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Proportional Representation English Parliament

On 28 Sep 2014 at 7:22pm Sword of Truth wrote:

With the travails of the Conservative Party continuing and a dismal Labour conference sputtering into farce, never can the old firm have looked so stale. Since the war the number of votes cast for both main parties has steadily declined and for the Conservatives there is a particular problem, because their pool of �maybes� has sharply contracted, leaving them needing a higher share of a smaller group. My suspicion is that the brand cannot be saved.
Labour are trying to avoid the logic of a federal UK but the necessity of English Votes or English Laws is inescapable. They clearly feel they will not win England again making them a busted flush for government. The UK rejected regional government in the North East and treated AV (designed to favour the second choice) as the joke it was.
At that time the Liberals were quick to say that their fancy system was not the awful PR, for which there was no support, and its true PR has been considered a means of giving smallest Parties disproportionate power and making manifestos redundant. Now, however, PR assemblies are functioning in Scotland and Wales and are set to be more important. With the old system visibly dying we cannot go on as we are.
The idea of an English Parliament predates Parliament, but for it to be equivalent to the Celtic versions it would be on a PR basis. This would have the advantage giving a reduced HOP the opportunity to construct coalitions with which to negotiate its programme . Yes the UK would be a distant and attenuated level but that is what Scotland decided for the rest of us.
I suspect Europe would not be same problem for long. We have seen what you get when you are ready to leave.
So, a Proportional Representation English Parliament. (As for the House of Lords, I`d combine it with the under employed and reduced collection left at Westminster )

What do you think ?

On 28 Sep 2014 at 9:05pm Horseman7 wrote:

Bring on de Hondt, Poirot and chocolate. Up the Belgians.

On 29 Sep 2014 at 2:51pm A Disillusioned Voter wrote:

Follow the Aussie system too whereby voting is compulsory, IIRC you are fined if you don't vote and dont have a suitbale excuse/sicknote etc.
That way no party can ever play the "Ahh, yes the
other bunch got into power but only 35% of the electorate turned out, and everyone knows we'd have got in if the other 65% had voted....".
Or, better still, lets have MPs who actually care about the job and the elctorate they serve, rather than seeing election as a 'cushy number' with a good salary and a good pension whether they turn up for important votes or not.
And lets have MPs who are willing to tell people what they really believe and think, rather than the current bunch of spineless nonentities who never say anything of any real substance for fear of offending or upsetting some part of their (potential) electorate, or worse still, for fear of upsetting ther party's chief whip.

On 29 Sep 2014 at 3:58pm Deelite 2 wrote:

I used to agree with the comment about compulsory voting until the Ozzies voted in the excruciating Abbot. maybe some people who can't be bothered to vote shouldn't!

However, the problem here is apathy brought on my people's feeling that they can't change anything, which is not surprising because they can't. Our beloved system is a democracy only in name. Power lies with vested interests, corporations and the media. Any party that gets in power nowadays gets in with the support of less than 30% of the electorate. The rest of the population are not represented at one iota.

To rekindle people's interest in voting they must have some power. This can only happen if we have a system that represents all voters, and them alone (not lobbyists, not vested interests and not MPs families and school mates).

So we must:

1) abolish the House of Lords (as it is not elected)
2) introduce proper *proportional* representation (not the crap we last voted on)
3) ensure that no-one can own over a small percentage of the UK's mass media
4) are easily able to deselect MPs that do not work for us (those who are lazy, corrupt or are proven to work for other interests)
5) state fund political parties (they must not be funded by lobbyists)
6) Restructure parliament so it works sociable hours, MPs have a working contract and their pay rises in line with the UK average and is not inflated above it.

On 29 Sep 2014 at 6:51pm Sword of Truth wrote:

3) ensure that no-one can own over a small percentage of the UK's mass media
Provided that includes the State fine, but the media is dominated by the Public Sector and , for obvious reasons , favours leftish governments
It is not obvious to me that PR will allow a greater proportion of voters to vote meaningfully but if the UK Parliament was FPTP it would have a good counterbalancing effect