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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The political pits
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shamwari
Shipmate
# 15556
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Posted
Which is where Labour has sunk.
They produced a pitiful political broadcast caricaturing the opposition in an infantile way with ne'er a mention of a positive policy.
Shame on Milliband or whoever signed this infantile nonsense off.
Posts: 1914 | From: from the abyss of misunderstanding | Registered: Mar 2010
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Got a link to it?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Glad it wasn't just me cringing during the PEB this evening. In fact, I was so gobsmacked I watched again - it was worse.
Totally negative, nothing to do with the European elections, schoolboy humour (cYear 9 at best). And they wonder why people consider Labour unelectable.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
That was barking wasn't it - I mean, I'm quite open to reasons to vote for the Labour Party but that had "shore up the core vote and screw the rest written all over it."
in fact, if you're not a card carrying member of the Labour Party having your tummy tickled by it they may as well have subtitled it "reasons not to give your local Labour candidate the time of day if he's going to have to endorse things like this."
Utterly bizarre. Who on earth signed off on that?
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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dv
Shipmate
# 15714
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Posted
Absolutely puerile. I supposed they were trying to keep Milliband and Balls out of sight as much as possible. Amazing that, at this late stage in a political term, Labour appears to have no marketable policies. No wonder people are disaffected.
Posts: 70 | From: Lancs UK | Registered: Jun 2010
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Labour is doing what opposition parties now do. Should Labour win the next election, the Tories will do the same. Republican do it now. Democrats will do it when the Republicans return to power.
Ain't Western democracy great.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
People should make decisions on what party or candidate to vote for based on what policies they think they are likely to enact if they are in power, their ability to make productive compromises if it is likely they will be forced to compromise, and the probability that they will do things that are illegal or otherwise corrupt if in office. If I voted based on my disgust for promotional materials released by parties and campaigns, I would not be able to vote for anyone.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
The problem here is that the elections are for the European Parliament, and the MEPs have no part in proposing legislation or executing it.
That is all in the hands of the European Commission, which is a sort of supplementary pension scheme for old political lags, and they get the ideas from the European civil service.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-European, but until the legislative and executive branches are directly democratically elected there's little for parties to do but mud-slinging.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Makes perfect sense if the Labour party is currently being buoyed up by x% of erstwhile damned libs and wants to make sure that buyers remorse holds.
Let's say that a large proportion of the Lib Dem share goes over to Labour. And the Socialist Happy Tree share (to borrow Laura's felicitous expression) buggers off to UKIP. With the conclusion that the Lib Dems lose all their seats in the European Parliament. So, the people who voted Lib Dem because Iraq and general left wingness have already fucked off to Labour and the protest vote sadcakes fuck off to UKIP, that leaves you with two lots, effectively, the people who think that Nick Clegg should be Prime Minister and the people who are pro-Europe, pro-Consitutional reform und so weiter. Now if it is apparent that the Lib Dems are basically shagged then the pro Europe types might want to think about voting for the one party which can deliver continued British membership of the EU.
So, basically, the plan is in the short term to persuade ex-Lib Dems to vote for Ed and, in the longer term, to persuade current Lid Dems that Ed is yer go to guy for continued EU membership. It's the re-alignment of the left that Woy hoped and pwayed for and Tony would have quite liked. Albeit not in a format that either imagined. Basically the leftwing vote migrates to Labour and the rightwing vote is divided betwixt Dave and Nige, with a handful of irreconcilables agreeing with Nick. Ed comes through the middle with between 35 - 40% of the vote and the Tories and the Kippers break down in savage recriminations.
Of course, it could all go Baroness Jenny and Dave could edge back in and the Uber-Blairites could put forth a revanche whilst Dave attempts to do a Harold Wilson and (probably) gets shafted by Nige. But given the lousy hand that Ed was dealt in 2010 (Blairites tend to overlook that the Labour Party lost the general election and that most people outwith the Labour party feuds regard Blair and Brown as much of a muchness) I think that he has a decent chance of winning the next election. If he loses he'll get no mercy but the idea that Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Stella Creasy or Gloria De Piero would have won is wishful thinking.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
To answer some queries above, here is the PEB. Be warned: that's nearly four minutes of your life that you won't get back.
And 'Hardworking Britain Better Off'. Is that a sentence?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
I'm not really party to the inner thinking in the Labour Party, but I don't understand this:
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
But given the lousy hand that Ed was dealt in 2010 (Blairites tend to overlook that the Labour Party lost the general election and that most people outwith the Labour party feuds regard Blair and Brown as much of a muchness) I think that he has a decent chance of winning the next election.
Do Blairites really not understand that Labour lost in 2010? After all, it wasn't the Blairites with their hand on the tiller when Labour lost that election.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Got a link to it?
Is this the one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41_zFHcG1R0
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I'm mildly surprised that anyone actually watches PPBs. Irrespective of whether it's the party I support/loathe/ignore, I go and do something more interesting.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
Lazy, shit thread titles wind me up. How could anyone guess from the title that this thread was about a UK political party broadcast?
That's the point of a title - to say what the subject of the discussion is. If we can't guess it's a shit thread title.
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
Thread titles can also be interesting / witty, etc. can they not? Or just express the gut instinct of the writer? There's a thread title on this board at the moment entitled 'Greece is the word...' which is about a place I've never heard of before (Greece, NY) rather than about Travolta and pals or Stavros and pals.
But it's a far more interesting thread title than 'Constitutionality of prayers at council meetings in Greece'.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Not a patch on the Saatchi and Saatchi ones for the Tories. Especially the cars one. Lib Dave (Steel) and Dem Dave (Owen) in a bubble-car turning left and right simultaneously. Genius. Labour caricatured as a committee trying to fix an obsolete Rover.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
Co-incidentally, I watched The Journey last night. Or as it's more popularly known, 'John Major The Movie'. At nine minutes, it's two to three times the length of modern PPBs, but very absorbing. It also has an authenticity to it that you don't seem to get these days.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
I didn't think the ad was THAT bad. But it does have that somewhat annoying, self-consciouly witty ambience that sometimes infects British humour, and is especially out of place in a political ad.
If you're trying to do negative, it doesn't help to get bogged down in an extended comedy skit with multiple characters and tropes. An attack-ad needs to be quick and dirty, like this...
His Choice
Perfect choice of footage at the end.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
The problem here is that the elections are for the European Parliament, and the MEPs have no part in proposing legislation or executing it.
That is all in the hands of the European Commission, which is a sort of supplementary pension scheme for old political lags, and they get the ideas from the European civil service.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-European, but until the legislative and executive branches are directly democratically elected there's little for parties to do but mud-slinging.
More or less, radio 4 stats program, analysed the UKIP claim the 75% of uk law comes from Brussels, they found its source is actually a claim by european officials the the european parliament is closely involved in the creation 75% of European legislation.
Incidentally, they ran a similar feature and pointed out this same information to UKIP some years ago.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Four days left to listen again to that episode of More or Less entitled British Law: Made in Brussels?
38 degrees did a survey on voting and elections - and presented it to a Government select committee blog report and video of the presentation. One of the things a lot of the respondents wanted was a none of the above option on voting slips, which somewhat horrified the select committee.
[ 08. May 2014, 07:04: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Totally negative, nothing to do with the European elections, schoolboy humour (cYear 9 at best). And they wonder why people consider Labour unelectable.
This is what they signed up for with Axelrod - negative campaigning. I didn't think it was totally negative though. It did end with a "what Labour would do" section.
The thing I think they failed to do was to challenge the language of the current government. We're not "hard working families". We're just people with a right to be part of our communities and a right to contribute to the economy. That's what Labour should be standing up for; not some caricature of the other parties' split between the "hard working" deserving people and the, by implication, lazy other ones. That's where this campaign is going wrong.
And of course it's not about Europe. The European elections are just an excuse for the broadcast. All parties are fighting the 2015 general election by now.
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
UKIP's billboards have an asterisk next to the 75% claim and the small print makes reference to a comment by Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner. Don't know whether the programme looked at this?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Totally negative, nothing to do with the European elections, schoolboy humour (cYear 9 at best). And they wonder why people consider Labour unelectable.
This is what they signed up for with Axelrod - negative campaigning. I didn't think it was totally negative though. It did end with a "what Labour would do" section.
The thing I think they failed to do was to challenge the language of the current government. We're not "hard working families". We're just people with a right to be part of our communities and a right to contribute to the economy. That's what Labour should be standing up for; not some caricature of the other parties' split between the "hard working" deserving people and the, by implication, lazy other ones. That's where this campaign is going wrong.
And of course it's not about Europe. The European elections are just an excuse for the broadcast. All parties are fighting the 2015 general election by now.
AIUI, "hard working families" is actually a Labour line, which the coalition have gone hard on too so as not to get outflanked/not left behind. I may be wrong...
So we're back to "One Nation" - which is nothing if not Tory clothes anyway.
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
One of the things a lot of the respondents wanted was a none of the above option on voting slips, which somewhat horrified the select committee.
I won't get a chance to watch the clip at least until this evening so could you summarise why they were so upset about a 'none of the above' option? (EDIT - please? ![[Smile]](smile.gif) )
In my ideal world, voting would be made compulsory (unless you had a good reason, like severe illness) and there would be a clear 'None of them, they're all a bunch of numpties' option. It'd be interesting to see how many people chose that option, I think...
[ 08. May 2014, 08:24: Message edited by: South Coast Kevin ]
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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barrea
Shipmate
# 3211
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Posted
I was disgusted with it. Not a word of their own policy just mocking the opposition. What good did they think it would do. Hopeless!¬and I used to vote Labour.
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Therefore having been justified by faith,we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1
Posts: 1050 | From: england | Registered: Aug 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
‘What would happen if no-one is elected?'
The answer was send it back to the polls , with candidates campaigning again or new ones.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Negative campaigning certainly is the pits in my opinion.
I want someone to tell me why I should vote for them. And, have access to the resources to examine the reasons they present as a couple of minutes PPB or leaflet on the door step aren't sufficient.
If I see, say, a Labour broadcast that effectively says "don't vote Tory or Lib Dem" isn't it entirely reasonable that I therefore conclude the same advert could be saying "vote Green"? Which is quite likely what I'll do anyway.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If I see, say, a Labour broadcast that effectively says "don't vote Tory or Lib Dem" isn't it entirely reasonable that I therefore conclude the same advert could be saying "vote Green"?
Or UKIP ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
The problem here is that the elections are for the European Parliament, and the MEPs have no part in proposing legislation or executing it.
That is all in the hands of the European Commission, which is a sort of supplementary pension scheme for old political lags, and they get the ideas from the European civil service.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-European, but until the legislative and executive branches are directly democratically elected there's little for parties to do but mud-slinging.
More or less, radio 4 stats program, analysed the UKIP claim the 75% of uk law comes from Brussels, they found its source is actually a claim by european officials the the european parliament is closely involved in the creation 75% of European legislation.
Incidentally, they ran a similar feature and pointed out this same information to UKIP some years ago.
My Italics
I wonder what "closely involved in" really means. Is it any more than our committee stage, which is very detailed but nothing whatsoever to do with formulating policy? And nothing whatsoever to do with any executive activity.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
The Commission has to draft all legislation. The Parliament has power to amend or reject bills put before it by the Commission, and has the power to ask the Commission to draft bills.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Could we petition to ban political broadcasts, posters and junk mail from.....wait, could we just ban them?
What I originally had in mind was to say ban them from mentioning the names or policies of other parties standing in the same election.
If we are stuck with a party system then I would rather they stand on their own policies rather than lean on others in an attempt to push their opponents down and effectively say "vote for me, I'm the default option because the others are incompetent/evil"
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
The problem here is that the elections are for the European Parliament, and the MEPs have no part in proposing legislation or executing it.
That is all in the hands of the European Commission, which is a sort of supplementary pension scheme for old political lags, and they get the ideas from the European civil service.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-European, but until the legislative and executive branches are directly democratically elected there's little for parties to do but mud-slinging.
Yep to all of this.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TheAlethiophile:
Could we petition to ban political broadcasts, posters and junk mail from.....wait, could we just ban them?
In a democracy the electorate should be casting informed votes. That means we need to receive information from all candidates on what they would do if elected, what their policies would be, etc. Therefore, we need informative election material. The problem is that much of what we get is distinctly uninformative. Which means we end up voting without all the information we need to make our decision on polling day.
Negative campaigning presumably is effective in increasing the vote for the party using such tactics, if it was ineffective they wouldn't be campaigning that way. But, IMO, it is ineffective in fostering democracy.
Is it any wonder that many people consider all politicians to be a bunch of useless tossers looking out for their own interests and not the interests of those they represent when political campaigns tell us that other politicians are a bunch of useless tossers? If politicians stood up and said "if elected this is what I will do", and when elected work damn hard to try and do what they said, people might have a better regard for politicians and the political process. Maybe that's the secret to increasing voter turn out without introducing compulsory voting.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
I'm not really party to the inner thinking in the Labour Party, but I don't understand this:
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
But given the lousy hand that Ed was dealt in 2010 (Blairites tend to overlook that the Labour Party lost the general election and that most people outwith the Labour party feuds regard Blair and Brown as much of a muchness) I think that he has a decent chance of winning the next election.
Do Blairites really not understand that Labour lost in 2010? After all, it wasn't the Blairites with their hand on the tiller when Labour lost that election.
Blairites tend to think that had Tony, or if push comes to shove, David had been in charge then Labour would have won.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
In a democracy the electorate should be casting informed votes. That means we need to receive information from all candidates on what they would do if elected, what their policies would be, etc. Therefore, we need informative election material. The problem is that much of what we get is distinctly uninformative. Which means we end up voting without all the information we need to make our decision on polling day.
Negative campaigning presumably is effective in increasing the vote for the party using such tactics, if it was ineffective they wouldn't be campaigning that way. But, IMO, it is ineffective in fostering democracy.
Is it any wonder that many people consider all politicians to be a bunch of useless tossers looking out for their own interests and not the interests of those they represent when political campaigns tell us that other politicians are a bunch of useless tossers? If politicians stood up and said "if elected this is what I will do", and when elected work damn hard to try and do what they said, people might have a better regard for politicians and the political process. Maybe that's the secret to increasing voter turn out without introducing compulsory voting.
Yes, this. If only....
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
One of the big problems with positive campaigning ("here is what we would do if we win") is that governments routinely ignore what they have promised when they come into power, and even if they do not, they push some of their promises so far to the back of their agenda that they have no chance of happening before the next election. I think that an election is ample chance for parties and candidates to "consult the public" on their policies. I also think that the parties represented in Parliament should introduce the bills on their manifestos in Parliament, debate them, and work on them in committee as much as they are able to do even if in opposition. This way, if a party gets a majority in an election, they should implement all of their domestic policies immediately. Foreign and military policy depends on the actions of other countries and can therefore be modified and delayed based on conditions after the election. But failing to immediately enact the comprehensive domestic agenda that a party promised if it is elected to a majority should be as egregious as the Queen refusing to give royal assent to a bill passed by the elected representatives of the people in Parliament.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Two words: Civil Service.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-European, but until the legislative and executive branches are directly democratically elected there's little for parties to do but mud-slinging.
But what would a directly elected executive look like? The current system, bent as it is, does at least ensure that every country has a voice on the Commission. If the executive were chosen Westminster-style from the European Parliament, then you could theoretically have an executive with no British representative on it if it was possible to create a majority coalition without British MEPs. And it would be quite easy to get a coalition without any MEPs from the smaller countries.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-European, but until the legislative and executive branches are directly democratically elected there's little for parties to do but mud-slinging.
But what would a directly elected executive look like? The current system, bent as it is, does at least ensure that every country has a voice on the Commission. If the executive were chosen Westminster-style from the European Parliament, then you could theoretically have an executive with no British representative on it if it was possible to create a majority coalition without British MEPs. And it would be quite easy to get a coalition without any MEPs from the smaller countries.
We get a similar situation in the UK. With the exception of national governments Northern Ireland has had no part in any cabinet since partition and until this coalition, governments were either Scotland, Wales and urban England or almost entirely England.
I'm sure some formula could be arrived at to parcel the jobs amongst the different countries and parties: if as disparate a country as Lebanon can do it, I'm sure Europe can.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
... This way, if a party gets a majority in an election, they should implement all of their domestic policies immediately. Foreign and military policy depends on the actions of other countries and can therefore be modified and delayed based on conditions after the election. But failing to immediately enact the comprehensive domestic agenda that a party promised if it is elected to a majority should be as egregious as the Queen refusing to give royal assent to a bill passed by the elected representatives of the people in Parliament.
Stonespring, do you really believe that? It's Harold Wilson's 'we have a mandate' argument on speed.
In case that reference doesn't mean anything these days, the late Harold Wilson took the line that because something was mentioned on page 35 line 18b of the party manifesto, anyone, in another party or even his own, who imposed his bringing it into effect was obstructing the views of the electorate.
If that were a legitimate rather than an indefensible argument, how would you vote if there was a party you agreed with on about 80% of their policies but thought the other 20% were seriously pernicious. Or do you think that obliges you to spoil your ballot paper?
It's also, incidentally, naive in the same way as those Conservatives who moaned after our last election that 'it wasn't fair. I voted Conservative but we haven't got a Conservative government'. Or those who think the Lib Dems have let down the electorate because as part of the price of coalition, they have had to go along with Conservative policy on tuition fees.
My apologies that all three of these examples are from my own political system, but I don't really understand how these things work under an executive presidential system.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
[QUOTE]those who think the Lib Dems have let down the electorate because as part of the price of coalition, they have had to go along with Conservative policy on tuition fees.
Not let down the electorate - let down the students.
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
[QUOTE]those who think the Lib Dems have let down the electorate because as part of the price of coalition, they have had to go along with Conservative policy on tuition fees.
Not let down the electorate - let down the students.
Students are part of the electorate. And there would still be many (myself included) who are part of the electorate but who are no longer students who feel betrayed by the Lib Dems.
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
Lazy, shit thread titles wind me up. How could anyone guess from the title that this thread was about a UK political party broadcast?
That's the point of a title - to say what the subject of the discussion is. If we can't guess it's a shit thread title.
I like the Ship for its quirky thread titles, I am on some forums where they insist on clear subject titles - boring boring.
As to the OP yes, dreadful PPB. When it was on I thought 'getting more like USA politics by the year'.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
That's fair criticism, but it doesn't get over the simple fact that if no party gets an overall majority, you have to have some sort of coalition. Which means for those who voted Conservative or Lib Dem, that you get some of what you voted for, in stead of none of it. Is that better or worse than being a Labour voter who gets none of what they voted for? Or do we prefer to be able to sit in a corner in a pub and chunter on about how better the country would be if I was running it?
My personal view, is that I wouldn't like to see either the Conservatives or Labour in control in the next Parliament with an overall majority. I happen to think the country has worked better and the electorate has been better off with a NOC government than it would have been with either of the two largest parties.
Also, for what it's worth, although this has been deteriorating recently, for most of the present Parliament, the quality of political debate and journalism has been less fervid and febrile than during the previous one.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I'd seen the PPB so had no probs with the title. The PPB was indeed the pits. Made my postal vote just after watching it. Had visions of Jack Bauer let loose in One Brewers Green, with the shade of Nye Bevan cheering him on. Took some of the pain away.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Enoch wrote:
quote:
In case that reference doesn't mean anything these days, the late Harold Wilson took the line that because something was mentioned on page 35 line 18b of the party manifesto, anyone, in another party or even his own, who imposed his bringing it into effect was obstructing the views of the electorate.
If that were a legitimate rather than an indefensible argument, how would you vote if there was a party you agreed with on about 80% of their policies but thought the other 20% were seriously pernicious. Or do you think that obliges you to spoil your ballot paper?
Actually, I am of the opinion that, if something was mentioned in the party's manifesto(Page 35 or anywhere else) then the party, upon attaining government, does have the moral right to implement the policy, regardless of how many of their voters wanted that particular policy.
Because otherwise, you're saying that the party is morally obligated to put post-election opinion polls ahead of election results.
quote:
how would you vote if there was a party you agreed with on about 80% of their policies but thought the other 20% were seriously pernicious. Or do you think that obliges you to spoil your ballot paper?
This is where voters need to be canny to the realities of the political game. If the 20% is a deal-breaker for you, and you think it is likely that the party will try to implement it, you should spoil your ballot.
But, in many cases, the voters will gamble that the 20% is such whacked-out or antiquated policy, that the party, for reasons of political expediency, will never try to put it into practice, eg. "Distribute Danish erotica in school libraries? That's just some crazy hippie stuff left over from the 1970s. They'll never do that, and the rest of their platform is pretty sensible, so I'll vote for them anyway."
Now, if the government DOES decide to stock Danish erotica in school libraries, the voters can't complain that the decision was undemocratic. The government WAS given permission to do that. Of course, the voters also maintain the right to vote the government out in the next election.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
We get a similar situation in the UK. With the exception of national governments Northern Ireland has had no part in any cabinet since partition and until this coalition, governments were either Scotland, Wales and urban England or almost entirely England.
True, but the UK is a single sovereign state. It doesn't claim to be an association of sovereign states.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
UKIP's billboards have an asterisk next to the 75% claim and the small print makes reference to a comment by Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner. Don't know whether the programme looked at this?
Yes they did.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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