Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flipside on May 06, 2010, 02:38:47 pm
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Such as it is.
Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak ;)
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Are you bigoted against dictators?
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<Churchill Dog> Boooooohhh! Yes! </Churchill Dog>
I live in a country where a party can get one quarter of the votes and one half of the seats, we have to work with what we have ;)
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wandered up about 2 hours ago turns out i knew one of the electoral officers at the door, stuck my cross on the paper and shoved it in the box.
the problem we have is just getting ppl into the polling stations
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Was pretty quiet at mine too, I suspect it will pick up later in the evening once everyone is back from work. I'm hoping for a good turnout this year, but there is a lethargy that seems to be in the British people that, it doesn't really matter who you vote for, the bastards will still get in, not entirely unfounded, I'll admit.
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Well, I voted about 6pm. Barely anyone in my polling Station.
Yet, according to the BBC, 100's (if not potentially 1000's) of people have been turned away at 10pm due to massive queues, thus a lot of people unable to vote. But then, whos fault is that? should they of gone earlier maybe?
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Yet, according to the BBC, 100's (if not potentially 1000's) of people have been turned away at 10pm due to massive queues, thus a lot of people unable to vote. But then, whos fault is that? should they of gone earlier maybe?
Depends. If they had all shown up as soon as they opened, would they have all been able to vote? If not, something's amiss.
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I live in a country where a party can get one quarter of the votes and one half of the seats
A fact I'm always glad about. I wouldn't particularly want to come back to a country that (based on current numbers) had 9 BNP and 18 UKIP MPs.
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Such as it is.
Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak ;)
What's it like to have a government that listens to the voters instead of wealthy campaign contributors (individuals and corporations)?
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I live in a country where a party can get one quarter of the votes and one half of the seats
A fact I'm always glad about. I wouldn't particularly want to come back to a country that (based on current numbers) had 9 BNP and 18 UKIP MPs.
I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the fact that every incumbent government moves the borders of constituencies around under the excuse of balancing out population levels, when, in truth, it's all about maximising their seat-gaining potential during an election.
Such as it is.
Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak ;)
What's it like to have a government that listens to the voters instead of wealthy campaign contributors (individuals and corporations)?
Heh, well, so far, it's very, very confusing. It looks like the Conservatives are going to have the most seats, but there's a strong possibility that it won't be enough to get a majority of votes in parliament.
The thing is, a lot of politicians are complaining that a hung parliament gets nothing done, and I must admit to a little voice in me saying that maybe four years of a paralysed government shouldn't be knocked until we've tried it...
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I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the fact that every incumbent government moves the borders of constituencies around under the excuse of balancing out population levels, when, in truth, it's all about maximising their seat-gaining potential during an election.
Then the constituencies should be determined by an independent body and not the government.
I would. It's all very well to complain that a lack of PR means that we have an unfair first past the post system but if you polled the British electorate you'd probably find the vast majority don't want the BNP ****tards having any say in the running of the country. So how fair would it be to give them a say when such an enormous number would rather fire them into the sun? :p
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But it does leave people in more populous constituencies with 'less' value, politically, then those in the less populous ones. I agree that direct proportional representation wouldn't work out, after all, who'd decide who represented where, but I'd be a lot happier with, as you say, an independent body working to ensure that each constituency is defined without political preference.
Edit: See, it's situations like it's currently sitting at that annoy me, Labour have 5% more of the popular vote, but the number of seats they've got is 500% higher than the number of seats the Lib-Dems have. I know that there's no prized for second place in Politics, but still, it's infuriating that the Lib Dem coverage is spread so thin.
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BBC Headline:
'Britain Wakes up to Hung Parliament'
Oh, if only that weren't merely a turn of phrase...
Just kidding, please no, not the men with black suits and odd-shaped tasers again!
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Heh heh. It would be quite the sight to see a long line of gallows outside Westminster Palace. Somehow I think a lot of people would approve, too, at least if the opinion of politicians in the UK is anything like it is here :p
Of course, as an alternative you could just wait a bit to lull them into a false sense of security and then go for the fireworks solution once the fifth of November rolls by...
On a serious note, though, I seem to be reading about a lot of cases where people were turned away from polling stations as they didn't have the manpower to finish up in time for the 10pm deadline. What kind of third world country is the UK turning into if people in line to vote are just ushered away by police? That's the sort of thing us Europeans are supposed to be making fun of everyone else for...
Also, wouldn't that leave the results open to legal challenge? I'd certainly be pissed off enough to get hold of a lawyer if I weren't allowed to vote despite being eligible for it. It just seems to me that it's a massive mess to get into when something as simple as keeping the polling stations open for another hour or two could have avoided the whole thing.
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The problem here lay in the administration side of things, the word of law states that NO votes may be registered after 10pm, without exception, but not nearly enough administrative staff had been put in place to deal with the level of turnout we had, which sat at around 70% for most areas, so people weren't actually arriving to vote after 10pm, it was just the whole process was taking so long they were waiting for hours.
As for your second question, yes, it can, and probably will lead to challenges in the affected seats, some people are reporting as many as 1000 voters turned away from one station, which is enough to win or lose you a seat, I'm almost certain those will be contested if the difference between the votes comparable to the number of locked out voters. I'll wait with interest to see what the courts make of it ;)
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the ppl getting turned away was because the turn out was 77+% with hasne been seen since about 91 and we just wernt ready for it.
the morning news reports a con majority but small enough that they are thankfully going to have problems
Such as it is.
Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak ;)
What's it like to have a government that listens to the voters instead of wealthy campaign contributors (individuals and corporations)?
parlament might listen to the public but they listen to donations more, every year there is a new cash for influence scandle its just the flavor of influence that changes, sometimes is seats on the house of lords, other times it direct voting
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Edit: See, it's situations like it's currently sitting at that annoy me, Labour have 5% more of the popular vote, but the number of seats they've got is 500% higher than the number of seats the Lib-Dems have. I know that there's no prized for second place in Politics, but still, it's infuriating that the Lib Dem coverage is spread so thin.
I don't disagree but PR isn't necessarily a better system.
The solution is to change the voters minds not the system. Because systems like PR are just as badly broken.
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Yeah, to get all those minor parties into parliament creates a host of even larger problems, almost as bad, if not just as bad as a hung parliament. *cough* Italy! *cough*
Preferential voting ftw.
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Preferential voting ftw.
Except when it makes things worse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_First_Party#2004_federal_election).
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The actual electoral system is really not the important part, as long as it does the job of letting the people choose. It's how the people charged with running the system go about their business. PR works for us here*, and indeed works very well, while in a place like Italy politics are just a great big mess. While of course there are many differences even within similar systems, the truely important difference is in the mindset, not the system itself.
That said, the UK clearly does need to make some changes. Not towards PR (unless they want to), but they do need to make sure everyone who wants to vote can vote. So the first act of the new government, once formed, should be to repeal that silly law Flipside mentioned that bars people from casting their vote after 10pm. Because turning away voters is just plain embarassing for a country like the UK. Hmm... maybe we should send a corps of observers next time to make sure there are no irregularities :p
* Our current government is a coalition of two parties, with a third supporting them outside the coalition as they'd not otherwise have the majority in parliament, and yet I challenge anyone here to say that the Danish system of politics and government is riddled with a host of large problems. I don't actually agree much with the current government myself, but that doesn't say anything about the system.
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part of the problem is that though we elect the local representative we elect the party to government this means we have a system where by for anyone with a view to become a government minister has to join a party and conform to that parties views which is not only undemocratic but removes much of the opposition to bad legislation.
another problem is the media, as is the norm the media focuses on the mistakes and controversy's that government are involved with which presents a bad image to the public especially when the press get out the uniform tar brush so everyone thinks they are all the same.
thirdly the workings of parlament and government are obscure to the general public so it is difficult to understand how things happen deepening the pubic distrust.
on the point of no votes after 22:00, the rule is necessary to avoid delaying the count but at the same time it should come with guidelines allowing the rule to be nudged if there are people at the office from before the deadline but have had to wait because of a last minute rush, public disturbance, procedural issue or other problems outside of the control of the electoral officers on site.
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Well...looks like it's anarchy in the UK :p
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I feel like I should learn about how a parliamentary system works in-depth at some point, because the ancillary details I keep hearing about this whole election situation make absolutely no sense to me. :p
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Well...the Daily Show explained what happens now perfectly--the Queen appoints one of her corgis as interim Prime Minister...Sir Winston Furchill :p
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another problem is the media, as is the norm the media focuses on the mistakes and controversy's that government are involved with which presents a bad image to the public especially when the press get out the uniform tar brush so everyone thinks they are all the same.
thirdly the workings of parlament and government are obscure to the general public so it is difficult to understand how things happen deepening the pubic distrust.
I agree with this. :yes:
Also, I get annoyed when someone says 'politicians are useless, let's just get rid of them all' or something to that effect. I believe it's because of those two points you made; people think that they just sit around making mistakes all the time.
And TV Tropes agrees with the first part (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AccentuateTheNegative) (look in the Real Life section) - not that that's relevant but it's the same view as I have.
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To be fair, in this case they quite arguably have just sat around making mistakes.
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Well, I don't mind if it is what's been going on, it's just applying that rule universally.
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I tried to vote yesterday in the City Hall vote for several hours until an guard came and told me I wasn't in England and it wosn't even the election day...
Odd...
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I agree with Nick. :yes:
You made a slight spelling mistake, I fixed it for you :)
Edit: Fixed my own post, due to makeing a slight spelling error in the word "Fixed"
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Well, Cameron is now the PM.
/me has fealt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and where suddenly sillenced
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It's decided already? When the Hungarian PM resigned, it took us like a week until the parties figured out who the next would be.
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We work fast... compared to other countries.
Compared to what SHOULD happen in britain, we would normally of had a new Prime Minsiter on friday morning, the night after the election.
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I agree with Nick. :yes:
You made a slight spelling mistake, I fixed it for you :)
:confused:
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Edit: Fixed my own post, due to makeing a slight spelling error in the word "Fixed"
Great, now fix the spelling mistake in making. :p
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Well...the PM is a Conservative, and the Deputy PM is a LibDem.
I give this Parliament till the end of summer :p
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Well...the PM is a Conservative, and the Deputy PM is a LibDem.
I give this Parliament till the end of summer :p
for most of the summer parlament is on holiday.... i'm going for christmas
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I heard a great one on the radio the other day,
"If Brad (Pitt) and Angelina (Jolie) are known collectively as Brangelina, what will David (Cameron) and Nick (Clegg) be known as collectively?"
I Lolled! :lol:
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Davick?
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Camerlegg!
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Well...the PM is a Conservative, and the Deputy PM is a LibDem.
I give this Parliament till the end of summer :p
That bad?
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Traditionally they are the two most juxtaposed parties in mainstream politics here.
The Tories are very conservative, and the Lib Dems are (well, maybe were? Labour now?) the most progressive party in the country.
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Davick?
Camerlegg!
I think they were going for the shortened version of Richard.
D with an ICK on the end.
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Traditionally they are the two most juxtaposed parties in mainstream politics here.
The Tories are very conservative, and the Lib Dems are (well, maybe were? Labour now?) the most progressive party in the country.
the Conservatives are considered Center Right, Labour is Center Left and Lib Dems are Far Left.
sooo, they've been merged... I'll use a diagram to show my findings.
|-----------------|---------------|------------------|
Libs Lab Con Errr?
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Lib = Con combined = same position as labour.
Well done gentlemen (and ladies), we have another labour goverment....
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Well...the PM is a Conservative, and the Deputy PM is a LibDem.
I give this Parliament till the end of summer :p
That bad?
there are small sticking points like conservative are quite strongly anti EU (European union) and lib dem traditionally are strongly pro EU, they also tend to differ on points like funding of and/or privatisation of public services with taxation being another point of conflict so i forsee a good number of back bench rebellions from both parties especially on economic reform needed to get this country back on track and get the deficit under control
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In American politics, it's like having Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh both in the White House.
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No, its like having Michael Moore and George W. Bush in the White House. Cameron has said he's a "compassionate conservative", just like George W. Bush said he himself was. Hopefully the Conservatives in Parliament won't be as keen to spend money as the GOP was when Bush was in office.
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Traditionally they are the two most juxtaposed parties in mainstream politics here.
The Tories are very conservative, and the Lib Dems are (well, maybe were? Labour now?) the most progressive party in the country.
the Conservatives are considered Center Right, Labour is Center Left and Lib Dems are Far Left.
sooo, they've been merged... I'll use a diagram to show my findings.
|-----------------|---------------|------------------|
Libs Lab Con Errr?
| |
----------------------------------
|
Lib = Con combined = same position as labour.
Well done gentlemen (and ladies), we have another labour goverment....
Actually, the way British Politics are supposed to work, Libs are centre, with Labour left and Conservative to the right, if anything Liberal has actually leaned slightly towards the Right over the years rather than the Left.
The power balance in the UK goes something like (from Left to Right):-
Socialists....Unionists....Labour....Liberal....Tories....UKIP ....BNP
So, no I don't think it's 'another Labour Government' at all.