Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Why would anybody want to vote Conservative? In the annals of British history, their contribution adds up to the square root of diddly squat!

If you look at the grounbreaking reforms of the 19th and early 20th century, that was the liberals. Voting reforms after WW1 were Liberals. Post WW2, it was the labour party. As for Mrs Thatcher, all we have is a legacy of decimated industry, poll tax and privatised utilities ripping the country off.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Why would anybody want to vote Conservative? In the annals of British history, their contribution adds up to the square root of diddly squat!

If you look at the grounbreaking reforms of the 19th and early 20th century, that was the liberals. Voting reforms after WW1 were Liberals. Post WW2, it was the labour party. As for Mrs Thatcher, all we have is a legacy of decimated industry, poll tax and privatised utilities ripping the country off.

In other news, opinions are fun.

Personally, my parents did pretty well under the Conservative governments of the 80's. As with anything in politics, YMMV.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:As for Mrs Thatcher, all we have is a legacy of decimated industry, poll tax and privatised utilities ripping the country off.

Though if you want to look at that particular period in time you might also want to consider constant strike action and power grabbing by the unions as having a contributing factor on how and why things went the way they did.

Indeed, the Thatcherite government saw to it that the South East prospered, even if it was at the expense of the rest of England and the Celtic Nations.

Maggie was quite clear that with the way the elections worked, she only needed to placate 1/3 of the population and to hell with the rest.

It would help if Dave was a tory. Heck, it would help if he was a credible polition of any substance.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Why would anybody want to vote Conservative? In the annals of British history, their contribution adds up to the square root of diddly squat!

If you look at the grounbreaking reforms of the 19th and early 20th century, that was the liberals. Voting reforms after WW1 were Liberals. Post WW2, it was the labour party. As for Mrs Thatcher, all we have is a legacy of decimated industry, poll tax and privatised utilities ripping the country off.

Yeah that's just your opinion mate, my grannie got TWO grants for her house off Thatcher, she swears that everyone else has it wrong, and Thatcher looked after people who worked for a living like her, a poor old woman living in a terraced house.

Labour look after the sick lame and lazy and the career doley, not the working class. If you pay tax, whether you earn 15k a year or 250k a year, your better off Tory.

But that's just my opinion as well.

Forgot to add to the list - the surrender of the UK to the European Union, brutal attacks on miners and trade unions ( which involved using the security services to blacken people's names) the bribing of people with council houses which has left us with a chronic shortage of public housing in 2011, the shoddy treatment of wounded Falklands veterans, the tyranny of introducing poll tax in scotland, which was a clear breach of the act of union 1707 etc etc I could go on.

You are confused because you have taken a simplistic approach to a complex phenomenon.

The constituencies are blue on the map because the FPTP system doesn't reflect the views of voters.

Look at the seats. Conservatives got about 4,200. Everyone who isn't Conservative got about 6,700 seats.

England isn't Conservative because the majority of the electorate in England isn't Conservative.

I have simplified things somewhat.

FPTP was overwhelmingly supported just recently..

That doesn't alter the facts about the voting.

mattyrm wrote:FPTP was overwhelmingly supported just recently..

Only because a lot of people either didn't understand it or were lied to about it by the NO campaign, that said thge YES campaign did just as bad a job so it didn't really deserve to get through.

purplefood wrote:

mattyrm wrote:FPTP was overwhelmingly supported just recently..

Only because a lot of people either didn't understand it or were lied to about it by the NO campaign, that said thge YES campaign did just as bad a job so it didn't really deserve to get through.

Or because they thought the suggested system was pants and a complete waste of money?

Why spend even more to decide which group of lying, cheating scum are going to bend us over and take us for all we are worth?

SilverMK2 wrote:

purplefood wrote:

mattyrm wrote:FPTP was overwhelmingly supported just recently..

Only because a lot of people either didn't understand it or were lied to about it by the NO campaign, that said thge YES campaign did just as bad a job so it didn't really deserve to get through.

Or because they thought the suggested system was pants and a complete waste of money?

Why spend even more to decide which group of lying, cheating scum are going to bend us over and take us for all we are worth?

You have such a flattering view of politicians...
But, yeah some did vote no because of that too...

purplefood wrote:You have such a flattering view of politicians...

You tend to get more cynical the older you get. I managed to get a head start

But, yeah some did vote no because of that too...

Indeed - as much as I think you are a great guy you need to try posting slightly less one sided posts

What is concerning is that a significant portion of the people who voted No did so because they thought the particular AV system proposed was not the right choice, not because they thought PR was bad. The problem now is that the No vote will inevitably be seen as a complete rejection of voting reform, which is wrong. The sad thing in all this is that the chance to reform the system has probably been lost for a goodly length of time now.

The question should have been reworded - instead of 'Do you wish to change to AV', it should have been along the lines of 'Do you wish reform of the voting system to some sort of PR'. Unfortunately, that's a bit of a nebulous question so probably wouldn't have made for a good referendum question but still, you get the point I hope!

Lord of Deeds wrote:If it makes the OP feel any better we have the same problem here in the US.

http://www.patriotnewsalert.com/ElectionMap2008.htm

Not really as the issue they are talking about is a little more complicated than ours as ours is simply a confusion of land mass being equated with population; a lot of those red areas are far less populated than the blue. For example, New York City has roughly 2 million more citizens than the entire state of Indiana but is a much smaller geographic area.

Kilkrazy wrote:You are confused because you have taken a simplistic approach to a complex phenomenon.

The constituencies are blue on the map because the FPTP system doesn't reflect the views of voters.

Look at the seats. Conservatives got about 4,200. Everyone who isn't Conservative got about 6,700 seats.

England isn't Conservative because the majority of the electorate in England isn't Conservative.

I have simplified things somewhat.

Yes KK, it doesn't alter the facts about voting, and as I stated earlier in the thread, in no way am i "confused" about the situation. If you total up votes, then the labour/lib dem/left leaning parties out way the right leaning, but I think people like you are being disingenuous, you aren't happy that Red Ed isn't in charge, and you want to try and make a non issue into an issue. The fact is, more people in England (millions more) voted for the conservatives than their nearest rivals (labour)

You can dress it up as much as you like, but that's what happened. Tens of millions of Englishmen are unhappy with the handwringing liberals who feel guilty about being who they are. And I agree with them, I don't want to bend over backwards to appease people like Red Ken Livingstone, I want someone with a backbone in charge, and as far as Im concerned superdave ticks that box far more thoroughly than Red Ed or Cleggy.

it doesn't alter the facts about voting

Hmm... it really rather depends upon what facts one is talking about. You're surely not claiming that the figures are the sum totality of all the facts relevant are you ?

If you total up votes, then the labour/lib dem/left leaning parties out way the right leaning,

The fact is, more people in England (millions more) voted for the conservatives than their nearest rivals (labour)

Do you not think the problem here is that you first of all acknowledge that it isn't merely a two horse race, and the present your argument as if it was a two horse race ?

This, of course, this totally ignores the people who would have voted tactically at the election, or would even just have voted differently if the outlying pararameters of the situation were different.

In 1951, 97% of voters voted for Labour or the Conservatives, but this figure was reduced to 66% in 2010.

mattyrm wrote:
You can dress it up as much as you like, but that's what happened. Tens of millions of Englishmen are unhappy with the handwringing liberals who feel guilty about being who they are. And I agree with them, I don't want to bend over backwards to appease people like Red Ken Livingstone, I want someone with a backbone in charge, and as far as Im concerned superdave ticks that box far more thoroughly than Red Ed or Cleggy.

So basically what you want is an end to the parliamentary system.

dogma wrote:

mattyrm wrote:
You can dress it up as much as you like, but that's what happened. Tens of millions of Englishmen are unhappy with the handwringing liberals who feel guilty about being who they are. And I agree with them, I don't want to bend over backwards to appease people like Red Ken Livingstone, I want someone with a backbone in charge, and as far as Im concerned superdave ticks that box far more thoroughly than Red Ed or Cleggy.

So basically what you want is an end to the parliamentary system.

Yes! I think the MPs have fethed it up so badly that the Royals should have another chance!

dogma wrote:

mattyrm wrote:
You can dress it up as much as you like, but that's what happened. Tens of millions of Englishmen are unhappy with the handwringing liberals who feel guilty about being who they are. And I agree with them, I don't want to bend over backwards to appease people like Red Ken Livingstone, I want someone with a backbone in charge, and as far as Im concerned superdave ticks that box far more thoroughly than Red Ed or Cleggy.

So basically what you want is an end to the parliamentary system.

It's been my experience that most people think Democracy should be abolished, so long as their favored poltiicians were in charge. Because it's the worst thing ever if the wrong person gets elected.

Also, don't forget that mattyrm is a Royalist (IIRC).

In addition, the party he supports is currently in power...

biccat wrote:
It's been my experience that most people think Democracy should be abolished, so long as their favored poltiicians were in charge. Because it's the worst thing ever if the wrong person gets elected.

Personally I would rather they put me in charge as a well-kept figurehead, but convincing people of that has proven difficult.

biccat wrote:
Also, don't forget that mattyrm is a Royalist (IIRC).

I was thinking he might favor a transition to a presidential system, but that makes more sense.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mattyrm wrote:
Yes! I think the MPs have fethed it up so badly that the Royals should have another chance!

You could always start your own Royal House to put pressure on the Windsors.

mattyrm wrote:Yes! I think the MPs have fethed it up so badly that the Royals should have another chance!

I think we can please everyone all the time here. The Royals step down from their royal position and become commoners (again in the case of the last recruit). Then they can form a party and be voted for like anyone else.