A new Centre party?

I agree with an alliance of parties to fight the corrupt Brexit campaign and give the country a second referendum

action.hopenothate.org.uk/page/m/4c18857/618bba6a/63c1490c/167ed674/2774234736/VEsF/

I had an interview on the radio yesterday, cannot remember programme or interviewee, but he put forward an intersting proposition.

He pointed out that both our main parties were two parties in one, both with with a centrist wing but also with an extreme right/left grouping, permanently at war with the majority. He put this down to the first past the post electoral system that makes it difficult for any smaller party to get many seats because voting is so polarised.

He compared us with European countries that, mostly, have four or five parties of more equal size plus a significant proportion of MPs representing more minority parties and where government is mainly by coalitions.

He said that this was the result of proportional voting systems and it meant that there was far less alienation between electorate and governement because parliament always represented a cross section of political opinion and very little feuding within political parties.

I thought this an interesting contribution to the debate we are having.

I would like to know whether any Labour party supporters think there is any chance at all of their party ever advocating proportional representation.

I was for it untill we ended up with seven UKIP in the Senydd , in my defence one is the ghastly Neil Hamilton

Hopefully people will realise just how ghastly he is.

I agree with you absolutely, Monica. That's what I was going on about (on another thread ?) about Germany. Coalition government is the norm and there have been a variety of coalitions since the end of WW2. I don't think many people would deny that Germany is the most economically successful and stable country in Europe with a high standard of living and generous benefits and pensions. It doesn't even have any natural gas or oil!

Anniebach you may not like it (I wouldn't) but it is a reflection of the preferences of Welsh voters and this is the point of proportional representation, but I do think you have a particular problem in Wales because the elctorate and the number of seats in the Senydd is quite small and this will lead to distortions.

In the bigger elctorate of the UK the results would be more diffuse but we might have to accept extreme right wing, or even extreme religious parties ending up with a couple of seats.

No solution is ideal. It is a bit like putting the map of a 3 dimensional feature like the world on a flat piece of paper. Whatever way you do it you have to expect some distortion. The decisison is which distortion is amost acceptable.

Daphne , on the first day of the new parliment Hamilton insulted the leader of Plaid and the .leader of the Welsh Libs, both women, he wanted to be deputy leader and the vote went to Caerwen Jones labour. Hamilton called Leanne and Kirsty - Caerwens concubines , did he get a slating,

Did he? I damned well hope so.

Isn't there some kind of code of conduct? He should be suspended.

He wasn't suspended but was humiliated and is now ignored by most unless he asks a direct question relating to Wales and Welsh politics

He should have been warned - English men put their wives on a pedestal, Welsh men put their wives on their flag

This is long, but interesting and inspiring. Caroline Lucas is the first proper speaker.

Compass - Post-Brexit Alliance Building

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMHuysv5a4E

I think that for the vast majority of people this must be the answer. How soon this alliance can come about is the next question.

It must be the answer for people who want a government which is anything other than Conservative. Labour can't win an absolute majority without winning back some of the Scottish seats. Boundary changes will work against them.

Left of centre parties have enough common ground to make things work.

What we need is a proper proportional voting system, STV, as works for the MEPs. Then and only then will a SDLP make sense. And it is about time they stopped calling Corbyn 'far left'. He is only left of the New Labour faction, which is not Left at all.

I agree with you about PR. If you listen to Clive Lewis, who is now on Labour's front bench, in Compass talk, he's in favour of it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeJQPR0YwnE

I also agree with about the term 'far left' and have asked people to explain the differences in policy to me, but nobody's taken up the challenge.

I am not at all interested in squabbling between factions or names for various political stances. What I want (and I believe many people share my opinion) is an alternative to 'austerity', which is only austerity for the poorest (a proper austerity policy would tax the richest too), a safety net for everybody and opportunities for people to live beyond a hand to mouth existence. Labour and Momentum don't seem to have any policies for achieving their aims easily accessible to the public.

I support PR. I know it has its drawbacks but I think it would increase voter participation and break the impasse that we currently have of no party being brave enough to unequivocally put forward policies that increase opportunities for ordinary people and reduce inequality.

There are several types of PR and when we had a vote on the issue most people (including myself) were not convinced by the system being put forward at the time but they might have considered a different system. I think the issue of PR - and the various methods - is something that should be discussed much more in the media because I think it is a system that might become increasingly attractive to voters.

There is no point asking people to vote on something that they have very little information and knowledge about. I think that happened with the EU referendum - not many people knew enough about the various issues to make a fully informed choice and, in a sense, had to take a "leap of faith" that they were making the right decision (and, as a Remainer, I include myself in that).

Have you watched Alexander Bett's talk on TED TALKS?

He discusses the post-BREXIT future for the UK. The first thing he says is needed is civic education - not just the crummy courses on citizenship in schools (although schools play a part) but part of everyday life.

The UK could usefully look at what Germany did after WW2 as part of its denazification programme, when it had to undo 12 years of brainwashing. When I first went to Germany in 1970, I was amazed how much people knew about political processes and realised that I knew very little about the processes in my own country. Germany set up a programme which affected every aspect of civic life, as the Nazis had done before them.

I suspect that the British don't care that much, because we haven't had the kind of political upheavals within living memory which mainland Europe has experienced. We've bumbled along. People moan about taxes or prices,etc which might or might not inform their voting choice, but their votes don't count for much anyway, so they don't think much about politics.

I'm quite amazed how little people seem to know about how the EU operates. The information is there for anybody who has ever looked for it.

PS. I support PR too, even if it does mean we have 80 Ukip MPs. At the moment, I doubt if Ukip has 80 people capable of being MPs anyway. At least they'd be out in the open and couldn't complain about distant elites. They'd be part of the elite and would be held accountable rather than just whinging.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/07/09/what-is-the-left-for/

Richard Murphy likes Clive Lewis.

Having watched him at the Compass meeting, I was impressed - and he's a Corbyn supporter! I thought what he said made sense.

I Googled him, because I hadn't heard of him and he has an impressive CV (assuming it's not of the Andrea Leadsom variety).

It's a bit worrying that there is talk of a centrist pro-EU party of Labour and Tory in the Guardian today.
That's not what I want at all.

Do you have a link? I can't find it.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/labour-tory-mps-talk