Electoral reform

Short-termism has been very harmful to the UK. I think that coalition governments tend to take a long-term view resulting in more investment in future wellbeing rather than quick fixes.

Fleurpepper

Sadly it too often is in the UK- and it is partly due to the FPTP system- which always leads to confrontational politics and extremes, rather than cooperation. Very un health see-saw politics.

Politics is mostly about power and those with the casting votes get an influence out of proportion to their numbers. Compromise is not always about less extreme, it is very often a more hard line policy that is the issue.

Co-operation should not be a dirty word. Co-operation between different political parties to come to a sensible policy is the reason that most European countries are outperforming the UK on every measure of achievement.

The title of this thread is about electoral reform. You don't have to be far left to realise the current FPTP system is totally undemocratic, and leads to confrontation rather than cooperation.

Sadly it too often is in the UK- and it is partly due to the FPTP system- which always leads to confrontational politics and extremes, rather than cooperation. Very un health see-saw politics.

Aren't politics all about levelling the playing field or tilting it in a particular groups direction?

LIbDem funding is almost entirely from members subsriptions ,donations and fundraising. The party is very inclusive.

Members come from all walks of life so that organisers of fundraising events tend to pitch prices quite low so that most supporters can afford to come. For instance our last Quiz Night involved a three course supper and a quiz for £12. It was in a community hall and the delicious meal was of course cooked by volunteers. Some extra profit was made by the raffle which hard up members could avoid.

A Tory aquaintance once told me about one of their fundraising events. It was held in a large country house, very discretely located, "with a mile long drive".

The food was cooked by a professional chef and she complained to me that the members were expected to provide flower arrangements. Tickets for the two course lunch were £75 and the raffle prizes were not boxes of chocolates or a second hand copy of Paddy Ashdown's biography but weekends in an upmarket hotel or a gift voucher for an exclusive spa.

It's hardly a level playing field, even without the support of the billionaire tax dodgers who control the right-wing press.

At which point the LDs will have to look hard at party funding varian. All parties need money.

I am happy to say I have never been a Labour Party member. The people Starmer has kicked out are a darn sight more than "a bit left leaning". If he wants centre votes, he has done the right thing. No party can win without them.

Grany

Ilovecheese

varian if you were a Labour party activist, a bit left leaning, a tiny bit ambitious for change, Starmer would probably have expelled you by now.

True

I was a Labour supporter in my teens but decided I could not back a party which looked after vested interests at the expense of everyone else. Strings are pulled by party funders (explains why the Tory Party has moved further and further to the right).

Perhaps all these sensible folk expelled from the Labour Party should join the Liberal Democrats.

This thread is not about Tony Blair, but electoral reform.

The First Past the Post system means that, depending on where you live, you could vote all your life, in every election, knowing full well in advance that your vote will just end up in the bin. Just not Democratic at all.

No, I didn't see him as an extremist (socialist) either Katie. That's why I said I thought of him as a Liberal Social Democrat.

Conservative with a small “c”, his policies were not socialist

I don't think Iraq overshadowed his premiership except to those who want it that way. It will be re-written and, if they go too far the other way, I won't agree with that either.

He was certainly not a Conservative. How do you make that out? We have so called conservatism now and I don't thing the current lot and TB would agree on much.

I see him as a Liberal Social Democrat. That may beg the question as to whether he was a socialist but conservative, eww no.

Tony Blair was the best conservative PM for decades he did more for the UK than any other, it’s a shame Iraq and other overseas mistakes did overshadow his premiership. The left wing Labour activists did not support him, in the same way don’t support Starmer, they’re not critical in a GE it’s the floating moderate voters that have to be won over.

He will continue to hold the Tories to account week by week but any big policy drive is going to be before the next GE

winterwhite

Because it's right, Starmer should do it not duck it. By do it I mean announce it as a manifesto commitment.

Right for whom? If he is the Leader of the Labour Party, his job is to get and keep as much power as possible for that party.

I want PR, but it would be difficult for a leader to say that while we still have FPTP, as it could lose his party an election. It may be possible for him to put it in their manifesto for the second term election if he can argue to the party that it would give them extra power.

Ilovecheese

varian if you were a Labour party activist, a bit left leaning, a tiny bit ambitious for change, Starmer would probably have expelled you by now.

True

Votes at LP conferences only tell us what LP activists and trades unions think. Starmer is not a delegate of conference nor has any LP leader been. He has to retain the capacity to think for himself especially when events not foreseen by conference occur. Gaitskell famously resisted being controlled by conference.

There is not one country which, having changed fron FPTP to PR, has ever changed back.

Democracy means having a government supported by a majority of voters.

Almost all European countries are democracies, electing their governments by a form of PR. The only exceptions are the UK and Belarus.

The sham democracy we have almost always means virtual dictatorship by a government with a huge majority of MPs elected by a minority of voters.

This "elective dictatorship" has the power to do whatever it wants for five years and the majorityof voters, who never voted for them in the first place, are powerless no matter how appallingly badly they govern.

My reservations about PR is that it makes small parties more powerful, we saw it with the Unionists during Mays Government. Israel has an extreme right wing government because of religious groups, I just don’t think it would change anything and might make the UK even more vulnerable to extremism .

It doesn’t seem to matter how much better PR would be, it’s only popular with parties till they are elected. Come on Starmer. Make a difference!

varian if you were a Labour party activist, a bit left leaning, a tiny bit ambitious for change, Starmer would probably have expelled you by now.

SNP votes are all in Scotland Varian as you know.The Lib Dems are wiped out here to,they dont have enough votes in our PR system to give them a voice at FM's questions .
This is a success of the SNP or if you like /prefer the failure of the other parties who dont represent the way Scotland wants to be governed.
As we say here WE didn't discard Labour they abandoned us ..they became more right wing like a branch of the tories instead of the party of the working class they began as..
We haven't voted for a TORY government since 1955 that IS NINETEEN FIFTY FIVE .
This is not democracy ,to gain democracy we need Independence .

After the next GE, which could even be two years away, Starmer may not be in a position to reject any policy compromises with other progressive parties.

If I were an LP activist who had attended the last party conference with a mandate from my constituency party to vote for PR, I would not be impressed by Starmer's inclination to ignore the will of the party.

Because it's right, Starmer should do it not duck it. By do it I mean announce it as a manifesto commitment.

You are right of course, varian, but Starmer wont do anything about it even if he manages to come to power, which is not a foregone conclusion.