On 15 Oct 2022 at 10:13am Nevillman wrote:
It's interesting how all the main parties have devised systems for electing their leader that have lead to further problems. Corbyn for labour, whatever her name was for the lib Dems and now truss for the Tories. They have tried to become more democratic and involve the members but the result has been the election of a leader who neither appeals to the MPs or the electorate and disastrous consequences for the country.
No particular point to make but it is interesting.
On 15 Oct 2022 at 5:04pm SHS wrote:
We need a MITS party.
On 15 Oct 2022 at 7:45pm Nevillman wrote:
What is MITS and how will it elect it's leader?
On 15 Oct 2022 at 10:31pm Tom Pain wrote:
I think it was Callaghan who said that nothing happens by accident in politics.
On 16 Oct 2022 at 4:57pm SHS wrote:
MITS = Man In The Street. In fact it should be a MITS & BITS Party (to include Businesses In The Street). Bottom-up policy making by mits & bits then once policy is agreed by a mass vote, the leader is not really important but could be just the person with the most experience of getting things done. Simples.
On 17 Oct 2022 at 7:29am Nevillman wrote:
I'm afraid that as the person in the street has in the recent past given us Brexit and Johnson I don't share your view that we would have a satisfactory outcome.
On 17 Oct 2022 at 10:10pm Tom Pain wrote:
That might be because a person is just a strawman, a legal fiction. It's our identity in the commercial world not the living man.
On 19 Oct 2022 at 8:39pm Tom Pain wrote:
It certainly looks as if you're saying that democracy doesn't work. I can see why you're a remainer: the EU with it's unelected Commission being the only body that can formulate policy and law, gets rid of that problem. Not that it's much different here with the Cabinet Office acting like the Commission, at least since the Blair regime and probably before then.
On 20 Oct 2022 at 6:02pm Nevillman wrote:
Democracy is not an absolute. There are degrees of it and different systems of it. In a fully democratic system we would be constantly voting on all local and national issues and that is not practical or even desirable. We elect representatives at regular intervals as a compromise.
My initial point was that all the parties thought they had come up with a good democratic compromise but come unstuck.
The European commission are appointed by the individual governments of the EU. As each of the EU member states are democracies in one way or another, the European commission is democratic to the same extent even if the commissioners are not democratically elected individually. Low turnouts for European parliamentary elections would not suggest there was any great desire for this.
Your post of 17 October shows you are ignorant of what a straw man actually is. Ironically in your post of 19 October you use the straw man fallacy in an attempt to ridicule my arguement. Please look up straw man if you wish to know what it actually means.
My reasons for supporting our membership of the EU rests on economic, political and social arguments. I accept that I have lost the argument for now. Maybe if people like you had found out a little more about what you were voting for in 2016 rather than basing your decision on unfounded beliefs about the European commission it would have been different. I have no doubt in the long run we will be back in, whether as formal members or not. The arguments for are just too strong.
On 20 Oct 2022 at 9:11pm Tom Pain wrote:
If you could explain how I'm ridiculing you by mentioning the strawman it might help our understanding, I can't fathom it. Oh hang on See wiki- strawman theory then you'll see that no insult was intended if you consider the context in which I was using it. My dislike of the EU is based on a whole lot more than just the commission. One other is that we were deliberately lied to about the sovereignty issue as proven by released documentary evidence since revealed. I can't remember but I probably voted to join the EU, I was young then and possibly believed what I was told.
On 21 Oct 2022 at 7:56am Nevillman wrote:
I didn't say you were ridiculing me. You attempted to ridicule my argument using a straw man. I didn't think you were insulting me and didn't suggest you were.
I don't care about your views on the EU.
On 22 Oct 2022 at 1:17pm Formerly AC-T wrote:
One of the many lists of who Tory MPs are going to vote for in the leadership elections includes Maria Caulfield among the Johnson supporters.
If true, I'm very curious as to why she thinks the lying opportunist will be any less of a disaster than he was first time round.
On 24 Oct 2022 at 11:19am Tom Pain wrote:
During the Cameron days I recall the Tories advocating "creative chaos". It seemed peculiar at the time but maybe this is what they meant.