Yep, start with first past the post and then quickly follow with removal of anything resembling a Tory.
Rewiring of the *English* political system, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland all use a far better system, I don’t see why so many want to paint that as a British issue. yes the UK elections are decided by FPTP but its the English parties who have kept it that way and don’t fight for changes to it.
If you want the UK to stay together with both Scotland and Northern Ireland then the first step would be to dissolve FPTP and the House of Lords, actually have a functioning democracy where voting for more than 2 parties is a good thing.
20 captchas in and I still couldn’t reach the article on mobile.
FPTP needs scrapping.
House of Lords needs reforming so that genuine industry experts populate it and not Tory friends/donors.
Federalisation to give more local power and fair power to each of the nations.
Scrap the royal family so our tax money isn’t paying for a known child abuser.
Move government departments out of London to increase growth in other areas of the country instead of everything being concentrated in London.
IMO the following should happen;
– Devolve an English Parliament and place it somewhere like York.
– Introduce PR elections and redraw the constituencies
– Turn the U.K. Parliament into a body that has x number of U.K. MPs per nation, with their party based on whichever party is in power in their devolved body.
– Radically reduce the lords to match the number of U.K. MPs and allow an non-political body to appoint them for a fixed period of time e.g 10 years
That would mean that non-English parties would shut up about being ruled by a party they didn’t elect. The rest of the MPs would actually need to travel across England and see what the country is actually like.
Elections would be fairer as is not FPTP.
U.K. Parliament would be representative of the whole nation.
The HoL wouldn’t be a position for life, but they also wouldn’t be elected as that’s also not a good thing.
>“Labour’s instinct under the first past the post electoral system is to temporarily supplant the Tories and become a top-down centralising force,” Labour MP Clive Lewis told me. “The problem is that we lose three times as often as we win – so we don’t get much opportunity to govern and often when we do, we tinker at the edges.”
Finally one of them gets it.
Rein the media in and improve political education too. A new system will be useless when those using it are either manipulated or have no understanding of how it works at a basic level.
First thing you need to do is make all parties publicly financed, on a really fundamental level you work for who pays you, if your wages for working at a hedge fund are 2-3 times your wages for working as an MP then you are conflicted.
Labour face a similar, but less corrupt, issue with the unions, and severing ties there could have other benefits too if more people join as a result.
We need the people who have benefited mightily from the current system to change the system to one where they’re less likely to benefit.
How will they be motivated to do so?
I like Andy Burnham generally. I think he is well intentioned. But his achievements as Mayor have been exceptionally limited. Soon he will have to deliver something or stop his pronouncements.
Very much a New Labour guy but he actually seems decent.
My real wake up call to this was when the Tories blocked a bill by simply not showing up to vote on it. I can’t seem to find any info on it now but if someone else can remember what happened please elaborate
FPTP gives us the fallacy of “mandate” used again and again by the government to rule unilaterally… This is the single biggest issue within the UK.
MAKE SEATS MATCH VOTES!
Doesn’t Andy know there’s a war on!?!?!?
(Vote the Tory bastards out)
Add it to the pile of things that need fixing:
Council Tax
Stamp Duty
Healthcare
The triple lock
Mental Healthcare
Poor wages
While the selfish and self centred rule with their “mates rates” style of government this isn’t going to happen. How can we make realistic change under these circumstances ?
> Despite Andy Burnham’s convictions, it appears as though the campaign for electoral reform – moving away from the established first past the post system – is **currently going backwards**.
This. If anyone thinks that there’s wholesale support for PR in the Labour Party, I’m afraid they’re very much mistaken. FPTP is the enabler of a two party state – the Labour Party being one. They’re just crap at winning elections and don’t understand how to appoint electable leaders.
ITT: Labour voters who are running out of ideas on how to get elected to Government
The election system is crap. No country should call itself a democracy where you can govern with a majority when a comparably little amount of people actually voted you in.
The fractured left is allowing the conservatives to abuse fptp. It seems to be conservatives (anti left) vs the left in all its different forms. Obviously I don’t think this a good thing, but if Fptp is here to stay then uniting the left under common ground is the only way to make any change.
What is most frustrating is that if you asked all my left friends who’s they’d vote for you’d probably get 4 different parties. Plus on top of that a lot of our pub talk is about Labour’s issues.
How about making sure that mp’s can’t actually lie to us? I don’t understand why something like that isn’t already in place.
Also I don’t see why whips exist. How can we call ourselves a democracy? I don’t get it
21 comments
Yep, start with first past the post and then quickly follow with removal of anything resembling a Tory.
Rewiring of the *English* political system, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland all use a far better system, I don’t see why so many want to paint that as a British issue. yes the UK elections are decided by FPTP but its the English parties who have kept it that way and don’t fight for changes to it.
If you want the UK to stay together with both Scotland and Northern Ireland then the first step would be to dissolve FPTP and the House of Lords, actually have a functioning democracy where voting for more than 2 parties is a good thing.
20 captchas in and I still couldn’t reach the article on mobile.
FPTP needs scrapping.
House of Lords needs reforming so that genuine industry experts populate it and not Tory friends/donors.
Federalisation to give more local power and fair power to each of the nations.
Scrap the royal family so our tax money isn’t paying for a known child abuser.
Move government departments out of London to increase growth in other areas of the country instead of everything being concentrated in London.
IMO the following should happen;
– Devolve an English Parliament and place it somewhere like York.
– Introduce PR elections and redraw the constituencies
– Turn the U.K. Parliament into a body that has x number of U.K. MPs per nation, with their party based on whichever party is in power in their devolved body.
– Radically reduce the lords to match the number of U.K. MPs and allow an non-political body to appoint them for a fixed period of time e.g 10 years
That would mean that non-English parties would shut up about being ruled by a party they didn’t elect. The rest of the MPs would actually need to travel across England and see what the country is actually like.
Elections would be fairer as is not FPTP.
U.K. Parliament would be representative of the whole nation.
The HoL wouldn’t be a position for life, but they also wouldn’t be elected as that’s also not a good thing.
>“Labour’s instinct under the first past the post electoral system is to temporarily supplant the Tories and become a top-down centralising force,” Labour MP Clive Lewis told me. “The problem is that we lose three times as often as we win – so we don’t get much opportunity to govern and often when we do, we tinker at the edges.”
Finally one of them gets it.
Rein the media in and improve political education too. A new system will be useless when those using it are either manipulated or have no understanding of how it works at a basic level.
First thing you need to do is make all parties publicly financed, on a really fundamental level you work for who pays you, if your wages for working at a hedge fund are 2-3 times your wages for working as an MP then you are conflicted.
Labour face a similar, but less corrupt, issue with the unions, and severing ties there could have other benefits too if more people join as a result.
We need the people who have benefited mightily from the current system to change the system to one where they’re less likely to benefit.
How will they be motivated to do so?
I like Andy Burnham generally. I think he is well intentioned. But his achievements as Mayor have been exceptionally limited. Soon he will have to deliver something or stop his pronouncements.
Very much a New Labour guy but he actually seems decent.
My real wake up call to this was when the Tories blocked a bill by simply not showing up to vote on it. I can’t seem to find any info on it now but if someone else can remember what happened please elaborate
FPTP gives us the fallacy of “mandate” used again and again by the government to rule unilaterally… This is the single biggest issue within the UK.
MAKE SEATS MATCH VOTES!
Doesn’t Andy know there’s a war on!?!?!?
(Vote the Tory bastards out)
Add it to the pile of things that need fixing:
Council Tax
Stamp Duty
Healthcare
The triple lock
Mental Healthcare
Poor wages
While the selfish and self centred rule with their “mates rates” style of government this isn’t going to happen. How can we make realistic change under these circumstances ?
> Despite Andy Burnham’s convictions, it appears as though the campaign for electoral reform – moving away from the established first past the post system – is **currently going backwards**.
This. If anyone thinks that there’s wholesale support for PR in the Labour Party, I’m afraid they’re very much mistaken. FPTP is the enabler of a two party state – the Labour Party being one. They’re just crap at winning elections and don’t understand how to appoint electable leaders.
ITT: Labour voters who are running out of ideas on how to get elected to Government
The election system is crap. No country should call itself a democracy where you can govern with a majority when a comparably little amount of people actually voted you in.
The fractured left is allowing the conservatives to abuse fptp. It seems to be conservatives (anti left) vs the left in all its different forms. Obviously I don’t think this a good thing, but if Fptp is here to stay then uniting the left under common ground is the only way to make any change.
What is most frustrating is that if you asked all my left friends who’s they’d vote for you’d probably get 4 different parties. Plus on top of that a lot of our pub talk is about Labour’s issues.
How about making sure that mp’s can’t actually lie to us? I don’t understand why something like that isn’t already in place.
Also I don’t see why whips exist. How can we call ourselves a democracy? I don’t get it