Anyone understand why Johnson is so far ahead in the polls?

Co-operation and concensus are not dirty words.

I agree although my post may look as if I don't - it just took me ages to type.

They may not be dirty words but they may be idealistic.
Eg looking at the various parties in the Senedd elections, some are not that disparate but would they agree with that? Would they agree on anything?

It seems that the UK is the ONLY European country still using FPTP.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Countries which still use FPTP include Brazil, Ghana, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, Uganda, USA and Yemen.

It would be hard to defend any of these as bastions of democracy.

Do you think the voting system should be consistent right across all elections in all areas of the UK, varian instead of the hotch potch we have at present?
Or would that not work for all?

Sorry for not responding to your idea of what to try, MaizieD and sorry you think I was ‘berating’.
I said I had tried writing to MPs in different governments without impact and a poster responded that she had also found that useless for the current one.
Lots of this thread is about posters saying what is wrong and what needs to be done but unless posters share what they have tried that was successful, all that’s happening is people are reiterating what is wrong.
However, with the exception of your response, evidently no one has tried anything that has successfully had an impact so I won’t waste my time asking, just join in the complaints.

I'm not sure Callistemon

I think decisions should be made as far as possible at a local level. In recent years local council budgets have been axed and power become more and more centralised in Westminster.

I would like to see a federal UK with more autonomous regions of England as well as the smaller nations which already have more devolved powers.

I think we need a Constitutional Commission to examine the ways we could become a true democracy while the UK still exists. I hope it's not too late.

I think it will be by the time they've thought about it.
And everyone starts disagreeing exactly how it should be divided up.

lemongrove

I can’t imagine there would be any cries of ‘not fair’ from posters who want a different voting system if Labour had won the last election...ok, maybe from varian.
It wouldn’t be the best way to govern anyway as various European countries show us, a mish mash coalition end up fighting like cats in a sack and rarely get anything done.
Voting out a government every few years still seems to be the best option.Or, voting them in again if wanted.

Do you mean that Germany has got nothing done since 1947?

One problem with PR or AV systems is that there would often be no clear majority returned.

I rather think that that is the point.

If one thinks that 'democracy' should encompass considering the wishes and needs of all citizens then it clearly isn't being served in a system whereby a 'majority' of parliamentary seats (and thus the power to govern) can be won with a minority of actual votes. As is usually how our FPTP system works. This clearly means that the wishes, and probably not the needs, of the majority of the citizens are not being considered. This is patently 'undemocratic' if you agree with my initial sentence.

This could result in coalitions or, worse, end up with no decisions ever being made and a continual stalemate.

Having lived through the Lib/Lab pact and the tory/Libdem coalition I didn't notice the UK falling apart as a result of these coalitions.
The point of a more diverse range of representation is that allows more interests to be considered and forces co-operation and concensus, such as you would expect from the running of any institution which exists for the benefit of all its members.

No government will ever satisfy the needs and wishes of the whole of the electorate, but a coalition has more chance of doing that than does one party government.

Nearly every German government since the end of WW2 has been a coalition. The long serving Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, was never a member of whichever the largest party was.

Merkel is a conservative, but being forced into coalition governments has meant that she has had to be more accountable.

I can’t imagine there would be any cries of ‘not fair’ from posters who want a different voting system if Labour had won the last election...ok, maybe from varian.

There's nothing like using an interesting debate about a principle to make a party political point.

Democracies aren't what they are cracked up to be. Ask the lone sheep when two wolves are deciding what to eat for dinner and decide to have a democratic vote!

Most modern democracies have systems in place to protect minorities, which contradicts pure democracy.

Molly I used to write to my MP. To say he is purely Lobby fodder would be an understatement. The last time I wrote was over Cummings and he just completely as ever backed the Govt. Several years ago I ran an ultimately successful campaign to change something locally. I started by writing to the organisation concerned - fobbed off. Wrote to the watchdog of the organisation - fobbed off. Wrote to local councillors and my esteemed MP. Fobbed off apart from the former LD parliamentary candidate ( who though had no elected office). Went onto local social media and with wonderful support organised several demonstrations at site of organisation. Local printers printed placards for free, wonderful coverage on local radio and local press. Big chief from organisation came down and met with us - system changed . Result. Still feel proud every time I see the results of my efforts. Moral of the tale - well go figure but writing to my MP achieves nothing. Localism is our only hope .Democracy is a sham - we changed things because they wanted to shut us up, that’s all.

Even in the supposed Greek model of democracy the vote was only given to free men. Women and slaves were treated as non people.

GrannyGravy13

Didn’t Tony Blair win at least one if not two of his elections with a lower majority than the present Government?

GG13 I'm afraid that I'm going to have to disagree with you on the subject of election results vis a vis Tony Blair.

Blair - 1997 won 328 seats 43% of the popular vote (Tories lost 159 seats)
Blair - 2001 won 412 seats 40.7% of the popular vote
Blair - 2005 won 355 seats 335.2% of the popular vote (after the Iraq war)

In the above 3 elections Tories held 165, 166 and 165 seats.

This means that the LP's majorities over the Tories were 163, 246 and 190.

That does not suggest to me that Blair had one or two elections with a lower majority than the present govt.

The Lib Dem results were good in the above years too. The first GEs under Charles Kennedy the Lib Dems had 46 and 52 seats. In the third GE the Lib Dems under Paddy Ashdown had 62 seats.

In the 2010 election the LibDems had 57 seats which reduced to 8 in the 2015 election, following the coalition with the Tories. Obviously the coalition had a disastrous effect on that party. Had they not formed a coalition with the Tories I suspect that things would be very different now.

Johnson - 2019 - 365 seats 43.6% of the popular vote. But if the LibDem and LP vote are combined their percentage of the popular vote was 43.8%. The main reason that Johnson has a seat majority of 80 is because of the regular boundary changes enacted by the Tory govts.

Dinahmo I am not a maths genius (simplicity is my name) but I do know that 43.6% (Boris Johnson) is more than 43%, 40.7% and 33.52% (Tony Blair)

Having lived through the Lib/Lab pact and the tory/Libdem coalition I didn't notice the UK falling apart as a result of these coalitions.

No, but certainly a lot of Liberal and Lib Dem voters were very upset as a consequence.

I lost my faith in the Liberals

In the event, Callaghan outwitted Steel: the Liberals got little more out of the pact than "a joint consultative committee" involving both parties to "examine government policy". By July 1978, after 15 months, the Liberals had had enough and terminated the alliance.

I don't think the Lib Dems have recovered from the last one, in fact.

No, but certainly a lot of Liberal and Lib Dem voters were very upset as a consequence.

I'm not surprised; the tories blamed them for everything that government did that didn't work. And they had to give up their flagship policy of abolition of student fees. Though they did mange to extract a bit of extra money for disadvantaged pupils in schools.

But I'm afraid that the LibDems loss of support isn't really relevant to the principle of consensus and co-operation, is it? Each party to a coalition has to accept that it won't get everything it wants. And voters have to understand that, too. It does mean, though, that more of the voters get more of what they voted for.

But the country still functioned...

GrannyGravy13

Dinahmo I am not a maths genius (simplicity is my name) but I do know that 43.6% (Boris Johnson) is more than 43%, 40.7% and 33.52% (Tony Blair)

Yes but look at the majority of seats held by Blair compared to Johnson. Tory supporters on here are always going on about Johnson's 80 seat majority. Rather different I think.

Neither Blair nor Johnson were elected by a majority of those who voted.

If we were living in a democracy, neither of them would have had enough support to inflict their party's policies on the country. They would have needed to co-operate with one or more other party.

I may (as a left leaning LibDem) just about be able to imagine Blair doing that, but I cannot see which party, bar the DUP could ever have worked with BJ and his corrupt crew of cronies.

Callistemon

^Co-operation and concensus are not dirty words.^

I agree although my post may look as if I don't - it just took me ages to type.

They may not be dirty words but they may be idealistic.
Eg looking at the various parties in the Senedd elections, some are not that disparate but would they agree with that? Would they agree on anything?

I think that most of the time they wouldn’t Callistemon.
Labour and Conservative governments have five years to try and promote their policies into actions, and providing they have enough of a majority are able to do that. If there was a coalition then few policies would happen in the way that the parties want them, they would be blocked a lot of the time.
I am discounting Greens and Lib Dems as they are in such a minority, but if they were in the coalition too then I dread to think how things would be as they wouldn’t agree on anything at all.
Scotland doesn’t have true PR so it’s no good citing it as an example.
Things have worked well the way they are, one Party will be ousted at each GE at the will of the people.Or voted in again.

Things have worked well the way they are, one Party will be ousted at each GE at the will of the people.Or voted in again.

You've missed the point that it is not 'the will of the people', but only the will of a minority of the people. Every time.

Goebbels knew the power of the phrase "will of the people". It's a con.

There is no such thing as the collective "will of the people". Philosophically, it's a sham.

It's interesting that this fascist trope, "the will of the people" is extensively used by those who would vigorously deny that the current UK regime has any similarity to 20th C fascist regimes. I don't recall it featuring in British political discourse before 2016.

I'm happy to be proved wrong, with evidence, of course.

suziewoozie

GrannyRose15

Are we ever going to get a government that's not corrupt when this apathy prevails?

Grannyrebel7

I wonder that you actual believe there is any chance of a totally incorrupt government. Doesn't power corrupt? In all its forms. And don't you have to have a certain ruthlessness to survive in politics anyway? What I like about this country is that we can question who paid for the PM's wallpaper without getting locked up for doing so. I'm sure there are many countries where this is not the case.

So we have to be grateful that we’re not Russia, Belarus, China, N. Korea? O Kaaaaay..

We are able to question any corruption we see. Alot of it is out there in the public domain. You are able to make a choice based on what you think about politicians' actions. Yes we should be grateful that we don't live in other places where all corruption is kept quiet.

No. we are not perfect. Yes we could do better. But we are a lot better than some of the alternatives.