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[Owlbread]

But dude, you, like, live there *ducks*

You have evaded a terrible onslaught.

That would be something of an exaggeration (at least for the moment, they may well end up going that way. I hope they stick around til the next general election though, and split the Tory vote). One or two UKIPers have said some silly things, but as far as I can tell they're still seen by many as scrappy upstarts telling it like it is.

I suppose that's the purpose that they'll serve - to split the Tory vote and ensure a Labour victory.

[MonkeyHead]

I honestly can see another coalition clusterfuck. Labour in the past has won a lot of seats in Scotland and Wales to bolster a majority - I cant see that happening next time around, and I cant see a big enough swing in England to compensate either. So, I suspect a Labour led coalition of Green, independants, SNP/Plaid/other nationalists. UKIP will split the tory vote, especially in die hard conservative areas, which is the best we could realistically hope for as no other major party will make headway in middle England. The LibDems are fucked beyond belief, and will lose support, probably to the benfit of Labour in England and the nationalist parties in the rest of the UK.

Worst case scenario: Tory/UKIP coalition. Though that would probably cause Scotland, NI and Wales to hasten thier withdrawal from the union (flames and civil disorder optional), so it might not be all that bad.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I've always had difficulty discerning exact ideology when it comes to the three major British parties, mostly because of how I've heard people talk about them. You have the Conservatives, who are obviously conservative, and the Liberal Democrats, who I've also heard described as conservatives, and then there is Labor, whom once again I've seen called conservative.

No wonder Owlbread wants to leave.

[Owlbread]

There are elements of the Labour party that could be considered Conservative or a bit too centrist for their own good. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are basically one and the same now.

[shadenight123]

Want to know what the problem is? People have forgotten what democracy is all about, and as a result, we've empowered people who are supposed to be slaves to our will.
a 'representative' represents the will of the people. That's the gist of it. He doesn't and shouldn't have his own agenda. We shouldn't go voting for people who say 'they'll lower taxes' or 'increase healthcare'. We should be voting for the people who have proven themselves to keep true to the will of the people. If the majority wants restrictive gun laws, the representative of the people must apply for it. If they want free porn every day, the representative must present such a bill. That is democracy.
What we have now is very rich people pitching on their own ideas, hoping to catch enough attention to get to the seat...but in the end, they're representing themselves, and not the people.
And that's not Democracy.

[Chaoswizkid]

But it's Representative Democracy, which is still Democracy.
I think the issue, instead, is that too much voting is happening based on what people pretend to promise, and not enough on the actual character of the people running for office. I think it's better to have someone you might disagree with but who you can trust is intelligent, knowledgeable and moral than someone who says they'll do all the things you agree with them on if you can't trust them about anything.

That is, even if you disagree with them, you can trust them to make the best decisions for your country, which includes every issue that will later pop up, not just the hot button issues during elections.

[shadenight123]

Which...doesn't actually disagree with what I'm saying.

People should vote 'Name X' because X will follow through with what he/she says she will do, and what she will do is what the People want her to do.
So the People want to make wearing Pink a law, X makes a law that you have to wear Pink. If she does, good, people will keep voting her. If she doesn't, they stop voting her and vote someone else who promises he will follow through with the Will of the People.
Basically 'Representatives' Represent the People. They do not 'Have Opinions' and they do not have 'Personal Gains' in making a law or another pass. They Obey the Majority's Voice.
That's Democracy.

[Another]

How about the following rather raw idea:

Each election cycle an additional question is added to the ballot - "Have the previous representative done a good job in the office?" If 75% vote "No" on that one - failed representative has to pay fine and serve time in jail.

Details might vary, but what about adding some serious responsibility to elected officials instead of usual worst case "not re-elected but got a lucrative job in affiliated company afterwards"?

[GreatJustice]

Which...doesn't actually disagree with what I'm saying.

People should vote 'Name X' because X will follow through with what he/she says she will do, and what she will do is what the People want her to do.
So the People want to make wearing Pink a law, X makes a law that you have to wear Pink. If she does, good, people will keep voting her. If she doesn't, they stop voting her and vote someone else who promises he will follow through with the Will of the People.
Basically 'Representatives' Represent the People. They do not 'Have Opinions' and they do not have 'Personal Gains' in making a law or another pass. They Obey the Majority's Voice.
That's Democracy.

In that case, the Tea Partiers are probably among the best examples of this. They were elected with a variety of broad platforms, but ran on a few very specific issues (downsizing government in some way and opposition to the ACA, usually). On these very specific issues, they will not compromise, because they were pretty much elected for the purpose of taking a stand on these issues. It's not like they ran as moderates to trick the voters and then suddenly turned around and sprinted far right, they basically use the platform they were elected on.

[10ebbor10]

How about the following rather raw idea:

Each election cycle an additional question is added to the ballot - "Have the previous representative done a good job in the office?" If 75% vote "No" on that one - failed representative has to pay fine and serve time in jail.

Details might vary, but what about adding some serious responsibility to elected officials instead of usual worst case "not re-elected but got a lucrative job in affiliated company afterwards"?

There's a problem with that system, and that's that people are seldomly  going to think longterm if you do that. After all, let's say the governement has a deficit problem. You can either do drastic measures, and solve the problem. However, this will get you into jail, as people don't like taxes and welfare cut.

Or you can adjust the margins somewhat, hide the debt due to creative management, and leave the next governement an even bigger problem.

That's how Greece got in their mess, as an example.

[Helgoland]

How about the following rather raw idea:

Each election cycle an additional question is added to the ballot - "Have the previous representative done a good job in the office?" If 75% vote "No" on that one - failed representative has to pay fine and serve time in jail.

Details might vary, but what about adding some serious responsibility to elected officials instead of usual worst case "not re-elected but got a lucrative job in affiliated company afterwards"?

That's a seriously terrible idea - you'd just encourage rampant populism. How about this: A representative who does not have a direct mandate (talking about a German style system here) may only serve a very limited number of terms, and subsequently must not earn more than a rather limited amount of money, instead being financed by a comparatively generous pension. BAM - solved a lot of lobbying and corruption issues, without disincentivizing politicians to do their job!

[Another]

I got a strong impression that the previous 2 posters are arguing against democracy by definition on the grounds that professional politicians do better job when they don't have to care about people's opinions after election.

[10ebbor10]

I got a strong impression that the previous 2 posters are arguing against democracy by definition on the grounds that professional politicians do better job when they don't have to care about people's opinions after election.

Nope. We're not. Not exactly anyway.* We're just pointing out that your system gives a benefit to parties that try to please people short term, rather than long term. Let me make a more detailed recap of what's wrong with the plan.

A: Test is done directly at the end of the previous government, amidst the elections. ((Focusses on short term effects, as well as benefiting reactionary parties))
B: Test is done amidst the elections, which is not a good time if you're looking for a nuanced opinion.
C: It's too reliant on events. I mean, say the economy crashes and suddenly a government is faced with cleaning up the previous government's mess. They'd be hated, but a few year after that they'll be regarded as one of the best government's there was.

Helgoland's idea is much better, because it eliminates short term benefits for the elected, destroys lobbying, and forces people to think about the long term effects. After all, much of their reward depends on long term satisfaction.




*Though well, the idea that more than 50% of the people might not be right more than 50% of the time is a center point of this thread.

[Chaoswizkid]

Which...doesn't actually disagree with what I'm saying.

People should vote 'Name X' because X will follow through with what he/she says she will do, and what she will do is what the People want her to do.
So the People want to make wearing Pink a law, X makes a law that you have to wear Pink. If she does, good, people will keep voting her. If she doesn't, they stop voting her and vote someone else who promises he will follow through with the Will of the People.
Basically 'Representatives' Represent the People. They do not 'Have Opinions' and they do not have 'Personal Gains' in making a law or another pass. They Obey the Majority's Voice.
That's Democracy.

Except it is a disagreement. What you're proposing is that a representative is basically a robot; that an AI would be the ideal leader of a country. Just conduct a mass poll to all citizens, calculate the results, factor in necessary majority (if applicable) and then edit the laws according to the poll results. There's no moral filter. Unhappy with this ethnic minority? Declare them less-than-people and begin genocide. Diplomatic relationships gone sour? Launch the nuclear warheads. Anything is possible if you have the Will of the People behind it!

Besides, what you're saying is basically already how it is. Someone doesn't do enough of the things people really want done? They fall out of favor and get replaced during election season.

My point was that elections should be based less on what politicians say they will do and more on what the characters of the politicians are. The former simply deals with not-even-guaranteed results for only issues that are hot-button at the time of election, and if some new issues comes along and the politician doesn't follow what the people wish them to, well, you'll just have to wait until election time again. The latter offers the chance that not only what you might want happen with the hot-button issues to happen but also anything that follows later, because being a good leader is more important than their political career.

[ChairmanPoo]

In all honesty I think the "we need to pay our politicians well to keep them honest/attract competent people!" is proving to be a load of bull. They pretty much set their own wages AND retirement pensions, ever turning them upward (even when they lower everyone else's). It simply doesn't work, and it has created a whole caste of career politicians whose major skill is sucking up to the guy over them in order to level up.


Now, to be fair, the residency system here has created a simmilar bullshit-story. Traditionally, the resident that sucked up more to his consultant (up to and including working illegal hours, and doing personal errands) got his name onto the latter's articles, and would eventually get "help" when positions became avaiable in their hospital (which ten years ago was pretty common). That situation was bad enough but it has evolved into something even worse: the consultants that came after the old-school consultants are mostly mediocre sycophants used to have someone else do their work for them. And they can't even offer anything in return because they are pretty much glorified errand-boys raised up to responsability levels that they were never trained to handle in the first place.