Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Leafsnail]

Anyway, what was this thread about?  Oh right, British politicians using military budget shortfalls as a smokescreen against implementing a rational legislative representation instead of shambling along on the legacy compromises of Oliver Cromwell.  Why exactly would anyone not vote for something that at least sounds like a more representational system of governance?  In terms of ordinary citizens anyway.

It's accompanied by a redistribution of seats which could be seen as gerrymandering (or a fairer redistribution of seats that just so happens to benefit the parties in power).

[Virex]

I think an even more pressing question is "Why is changing the system going to cost 250 million quid?" You can just copy-paste most of it from just about any European country?

[Simmura McCrea]

It's the UK government. It likes to find something that works fine then pay people to reinvent it exactly from the ground up.

[Agdune]

Dammit, if your country had done the same thing each time it had financial difficulties (i.e. refused to change anything) mine could've overtaken yours centuries ago!

...wait, no, mine was part of yours untill sometime in the 40ies. Also it was a pretty horribly underpopulated colony. Also we're loathsome unimaginative followers who can't come up with anything on our own and we'd just have copied you in the hopes we'd become a cool country and get to hang out with the other cool countries who're now near bankrupt.

Still, it was a funny joke while it lasted.

[de5me7]

It's accompanied by a redistribution of seats which could be seen as gerrymandering (or a fairer redistribution of seats that just so happens to benefit the parties in power).

this will happen regardless of the AV referendum and is something the tories are in favour of. Essentially our distribution of parlament seats is based on population distribution from (i dont know 50yrs ago maybe), and now people have generally moved south. So the tories want fewer seats in the north and scotland to be more representational of the populice. Purely by coincidence this remove several labour and SNP seats whilst strengthening tory seats.

[Chaoswizkid]

So, crazy stuff happening in Japan, Afghanistan is stable compared to North Africa, multiple US state governments are trying to instate fascism, and now the UK is using American-style mudslinging!?

What is the world coming to?

[warhammer651]

.....Question:

Why do we have politics if they're just gonna pull this shit?

[Zrk2]

Dammit, if your country had done the same thing each time it had financial difficulties (i.e. refused to change anything) mine could've overtaken yours centuries ago!

...wait, no, mine was part of yours untill sometime in the 40ies. Also it was a pretty horribly underpopulated colony. Also we're loathsome unimaginative followers who can't come up with anything on our own and we'd just have copied you in the hopes we'd become a cool country and get to hang out with the other cool countries who're now near bankrupt.

Still, it was a funny joke while it lasted.

...Canada? Yeah, we're pretty cool like that.

[on topic]So, the UK has to get in on the world going to shit too? Welcome to the party.[/on topic]

[ed boy]

I know a lot of people who say that it's incredibly obvious that the UK should use AV and anything else is absurd.

However, they tend to think of the lib dems when they say this.

If the 2010 election used AV, the BNP would have gotten 12 seats and UKIP 20. And those are the people who voted even though their party didn't have a chance of winning. If AV were to go ahead, I imagine a lot of BNP and UKIP supporters who do not vote would start, so you could expect those numbers to increase.

The loonies would still not get anything, though.

[Leafsnail]

12 seats?  I'd like to hear your figures, considering the BNP were roundly trashed to hell in the 2010 election, losing almost all of their councillors and dropping behind in basically every MP election they contested.

[Ochita]

The world is going into a depression spiral, dont worry, once the 2012 event passes I expect the mood to lighten.

[ed boy]

12 seats?  I'd like to hear your figures, considering the BNP were roundly trashed to hell in the 2010 election, losing almost all of their councillors and dropping behind in basically every MP election they contested.

The BNP got 564,331 votes, which was 1.9% of all the votes cast in the election.
UKIP got 919,546 votes, which was 3.1% of all the votes cast in the election.
There are 650 seats.
1.9%*650=12.35
3.1%*650=20.15

[Burnt Pies]

That's proportional representation, though. I'm fairly sure we're not going anywhere near that far, much as I'd like us to.

[Fayrik]

I bet the campaign costs more than the damned change would be anyway.

The world is going into a depression spiral, dont worry, once the 2012 event passes I expect the mood to lighten.

2012 is, word for word, the "End of the world as we know it." So yeah, I expect it to just rain money or... Some country somewhere will get a fair and just government system.

Blergh! England really does suck right now.

...Wait. 2012...
I just realised. This "End of the world"...
It's the London 2012 Olympics.
It will be that bad.

[Strife26]

We're still looking at a DFN release before 2012, so the world should be ending halfway before that. No worries.