They say that mad dogs and English men come out in the noonday sun.
With 99 days until October 31, we have just witnessed a most undemocratic act.
THE ELECTION OF A NEW PRIMINISTER BY 0.2 PERCENT OF THE VOTING ELECTORSHIP WITHOUT AN GENERAL ELECTION (who has to ask the Queen for permission to form a Government.)
Never mind Brexit Daddy Trump likes him, so could be prime minister and then US president?
He was born in New York. In theory, he could leave Downing Street and move to the US and 14 years later enter the race for the White House.
However, there are the real Questions Great Brits should be asking themselves.
Is it time for a written constitution?
Is it time to scrap first past the post?
Is it time to revoke articular 50. Stay in the European union till you have sorted yourselves out?
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The right person to lead the country is being selected without any democratic scrutiny by the people of England.
It is no wonder that Brexit is tearing the country apart when so many are denied a voice.
Millions of voters go without a say in crucial national decisions – excluded not only from government but from holding the government to account.
In 3 of the last 4 general elections IN ENGLAND at least 50% of votes went to losing candidates.
First past the post.
A seat won by a 40,000 vote majority has the same outcome as a seat won by a single vote: both elect just a single MP.
Parliament in allowing an internal election of a new Conservative leader to become the Priminister is not only failing to reflect the people it is supposed to represent it is a form of Populous Dictatorship.
A minority ruling over the majority goes against our most basic ideas about democracy.
The latest developments to vindicate a New Primister for the country (who will, in fact, represent the choice of hundred thousand or so Conservervate members out of which 60% are over 50 years of age) isn’t just bad for democracy; it’s bad for politics and society.
First Past the Post is completely undemocratic severing the link between votes and seats.
Bipolar politics is designed to promote argument, not thought.
So it’s not surprising that we are now witnessing the election of a New Priminister with an out of date spluttering system that is unable to represent its citizens or to negotiate England’s withdrawal from the European Union without a mandate that represents the country as a whole.
Its no wonder England has politicians who most of you didn’t vote for and don’t agree with have the power to govern the UK however they like.
Its no wonder we see the construction/ imposition of one ideology for a period, followed by another, quite different ideology.
Its no wonder we see both main parties cling to their roots with extraordinary tenacity, even when confronted with the obvious fact: the conditions in society giving rise to these ideologies have long gone.
But First Past the Post keeps them in business and allows them to continue to indulge their emotion-based policies – with taxation paying for this indulgence.
Unchallenged by a more competitive electoral system, the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ parties remain trapped in their histories and beliefs, seeking differentiation through adopting the opposite of the other.
First Past The Post has many hidden direct and indirect costs. These are unrecorded, unstated and considerable, in taxes, wasted economic capacity, and wealth appropriation. The costs of all of these zigzags are borne by taxation.
First past the post is a non- linear system a dazzlingly stupid way to organize a modern democracy. It provides the bare minimum of democracy, is unrepresentative for the majority, and distorts the allocation of power.
Finally, First Past The Post is the best electoral medium for preferential lobbying.
This scourge of democracy is near universal.
Its elimination can only be achieved through a complete redesign of systems of government.
It may be simple to write an “X” next to a chosen candidate, but it’s incredibly difficult to know what that vote will mean. Millions of voters are forced to try to vote tactically by anticipating the decisions of other voters.
PR makes sure the share of seats each party gets matches the share of votes they receive. If a party gets 20% of the vote, it wins 20% of the seats. Parliament would accurately represent the people’s range of views and perspectives.
The opposition to PR Says:
We need the strong government that only first past the post can give’ and, by inference, not the namby-pamby government from coalitions and other inadequacies.
Sounds good, does it not?
Flutters the spine?
Makes one stand up straight.
I would say that the voting population of England is intelligent, much more has to change in all of these systems, including the EU.
Systems of government with PR suffer from many of the same failures and poor performance as the UK’s First Past The Post but,
does not allow the lending of votes to one candidate in order to knock out another to become Primisister
The unseen consequences are about to be seen.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Who are the European Union negotiating with when it comes to Brexit.
Is it England, Britain, the United Kingdom, or is it the Queen?
The serious question is this;
How will English Democracy and its institutions be dragged into the 21st century after Brexit while bowing to a feudal system?
The Queen cannot be blamed but she presides over the institutions that symbolise and legitimises the inequalities that have lead to Brexit
The First Past the post-politics, representation infiltrated by Social Media cannot cope with globalisation, migration, or technological changes.
Only when the monarchy is replaced and ordinary people become true citizens not surfs will constitutional reform be possible.
By all means, protect the historical pomp that acts as a focus for national identity, unity and pride and tourism; gives a sense of stability and continuity but remove the hereditary privileges with a written constitution.
Only then can England become a sovereign country.
Here is a snapshot of the sheer scale and volume of her assets.
The Crown Estate announced in June last year that it returned a
record £328.8 million ($464 million) to the Treasury in 2016 as
the value of the overall estate rose to an astonishing £13.1
billion ($18.5 billion).
Forests:
The Crown Estate holds around 11,000 hectares of forestry in
areas including Berkshire, Somerset, and Cairngorms in
Scotland.
Wind farms:
The Crown Estate owns a £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion) offshore
energy empire which includes 30 wind farms.
The Savoy, London:
The Queen privately owns an 18,433-hectare estate called the
Duchy of Lancaster.
Historic Castles:
The Duchy of Lancaster also holds around a dozen historic
properties, including Lancaster Castle in Lancashire and
Pickering Castle in Yorkshire.
Sandringham House, Norfolk:
The 8,000-hectare estate in Norfolk, England, is privately owned by the Queen.
Balmoral Castle, Aberdeenshire: 20,000-hectare.
Ascot Racecourse in the south of England is part of the Crown
Estate.
Regent Street & St James’s Market, London: The Crown Estate
owns the entirety of Regent Street in London.
The Crown Estate owns around 106,000 hectares (263,000
acres) of farmland across the UK.
The Crown owns the rights to salmon fishing and gold mining in
Scotland.
Windsor Castle & Great Park, Berkshire: 6,400-hectare.
She does not own her official residence, Buckingham Palace.
She merely occupies the 775-room home, which is held in trust
for future generations by the Crown Estates.
So, to sum it all up, the Queen owns 2 homes (Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle), while the rest of her residences are owned by the Crown Estates.
All royals are millionaires.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
In or out England is now facing an uncertain constitutional future.
There is no doubt that the language of Brexit has contributed ( see the previous post) but the voting system has also made a major contribution.
First-past-the-post is a voting system that consistently and unpredictably skews election results in ways few can predict until the votes have been counted.
First Past the Post’s is an old colonial voting system?
Canada, the U.S. and the UK are the last countries hanging on to first-past-the-post – and even the UK uses proportional systems for its devolved assemblies.
One of the most common laments about electoral reform is that politicians will never change the system that elected them.
More than half of Uk voters live in constituencies where the result is a foregone conclusion. Living in a “safe seat” makes voting feel especially futile.
In most elections with first-past-the-post, about half the voters cast a ballot which elects no-one and has no impact on the election result.
It certainly does not encourage people to turn out and vote.
With Brexit. The adhesive that binds parties together under first past the post is diluting
When one party has 100% of the power with 39% of the vote, there’s no need to take anyone else’s views into account – even when voters want them to do just that.
With proportional representation, no matter what party you support or where you live, your vote counts. Politicians know they must pay attention to every voter and every riding!
With proportional representation, parties must work together. Cooperation between parties in a coalition or other cooperative agreement – shared credit and shared accountability – becomes the norm.
With proportional representation, you vote for what you truly believe in.
Brexit is the first step in fixing politics at the centre, to reform the electoral system.
Politics, they say, “is dominated by the far-left and the far-right”.
Decision-making is easier for big parties when it rests with a small group of strategists whose main job is to cater to their party’s base of voters and make their party look good.
English two main parties have good reason to fear transition to proportional representation, but not necessarily for the reasons often cited.
Why?
Because proportional representation substantially increases the number of parties overall. It would challenge their monopoly on political power in Westminster.
It would reduce their ideology to an argument about their side being better than the other.
It would enable people to vote for parties that more closely represent their own views, without the fear that this party will not be accordingly represented in Parliament.
It takes us away from binary choices and towards a system that is based on power-sharing and compromise.
Look closely and what could be the embryonic beginnings of a new party are there but with the first past, the post electoral system makes it difficult for new parties to win seats in general elections.
Sometimes first-past-the-post even produces a “wrong winner” election – when one party receives more popular support, but another party gets to govern with a majority!
Bolstered by a two-party system that discourages fluidity of ideology and legitimises binary decision-making. This enables the two main parties to clash in a partisan manner that is unrepresentative of a diverse country and makes complex issues such as leaving the European Union more difficult to resolve.
Many proportional representation systems mean you’ll have more than one candidate of the same party to choose from.
This means voters can ensure the candidates from each party get elected, and those that aren’t responsive to voters aren’t re-elected.
Ask any Algorithm. The current event in English Parlement renders First Past the post wrong.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
