[nicknick1]

The Daily Mail writes that Voters are so disgusted with politics that the three main party leaders are collectively the least popular in the history of polling.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-history.html

When I clicked the survey "Do you want new political parties to replace the old ones we're disillusioned with?" 86% of people said YES.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/index.html

The idea of democracy is supposed to be that the opinions of people of the nation are represented, rather than the opinions of a certain group that consider themselves the ruling group or the liberal enforcers. While practically speaking, people have to elect representatives, then let them get on with their job, those representatives are supposed to carry out the will of the people. In actual fact however, the will of the people is not carries out. New Labour promised to strengthen the boarders but it did the opposite. The Conservatives promised an EU referendum, and subsequently did not organise one, and then actually voted down the idea when a debate was introduced via. public petition. The Conservatives promised to remove illegals and failed asylum seekers but after election they changed their stance. Surely this is contrary to the principles of democracy.

Politics is so far out of touch with public opinion now, that I hope that the top 3 parties do get replaced. I will not be voting for any of them ever again!

[thecrimsonidol]

Well someone still has to run the Country, like it or not.
And simply replacing these three parties with three others won't change anything. It'll be an issue regardless of which party it is.

[thecrimsonidol]

If they have such a problem, they could always try and get involved with politics themselves, maybe put their own names into the hat for future campaigns/elections.

But hey, answering a poll on a newspaper website is just as effective, right?!?!

[internetguru]

Then vote for someone else then... but we know they won't. When it comes down to it their prejudices lead them to voting for Conservative or Labour simply to prevent the other from winning.

[TheMeister]

Considering centrism (under Blair) and centre-right (under Cameron) are being criticised so frequently, the only other ways to go are: centre-left (which, if the DM would have us believe, would be to the distaste of most of the UK - a larger welfare bill? more union rights? no, of course not!), far-right (again, not appealing), or maybe we could go more authoritarian? Or libertarian? But that wouldn't be much to the pleasure of the civil liberties' or anti-drugs' lobbies. So what do people want? Democracy makes people fickle (it's a hard truth, but it's a truth nonetheless - I mean, we've all been buying it for decades) so inevitably you'll end up with disillusionment. As much as I want new faces to come along and genuinely engender change in the system for the better (get rid of those bloody bishops in the Lords for starters!), that's never going to happen - as a result of our SMDP electoral system. I mean, really, how can people complain about the type of governments they're getting and then vote completely against (albeit piecemeal) electoral reform. At least be consistent in your rejection of politics, christ.

[internetguru]

(Original post by TheMeister)
Considering centrism (under Blair) and centre-right (under Cameron) are being criticised so frequently, the only other ways to go are: centre-left (which, if the DM would have us believe, would be to the distaste of most of the UK - a larger welfare bill? more union rights? no, of course not!), far-right (again, not appealing), or maybe we could go more authoritarian? Or libertarian? But that wouldn't be much to the pleasure of the civil liberties' or anti-drugs' lobbies. So what do people want? Democracy makes people fickle (it's a hard truth, but it's a truth nonetheless - I mean, we've all been buying it for decades) so inevitably you'll end up with disillusionment. As much as I want new faces to come along and genuinely engender change in the system for the better (get rid of those bloody bishops in the Lords for starters!), that's never going to happen - as a result of our SMDP electoral system. I mean, really, how can people complain about the type of governments they're getting and then vote completely against (albeit piecemeal) electoral reform. At least be consistent in your rejection of politics, christ.

It isn't the political idealogical that people are annoyed at it is the stupid illogical decisions.

War in Iraq really??
Unrestricted EU immigration really??

[nicknick1]

(Original post by internetguru)
Then vote for someone else then... but we know they won't. When it comes down to it their prejudices lead them to voting for Conservative or Labour simply to prevent the other from winning.

It's true but I think that on the scale of things there is eventually a level of dissatiffaction where they party company. Whether we are going to reach that now - that is the question.

[TheMeister]

(Original post by internetguru)
It isn't the political idealogical that people are annoyed at it is the stupid illogical decisions.

War in Iraq really??
Unrestricted EU immigration really??

.... and they weren't driven by ideology?

[internetguru]

(Original post by TheMeister)
.... and they weren't driven by ideology?

Well if all 3 major parties have a pre emptive war and multicultural ideology I suppose it would. War is pro defence industry and immigration is pro business. So if they all have a business > citizen ideology then yes you are correct.

[Chumbaniya]

The fact that you're not only talking about a Daily Mail article, but a poll on a Daily Mail article with an obvious leading question means you shouldn't pay too much attention to this.

That said, I think it's pretty clear a great many people in the UK are disillusioned with the 3 main political parties. The Lib Dems haven't given us anything like what they promised through the coalition, the Conservatives have proven time and again that they're out of touch, and Labour have missed the opportunity to capitalise on the weakness of the coalition government with their choice of a leader who is utterly uninspiring. There's nothing to get excited about in British politics at the moment.

[SeismicHazard]

Say three new parties suddenly appear on the scene and completely manage to replace the current big three (completely unlikely at this point in time but stick with it). How long do you reckon we would have before they start acting exactly the same as the current three? I give them a matter of months, a politician is a politician at the end of the day.

[chefdave]

I'm relatively happy with Cameron's performance as PM. Miliband as you'd expect is a complete weasal without a shred of decency, but Cameron in the lead up to 2010 set the bar so low by pandering to the Guardianistas I've been grateful for the scraps of right-wing policy his government has thrown me. It's no substitute for the real thing, but it's infinitely better than New Labour.

[Jimbo1234]

Well no ****, Democracy can not work.
This has been shown with the leaders of Italy and Greece stepping down and being replaced with leading economists aka admitting that Elitism >> Democracy.

Either we utterly revamp how democracy works in this country so no longer will history students be in charge of an economy, or we need to scrap democracy all together.

[L i b]

(Original post by nicknick1)
While practically speaking, people have to elect representatives, then let them get on with their job, those representatives are supposed to carry out the will of the people.

No. The chief reason we have representative democracy is not simply one of practicality, but because parliaments and politicians discuss things in reasoned and rational ways, take evidence and come to informed conclusions. They do not simply follow the prejudices of the electorate.

The Conservatives promised an EU referendum, and subsequently did not organise one, and then actually voted down the idea when a debate was introduced via. public petition.

No, that's completely false. A referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was Conservative policy. The Lisbon Treaty was ratified before the Conservatives came to office.

[dj1015]

The public had the opportunity to vote in alternative political parties, but they lost it when they voted NO on av. Such a shame, set politics back a generation in this country.

[HaNzY]

(Original post by internetguru)
Then vote for someone else then... but we know they won't. When it comes down to it their prejudices lead them to voting for Conservative or Labour simply to prevent the other from winning.

You have summed it up in a nutshell. People don't vote who they want to lead the country, they vote for the ones who will prevent the one they hate from winning. And that is why the government are so out of touch with what the public want, because we are just voting for the lesser of the evils that has a chance at winning, not actually what we want.

To fix the issue...I don't see it being fixed, everyone is under the impression that if they vote for some extraneous party that isn't one of the big 3, they will never get in anyway. And they will never get in since a hell of a lot of people think the same way so still vote for one of the big 3. I don't see this changing either, it will take a massive group of people to band together and say no, we should vote for what we want this time. Maybe it needs one of those facebook groups where they try and get a random christmas number 1, we should do that with the elections, everyone band together to get that mad hatters party in or something...for a laugh

[HaNzY]

(Original post by Davethedavedave)
The public had the opportunity to vote in alternative political parties, but they lost it when they voted NO on av. Such a shame, set politics back a generation in this country.

I voted yes for that, I think it was a much better idea.

[dj1015]

(Original post by HaNzY)
I voted yes for that, I think it was a much better idea.

I would have voted yes, but I was away at the time and didn't have the sense to vote by postal ballot. Didn't matter anyway, as it turned out the no vote, aka "the conservative scaremongering camp" won.

Seen as I will never vote for labour or liberal, and now I highly doubt I will vote Tory again because of that.

[BaconFTW]

What do 'the people' want to change? Popularity already dictates policy.

I reckon the biggest flaw in our democracy is not the dominance of rich white Oxbridge graduates, the House of Lords, the influence of big business, or the EU; it's populism.

Politicians pay far too much attention to the newspapers, opinion polls and focus groups; they should prioritize expert opinion, research, and painstaking consideration. That might result in a better Britain.

tl;dr governments need to listen to us less, not more

[Magda1502]

(Original post by nicknick1)
The Daily Mail writes that Voters are so disgusted with politics that the three main party leaders are collectively the least popular in the history of polling.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-history.html

When I clicked the survey "Do you want new political parties to replace the old ones we're disillusioned with?" 86% of people said YES.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/polls/index.html

The idea of democracy is supposed to be that the opinions of people of the nation are represented, rather than the opinions of a certain group that consider themselves the ruling group or the liberal enforcers. While practically speaking, people have to elect representatives, then let them get on with their job, those representatives are supposed to carry out the will of the people. In actual fact however, the will of the people is not carries out. New Labour promised to strengthen the boarders but it did the opposite. The Conservatives promised an EU referendum, and subsequently did not organise one, and then actually voted down the idea when a debate was introduced via. public petition. The Conservatives promised to remove illegals and failed asylum seekers but after election they changed their stance. Surely this is contrary to the principles of democracy.

Politics is so far out of touch with public opinion now, that I hope that the top 3 parties do get replaced. I will not be voting for any of them ever again!

You can't govern on the basis of what a Daily Mail poll says - if you followed whatever Daily Mail readers wanted, we'd have to do a whole host of things, such as come out of the EU. But that's not an argument for saying we should. The trouble is that the public don't have access to all the information: they might think that the EU is a bad thing, but most people don't understand what it is or what it does. They wouldn't take into account, for example, the consumer price rises we'd get if we came out of the EU. Nor the increase in food costs. Nor the increased expense of travel.

The Human Rights Act is another good example: people write it off as a "criminals' charter" or whatever, without actually understanding what it does. It's there to protect unpopular minorities against oppressive use of state power: by definition, that's unpopular. That doesn't mean it's bad, or that we should do what the majority want and abolish it: for a start, it wouldn't do our international standing much good as a so-called civilised country to stand up and say "we're Britain: we don't think people have human rights".

Representative government is democratic because it is reasoned and (supposedly) represents everyone in the country, not just the vocal majority.