Ship of Fools: An alien concept in British political culture?

Thread: An alien concept in British political culture? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=027375

Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :

I am referring to the idea of "coalition government".

I confess to not being particularly knowledgeable about how election campaigns work in countries with a tradition of coalition government. But here in the UK, with our historically rather more decisive system, parties campaign on the assumption that they will gain an absolute majority (even if they know full well that they have no hope of obtaining this). Promises are made with a certain bravado, and, as far as I can see, no one campaigns with a view to helping form a coalition government in the event of a hung parliament. Would any party have the idea of "coalition government" as one of its core ideals?!

But what happens when the bluff, bluster and bravado of an election campaign collides with the political reality of a hung parliament? Clearly painful compromises have to be made, and manifesto promises go out of the window. Realism has to replace idealism. In the blink of an eye the electorate is required to think about government in a completely different way. If this radical revolution in thinking is not achieved in double quick time, then accusations of treachery, betrayal, spinelessness and "selling out" are levelled against the parties in government - particularly against the junior partner, who has to make the greater concessions.

Whatever one may think about the Liberal Democrats, I find it frustrating that many people - especially former members and supporters - can't seem to understand that that party does not have a democratic mandate to implement its manifesto promises. They did not win the 2010 General Election; they came a distant third (in terms of seats). The thinking seems to be that "if they are in government, then they have in some way 'won', and therefore they are in a position to keep their promises. They have not kept their promises, therefore they have betrayed us." The idea that a party can be in government, but is not bound to its manifesto promises, because it is in coalition with a party with a much greater mandate, seems to cause confusion to many people.

It seems to me that coalition government can be a good thing. Different points of view have to be considered, and not just an idealistic party line (although there is the danger of an extremist party becoming king maker, although that might be suicide for the senior partner). But it also seems to be political suicide, especially for the junior partner, because the electorate doesn't understand it, especially against the backdrop of associating a party with a raft of promises, which can only be implemented with an absolute majority.

Do you think this model of government is alien to our political culture?

How is election campaigning possible or how can campaigning be effective if this model of government is expected as the norm?

How does this model of government affect the electorate's perception of political parties in countries where coalition government is commonplace?

I'd be interested to hear your views on this.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

I agree with you, I think.

Having said that, I think the Liberal-Conservative coalition would be considered unusual even in a country that regularly produces coalitions. I don't think it is usual for the junior partner to belong to the opposite wing of the political spectrum to the senior partner.

I also think part of the reason for antipathy towards the Lib Dems is the suspicion that they played their hand rather badly. For example, I don't understand why Nick Clegg expended so much of his bargaining power on forcing a referendum on AV, which nobody really wants, not even campaigners for electoral reform.

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

I think I also agree.

The oddest example I've seen of this was in the anti-AV leaflet.

You had the Lib-Dem's being bad for allowing Conservative policies. (I.E taking the extreme view of this)
But simultaneously arguing that a Conservative government would be better.

Either understandable enough depending on [left/right wing] prejudice, but together it's oddly contradictory.

[ 25. May 2014, 16:32: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

During my university years in Ireland, I saw a right-left (Fine Gael-Labour) coalition in operation and, with plenty of the usual flaws, it seemed to work fairly well. My Labourish friends seemed to take it in stride that they were only going to get a bit of their platform implemented, and focussed on that. On the Fine Gael side, which was less manifesto-oriented, they seemed to manage. Both elements were pleased that they could blame any non-delivery on their coalition partners.

Since then, the Irish have had a range of coalitions. With STV voting, strong pre-election hints or outright arrangements give voters a single for allocating transfers and this generally works efficiently. With first-past-the-post, it is very difficult to manage elections with a coalition in mind.

Many people (in Canada, at any rate) have trouble with the concept of of coalition through unfamiliarity and on account of our presidential (mis)understanding of elections. If the people don't want to give a specific party a majority blank cheque, then the parties have to make nice and figure out how to run a government. Sometimes this will mean a coalition and they will have to suck up some of their ambitions and fantasies-- I cannot think that this is a bad thing.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I also think part of the reason for antipathy towards the Lib Dems is the suspicion that they played their hand rather badly.

If you look at it by seats won then the Liberals did badly in 2010, losing seats. In terms of a percentage of the vote, there was a swing towards the Liberals. They had 6.8 million votes compared with the Conservatives 10.7. Well over a third of the votes cast for the coalition went to the Liberal Democrats yet Clegg hailed to negotiate any of the major cabinet posts for his party (Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary or Chancellor of the Exchequer). The Liberals did not get a look in after that: at least not as far as majoy policy was concerned.

After that it was a Tory show with Liberal Democrats put in positions so that when the government did something unpopular it was a Liberal rather than a Tory face seen on TV and in the papers. David Cameron has played a blinder and walked all over the Liberals. Clegg cannot be held entirely blameles for this.

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But what happens when the bluff, bluster and bravado of an election campaign collides with the political reality of a hung parliament?

We in the USA call that gridlock. Bad news, the party you voted for won't be able to push through their agenda. Good new, the parties you didn't vote for won't be able to push through theirs either. However, the UK coalition government hasn't experienced much gridlock.

I know. I know. Clegg is the devil because he didn't get more from Cameron for making him PM. C

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

Having said that, I think the Liberal-Conservative coalition would be considered unusual even in a country that regularly produces coalitions. I don't think it is usual for the junior partner to belong to the opposite wing of the political spectrum to the senior partner.

I'm not sure that Nick Clegg had any good choices. As he said at the time, the Conservative party had won the most seats, and had 2 million more votes than Labour. He felt he had an obligation to first try to come to an arrangement with Mr. Cameron. (Note also that a Labour/Lib Dem alliance wouldn't have been enough to command a majority in parliament - they would have needed the nationalist parties as well, and would only just about scrape a majority.)

I agree that burning so much credit on the AV thing was a mistake - proportional representation is something that deeply excites Lib Dem party members, but doesn't look terribly important to most Lib Dem voters.

Ultimately, I think the Lib Dems got handed the wrong end of the electoral stick, and were going to end up being hated by many of their voters pretty much whatever they did.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I think that 1. You are right in that none of the parties campaign with the option of a coalition in mind - even the LibDems. It is also significant that parties claim a "mandate" from the people when they achieve a majority in parliament - in truth, they can achieve this with a comparatively small portion of the electorate choosing them, and even a minority of those who voted choosing them. The idea of a mandate is, I think, outdated.

Also that 2. The LibDems made some appalling decisions in terms of what they should insist on. They should have picked some of the policies that people voted for (like tuition fees), even if they were not the most important ones.

I also think that the rhetoric after the election from Cameron, making the assumption that, because they had the majority, they were the only reasonable choice, was deceitful and unhelpful. The choice should have been based on who they could work with, who they could implement a consistent set of policies with.

But yes, the problem is that we do not understand how to do coalitions. Which is why we have ended up with a minority Tory government.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

There are a number of issues. On a number of things (like the NHS) the Tories themselves backed away from their own commitments and did what their critics said they would do all along - and then were arguably supported by the LibDems in doing the opposite of what they had claimed to be doing.

Secondly, they went into the election with a very specific manifesto in mind - rather than the broad principle style manifesto adopted by many parties in countries which traditionally have coalitions. As such they benefited fairly spectacularly from a the protest against the two parties - more so than they might otherwise have expected.

Lastly they entered into coalition with a Party that was not just on the opposite side of the political spectrum, but one which many of their own voters had vowed never to vote for.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I also think part of the reason for antipathy towards the Lib Dems is the suspicion that they played their hand rather badly.
If you look at it by seats won then the Liberals did badly in 2010, losing seats. In terms of a percentage of the vote, there was a swing towards the Liberals. They had 6.8 million votes compared with the Conservatives 10.7. Well over a third of the votes cast for the coalition went to the Liberal Democrats yet Clegg hailed to negotiate any of the major cabinet posts for his party (Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary or Chancellor of the Exchequer). The Liberals did not get a look in after that: at least not as far as majoy policy was concerned.

After that it was a Tory show with Liberal Democrats put in positions so that when the government did something unpopular it was a Liberal rather than a Tory face seen on TV and in the papers. David Cameron has played a blinder and walked all over the Liberals. Clegg cannot be held entirely blameles for this.

Yes, but that's quart into a pint pot stuff. Percentage doesn't matter, number of seats does. Given that, there's no surprise whatsoever that the Tories didn't hand over the Treasury.

The Home Office is usually (although Teresa May seems to be an exception) the quickest way to end your career.

Which leaves the FO - I'm sure I read a t time that Clegg was offered the FO but turned it down to get a LibDem minister into every department (although they've subsequently removed themselves from at least the MOD).

So there was method in the madness from Cleggs point of view. But, in FPTP, a party with very nearly a majority is under no obligation to play too nicely when negotiating with a potential junior partner. Especially when there's the possibility of governing as a minority then calling a snap election asking for a mandate, which is what Clegg really had hanging over him.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

I get them not implementing all their manifesto, likewise the conservatives - it is the stuff they agreed to do that wasn't in *either* manifesto I have the greatest problem with. Most obviously the vandalism of the NHS.

That and they should not have directly broken their own promises.

Frankly, I would have rather had a minority conservative government, that the lib dems promised not to take to a confidence vote. Because that is essentially what the country voted for.

But yes, we are not used to coalition government and that has not helped.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

I'm inclined to think an element of sortilege is worth trying. Let's elect our MPs and then generate a government through a lottery. Sure, they've got no coherent corporate policy, but so what? They all claim to be non-ideological nowadays anyway...

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

Lastly they entered into coalition with a Party that was not just on the opposite side of the political spectrum, but one which many of their own voters had vowed never to vote for.

This is why I think Nick Clegg was in trouble whatever he did - he basically had a choice between doing a deal with the Tories, who are viscerally hated by a fraction of his voters, or doing a deal to keep in power the hugely unpopular Labour government, who had just been pretty soundly rejected at the polls.

Neither of those options really plays well, and the fact that he didn't have enough seats for a straight Lib/Lab pact reduces the influence he could have had in negotiations with Labour - a hypothetical left-of-centre grand alliance would have been "Labour and the small parties" with the LDs as a large small party, rather than "Labour/Lib Dem".

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
This is why I think Nick Clegg was in trouble whatever he did - he basically had a choice between doing a deal with the Tories, who are viscerally hated by a fraction of his voters, or doing a deal to keep in power the hugely unpopular Labour government, who had just been pretty soundly rejected at the polls.

TBH I suspect if they had entered a coalition and then continuously held the Tories feet to the fire on things like the NHS reforms (which were in neither party manifesto), they would have got a lot of negative publicity in the press but ultimately done themselves more good electorally.

They would have even been forgiven things like tuition fees by most of the electorate.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The fact that he didn't have enough seats for a straight Lib/Lab pact reduces the influence he could have had in negotiations with Labour - a hypothetical left-of-centre grand alliance would have been "Labour and the small parties" with the LDs as a large small party, rather than "Labour/Lib Dem".

Yet he seems to have ended up, effectively, either claiming that he endorses coalition policies, or claiming that it's a "Tories and the small parties" government...

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
It is also significant that parties claim a "mandate" from the people when they achieve a majority in parliament - in truth, they can achieve this with a comparatively small portion of the electorate choosing them,

I am reminded of this daily. We have a statue of Harold Wilson in front of our station. A man who won 4 general elections for Labour (and lost one). On thwo of them the Tories had more votes. That's first past the post for you.

Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :

Yes I think it is an alien concept in our political culture, and that the scepticism of the public as to whether true democracy is served has increased. Everyone wants politicians to work together for the good of all of the people of the country. It was an opportunity missed. We've seen the worst of all worlds, with the sniping of the opposition, the pushing through of pet bills from both coalition partners that neither mentioned before the election, and with a failure to deliver those that were promised.

The hoped-for joint action to stabilise the economy, damaged so badly by the outgoing government, is being achieved by placing the greatest burdens upon those least able to bear them.

The political culture in Britain needs to change imv to the point where coalition would work: where the man in the street would have gained sufficient trust that those supposedly representing his or her views were actually doing so; and where parties would be held accountable to their promises. Sadly we're already bracing ourselves for the same old lines and bickering ready for next year's election, knowing that they're empty and false.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
That's first past the post for you.

I'm not keen on FTP myself, but there really isn't (as far as I can see) any single voting system that doesn't produce some anomalies... Best solution I can come up with is to have multiple selection systems for multiple houses of parliament...

Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :

If coalition is an alien term in British politics, perhaps we're going to have to get used to it. The council elections last Thursday, albeit on the usual low turnout, produced the following percentages:

Labour 31%
Conservative 29%
UKIP 17%
Lib Dem 13%
Others 10%

If these percentages were to be repeated at next year's general election, we will have another hung parliament. Because the first past the post system has a Labour bias, they would have come just 4 seats short of an overall majority, which would be a gap easy enough to plug by securing the support of either the Lib Dems or the smaller parties, but how can percentages of 31 or 29 give any party a mandate to run the country?

Although I voted against the attempt to push us in the direction of PR, perhaps the days of government alternating between Conservative and Labour are coming to an end, and coalitions are the thing of the future. Whether that's good or bad depends very much on your outlook!

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
The political culture in Britain needs to change imv to the point where coalition would work: where the man in the street would have gained sufficient trust that those supposedly representing his or her views were actually doing so;

I can't see that happening by gradual change. It would need the present system to break down to the extent that a revolutionary change would be accepted by politicians and voter alike (or at least a lot of them). In other words there has to be a willingness of the larger party in the coalition to make it work and for it to be accepted by their voters. Or at least spin it so that their voters accept it.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Labour 31%
Conservative 29%
UKIP 17%
Lib Dem 13%
Others 10%

If these percentages were to be repeated at next year's general election, we will have another hung parliament.

But an exit poll last Thursday showed that 51% of those who voted UKIP in this election would be voting for their usual party next year, so the figures don't work for next year, even before you consider that the number voting could double. Result inconclusive.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I get them not implementing all their manifesto, likewise the conservatives - it is the stuff they agreed to do that wasn't in *either* manifesto I have the greatest problem with. Most obviously the vandalism of the NHS.

That and they should not have directly broken their own promises.

Frankly, I would have rather had a minority conservative government, that the lib dems promised not to take to a confidence vote. Because that is essentially what the country voted for.

But yes, we are not used to coalition government and that has not helped.

A minority government that survives from vote-to-vote has become the normal way of working in a minority legislature in Canada. A formal coalition is rare; Saskatchewan is the only example I can think of (an NDP-Liberal deal, the provincial Liberals had three seats).

Ontario had an "accord" in 1985 because David Peterson and Bob Rae couldn't stand each other personally.

The federal Tories survived for two straight minority governments 2006-2011 by making an as-you-go deal with the Liberals, NDP or Bloc Quebecois as needed. It was the Liberals who voted most often with the Tories.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Because the first past the post system has a Labour bias, they would have come just 4 seats short of an overall majority, which would be a gap easy enough to plug by securing the support of either the Lib Dems or the smaller parties, but how can percentages of 31 or 29 give any party a mandate to run the country?

Back in the eighties it had a Conservative bias. As I understand it, it really depends on who last had the chance to redraw the electoral boundaries. Unfortunately for Cameron, Clegg decided that the Conservatives had stabbed the Lib Dems in the back over proportional representation, and vetoed Cameron's attempts to redraw the boundaries again.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
During my university years in Ireland, I saw a right-left (Fine Gael-Labour) coalition in operation and, with plenty of the usual flaws, it seemed to work fairly well.

Was that a 'grand coalition' or was one side noticeably junior to the other?

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Australia, too, seems to have a horror of hung parliaments (EDIT: At least at the national level, a couple of smaller jurisdictions with proportional representation voting systems, including mine, deliver minority government with great regularity and the sky doesn't fall in). We delivered one around the same time as the UK did.

I think this is, in both cases, created by a fundamental mismatch between the actual constitutional system and the way campaigns are run these days. Everything is run in a 'presidential' away as if you are electing a prime minister and a government, when you are doing no such thing. You are electing a local member of parliament. A government only happens because enough of these local members of parliament get together and form an alliance.

It was eye-opening after our 2010 election to see just how many people talked about voting for the respective leaders when neither of those leaders had appeared on a ballot paper in 148 out of 150 lower house seats.

The same basic disconnect also occurs when a party decided to replace its leader, with the result the country has a new Prime Minister. This has happened a number of times in modern Australian history, and the recurring cry goes up about how people haven't voted for the new PM. Well, they didn't vote for the old one either, no matter how much they believe they did.

[ 26. May 2014, 09:39: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

Just to add some historical perspective, in Great Britain from 1914 to 1945 (31 years), the Governments were mainly coalitions. There were partite Governments between 1922 and 1931 (9 years).

Given that before those dates few elections with universal suffrage had taken place, it would appear that non-coalition government in the UK is a post-war phenomenon.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
During my university years in Ireland, I saw a right-left (Fine Gael-Labour) coalition in operation and, with plenty of the usual flaws, it seemed to work fairly well.
Was that a 'grand coalition' or was one side noticeably junior to the other?

54 Fine Gael + 19 Labour=73; Fianna Fail 68; 2 independent, and the speaker. It was not what we would call a grand coalition.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Just to add some historical perspective, in Great Britain from 1914 to 1945 (31 years), the Governments were mainly coalitions. There were partite Governments between 1922 and 1931 (9 years).

Most of those coalitions were due to the two world wars, not any kind of popular vote.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

To illustrate what I said just yesterday, this happened yesterday in South Australia.

The reactions range from excitement that someone isn't a slave to the party machine to outrage that someone would switch allegiance.

The disconnect between the actual legal/constitutional situation and the way many people think about this is epitomised by this in the comments field:

quote:
No sitting politician should ever be allowed to change party. Quote election rules all you like, I could not give a stuff about the non-entity on the ballot paper; we the people vote for parties. This is fraud, treason, theft.

A by-election should be called immediately.

The person whose name actually appeared on the ballot paper is a faceless 'non-entity'.

That's why coalitions are seen as so dreadful. Because a coalition means your party - the thing you CLAIM to have voted for, even though there is no capacity to elect a 'party' to your individual seat in Parliament - didn't win.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

Ah, but there are rules and then there are practices.

The policy of the New Democratic Party in Canada since forever has been that we do not take floorcrossers. When Maria Mourani left the Bloc Quebecois* there was talk that she'd join the NDP. She fits us on everything except the sovereignty bit and she repented of that. We also have by far the most MP's from Quebec. But no, she's now an independent.

We do not take floorcrossers on principle. It's undemocratic and betrays the choices of the voters in that riding; in Canada party names appear underneath the candidate names on the ballot. And then there are the local donors who just got taken to the cleaners for $60K+ for a decent local campaign that turned out to benefit another party.

Floorcrossing is also strategically unwise in that it produces and MP without a local riding association and a local campaign, which is a recipe for vulnerability.

*Their last female MP and their only one from Montreal; now they're just four sad guys who sit in furthest reaches of the Mouse of Commons.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
54 Fine Gael + 19 Labour=73; Fianna Fail 68; 2 independent, and the speaker. It was not what we would call a grand coalition.

Fair enough - a pretty clear counter-example to my theory ...

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

One fact that is often forgotten is that all the major parties are effectively coalitions. It's something that is obvious if you ask something like "what is the Conservative Party view on Europe?", because there are a wide range of views within the Conservative Party. The annual party conferences allow the different groups within each party to identify what they all agree on and find compromises on what they don't agree on (even if the compromise is "we can't agree, therefore at present we're declaring that we have no policy on this issue"). And, those positions can, and do, change at each conference as the relative strengths of different groups and external factors change.

The British public are familiar with coalitions of this form. What is unusual for the Westiminster government in recent decades is for a coalition to exist between different parties to form a government (the Scottish Parliament, Welsh and NI Assemblies have more experience of coalition), and that is something unfamiliar to voters.

I think there are two options to make coalitions more functional at Westminster.

One is to increase familiarity with coalition government by introducing Regional Assmblies/Parliaments in England with similar electoral procedures already proven in Scotland/Wales/NI - this will almost certainly create coalition governments at this level on a fairly regular basis. A similar familiarity will occur if people got more involved in local politics, as coalitions at local government are also common.

The second option would be to have mini party conferences following a general election in which no single party gains overall control, in which the members of those parties forming a coalition get to have their say on the policies of the coalition, rather than leaving it up to the party leadership to hash out a deal.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
That's first past the post for you.
I'm not keen on FTP myself, but there really isn't (as far as I can see) any single voting system that doesn't produce some anomalies... Best solution I can come up with is to have multiple selection systems for multiple houses of parliament...

I agree that there is no perfect system. But some systems are "fairer" than others.

The only argument that I can see for FPTP is that it produces "strong" governments, with a reduced need for coalitions which tend (it is alleged) to sap strength and purpose and leave the government perpetually inclining towards compromise policies which don't satisfy anyone and probably don't won't work.

Such arguments can easily be challenged.

I have long preferred some sort of PR, on the grounds that a government can then have a good chance of saying that it represents a majority of the population. I am aware of the arguments that PR tends to mean that the least objectionable person/party is elected, rather than the person/party that is genuinely wanted. But I think that this is a smokescreen for defending the status quo with all its injustices.

It seems to me that under a decent form of PR, the population would be given the chance to choose properly what kind of government they wanted. FPTP is basically the politicos saying to the masses "don't worry your pretty little heads about all this politics stuff. It's far too complicated for your little brains. Simply put a cross in one box and leave the rest to us."

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

(Sorry for the double post!)

One additional thought....

One of the things I like least about the Labour Party is that for all its origins as the party of the ordinary working people, it has remained steadfastly committed to FPTP, not for any reasons of democracy or justice, but simply because it wanted to retain the possibility of power without coalition. It seems to me that a truly democratic party, committed to justice for all people, would be keen to ensure that the voting system was the most democratic and just one that they could get - not just the one that offers them the best chance of power.

Posted by Philip Charles (# 618) on :

Here in NZ we have Mixed Member Proportional Representation MMP . Since its introduction we have had nothing but coalitions. These are typically referred to as a 'Labour lead government' or a 'National lead government' after the largest member of the coalition. A minor party usually supports the major party in two ways. By being a partner with cabinet posts, coalition agreements etc or by offering support for confidence and supply. At the moment we have eight parties in the the House of Representatives and one independent. Three parties only have one member.
Having lived under FTP and MMP give me MMP and coalitions.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I may be the only person in the country that thinks this, but it's my considered view that the present coalition has been the best administration the country has had for well over a generation. It's been far better than any of the single party administrations I've experienced as an adult.

There has also been far less of the excitable journalistic hype about who's rising and falling etc etc etc than we've become used to. The Major and Brown eras were particularly bad on that account.

If we could vote for it to continue, I'd prefer it to any of the other options we'll be offered next year.

I envy the Irish for having a proper electoral system and still detest the majority of my fellow country persons for voting against electoral reform in the referendum. Yes, what we were offered was nothing like as good, but I cannot respect the intellectual or political integrity of anyone who advocates first past the post - particularly when all our lives we've seen what it delivers.

Posted by Gareth (# 2494) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I may be the only person in the country that thinks this, but it's my considered view that the present coalition has been the best administration the country has had for well over a generation. It's been far better than any of the single party administrations I've experienced as an adult.

You're certainly entitled to that opinion, but how about putting forwards some facts & arguments to support it?

This sort of thing:
I would say that the coalition is the worst possible thing that could have happened because:
1. The parties that came 2nd and 3rd in the election formed the Government, so they have absolutely no mandate whatsoever;
2. One of those parties immediately dropped its trousers and leaned over the barrel for the other, breaking its pre-election promises in the process (on tuition fees, for a start);
3. Senior politicians in the coalition (especially IDS) have repeatedly been rebuked for their misuse of statistics to mislead people - nothing short of wilful mendacity;
4. Finally, the Government has misled many people in this country into believing that those who caused the recent economic collapse should be assisted at every possible opportunity, while the poorest and the most vulnerable are causing economic problems by being poor and vulnerable.

See? It's that simple!

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gareth:

1. The parties that came 2nd and 3rd in the election formed the Government, so they have absolutely no mandate whatsoever;

You appear to have some difficulty with numeracy here.

For reference, in the 2010 election, the party results were:

1st: Conservative Party. 10.7 million votes, 307 seats
2nd: Labour Party. 8.6 million votes, 258 seats
3rd: Liberal Democrats. 6.8 million votes, 57 seats

If you start your list of claims with something which is obviously factually false, it doesn't lend much credibility to the rest of your "argument".

Posted by Gareth (# 2494) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Gareth:

1. The parties that came 2nd and 3rd in the election formed the Government, so they have absolutely no mandate whatsoever;
You appear to have some difficulty with numeracy here.

For reference, in the 2010 election, the party results were:

1st: Conservative Party. 10.7 million votes, 307 seats
2nd: Labour Party. 8.6 million votes, 258 seats
3rd: Liberal Democrats. 6.8 million votes, 57 seats

If you start your list of claims with something which is obviously factually false, it doesn't lend much credibility to the rest of your "argument".

Fair, if brutally expressed, so point taken.

I will say in my defence that it wasn't my "argument" but a demonstration of how to support a position when making an argument. What we have now is a "discussion" about the merits of the position.

I would counter by saying that if a numerical error in one part of an argument undermines your assessment of the credibility of the entire argument, then you are prejudging the other points.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gareth:

I would counter by saying that if a numerical error in one part of an argument undermines your assessment of the credibility of the entire argument, then you are prejudging the other points.

It's a fairly large error, though - rather than having "absolutely no mandate" as you claimed, a Conservative/Lib Dem combo includes the first and third parties, both in terms of seats won and vote share, and is the only two-party combination that would have yielded a clear majority (a Labour/Lib Dem alliance would have required the support of the nationalist parties as well).

The only way a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition becomes anything other than the thing that people actually voted for is if you take the line that the Lib Dems and Labour are indistinguishable left-of-centre parties, so a vote for either should be taken as a vote for anything vaguely left of centre, and against the nasty Tories. My response to that is simple - if the SDP types want to rejoin the Labour party, or make an electoral alliance with Labour, they are free to do so, and then we can vote for them on that basis.

To your second point, I'd agree that the Lib Dems played their cards rather badly in the coalition negotiations. The very fact of a coalition means that you're not going to get your own way in everything, especially when you're the junior partner, so complaining about the Lib Dems "breaking promises" is a bit silly. They needed to give up some things to get a deal done. I'd agree that they spent far too much political capital on the silly AV vote, though.

Posted by Gareth (# 2494) on :

A large error in one point out of many is just that: a large error in just that one point. I don't dispute your correction - only your assertion that it invalidates (or even merely undermines the credibility of) the others. Elaborating on the error doesn't enable it to justify the dismissal of valid points.

As to being a junior coalition partner: the LibDems promised before the election that they would not introduce tuition fees - and then participated in the introduction of them. It really is as straightforward as that.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gareth:
A large error in one point out of many is just that: a large error in just that one point. I don't dispute your correction - only your assertion that it invalidates (or even merely undermines the credibility of) the others. Elaborating on the error doesn't enable it to justify the dismissal of valid points.

OK, how about this? You are putting forward an argument, trying to convince me that your position is correct. Your argument contains things that you assert as fact, and it contains conclusions that you draw on the basis of those facts.

So now I have to consider whether your facts are correct, and whether I agree that those facts lead to the conclusions that you make. I look at your first point, and I see a big factual error. This doesn't tell me anything about the quality of your reasoning, but it does tell me that you are more likely to make factual errors.

Consider for example your point about IDS abusing official statistics. I am aware that IDS has got into trouble over this. I have no particular knowledge of how IDS compares to other politicians on this front. If I was under the impression that you were a person who generally provided accurate information, I'd be inclined to take your claims about IDS at face value. However, your error on the first point shifts my prior belief about your reliability significantly in the direction of "person who states inaccurate facts that support his partisan opinions". That being the case, I am less likely to take your claims of fact about IDS at face value, and more likely to shelve them until I can conduct my own review of the facts and determine whether IDS has behaved significantly worse than the average politician.

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
As to being a junior coalition partner: the LibDems promised before the election that they would not introduce tuition fees - and then participated in the introduction of them. It really is as straightforward as that.

Pedantic point, but as I recall, it was Blair's government that introduced tuition fees. The Lib Dems said they would scrap them and, more importantly I think, Clegg promised that under no circumstances would the Lib Dems vote for any rise. The ink was hardly dry on the coalition agreement when they rose threefold, with Clegg, Cable, Alexander and 26 other Lib Dems voting yes while idiots like me who had voted for the fuckers in the election looked on aghast.

The thing is, it came as a shock to many Lib Dem voters that they joined with the Tories but that was only because we had not being paying attention. The party leadership had been stealthily moving to right with Orange Bookers like Cable and Clegg to the fore for some time. We thought the Lib Dems were still - and to be fair, many activists probably are - sandal wearing hippies concerned with social justice. Big mistake, but Clegg is now learning that his core support doesn't care for his economic policies, still less his empty promises.

edited for error in numbers.

[ 31. May 2014, 23:33: Message edited by: Grokesx ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Ah, mandates.

One of the most fundamentally fallacious concepts in modern politics.

I'm not given a checklist of policies at the ballot box and options to tick yes or no. Such options would still be inadequate for when the answer is 'yes if' or 'no if'.

What I'm given is a bunch of names. Putting aside the names of the individuals concerned and JUST looking at their parties (a concept that's fallacious to begin with - there are members of the Australian Liberals I would readily vote for and members of the Liberals I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole), I'm given no opportunity whatsoever to indicate which policies are the most important to me, which policies I don't like but I can live with, and which policies are leading me to choose another party in the upper house so that they can block these crazy ideas.

I'm not given a space in which to indicate that someone is getting my first preference because they have 9 good policies as opposed to 4 bad ones, and another 73 no-one has advertised. And that's in a system that HAS preferences.

Claiming mandates for individual policies is just silly. Claiming mandates for your entire collection of policies is equally silly. The politicians that were elected espousing certain views are entitled to vote that way... and then the politicians that were elected espousing the opposite views are perfectly entitled to vote the opposite way without being told they are somehow standing in the way of the will of the people. They got elected to, presumably by people who kind of liked their ideas. It's not 'winner' takes all (again, assuming that a party wins as opposed to each individual MP who was elected).

And if nobody succeed in 'winning' (which only makes sense when you talk about parties), then the elected MPs face a choice. They can either twiddle their thumbs for the next several years on the grounds that nobody has a mandate for anything, or they can get on with the business of trading ideas, recognising that they might have to (gasp!) compromise.

Mandates are fairy stories we get told to make us believe an election is like a single football match instead of a Parliament being like an entire league season.

[ 31. May 2014, 23:46: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
And if nobody succeed in 'winning' (which only makes sense when you talk about parties), then the elected MPs face a choice. They can either twiddle their thumbs for the next several years on the grounds that nobody has a mandate for anything, or they can get on with the business of trading ideas, recognising that they might have to (gasp!) compromise.

Yes, and if the people who voted for them don't like the compromises they make, they can register their displeasure at the ballot box the next time around. And we can have expectations on what those compromises are likely to be based on the things they say, especially in election campaigns. That's how it works. OK, it sucks, but it's the system we have now. And if people like Clegg try to play the system so that can get a shot at power without much of a thought for how blatently different post election actions are from pre - election promises they are going to get their arses kicked.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
And if people like Clegg try to play the system so that can get a shot at power without much of a thought for how blatently different post election actions are from pre - election promises they are going to get their arses kicked.

Given the result of the previous election, Clegg was faced with two practical choices. The first was to do a coalition deal with Cameron, and the second was to do a more limited deal where he agrees to support a minority Conservative government on certain subjects.

At the time, he said that given the economic situation, he didn't think a (weak) minority government was in the interests of the country. I agree with him - I think going into coalition was his best option. I think burning all his negotiating capital on the AV vote was silly, but "introduce PR" has been a red line for the average muesli-knitting party activist for so long that he probably felt he had little choice there either.

But for all I think that he did more or less the right thing, I agree with you - by going in to coalition, he makes himself look like Tories lite, and that's not a vote winner.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I think burning all his negotiating capital on the AV vote was silly, but "introduce PR" has been a red line for the average muesli-knitting party activist for so long that he probably felt he had little choice there either.

The AV referendum was a total farce. I totally agree that given the emphasis given on PR by grass root LibDems for a long time Clegg had to expend a lot of negotiating capital on a referendum - what I never understood was how it ended up as a vote on a choice between FPTP and AV, given that AV is a scheme that no advocate of electoral reform had mentioned prior to the bill for the referendum to my knowledge, and certainly was radically different from what most LibDem members wanted. AV would (IMO) be an improvement of FPTP, but it was clear that most of the people campaigning for a "yes to AV" would have very much preferred to be campaigning for a different system. At the time it seemed very much that Cameron had run rings around Clegg. That impression hasn't subsequently changed, the biggest problem the LibDems had/have is that quite simply they suck at the backroom deals that are the backbone of British politics.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

Wasn't there some discussion about AV being a first step, that would do for the time being before progressing on to AV+, which the Jenkins Report had called for (majority of MPs elected by AV, 20% or so elected by PR so the overall numbers reflected the voting).

That seems to be a reasonable enough strategy, but pretty hard to sell on the doorstep, even before you run a lacklustre campaign.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

There might have been such a suggestion, but it does make it even harder to sell "vote for this temporary change to a voting system which no one really wants, and then there'll be another vote to change it again later".

There is value on a system that incorporates two different voting systems. But, if you're going to do that why invent something completely new? There was a considerable amount of support for simply adopting the voting system that has been shown to work in Scotland for the whole UK.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:
And if nobody succeed in 'winning' (which only makes sense when you talk about parties), then the elected MPs face a choice. They can either twiddle their thumbs for the next several years on the grounds that nobody has a mandate for anything, or they can get on with the business of trading ideas, recognising that they might have to (gasp!) compromise.
Yes, and if the people who voted for them don't like the compromises they make, they can register their displeasure at the ballot box the next time around. And we can have expectations on what those compromises are likely to be based on the things they say, especially in election campaigns. That's how it works. OK, it sucks, but it's the system we have now. And if people like Clegg try to play the system so that can get a shot at power without much of a thought for how blatently different post election actions are from pre - election promises they are going to get their arses kicked.

Yes, though one of the first things they did was give themselves a guaranteed 5 year term. That is a fairly major constitutional change - without a referendum - every bit as important as fptp vs av. And given that they were holding a constitutional referendum anyway - they could have put that to the people at the same time.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Yes, though one of the first things they did was give themselves a guaranteed 5 year term.

But if they want it, they had it anyway. Under the new scheme, a government can still lose a vote of no confidence and trigger an election. Under the old scheme, a government could always choose not to go to the country until the 5 years was up.

The only thing that you lose in the new scheme is the ability for the governing party to call an election at a time when the swinging of the political pendulum favours them.

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

That is a major constitutional change.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:
And if nobody succeed in 'winning' (which only makes sense when you talk about parties), then the elected MPs face a choice. They can either twiddle their thumbs for the next several years on the grounds that nobody has a mandate for anything, or they can get on with the business of trading ideas, recognising that they might have to (gasp!) compromise.
Yes, and if the people who voted for them don't like the compromises they make, they can register their displeasure at the ballot box the next time around. And we can have expectations on what those compromises are likely to be based on the things they say, especially in election campaigns. That's how it works. OK, it sucks, but it's the system we have now. And if people like Clegg try to play the system so that can get a shot at power without much of a thought for how blatently different post election actions are from pre - election promises they are going to get their arses kicked.

Sorry, how exactly did he 'play the system'? Voter fraud?

I can well understand why people get upset with a major party when it goes to an election with a set of policies, wins, and then does something different with no discernable reason as to why. I genuinely cannot understand why people still get so upset with parties that went to an election with particular policies and there's a hung Parliament, and policies changes. Because there's a very discernable reason why the policy had to change.

(The same applies, by the way, when there's clear objective evidence that circumstances have changed in some other way such that the original policy may not work in a new context.)

Fine, so the election platform was a party's first choice. What do they do when the first choice isn't available?

It feels oddly reminiscent of going to the shop to buy something for another person. Maybe as trivial as going to buy ice cream and asking what flavour they want, and then getting to the shop and discovering that flavour isn't available. What do you do? Do you go back completely empty handed? Most people when faced with this situation will try to come up with an alternative.

I know people who will accept the substitution with good grace. I know people who will try to guard against this by saying "and if they don't have X, then Y or Z is an acceptable substitute". And I know people who will treat any substitution as some kind of profound moral outrage and ignore the reality that their first choice wasn't possible.

I get a bit tired of how much the 'profound moral outrage' crowd manage to dominate political discourse.

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
Sorry, how exactly did he 'play the system'? Voter fraud?

I'd say that relying on voters who favour one set of policies to get you into a position of holding the balance of power and then form a government implementing radically different policies is playing the system.

quote:
Fine, so the election platform was a party's first choice. What do they do when the first choice isn't available?

Stay on the opposition benches.

quote:
And I know people who will treat any substitution as some kind of profound moral outrage and ignore the reality that their first choice wasn't possible.

In your scenario we are looking at the guy who comes back from the shop and says, "Well, I couldn't get you any bread, but I've got you a Porsche instead. It'll only set you back sixty grand, and you've got to pay it. Sorry, but what do you expect when you send me to do your shopping?"

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

"Stay on the opposition benches" is exactly what I'm talking about. No real hope of getting any policies through from the opposition benches.

An ideologically pure loss is apparently what you (and many others) would prefer. But it's a loss.

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
"Stay on the opposition benches" is exactly what I'm talking about. No real hope of getting any policies through from the opposition benches

I'm sorry, I was under the mistaken impression that one aim of democracy is to get policies through that have some sort of support from the people who voted for the parties implementing them.

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

That's the problem.

We vote for individuals who represent parties. We don't vote for policies. It can probably be assumed that people vote for the individual/party that has the most policies they want implemented and/or the least policies that thet don't want implemented. But, it's a dangerous mistake to assume that a vote for an individual/party is an endorsement of the entire package of policies or a rejection of the entire packages of the policies of other individuals/parties.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Exactly.

The other mistake is to assume that the democratic process stops on election day. If people don't like a policy shift, then they should be getting onto the MPs and communicating that they don't like the policy shift.

It's like performance review. Waiting until the 5 years are up to 'punish' them for doing the wrong thing isn't very effective if you haven't said, in the intervening 5 years, what you're unhappy about.

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
But, it's a dangerous mistake to assume that a vote for an individual/party is an endorsement of the entire package of policies or a rejection of the entire packages of the policies of other individuals/parties.

Well, if you think I'm making that mistake, I'm not making myself very clear. I've said, yes, coalition partners have to make compromises. But politics isn't just about about the horse trading behind closed doors, it's also about the wishes of the people of the people who put the traders behind the doors. That's something Clegg is learning the hard way.

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
Waiting until the 5 years are up to 'punish' them for doing the wrong thing isn't very effective if you haven't said, in the intervening 5 years, what you're unhappy about.

WTF? One minute you are moaning about moral outrage and the next telling us we should be writing green ink letters to our MPs.

Edited to say sorry for the double post - I'll shut up now.

[ 02. June 2014, 22:37: Message edited by: Grokesx ]

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I've no idea what a green ink letter is, but if it's something nasty I don't recommend it. I'm not calling for general moral outrage about people being traitors, I'm talking about specific reactions to specific policies.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I've no idea what a green ink letter is, but if it's something nasty I don't recommend it.

People who are in a position to receive random communications from members of the parish e.g. priests, MPs, etc, find that the more eccentric and vehemently expressed a point of view a person has the more that person is drawn to green ballpoint as a medium of expression.

Posted by Gareth (# 2494) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:
Sorry, how exactly did he 'play the system'? Voter fraud?
I'd say that relying on voters who favour one set of policies to get you into a position of holding the balance of power and then form a government implementing radically different policies is playing the system.

That's basic politics.

Remember the Oldham East Election Court? One of the things that court case reaffirmed in law is that politicians are allowed to tell bare faced lies in their manifestos, speeches and broadcasts. They can say whatever the hell they want about what they will do when elected, knowing that every word of it is untrue. They are also allowed to tell equally shameless lies about their opponents' intentions. There is not a single piece of legislation, tort or common law to prohibit a politician from telling lies in their promises in order to get elected, while fully intending to do the opposite.

What they cannot do is tell lies about an opponent's character.

Convincing voters that there is something wrong with deceiving them in order to win elections, and that they would never stoop so low, is one of the easier lies politicians tell.

Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :

quote:
There is not a single piece of legislation, tort or common law to prohibit a politician from telling lies in their promises in order to get elected, while fully intending to do the opposite.

How would you bring a case? And don't the voters do the judging? Oh, sorry, I forgot, on this thread voting isn't actually part of politics at all.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Oh, sorry, I forgot, on this thread voting isn't actually part of politics at all.

If that's a dig at me, it's pretty much the opposite of what I said. The point has been that voting isn't the sum total of politics.

Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I may be the only person in the country that thinks this, but it's my considered view that the present coalition has been the best administration the country has had for well over a generation. It's been far better than any of the single party administrations I've experienced as an adult.

There has also been far less of the excitable journalistic hype about who's rising and falling etc etc etc than we've become used to. The Major and Brown eras were particularly bad on that account.

If we could vote for it to continue, I'd prefer it to any of the other options we'll be offered next year.

I envy the Irish for having a proper electoral system and still detest the majority of my fellow country persons for voting against electoral reform in the referendum. Yes, what we were offered was nothing like as good, but I cannot respect the intellectual or political integrity of anyone who advocates first past the post - particularly when all our lives we've seen what it delivers.

Funny enough Enoch, as a life-long Liberal in British politics, I would agree with you regarding the Liberal Conservative coalition. Most of my Labour supporting friends in London vehemently disagree with me on this, and claim they viscerally hate the Lib Dems for joining the Coalition, but then again they are so tribally Labour that they never would have voted for them in the first place.

As for the Irish voting system of PR-Single Transferable Vote in multi-seat constituencies, as I am no longer involved in party politics in Ireland I think it is the best of all electoral systems. Imagine the recent European elections in Britain if the buffoons of UKIP had to actually campaign for votes instead of hiding behind an electoral list. It would have been closer to the local elections in reality.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0