Brits, let's move to Brighton!

[DesEsseintes]

My old home town has made a UDI!

 

[oggbashan]

My old home town has made a UDI!

It's been done before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport_to_Pimlico

Berwick upon Tweed was supposed to have been at war with Russia for over 100 years:

From Wikipedia:

Relations with Russia

There is an apocryphal story that Berwick is (or recently was) technically at war with Russia. The story tells that since Berwick had changed hands several times, it was traditionally regarded as a special, separate entity, and some proclamations referred to "England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed". One such was the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia in 1853, which Queen Victoria supposedly signed as "Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions". When the Treaty of Paris was signed to conclude the war, "Berwick-upon-Tweed" was left out. This meant that, supposedly, one of Britain's smallest towns was officially at war with one of the world's largest powers – and the conflict extended by the lack of a peace treaty for over a century.

The BBC programme Nationwide investigated this story in the 1970s, and found that while Berwick was not mentioned in the Treaty of Paris, it was not mentioned in the declaration of war either. The question remained as to whether Berwick had ever been at war with Russia in the first place. The true situation is that since the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 had already made it clear that all references to England included Berwick, the town had no special status at either the start or end of the war. The grain of truth in this legend could be that some important documents from the 17th century did mention Berwick separately, but this became unnecessary after 1746.

According to a story by George Hawthorne in The Guardian of 28 December 1966, the London correspondent of Pravda visited the Mayor of Berwick, Councillor Robert Knox, and the two made a mutual declaration of peace. Knox said "Please tell the Russian people through your newspaper that they can sleep peacefully in their beds." The same story, cited to the Associated Press, appeared in The Baltimore Sun of 17 December 1966; The Washington Post of 18 December 1966; and The Christian Science Monitor of 22 December 1966. At some point in turn the real events seem to have been turned into a story of a "Soviet official" having signed a "peace treaty" with Mayor Knox; Knox's remark to the Pravda correspondent was preserved in this version.

 

[Scotsman69]

You'd do much better

working to get greens elected elsewhere in England mate. It's hard with first past the post I know, but Brighton shows it can be done, on the back of hard work winning local councillors in the first place.

And if England eventually succumbs to democracy, and replaces first past the post with some form of proportional representation, there will be more Green MPs.

But alas, on last Thursday's showing, rather more UKIP bampots too. Democracy can be a bugger.

My old home town has made a UDI!

 

[DesEsseintes]

working to get greens elected elsewhere in England mate. It's hard with first past the post I know, but Brighton shows it can be done, on the back of hard work winning local councillors in the first place.

And if England eventually succumbs to democracy, and replaces first past the post with some form of proportional representation, there will be more Green MPs.

But alas, on last Thursday's showing, rather more UKIP bampots too. Democracy can be a bugger.

It took forty years to get one elected. I'd quite like to see a decent government some time before AD 14895, which is what it will take to get a Green majority at that rate.

Or I may just run away to Scotland.

 

[Scotsman69]

The first SNP MP was elected in the Motherwell by-election in 1945. He was unseated in the Labour landslide later that year.

The next was Winnie Ewing, in a by-election in Hamilton in 1966.

Ten more joined her in 1974. Eleven was the largest number of SNP MPs ever till last week.

So it took them fifty years to get from one MP to a landlside.

Courage, brother!

It took forty years to get one elected. I'd quite like to see a decent government some time before AD 14895, which is what it will take to get a Green majority at that rate.

Or I may just run away to Scotland.

 

[oggbashan]

working to get greens elected elsewhere in England mate. It's hard with first past the post I know, but Brighton shows it can be done, on the back of hard work winning local councillors in the first place.

And if England eventually succumbs to democracy, and replaces first past the post with some form of proportional representation, there will be more Green MPs.

But alas, on last Thursday's showing, rather more UKIP bampots too. Democracy can be a bugger.

But the election of a Green MP in Brighton was part of a mixed message. The local Green Councillors were hammered, losing control of the Council.

The Greens dropped from being the largest group on the Council to third place.

2011
Greens 23
Conservative 18
Labour 13

2015
Labour 23
Conservatives 20
Green 11

 

[RedStarFic]

“We have the right to bare legs”

Heheh

 

[KingOrfeo]

working to get greens elected elsewhere in England mate. It's hard with first past the post I know, but Brighton shows it can be done, on the back of hard work winning local councillors in the first place.

And if England eventually succumbs to democracy, and replaces first past the post with some form of proportional representation, there will be more Green MPs.

But alas, on last Thursday's showing, rather more UKIP bampots too. Democracy can be a bugger.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

-- H.L. Mencken

 

[Nodrog99]

Pr

If there is enough ground swell of opinion and sufficient petition then the public may get a change to PR.

63% of the voting public were against Tories and I suspect some tory voters would also support PR. PR may also alter the voting with less "looney party" votes which I see as more protest vote rather than serious support.

 

[oggbashan]

If there is enough ground swell of opinion and sufficient petition then the public may get a change to PR.

63% of the voting public were against Tories and I suspect some tory voters would also support PR. PR may also alter the voting with less "looney party" votes which I see as more protest vote rather than serious support.

But do they know what they are asking for?

PR probably means that UK governments will always be a coalition with fudged compromises between parties. Every party could say "We promised to do xyz, but as we cannot govern alone, we can't deliver on those promises" - so the electorate couldn't trust, and wouldn't believe, any party's manifesto.

I think that The Liberal Democrats were unfairly criticised on their promise about University Tuition Fees. Everyone knew that the Liberal Democrats would not be a single party as the Government, so their promises, no matter how sincerely meant, were worthless. They couldn't deliver except by agreement with another party.

IF the numbers had meant they could be part of a coalition with Labour, then their tuition fee promise might have been possible. BUT no possible coalition of any grouping of MPs except the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives could command a majority. (Assuming that a coalition between the Conservatives and Labour was unthinkable!)

 

[Scotsman69]

The introduction of an element of PR into the voting structure of the Scottish Parliament was intended to make it impossible for any one party to win an outright majority. There are 73 constituencies, in which a single MSP is elected by traditional first past the post, thereby retaining a very specific constituency interest for such members. The eight 'list' regions return seven members each by PR, thus ensuring the possibility of representation for smaller parties like the Greens, which have significant national votes but seldom enough to win any constituency by first past the post. Thus a majority of the 129 seats are traditional constituencies, but minority parties are represented. Scottish electors, who are unlikely to be on average more intelligent than those in England, seem to cope with this 'complex' system just fine.

In the 2011 elections, despite the belief by the architects of the parliament that it was impossible, the SNP won an outright majority. Previous Scottish Governments had been coalitions.

In many European nations, government by coalition is normal. Neither their people nor their economies seem to suffer in consequence. This includes Belgium, in which linguistic divisions sometimes appear to make for instability comparable to the sad history of the gerrymandered Northern Irish statelet.

So what precisely is wrong with an element of PR? It seems to be rather more democratic by any definition, than a first past the post system which allows (as at present) a party for which a minority of electors actually voted, to command a parliamentary majority.

And ensure that one million Green and three million UKIP votes return only one MP each.

Just one more good reason for Scotland to withdraw from a fundamentally undemocratic state, in which there are considerably more unelected members of the second chamber, than there are sort-of elected members of the Commons.

But do they know what they are asking for?

PR probably means that UK governments will always be a coalition with fudged compromises between parties. Every party could say "We promised to do xyz, but as we cannot govern alone, we can't deliver on those promises" - so the electorate couldn't trust, and wouldn't believe, any party's manifesto.

I think that The Liberal Democrats were unfairly criticised on their promise about University Tuition Fees. Everyone knew that the Liberal Democrats would not be a single party as the Government, so their promises, no matter how sincerely meant, were worthless. They couldn't deliver except by agreement with another party.

IF the numbers had meant they could be part of a coalition with Labour, then their tuition fee promise might have been possible. BUT no possible coalition of any grouping of MPs except the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives could command a majority. (Assuming that a coalition between the Conservatives and Labour was unthinkable!)

 

[oggbashan]

...
So what precisely is wrong with an element of PR? It seems to be rather more democratic by any definition, than a first past the post system which allows (as at present) a party for which a minority of electors actually voted, to command a parliamentary majority.

And ensure that one million Green and three million UKIP votes return only one MP each.

Just one more good reason for Scotland to withdraw from a fundamentally undemocratic state, in which there are considerably more unelected members of the second chamber, than there are sort-of elected members of the Commons.

I wasn't saying it is wrong to introduce PR, but some of those who are campaigning for it don't understand that there are multiple possible PR systems, nor that under most PR systems a single party UK government is unlikely - far more unlikely than in Scotland.

The result for the Scottish National Party was more overwhelming even than they had expected. How much of their success in seats they didn't expect to win was the attractiveness of the SNP? how much the unpopularity of Labour? how much the unpopularity of Westminster? and how much "none of the major UK parties"?

 

[Scotsman69]

There are indeed a multiplicity

of possible PR systems.

I don't think anyone in Scotland, and certainly not in the SNP leadership, foresaw the extent of their landslide last week. A part of it certainly was the unpopularity of Labour, which the Labour leadership enhanced by getting into bed with the Tories in the 'better together' campaign for a no vote in the referendum. And partly because the Labour machine foisted the slimy Jim Murphy to lead the Scottish Party; a disastrous error of judgement.

But the SNP also caused the LibDems to lose all but one of their Scottish seats, thus returning them to the 50s and 60s when Jo Grimond was their sole Scottish MP. And don't forget the Nicola factor. Her glowing decent humanity was a large factor in the SNP success, especially amongst women and the youth.

Recent history teaches us that voting for established UK parties has been bad for Scotland, or at least perceived as bad. And the referendum campaign energised the Scottish people politically in a way I have never seen before. The country is transformed. And we all know that nobody in the UK parties either understands nor cares about Scotland. We will always be marginal to Westminster, and we'll always be significantly politically different to England.

I think the vote last week was the Scottish electorate saying collectively, 'we've had enough of being treated as second class citizens'. Simple. And independence is now inevitable

I wasn't saying it is wrong to introduce PR, but some of those who are campaigning for it don't understand that there are multiple possible PR systems, nor that under most PR systems a single party UK government is unlikely - far more unlikely than in Scotland.

The result for the Scottish National Party was more overwhelming even than they had expected. How much of their success in seats they didn't expect to win was the attractiveness of the SNP? how much the unpopularity of Labour? how much the unpopularity of Westminster? and how much "none of the major UK parties"?