WHO do the political parties represent

But how much gets cut out when something is simplified? Does it come down to "This is good, vote for it" and "That is bad, don't vote for it"? If so, whatever happened to each person using their own judgment to form an opinion, and voting on that? That is what democracy is about.

There is a limit to how much simplifying you can do before you lose the whole point of what you are saying. Would you like a cake recipe to say "Cook flour, fat, eggs and milk. Ice it"

Probably yes to all of the above.
If it is dumbed down, many more people can understand, not just the more able.

How do you define "dumbed down" then? Fewer long words? Simplified soundbites? Tabloid headlines?
I would feel insulted if that was all anybody thought I was capable of understanding .

Dumbed down DaphneBroon because for the "average" JOe, it can all be far too complicated to understand.

I think that the Remain campaign in particular went far too highbrow, and that included on gransnet.

People, especially the young, are now much more into twitter and facebook which works in a different, more bite size way.

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It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that you don't understand my point

"Dumbed down"- what do you mean by that?
And why?

Yes I think politics needs to be dumbed down.

Yes I think we have democracy.

I dont understand your point.

Ahem obieone, you're the one who thinks politics should be dumbed down. Most numbskulls can use Google or an online dictionary, but it takes a bit more to understand democracy. North Korea describes itself as a democracy.

PS My post was @ MOnica.

Yes, I know. I thought it was incredibly sad that so many people hadn't even thought about their role in democracy.

definition of democracy

a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives

which is what we have. The meaning of democracy is quite basic if you ask me.
It is not about a whole load of things.

We had a referendum about AV, where every vote did count and the majority of the electorate didn't bother to vote.

No! I disagree with you on principle (see previous post).

Democracy isn't just about putting a cross in a box. It's also about fully understanding what you're voting for and not being lied to on an industrial scale (£350,000 a day to the NHS, hordes of Turks, etc hahaha). As somebody who advocates wallowing in ignorance, I'm amazed that you think that everybody's vote matters (or maybe not ).

Obione:

'We had a referendum where every vote did matter. Which resulted in a high turnout.
The result? Many many people complaining about lack of democracy? Because their side lost.'

how democratic is a vote based on lies and more lies. When the promises made (re NHS for a start...) are kept by those who made them, we can talk again. Democracy cannot be based on pure lies and mis-representation...

We had a referendum where every vote did matter. Which resulted in a high turnout.
The result? Many many people complaining about lack of democracy? Because their side lost.

WHO do the political parties represent?

Themselves I would say, it's not me, that's for sure.

AV is a form of proportional voting. It has the same effect and could have been stage 1 of a move to a much fairer voting system.

The key point is whatever the question was the vast majority of the population were too uninterested in improving our electoral system to bother to vote.

Sorry M0nica I hadn't seen your post before I replied to sylviann so a bit of a crossed post. The vote was for AV and not PR and it was made to seem very difficult. More of a "give us back our country" type of presentation - as in the referendum - would have to be made I feel. Perhaps just "give us our country we are old enough to make our own decisions" would work - or perhaps the offer of even more direct democracy ... more referendums anyone?

sylviann there is democracy and power. The only thing I can suggest at the moment is PR so that people feel as if their vote counts in a way more like the referendum. This picks up on dd point too.

However, even though that may seem more democratic, there would be a loss of power to the currently ruling party and I don't think they will ever vote for it. I'm afraid I only think the other parties would if they felt it would offer them more power, sadly.

I think more and more people share your concerns dd. Perhaps if Trump gets in they will really start to realise people will not be stroked by bread and circuses - you would have thought those seeking power might have got the message by now.

Nobody said democracy was perfect, just that it was better than any of the alternatives, but that is the way in so many things in life, we have to settle for the least bad.

I have always supported some form of proportional representation. It would enable smaller parties to have some say in Parliament and dilute the power of the big parties, which would probably both split into left/right wing parties and two centrist parties.

Countries with proportional systems have much more diversity in their systems and on the least worse basis it does have problems. One or two countries now have more parties than voters making coalition building almost impossible, but for most it works pretty well.

But I am a minority. In the UK a referendum on the subject the proposition was resoundingly defeated. The biggest vote being the 75% or so who didn't vote because they really didn't give a toss one way or the other.

This was one of the comments on Question Time that I thought was interesting. Not sure it gives any answers though.

Q: Are we seeing the death of centrist politics
Tim Montgomerie: I think if, seven or eight years ago after the global financial crash we had seen a massive reformation of our politics I don’t think any of us would have been surprised. Here was the banking system dragging down the whole of the western world to a huge extent with many people suffering. We didn’t see it because I think at that time people chose sort of stability and people like Angela Merkel and Barrack Obama, David Cameron. I think some people thought, therefore, the crash wasn’t going to have long term implications but actually, you know, a lot of history of revolutions is people don’t rebel when they are starving, they rebel when their immediate hunger has been addressed but the memory of injustice is still very strong in their minds. I think we are now beginning to get to that point. The situation has been stabilised in the world but people are still angry that the problems that occurred and hurt so many people in 2007 and 2008 haven’t been addressed. On top of that, if that wasn’t enough, most economists now agree that we are probably entering a period when economies don’t grow by two and half or three per cent as they did during most of the post war period but perhaps just by one, one and a half percent.

We are seeing a change in our media culture, so that people don’t always necessarily listen to Ritula and Radio 4 for their news, they go to twitter and social media and that often isn’t to the high standard that perhaps the BBC offers, so politics is operating in an incredibly volatile atmosphere. I don’t know where it will lead, but I think it means that politics is going to change because what we had before isn’t addressing the new circumstances. I think the revolt we are seeing in the Labour Party, the revolt that I have been seeing in America with the rise of Trump and Sanders while I have been there reporting for the Times, the splitting of parties across Europe, we are at a fascinating and frightening stage in global politics.

That's how a representative democracy, especially one with a 'first past the post' system works. If you and a number of like-minded people object to the way your MP votes in Parliament, you need to get together and write to him/her. If enough people object, your MP will be concerned that he/she might lose at the next election and vote against the party whip. If few people agree with you, I'm afraid it's tough luck and you have to accept the majority decision. By the way, that's why I think democracy isn't the 'be all and end all' of political systems - it can easily be manipulated by mob rule.

I am concerned that the country is being ruled by a party voted in by about 25% of those eligible to vote and there is no effective opposition.

Gracegran I like your reasoning I think the political parties represent the donors who donate the most money I have been really angry with the political parties recently they all seem to be telling the voters that no matter what we want they will decide so much for democracy.I'm going to be voting a completely different way in any future elections