Boris Johnson

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Captain Kirk
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Re: Boris Johnson

Post by Captain Kirk »

Jun wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 10:10 pm A General Election would be a good idea. Then the voters have several choices.
...........Green Party, UKIP, Independents.....any number of single issue parties, timewaster nutters.

Any of whom may turn up at your door prior to the big day, none of whom will come anywhere near your door for the following 4 years and 11 months.
fountainhall

Re: Boris Johnson

Post by fountainhall »

Captain Kirk wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:10 am he did ask for advice first from the Attorney General so it's fair enough that he took the advice given and suspended parliament.
Purely for clarification. Isn't the Attorney General a Member of Parliament appointed by the party in government? So might his advice be a bit like the distorted advice given to Trump by the dreadful William Barr?

Didn't Blair seek legal advice from his Attorney General before going to war with Iraq? And wasn't that advice on at least two occasions that it would be legal only in the event of a second UN resolution? And when that resolution did not come, wasn't he was persuaded to change his mind and toe the Blair line?

Proroguing parliament is a very usual affair. It happens almost always at the end of a parliamentary session. But it is usually for a matter of days. Proroguing for a much longer period than ever before on the grounds put forward by Johnson has unequivocally been found to be illegal by the highest court in the land. According to the Speaker of the House, John Bercow, this decision was a "constitutional outrage". So much for this Attorney General's advice!

Johnson's UN Speech

I wonder if anyone heard Johnson's rambling and near-incoherent speech before the UN an hour or so ago. As one commentator noted, with its many literary and historical allusions that would have gone right over the heads of many in the assembly, it sounded much more like a speech to the Cambridge or Oxford Union than one to a body of world leaders!
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Captain Kirk
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Re: Boris Johnson

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fountainhall wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:04 am Purely for clarification . . .
Fair point. Still, in the world of lies and deception that we accept from politicians I'm not too bothered about this. That's coming from someone who would be proud to take a bullet to the head rather than vote Tory.

Maybe I'm not bothered because I think they are worthless creatures who do nothing but line their pockets, maybe it's because they've been talking Brexit to death for three years, so another month would make no difference. As long as he doesn't get to make the actual unilateral decision to force through a no deal without going back to parliament then I just don't care enough to be bothered. So Johnson tried it on and got his arsed kicked, no biggie, and unlike with Blair - nobody died.
Jun

Re: Boris Johnson

Post by Jun »

Captain Kirk wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 5:25 am ...........Green Party, UKIP, Independents.....any number of single issue parties, timewaster nutters.

Any of whom may turn up at your door prior to the big day, none of whom will come anywhere near your door for the following 4 years and 11 months.
One of the advantages of the first past the post system is that marginal parties don't usually win any seats. I think the Greens won Brighton and have never won anything else. UKIP will get 0 seats. The Greens have a very important single issue, but last time I looked, they were still run by nutters.

You are right about the MPs not showing up for 4 years and 11 months. I live in a safe (Conservative) seat, so they don't actually show up during the campaign either.
Actually, my previous MP used to occasionally come to the village between elections & people could discuss issues with him. He would also reply to correspondence. My current MP, is totally useless. She doesn't reply to correspondence, but has managed to find the time to appear on trashy TV shows and write novels.
Ideally, there would be some solution to this safe seat problem. For example, having a way to vote for a party, but at the same time reject their particular candidate & put an alternative forward.
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Re: Boris Johnson

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Jun wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 7:11 pm
Captain Kirk wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 5:25 am ...........Green Party, UKIP, Independents.....any number of single issue parties, timewaster nutters.

Any of whom may turn up at your door prior to the big day, none of whom will come anywhere near your door for the following 4 years and 11 months.
One of the advantages of the first past the post system is that marginal parties don't usually win any seats. I think the Greens won Brighton and have never won anything else. UKIP will get 0 seats. The Greens have a very important single issue, but last time I looked, they were still run by nutters.
No, disagree again. If there are enough people in agreement with smaller parties/nutters/extremists then they are entitled to be represented in parliament. Even getting 1% in an election should see them have half a dozen MPs. Makes it more worthwhile for folk like myself to turn up and vote also. Can't see any way I'll be voting for any of the main parties but on the off chance I come across someone on the ballot paper who actually seems to be in it to do something good rather than just be part of the system then I would vote for them. No point though whilst we have the corrupt FPTP system ensuring the establishment is maintained.
Jun

Re: Boris Johnson

Post by Jun »

Captain Kirk wrote: Wed Sep 25, 2019 10:50 pmNo, disagree again.
If you have PR, then parties like the BNP also get representation. In the event that none of the main parties get a majority, we could have a scenario where a number of small and extreme parties have disproportionate power.
Even with first past the post, we had a situation where Mr Cameron put the Brexit referendum in the manifesto as a way to stop the Conservatives losing votes to UKIP. Obviously he was expecting a different referendum result.
If we have PR, we get even more influence from small parties. Also, you have a route for small parties to grow, as we have seen with the AFD in Germany. The BNP could do the same.

So PR is a more pure form of democracy but I believe it is likely to result in worse government.

I would rather have a slightly less perfect form of democracy, that still guarantees our basic freedoms and gives better government.

I also don't know why we're doing politics here, as I'm not going to change your views and hell will freeze over before you persuade me that Jeremy Corbyn is fit to run the country.
fountainhall

Re: Boris Johnson

Post by fountainhall »

Jun wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 1:00 am I would rather have a slightly less perfect form of democracy, that still guarantees our basic freedoms and gives better government.
But that surely opens some sort of Pandora's Box, for who determines the meaning of "slightly less perfect". Democracy as practised in many major countries is not true democracy, but most people hardly think about it, quite like it and call it democracy. Yet the Brexit referendum was decided on a one-man-one-vote true democratic principle. Why is one acceptable in one set of circumstances and yet the other is not?
Jun

Re: Boris Johnson

Post by Jun »

fountainhall wrote: Thu Sep 26, 2019 9:42 am But that surely opens some sort of Pandora's Box, for who determines the meaning of "slightly less perfect". Democracy as practised in many major countries is not true democracy, but most people hardly think about it, quite like it and call it democracy. Yet the Brexit referendum was decided on a one-man-one-vote true democratic principle. Why is one acceptable in one set of circumstances and yet the other is not?
There are compromises with ALL methods of selecting governments.
For instance, the UK, US, Singpore and Japan all have technical flaws in their democratic systems, however all 4 are perfectly reasonable countries to live in (with the possible exception of some rough areas in the UK and US).
I would rather have a democratic system that is not perfect and a good government than a theoretically perfect democracy and poor government. So the set up in Singapore would suit me fine, even with the obvious democratic compromises. I wouldn't want the type of system Thailand has, since this isn't sufficiently democratic.

Another persistent failing with democracies is fiscal irresponsibility. Governments mostly borrow too much in order to grow the economy and win elections. The EU "limit" on borrowing is 3% of GDP. However, even at 3% borrowing, if the long term average growth rate is 1~2% and the cost of borrowing is above 0%, the debt compounds over decades. Eventually it reaches a level where there are severe financial problems and the democracy itself is endangered. The average voter does not even try to think at this level. Usually we have no independent non-exec board to hold the government to account & flag up this problem.

Also the Brexit vote is in no way a justification for PR. The vote itself only had 2 options, so cannot even be compared with a PR election, where minority parties might hold the balance of power after the event.
fountainhall

Re: Boris Johnson

Post by fountainhall »

I still do not see any difference. If a country elects to have one system for electing its Members of Parliament, why is a different system acceptable when it comes to one off votes? It doesn't make much sense to me!
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