WDB on Feb 3, 2022 15:10:50 GMT
The UK’s energy self-sufficiency has suffered from poor decision making. Very few coalitions here.
Angela Merkel’s coalition wasn’t soft on Putin. Boris Johnson doesn’t have a coalition and was pretty much ignored on his grandstanding trip to Ukraine. Coalition government is not in itself the problem.
|
|
bpg
Full Member
Posts: 2,809
|
Post by bpg on Feb 3, 2022 15:19:02 GMT
Erm, ri-i-ight I’ve not picked up a Telegraph in some time. Waitrose tells me it’s about to stop handing out free ones, so perhaps I ought to get one before they do and find out just how loopy its conspiracy theories have got. To be clear, are you suggesting government by broad, albeit broadly progressive, consensus is a bad thing? Rabid dogma gives better results every time? Not at all... Imagine if three million Scots who voted for SNP managed to get say 59 seats. Then further that the way the other parties seats came down, a workable majority in parliament could only be achieved by a coalition of say Labour and SNP. The price the SNP would demand for keeping Labour in power would be huge and could easily bankrupt the UK. Isn't that what we keep being told is democracy ? If that's what the majority want then the rest just have to grin and bear it.
P.S. The lights haven't gone out in Germany, we have an electric car we can still charge at home and our home energy prices are not jumping by 50%. Sometimes you need to review your sources.
|
|
Rob
Full Member
Posts: 2,778
|
Post by Rob on Feb 3, 2022 18:09:07 GMT
I thought the liberals made a difference when they were in coalition with the Conservatives. And they didn't get all their own way which is why they were punished at the next election. They did the right thing in some instances but the electorate didn't like that.
One of the mistakes the UK has made with regards gas is to abandon the storage off-shore of reserves and we just rely on the reserves of other European countries. That was not a coalition decision.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2022 8:45:42 GMT
Agreed Rob, if it had been an option in the 2015 election I'd have voted to maintain the coalition. Mind you, the fly in that ointment is that the Lib Dems actually supported the idea of an EU referendum, so that probably still would have taken place under a Cameron coalition 2nd term. I wonder though if the outcome would have been the same, which would have very much depended upon a certain Mr Johnson's decision as to which way to lean. Without a Tory majority perhaps he and others might have gone with Remain. Then, perhaps, Cameron might have stood aside for Johnson at a 2020 election, and he may have been a totally different PM if we'd Remained. Then, of course, the pandemic was in full explosion mode in spring 2020 - I wonder how an election could have been held under those conditions? Perhaps a temporary bit of legislation to extend until the late summer/autumn.
Who knows. Either way we're in the depest shi-ite now, deeper than even I imagined on that awful morning of the referendum result. The Johnson of this timeline is an unspeakable ogre, entirely unfit for public office. WDB is right, we need an election, not just a new Tory leader. And anyone voting Tory in an election in which Johnson is still leader, well. Words would fail me.
|
|
|
|
Post by EspadaIII on Feb 4, 2022 9:08:00 GMT
Let me fix that for you...
And anyone voting Labour in an election in which Corbyn was leader, well. Words did fail me.
|
|
|
|
Post by EspadaIII on Feb 4, 2022 9:10:30 GMT
But, I would accept that if there was an election today I would not vote. In my constituency, the Labour MP lives ten doors from me and was totally useless when I was trapped in Israel during the first lockdown. He didn't even walk down the road, knock on the door and ask if my family was OK or needed any help. But he is a permanent shoo in, just like the late Sir David Amess was, but far less effective. So I wouldn't vote.
|
|
