Boris Johnson

If Ken Livingstone was such a brilliant mayor for London, why did he not win the election?

And anyway, according to Tony Blair it was Cherie who swung it!

AnA: well we all know that don"t we , HA< HA< HA<HA, ,How could we think otherwise , her being so wonderful and all

I wonder why the grin emoticon reminds me of Cherie Blair?

I think I know !!

That's life Annobel!
Can any politician be described as nice? They all seem a pretty two-faced crowd to me. I'm on strike when it comes to voting and despise the lot of them!
Promise you the earth but actually deliver s** all. Not that I'm cynical or anything, but give them the job for five minutes and they're the world's experts.
The pity of it is that they won't listen to people who do have knowledge.
Nothing daunted....sun's shining and it's a lovely day. I'm going to the Proms this evening!!

pogs islamaphobia IMO.

Boomer - Is it the Ivor Novello evening at the Proms, or was that last night? If I had a bucket list, I'd put the Proms on it. Few politicians can be described as 'nice'. I've known a few both local and national and would trust very few of any party.

It's the late Prom. National youth Jazz Orchestra. Starts at 10.15.
From my dealings with the SDP many years ago I noticed that quite pleasant people who put themselves up for election quickly became arrogant and self-important once the party machinery got behind them. Don't know what the answer is but I wish there was a way of avoiding the political parties. They do us no good.....soap box or wot?!!

Sounds a great concert. Enjoy it. I too was in the SDP and still am a Social Democrat - though my party has taken another path. Don't think being a councillor made me arrogant or self-important though certainly some of my colleagues were, but more likely to be the men than the women. I still have a soft spot for Shirley Williams.

You're right, it was men I was thinking of. Shirley Williams! She was on Woman's Hour the other week, still talking sense and very interesting about her childhood and her parents. Best of the Gang of Four.

pogs - because lots of people thought Boris would be entertaining!

JessM.

Well they were not wrong then.

Everyone has their thought but only the individual voter knows their reason don't they. The fact is he won.

Pogs
I knew KL as a hard working politician , connecting with and working for less affluent Londoners, when he was with the GLC and so my experience would make me vote KL rather than BJ. Also I am more left wing so BL would not deliver for me on that aspect alone!

Scarily enough, he did. Ken made the mistake of not appearing regularly on "have I got news for you'

That's politics for you, you are either right or left I guess!.

Someone will win and someone will loose. Someone will be happy, someone will be upset.

pogs What is the most upsetting for me has nothing to do with left or right.
It is to do with the realisation that we really do not matter.
That does not scare me, but it infuriates me.

Whatever, whoever we vote for, at the end of the day it stands for nothing.
We might as well not vote at all.
In the grand scheme we do not count!

We think we are free.. like hell we are.

POGS this polarisation of left and right is a very British thing, due to the First Past the Post system. Most other countries have a more democratic way of election which means there isn't this constant rush to extremes as the country is thrown form left to right and back again.

What should happen is like a school report or end of year company accounts every Government should be held to account with regard to it's manifesto and awarded or punished accordingly. At least then we could be reasonably certain that what was in the manifesto that we voted for would be carried out.

But don't those other countries tend to end up with coalition governments, granjura? I can't see from the evidence so far that the one we have at the moment is any improvement on an outright left or right government.

Think that we should adopt the consensus style of many 'primitive' societies where they continue to debate and discuss until a consensus is agreed! Now that is when I would watch parliament on TV!!

Yes ana coalition governments is what they end up with.
That does not matter. What DOES matter is that you and I don't count.
That would be the whole electorate then.

Did you vote for to go to war in Iraq? Did you vote to go to Afghanistan?
No, I didn't think so. That would have been the same in another countries voting system.
And Granjura's explanation of the voting system in other countries is very nice
but the end result is the same.

Am on a roll now!!

What about voting for a manifesto with fixed headings:
E G: Economy , Employment, Education, Health, Environment, Family welfare, etc.
Create 500 voting regions.
Then, depending on the number of votes each manifesto gets regionally, MPs are appointed after the election e.g 1 MP per x thousand votes in a region. This would stop 'personalities' winning seats regardless of the politics they represent! Also possible in densely populated areas to have more than 1 MP as if it was 1MP per 15,000 votes it could be possible for 2 manifestos to gain 15,000 votes! MPs would have to be f/t resident in the region for at least 18 months to be eligible to represent it.

Each manifesto could be promoted with a specified maximum budget to stop waste of money / private sponsors buying influence etc

Needs a bit of refinement but think I will propose this to the Parliamentary reform Group !!!!!!

Don't really see the Boris issue as a right left one. Just a really weird person one. how on earth do people know what they are voting for?
I would have voted for the gay ex policeman probably.

Oh lord let the fun begin , lots of xxx xx to u all