Political Crossfire Forums

[eynon]

hey Cousins :-D

so I've noticed on this board and the LP board a growing number of Brits expressing anger and dissatisfaction with their government. A number of you(Franz, Robin Hood, etc) have called for reform. So as a Yank I'm curious to see what kind of reforms you guys would like to see happen in the UK.

[red dragon]

Get rid of the house of lords and rid this country of neptoism and favours. The whole system has lost it's credibility. It's a chamber for people with ego's.

This is why

[Ssushi]

red dragon wrote: Get rid of the house of lords and rid this country of neptoism and favours. The whole system has lost it's credibility. It's a chamber for people with ego's.

This is why

I say no, leave the houses as they are and moderate them properly. I personally like the independence of the Royal family and the Lords.

[thundertaker]

The Commons needs to have it's power checked by a second Chamber. A reformed Lords is the best way of achieving this. It should be filled with appointees selected by an independent committee, not the government. And appointees should be nominated from all walks of life, military, health, educational, law etc. So they can bring their expert specialist knowledge to the legislative process......

[red dragon]

thundertaker wrote: The Commons needs to have it's power checked by a second Chamber. A reformed Lords is the best way of achieving this. It should be filled with appointees selected by an independent committee, not the government. And appointees should be nominated from all walks of life, military, health, educational, law etc. So they can bring their expert specialist knowledge to the legislative process......

How is that going to be achieved? At the moment it satisfies ego and not people who neceserily have the independent streak in them.

[thundertaker]

red dragon wrote: thundertaker wrote: The Commons needs to have it's power checked by a second Chamber. A reformed Lords is the best way of achieving this. It should be filled with appointees selected by an independent committee, not the government. And appointees should be nominated from all walks of life, military, health, educational, law etc. So they can bring their expert specialist knowledge to the legislative process......

How is that going to be achieved? At the moment it satisfies ego and not people who neceserily have the independent streak in them.

It would need a real statesmen who actually gave a s**t about government accountability instead of increasing his own personal power and his ability to reward cronies for their services. Probably a pipe-dream I know, but this is the ideal IMHO......

[Robin Hood]

I really have no idea what can be done. Reforming the House of Lords would be good but it'd only make a superficial difference. Politics in Britain is dead as a process of thought, and keeps going purely off the money, power and influence it bequeths.

It can not be fixed from inside the political system.

[antonio62]

Increase the power of the lords for a start they are may not be great but they do a far better job than the commons. I agree with Thundertakers idea for appointing the lords. Then rework the election system so we don't get huge majoritys when not that many people actually voted for them.

[mulberrymagnet]

The level of debate over the right to die vote, shows what a great chamber the Lords is. Also, this might work.. if he promises to kybosh it completely, and quickly, he might not pick up the limp latte vote, but he'll certainly pick up the roast beef and yorkshire pud one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4765861.stm

[Robin Hood]

Quote: if he promises to kybosh it completely, and quickly, he might not pick up the limp latte vote, but he'll certainly pick up the roast beef and yorkshire pud one.

So it's traditionally English to have biometric ID cards forced on us, and to many forms of hunting....I'm not supporting the House of Lords but they're the ones who stood up for traditional English liberties in these cases.

[mulberrymagnet]

I agree, we need an independantly minded Lords, not one full of cronies.

[Eton]

Another reform we desperately need, is to change the electoral system to one of Proportional Representation.

It is absolutely disgraceful that we have had Labour and conservative governments with massive majorities in the House of Commons despite being elected by a minority of the voters/electorate. Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats continue to be massively under represented in parliament despite the fact that they have the support of one in five of all voters!

It is a crime and unacceptable in a supposed democracy.

[mulberrymagnet]

This old chesnut..

Whilst the left wing might have a better chance of getting someone elected under pr, elections have more of a function than simply getting a couple of slots filled. PR elections, which involve a number of people being elected for a wider area than first past the post take us one step further away from the issues on the estate or the local area. In the regions for the Euro elections for instance we are literally talking about areas covering millions of people. This one size fits all rubbish is not the way we do business. Local issues will be lost in favour of more centralised control, and thats quite bad enough as it is thank you very much. Elected representatives should be accountable to the electorate, and not less, which is what PR stands for. So, although on the surface of it, it might seem to be great and dandy, a quick look underneath reveals that its really less democratic, not more.

Lets compare the two methods.. if your local MP makes outrageous comments or votes in a way you find bad, you can write to them, protest to them and they have to take some notice or potentially suffer the consequences. If your 'local' MEP does the same first of all you are unlikely to know about it, and secondly what are you to do? The party they represent may have them high on the list and the only way you can not vote for them is by not voting for the party you may have total loyalty to.

In fact it is the those who control the order of the list that have more control than the electorate itself. This means that on controversial votes the central party has more control over how that person votes than the electorate. that cannot be good for democracy or healthy politics - but it is good for cronyism and corruption, and we've seen how that wrecks things, just asl Blair what the impact was in the locals last week. Who knows who their MEPs are, but most people know who their MPs are. Name them. I bet most people can't. Name your MP. See? This isn't coincidence, it's because the first past the post system puts the elected representative closer to you than PR does. The closer the elected person is to the electorate the more content democracy has.

It also leads us to think there are easy answers - when we should be doing deep work, big electoral areas lead us into trying to cover everywhere in a shallow way, when we should be trying to get to people where they are, to see politics as relevant to them. That doesn't matter in Europe, where there are large swathes of unpopulated land, here, in the UK.. we need that immediacy, that intinmacy. You can get more people out campaigning for a local election than you can for a Euro election in any one ward simply because they feel the local election effects them more. PR might mean too, that organisations like the BNP get a huge shout, are you happy with that ? No.. PR is LESS about demcracy, and more about undemocratic processes, unnaccountable decision making and a less involved approach to local issues. And of course, we will have a never ending succession of coilitions, hung parliaments.. look at Italy!

[Lord Hargreaves]

Personally I'd like to see the doing away with secret ballot - and after the next election arrest and prosecute all Labour voters for treason :wink:

[Eton]

Mulberry, people don't know who their local MEP is because they do not percieve the European parliament to be crucial, not because it is elected under PR.

Most of your 'problems' with PR can be easily overcome, for example, the legitimate concern about who controls the lists, well an arrangement can be made to ensure that the party decides and not the leadership. Furthermore, in the UK we vote for the party first rather than the individual so it is not as if we get much in the way of a choice, but under a PR system you could choose between a eurosceptic Tory candidate and a europhile Tory candidate or both! That is the beauty of it, your vote is not wasted!

You are right to mention that constituencies in PR are generally larger, but you failed to mention that the number of MP's representing that area would be the same -
Consider: Manchester has lets say 25 MPs at the moment representing the various bits and pieces of the city(incidently with no Tory MPs even though there are plenty of Tory voters), under PR, the whole of Manchester would be one constituency, but it wouldn't have one MP, it would still have 25 MPs, instead of 22Labour and 3Lib Dem MPs, there would be a few Tory MPs, Green MPs etc etc. Thus the Green/Tory voters who exist in Manchester can write to an MP of their own political persuasion in a reasonably 'local' area. Furthermore, do we really believe that there is a great link between MPs and local areas, I don't think we are any better for it, because we vote for the party and not the individual, this isn't America where there is a huge amount of pork-barrelling (what we call corruption) bringing bacon back to the local area.

Yes there is a risk that the BNP could get a voice in parliament, but if we take a leaf from the Germans and have a 5% threshold that is usually enough to keep the looney fringe out of parliament. In anycase if over 5% of the population votes BNP then there is a problem with our society no matter what electoral system we have.

Finally I love how people like to mention Italy and its record with PR. Nobody ever mentions the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway - the countries in Europe we are most alike - they never have problems forming durable coalition governments.

[mulberrymagnet]

The European Parliament isn't crucial, is it? The people know it too, and at least you acknowedge that.

I don't want an MP who's close to my constituency, or as you put it, 'reasonably local'.. I want one who will fight for it, because he knows he is reliant on me for my vote. You can't advocate pr as being the saviour of democracy one minute, and then limit extremist parties to 5% the next. There will always be pockets of support, and as the BNP has done in the NW, it serves to highlight specific problems.. not airbrush them away, which is what pr will do.

Diluting the choice by increasing the number of candidtates would be pointless, you'd just get coilitions on the hustings, you'd get people being pidgeon holed, and the issue would be even more confusing than it is now.

[Eton]

Percieve....people percieve the European parliament to be unimportant. In reality it is very important.

[mulberrymagnet]

If I wanted this to descend into farce, I'd suggest that so is the correct use of upper and lower case characters. As it is, I won't bother because I wanted to get away from that style of PRt 'debate'. Cheers Eton, this could actually have been a good discussion for once.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/

What is more important in a democracy, the perception of the overwelming majority, or the perception of the overwelming minority? The EU has has decades to sell itself, and it hasn't. Well, in fact, it has.. the problem is, we can all see it for what it is and no longer put up with the theorising of the European self styled intelligensia who want to tell us what's good for us!

Come on, even the French turned against it last year. Its a dead duck, and to try and waste billions of £'s by proping it up and convincing the electorate that its a good idea, is a criminal waste of money (especially when we need hospitals and homes). I'm all for voluntary economic ties, but not enforced political ones (which we never voted for).. sorry.