64% of the UK did not want David Cameron as priminister

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Reply 80

miacat

Welcome to FPTP.

Reply 81

Lacesso

Original post by Tawheed

64% did not vote for him or his party, so i think it's a pretty accurate account.

And even more didn't vote for the alternatives. Do we just not have a government?

Reply 82

Feels

Original post by Onde

This neglects his policies as well as his remarks about Romanians, homosexuals, non-Christian immigrants etc., and UKIP's alliance with holocaust deniers etc. in the European parliament.

You mean he'd be worried about a gang of Romanian men moving next to him? Its the truth, everybody would assume they are a drug or prostitution gang, the left wing media refused to admit to it but in the real world thats what everybody would assume. UKIP are pro-LGBT and want less Christian immigrants from Europe, and more Indians who are not Christians, so please, stop spreading misinformation, this is geting really, really old now.

Whats wrong with being a Holocaust denier? People are allowed to challenge what happens in history, UKIP themselves are pro-Israel.

Reply 83

gulbenkian02

So funny how people are like 'this is democracy, deal with it'.
Yeah but no. It's not democracy, it's controlled democracy which goes against the whole idea of democracy to begin with.

Imo the system needs changing, even if that did mean we would have ended up Tory/Ukip/DUP or whatever (which it might not have been if we had a PR system because people would have probably voted differently) it still would be representative to what the public would have wanted and therefore a more democratic system.

We can go on and on saying this is a democratic country, which may be true to some extent, but it's a lot more undemocratic.

Reply 84

Feels

Original post by Onde

Presuming someone is a criminal based purely on their nationality and gender is deeply offensive, it is hate speech to essentially say that such groups are more bad than good.

UKIP were actually the only party to not mention LGBT issues in their manifesto. There is no evidence that they are pro-LGBT; they are neutral at best.

Being a Holocaust denier is wrong because the Holocaust did happen and such denialism generally feeds into an anti-Semitic agenda or an attitude of being isolationist on the grounds similar to "people are not actually being killed, we don't need to get involved". Rather like Farage's attitude on Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. The Holocaust deniers that Farage allied UKIP with happened to be anti-Semitic neo-Nazi homophobes.

Its not hate speech, its just recognition that Romania has a huge crime problem and when you have open borders with them we'll have similar problems because they can make even more money here, its the facts of life , we can't just pretend it isn't an issue at risk of offending people.They have a LGBT comittee so yes, they are pro-LGBT.

There are many historians who disagree that the holocaust happened, or that the number of people killed is incorrect, that the Nazis didn't mean to kill them and it was disease and starvation rahter than gas chambers. It isn't a black and white issue which if you had any understanding of history you'd understand. You cant just say 'it happened', you weren't there, historians are divded on the issue and a civilised free people are allowed to discuss it, get over it.

We killed more people by getting involved in Libya, Syria and Afganistan and now the countries are in ruins so Farage was correct.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 85

keds1

Original post by Tawheed

Almost 2/3rds of the UK did not want the conservatives to be in government - and they are.

Thoughts on this?

This isn't a random figure, i go by the total votes, which put tories at around 36% of the vote. Infact, only 6% more than labour who had 30%. So much for democracy even though i can't think of a better system as yet to supply a majority government.

I wouldn't put it like this.

Only 37% of the population that has the ability to vote chose the conservatives. 24% of the population did not exercise their right to vote, either because they were lazy or did not care. In that sense, 2/3 of the population are happy with the outcome assuming that 24% of people don't seem to care either way.

I wonder if Labour had been elected (given that only 30% of the voting population chose them) there would be this anger from the conservatives. I think we should be more angry at those who did not vote, and at the system, as opposed to angry at tory voters. There will always be tory voters.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 86

RF_PineMarten

Original post by Maid Marian

I don't understand how that works :frown:

I see :/

I don't know if anyone else has explained it to you yet.

We use first past the post for general elections. In each constituency, the candidate who comes first gets the seat. The winner gets the seat, everyone else gets nothing. So a lot of votes effectively count for nothing. It tends to encourage tactical voting - a Green supporter may vote Labour because Labour have a better chance of beating a Conservative candidate, or a UKIP supporter may vote Conservative to keep Labour out, etc.

It also means that for a smaller party to make a breakthrough, it needs to have its support geographically concentrated - 20% support evenly spread around the country would win no seats at all, but a party averaging 20% but having some areas of higher support could win seats. A party may have a strong level of widespread support, but not enough in any one constituency to come out on top and win the seat.

A proportional representation system does it differently. There are a few different types of PR voting systems, but with PR systems the share of seats tends to be more in line with the vote share, which many see as a fairer system. These systems tend to give smaller parties more of a chance than FPTP.

Reply 87

Maid Marian

Original post by RFowler

...I think that's terribly unfair. Smaller parties have virtually no chance!

Reply 88

the bear

Original post by Maid Marian

...I think that's terribly unfair. Smaller parties have virtually no chance!

size is unimportant MM... remember that :yep:

Reply 89

Friar Chris

Your point, OP?

64% of the UK didn't want David Cameron as Prime Minister...
70% of the UK didn't want Ed Miliband as Prime Minister
87% of the UK didn't want Nigel Farage as Prime Minister
92% of the UK didn't want Nick Clegg as Prime Minister
96% of the UK didn't want whatever that Green idiot is called as Prime Minister

Democracy is not about getting exactly what you want, it's about everyone having their say and getting the nearest thing based upon which was the most popular option. The best possibly analogy I've heard is:

Democracy is not like ordering from the menu in a restaurant, where you ask for a specific dish and get it. It's more like a group of people at home arguing over what to have for dinner, and ultimately the choice with the most support of that group is what is cooked, even if that doesn't suit everyone as much as they'd like.

There has never been an election since the dawn of time wherein everyone or most people in a country all vote for one option, and there never will be for as long as those elections are free and open to any candidate. If you're upset that this government wasn't your choice, you're just as upset as the people for whom Lloyd George, Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher and Blair wasn't their choice. I've noticed a lot of Labour supporters in particular complaining that the electoral system is unfair, but only after the results of this election - when the polls subtly favoured Ed Miliband, there wasn't a squeak of protest to be heard.

Today they complain 'only 25% of those eligible to vote did so for the Conservatives', and yet in 2001 and 2005, that's almost exactly how many voted for Tony Blair's Labour, and each time he was returned with far more seats than David Cameron was on Friday morning. Where were these people then saying how unfair it was that we had a Labour government that most of the country didn't want? Nowhere to be seen, of course. Democracy suits a scary subsection of the left only as long as it returns the result they like - and when it doesn't, they behave as they have in London yesterday. Am I being unfair to those on the left here? I did say a subsection, and frankly I've never seen angry Conservative or UKIP voters trashing Whitehall and defacing war memorials because they hated Labour so much and couldn't bring themselves to accept the outcome of democracy.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 90

Maid Marian

Original post by the bear

size is unimportant MM... remember that :yep:

Bear, you are far too flirty :sly:

Reply 91

RF_PineMarten

Original post by Maid Marian

...I think that's terribly unfair. Smaller parties have virtually no chance!

I'd agree with you on that. A PR system would allow smaller parties and protest parties to gain some seats, therefore putting more pressure on the establishment parties to act on certain issues than is the case under FPTP where there are lots of safe seats.

It would be a massive uphill battle to change it though, given how much the establishment parties benefit from FPTP. Maybe one day we'll have a different voting system.

Reply 92

Maid Marian

Original post by RFowler

Mmm. *worried look* I just wonder what the ACTUAL benefit of this FPTP system is?! :confused:

Obviously the supporters of the big parties will have no problem with it as they still get lots of seats, but it just pushes out all the smaller parties and makes it very difficult for them to get their voice heard!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 93

ridwan12

Original post by felamaslen

In which election has more than 50% of the electorate supported the winning party?

Still 36% should be a mandate to do whatever you want unchallanged.....

Reply 94

Choppie

Paddy Ashdown made a great point regarding the AV referendum several years ago. The Liberal Democrats were the only party pushing for it. Where were all the Greens, UKIPers, and others then?

Sure AV is hardly a better system than the one we have at the moment (in fact, it is little more than a change on the counting system, and still fundamentally FPTP), but it is surely on the way towards true PR?

People have the notion that they don't have to be involved in politics, and that politicians have to explain everything. People act as though it is the fault of the politicians that AV wasn't passed ("oh, there wasn't enough campaigning!"). People need to involve themselves far more. It is for the people to learn what is going on, not for the politicians to tell them.

Reply 95

jameswhughes

Original post by Maid Marian

...I think that's terribly unfair. Smaller parties have virtually no chance!

Apart from the SNP who went from 6 to 56 seats. :lol:

Reply 96

Maid Marian

Original post by jameswhughes

Apart from the SNP who went from 6 to 56 seats. :lol:

I think their position was rather unique, though :s-smilie:

Reply 97

mathsmorgs

I'm in all honestly happy that the conservatives one...
Coming from a centre right background i was taught if you want something you work hard for it, nobody will give it to you. I personally think many vote left parties e.g. labour/green because you don't want to work hard.. i mean, welfare benefits being slashed would save a lot of money..

Reply 98

SotonianOne

Here we have now a very stupid thread, exemplary of the modern left-wing adolescent champagne socialists whose entire political knowledge is based on their Twittertorial / Facebookesque "Labour good, Tory bad" attitude enforced by their equally chavvy peers whose entire notion of democracy is based on such where either the left-wingers win, or none.

Should you wish to support a party other than that which manoeuvres itself within the centre-left - far-left field, expect oneself to be on the receiving end of torrent and manic abuse, for expecting that the democratically chosen government should in any way be further to the right than a 90% tax rate on the rich, they are sinful and lack morality, and must be immediately (and *democratically*) overthrown by Russell Brand's Revolutionary Army through the use of rioting, looting, committing bodily harm on police officers and defacing World War Two memorials.

--

Let me put it this way. Lefties are a bunch of crybabies who refuse to acknowledge that the majority of the nation does not share their ideology and then kick off when someone wants to take away their exorbitant and extortionate benefits after the majority of the nation are of the opinion that they are socially and economically useless

[ sarcasm] For doing this practice called "work" is such a slave-like mentality where the masses are controlled by their evil capitalist overlords, and instead we should all be on this totally justifiable government program called welfare where we sit on the couch all day, watch Jeremy Kyle and chat on Facebook then in the night we go out in hordes, smoke a couple of fags, down a few pints, end up in A&E, complain that the NHS is underfunded after our superior underclass misuse this service and then we have the audacity to complain to the Government in office and demand more funds to upkeep our lifestyle through the taxation of the hard working middle classes, for it is their national duty to fund our useless lives!

So tell me, have you complained when Labour got into power with LESS share of the total vote than the Tories in 2005?

You complain of Rupert Murdoch being the puppet master of the Tories, but tell me this, are the Trade Unions not the extortionate masters of Labour, in effect governing it through coercion?

Unless we have an actual enforced two-party system, there will NEVER be a government which had a majority of the total vote. The furthest I would go is a "none of the above" option to see how many of those useless "I will not vote in protest" complainers are actually within the non-voting bloc, or are they simply a vocal minority and those who do not vote for other reasons are a silent majority.

I am also pissed at the teddybear-like response of our police forces. When I see these idiots in London defacing memorials, burning tax-funded objects and wrestling with the police, the least I would do is arrest them for the duration and permanently take away any financial welfare they receive. It's absolutely disgusting the taxpayer has to fund the life of someone who destroys something they funded.

Here's my frankly drastic solution to this ****: Gather up all the rioting leftists, forcibly deport them to Scotland where all the leftists already reside and then boot Scotland out of the UK, they don't want to be here anyway. All the other non-rioting leftists can go and suck up the reality that the majority of the nation does not care about what they have to say as we think they are the true fruitloops and loonies.

Learn a lesson kid. Labour are useless spenders only aim in it's miserable life is to fill the foundations of this nation with debt and pass it on to the next generations. You're completely wrong about Tories filling this country with debt, the whole notion of LOWERING spending, should surely to a person with IQ higher than 80, automatically mean that debt will go down?

Labour are the very core of Keynesians. It is J.M. Keynes who said "in the long run, we're all dead." Labour has no interest in future generations at all. They think the future generations should pay for the precedent ones. That quote in itself is a representation that only the present & alive population should benefit from the fruits of economic growth. As long as the welfare of the current generation is maximised, who cares about the next?

So sure, as a selfish and backward person, you may indeed vote Labour, as you have no interest in future generations, and you want to pass your debt on to them. But as a caring and generous person, you vote Tory, because you realise the importance of low debt in order to minimise the incidence of burden between generations.

Tuition fees? 3 000 of that is down to Tory/LibDems. The other 6 000 are the fruition of Labour's generous plan to burden the young adults with debt. So next time when you pay off your interest and you've done your 33% already, remember to praise Labour.

Tories for the richest? Yes. Only? No. Firstly, 11 million people who voted Tories cannot all be "richest". To say that they are simply following the wishes of Murdoch is damn insulting and extremely patronising. Thanks to the generous P/A raise to 10 600 over the last couple of years, the 400 pound tax cut my family had gave us a very generous weekend holiday to Paris.

Kid, take a textbook rather than a tweet and base your opinions around facts rather than the thoughts of your chavvy friends, although if you are left-wing chances are your critical thinking ability is harmed already and irreversible.

Anyways, essay over, I have an economics a-level exam tomorrow and no time to waste.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 99

Moosferatu

Original post by mathsmorgs

You know what would also save a lot of money? Asking the filthy rich bankers that greatly influenced an economic crisis to cover the cost of their crimes and mistakes. Surely a more cost effective method than taking away young Brian's Disability Living Allowance.