Quote: Original post by phantom
The right to vote is a right NOT to vote as well. It's a right to make an informed choice about who you are going to support. Are you saying that suddenly my view point would become more valid if I went and put a spoilt ballot paper in a box?

No as that would be just stupid. Why would you turn up to vote yet spoil the vote which only the counters and returning officer see?

Quote:
Or are you saying 'your view only counts if you vote for someone'? because frankly that is even worse...

That is exactly what I am saying. Your opinions are worth no more than a 14 year old child.

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I'm registered to vote, I don't because there is no one I want to give my support to

No one? There is no independent or party that stands for anything you want or like? Maybe you should consider forming a party of your own, or consider that sometimes the lesser of the evils is better.

The worth of a view has absolutely no relation to whether the speaker voted. If you've got a top political consultant giving you an analysis, it's likely to be worth reading regardless of whether the consultant voted. That doesn't change as the level of expertise drops back to 'ordinary people.'

The 'if you don't vote you can't talk' argument comes from the idea that talking about problems is a waste of time without working to solve those problems, coupled with the assumption that if you don't vote then you're not trying to solve problems of government. Both of which are false ideas.

If you're not voting, though, I would encourage you to write about why - write about the policies that matter most to you that none of the parties are implementing. Write for yourself, write for your friends, write for your MP... refusing to support parties because they don't hold your policies is fair enough, but they never will hold your policies if you don't make some noise about them.

Quote: The worth of a view has absolutely no relation to whether the speaker voted. If you've got a top political consultant giving you an analysis, it's likely to be worth reading regardless of whether the consultant voted. That doesn't change as the level of expertise drops back to 'ordinary people.'

Are you trying to say that a political analyst that is able to vote would not, not forgetting that they would have a considerable interest?

Quote: Original post by superpig
The 'if you don't vote you can't talk' argument comes from the idea that talking about problems is a waste of time without working to solve those problems, coupled with the assumption that if you don't vote then you're not trying to solve problems of government. Both of which are false ideas.

Would you care to explain why these are false.

Quote:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Quote: Original post by phantom

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by ukdeveloper
Remember that, in the UK, you vote for the party and not the individual like you might in the US Presidential Election, with the party leader becoming Prime Minister by default.

I thought you voted for your Member of Parliament and then Members of Parliament vote to determine the Prime Minister. So that the party holding the majority of seats picks their top guy to be PM and the PM then forms a government and so on. And that the problem now is that no one party holds a majority of seats making the selection of PM problematic.

When you go to the polls does the ballot list candidate names for MP or just the party and you get stuck with an MP picked by the bosses of the winning party?

You vote for your local MP, but its generally with the understanding that the party leader will become the PM. (Unless he doesn't get elected, at which point someone else will become the party leader/PM although this is rare as the leaders generally come from safe seats.)

As for the candidate selection, this can be forced upon an area by a party, however its my understanding that if the current candidate stands down then the local party members will select a new candidate via some method more than likely a vote unless only one person wants to stand. Of course, forcing a candidate on an area can go badly; Labour tried this and the local members rejected the idea, the person they wanted then stood as an independant and won the seat instead. That as at the last election however, it swung back to Labour this time around.

That's what I thought: you vote for your local MP by choosing between candidates representing the various parties.

In the US system the "mechanical" equivalent to Prime Minister would be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I say "mechanical" because the process of selecting the Speaker is probably very similar to that for selecting the Prime Minister. The framers of the US Constitution likely used Parliament as the model for the House of Representatives.

Quote: Original post by phantom
Then, as indicated above, Tony Blair appears on the scene and models himself more along the lines of a presidental candidate and suddenly instead of voting for the candidate or the party everyone is voting for the 'next PM' instead which isn't how the system works.

The similarities in style between Blair and Clinton have not gone unnoticed.

Check out this contrasting analysis: The Age of Ennui

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...
Then, in the election which followed (1988 in the US and 1992 in the UK), the watered-down version of the far-right candidate (John Major and Bush the Elder) somehow, surprisingly, managed to thrash out the weakest imaginable endorsement and hold the keys to government for another term. After that came the other party with an even weaker version of the same politics. Just as Thatcher and Reagan were like peas in a pod, and just as Major and HW were nothingburger clones, so too the backward and oleaginous Tony Blair and Bill Clinton were twin sons of different mothers. Now it looks like Britain may be getting its barely-endorsed ‘compassionate conservative' to match our George W. Bush, in the form of the polished-up-to-seem-less-abrasive Tory David Cameron.
...

Quote: Original post by phantom
Of course, this mindset isn't helped by the media who have been pushing this view point because it probably sells papers/stories and gets people up in arms.

At least they probably think it sells papers. I think it stinks of Rupert Murdoch and a longstanding effort on the part of the plutocrats to sour the public on politics. If popular government stands in the way of your ever greater profits, and you control the popularity making machinery, well then, you're going to dilute the power of popular government by making it unpopular.

[Edited by - LessBread on May 9, 2010 1:02:57 PM]

Quote: Original post by CmpDev

Quote: And that the problem now is that no one party holds a majority of seats making the selection of PM problematic.

... No the problem is no one has a majority 326 MP's ...

That's what I wrote, "no one party holds a majority of seats". A majority happens to be 326 but the number could be different depending on how many seats there are.

Here's a contrast to consider. The estimated population of the UK is 62 million. There are 650 members of Parliament for a ratio of 95,384 people per MP. The estimated population of the USA is 309 million. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives for a ratio of 710,345 people per Congressional Representative. The political system in the UK might be broken, but it could become even more broken so don't forget to count your blessings.

Quote: That's what I wrote, "no one party holds a majority of seats". A majority happens to be 326 but the number could be different depending on how many seats there are.

Well yes you did write that but then you also came to this conclusion using incorrect logic which I was trying to correct, maybe I should have quoted all the text.

Quote:
I thought you voted for your Member of Parliament and then Members of Parliament vote to determine the Prime Minister. So that the party holding the majority of seats picks their top guy to be PM and the PM then forms a government and so on. And that the problem now is that no one party holds a majority of seats making the selection of PM problematic.

The problem of the selection for the PM you could say is a side effect of not yet deciding on the governing party. As I stated the leader of the governing party will become the PM.

I am not trying to be arsey if it sounds like that then I am sorry.

Quote: Original post by CmpDev

Quote: The worth of a view has absolutely no relation to whether the speaker voted. If you've got a top political consultant giving you an analysis, it's likely to be worth reading regardless of whether the consultant voted. That doesn't change as the level of expertise drops back to 'ordinary people.'

Are you trying to say that a political analyst that is able to vote would not, not forgetting that they would have a considerable interest?

No. I'm saying that whether or not they vote is irrelevant to whether or not they're a good political analyst producing analyses of worth. It's likely that as a person with a vested interest they would vote, but it doesn't actually matter whether they do or don't - all that matters is their analysis. Consider the argument, ignore the source.

Here's another way to look at it: I could write the most insightful, well-researched, informative analysis of the political situation, and not vote, and by your argument my analysis would be worthless. Somebody else comes along, agrees with my analysis and reposts it, and they voted, and suddenly it's worth a lot. Does that seem right to you? The same words, the same ideas, the same arguments, purely by virtue of being posted by somebody else, suddenly become worthy. It doesn't seem right to me.

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Quote: Original post by superpig
The 'if you don't vote you can't talk' argument comes from the idea that talking about problems is a waste of time without working to solve those problems, coupled with the assumption that if you don't vote then you're not trying to solve problems of government. Both of which are false ideas.

Would you care to explain why these are false.

Sure. [smile]

Firstly, talking about problems is the first step to solving them: you can't solve a problem if you don't know what it is. But, while you might recognise what the problem is, you might not be a position to solve it; you might not have the resources, the skills, the requisite ideas.

However, by talking about the problem, you stand a chance that you'll communicate them to somebody who does have the resources, skills, and requisite ideas. For example: you might tell your MP, and it might persuade them to do some research into the problem and maybe even find a cool new way of doing things that saves everybody a bit of time and money and makes people happier. Telling people on GDNet is less effective, but what you post here might still be the "straw that breaks the camel's back" for somebody who was thinking of going to a protest or joining a pressure group. Even if nobody who reads this thread falls into that category, they might repeat the arguments and ideas they learn here to others, and the others might fall into that category, and so on.

In short, you can spread the problem-meme around, and if it's an accurate observation, that can't be a bad thing.

You might also communicate them to somebody who has enough knowledge to be able to tell you why it's not a problem: for example, you might complain that we don't have Proportional Representation, and then I could explain to you why it'd actually be worse than the current system. This is pretty common; lots of ideas about government don't work but are sort of counter-intuitive, so talking to others who might have already thought about the idea can be very beneficial. This has happened to me a lot, I can tell you. This isn't a waste of time because it means there's one fewer person with unworkable political ideas in the world.

Secondly: voting is not the only way to solve problems of government. One of my best friends was a Lib Dem volunteer for our local MP in this campaign; she's a Russian national, and legally can't vote. However, she was putting in 12-hour days of canvassing, delivering leaflets, answering emails, etc. She was standing up to support one particular approach to solving the problems of government. I'd call that helping, wouldn't you?

Quote:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

See, that's an argument against staying silent, which I agree is not helpful. It's not an argument against complaining, which is what Phantom is doing, and which I maintain is still helpful; though maybe not as helpful as doing something about it, it's better than staying silent.

Superpig pretty much hit everything square on the head.. and much better than I could... probably because he is smarter than me *chuckles*

Quote: Original post by CmpDev

Quote:
I'm registered to vote, I don't because there is no one I want to give my support to

No one? There is no independent or party that stands for anything you want or like? Maybe you should consider forming a party of your own, or consider that sometimes the lesser of the evils is better.

Correct, no one.
And it's not the people/parties either, its the whole system; I do not believe that democracy, in its current form, is the best method of running a country. The problem is any time you mention this idea someone trots out that old Churchill quote and then acts like they have 'won' the arguement.

I have considered a number of times forming my own party, however I then take a look around and decide that if I got it off the ground chances most people wouldn't vote for it any, mostly because the major issue in said party would be the dismantaling of the current day democracy in favour of a better solution. That said, for all my thinking I still don't have a 'better' solution and given that is one of my key objectives it does somewhat prevent the formation of the party anyway.. but I still spent time thinking about it and trying to come up with a better way to do things.. but, end of the day, I'm a (nearly) 30 year old game developer, social-political theory isn't the strongest thing in my knowledge base.

Finally the 'less of two evils' might be ok for you, or indeed others, but I have my views on this and my principles; the way I see it when you vote for someone you are saying "yes, I agree with what you are saying and plan to do" and I can't give my support to something I don't believe in.

This is why I would like a 'none of the above' option which is counted in the outcome, because it would give a chance for people like myself to have their voice heard where under the current system it is denied; unless you agree with one of the people standing then you effectively have had your voice taken away from you.

I wouldn't want to be in the thick of things right now.

Poor Nick Clegg; he's torn between the Conservatives and Labour. Realistically, he needs to support one of them in some way and has had negotiations with both (and apparently the negotiations with Brown fell over when Brown bit his head off when Clegg dared point out that Brown might be finished).

There's going to be some kind of compromise reached, and it'll likely be quite messy. Clegg risks upsetting his new support base, Cameron risks upsetting his backbenchers (who are dyed-in-the-wool old-school Conservatives and quite influential/stubborn depending on which way you look at it) and the leadership race to replace Brown, should he resign, might not be so clear cut either.

There have been in-depth negotiations between Conservative and Lib Dem negotiators and the rumour is that they're close to a deal, but it won't be a full coalition as opposed to an informal agreement. See Nick Robinson keeping us updated as things progress, and it's entirely possible that the discussions are still on-going at this very moment.

Gordon Brown, as usual, is sniffing around Clegg hoping to scrape up what he can in order to keep himself in Downing Street. Twitter and the blogosphere, plus a few vaguely respectable journos, seem to think that some of his inner circle are pressuring him to quit in order to let the party rebuild.

Quote: Original post by phantom

Quote: Original post by CmpDev
phantom you are certainly entitled to your opinions, yet they are worthless as you do not vote.

Yeah, I hate that point of view as well... it's a wonderful piece of brain washing forced upon the masses that just because you don't go and make a cross in a box you suddenly can't say anything, sorry but that is bullshit.

The right to vote is a right NOT to vote as well. It's a right to make an informed choice about who you are going to support. Are you saying that suddenly my view point would become more valid if I went and put a spoilt ballot paper in a box? If so do you realise just how dumb that point of view is? Or are you saying 'your view only counts if you vote for someone'? because frankly that is even worse...

I'm registered to vote, I don't because there is no one I want to give my support to and, amusingly, my view point is probably more informed than the majority of the people who ARE voting; the ones who will always vote for a party regardless of what they say they will do for example simply because they are one 'class' or another.

So, no, my opinion is worth just as much as everyone elses thanks, the fact that I CHOOSE not to throw my support behind one candiate or another shouldn't enter into it.

I'm the same way. I've been registered to vote for about 7 years now. I have not once voted in an election. I have talked with many candidates, MPs, and MLAs, but not one of them has actually provided a reason for me to support them over any other. Thus, none of them get a vote from me.

This is, voting, without casting a vote. I voted for none of them. I made my choice, my voice was heard. I supported none of them. (I also haven't actually opposed any of them. Where I am, most seem like they would be the kind of people to do well enough.)


Personally, I much prefer the Parliament systems like Canada and the UK to other options. PMs aren't really that far above any other MPs, as it should be. We elect our governments, and can completely ignore the party system, and they work it out themselves. The one thing that could make it better is to somehow eliminate the parties themselves, and have some way to force local candidates to stick to their personal election platforms. Would get rid of these idiots who vote for X party because "So and so is with them, and my parents always voted for that party", and have no clue at all of what is actually going on.