Maybe the days of an X in a box which is not a secret ballot by the way as the number is on your ballot paper maybe you should be able to vote in a more technical way?
The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )
- Thread starter rascal
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Chang Elephant
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It's just an illusion of democracy anyways as you well know. If "Labour" were actually to get in, most of their polices will be directed by the corporate elite as has been the case since well known socialist Tony Blair entried the party.
beautifulthing
Player Valuation: £750k
Pic of Ed eating the bacon buttie in The Sun. Surprised they didn't accuse him of stabbing the pig in the back.
Indeed, and given the amount of choice we have in most other aspects of life, being given a say in things every five years is pretty poor. There are plenty of good examples of getting the electorate more involved in the democratic process throughout the electoral cycle, but for some reason few of those seem to have made their way to Britain.
Whistlin' Dixie
Player Valuation: £50m
Terrifying indeed, but not remotely surprising. And people voting for them cannot claim they were hoodwinked when push comes to shove. Nor can them s***houses in the PCS union plead the nuremburg defence. They've willingly made people destitute for an M&S voucher. They're as complicit as the gauleiters. There is NO excuse.
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daylightrobber
Player Valuation: £15m
The Labour Party were doing a good job of bringing poverty rates down. They were committed to it.
The graph below is an indicator their of performance.
Relative Poverty Rates
There were many other Labour initiatives that could be considered anti-poverty policies. The introduction of the National Minimum Wage, Sure Start, increased financial support for childcare, significant increases in education spending and an expansion of the number of young people going on to higher education. Not sure how you come to the conclusion they only looked after the corporate elite under Blair and they're even less likely to do so under Miliband.
daylightrobber
Player Valuation: £15m
I never used to like Russell Brand. Things have changed.
We Can Change Whatever We Want
May 6, 2015
A mate who I trust said to me;
“You know what this election boils down to? Who do you want to be protesting against on May 8th?
Or whenever they finish counting, negotiating and posturing?
David Cameron and a Tory coalition or Ed Miliband and one led by Labour?”
I suppose, implicitly my argument has always been – the Tories – let them wrench out the organs of the nation with such ferocity and contempt that usually phlegmatic people are dragged into the war against the establishment by the dreadful, eviscerating G-force.
The conservatives are such cinematic villains, the Etonian gits with their Freudian slips; the “West Villa United” supporting, “career-defining”, Darth Vader toffs. If you’re auditioning for heads on spikes “come the great day”, there’s no competition.
Like the fierce and exciting Nicola Sturgeon, or anyone with ears, I thought the difference between the two main parties was insufficient. Ed Miliband’s campaign manager, David Axelrod – a more appropriate name for a spin-doctor it’s difficult to imagine – he may as well be called Zach Huxter, is the bloke who delivered unto us Barack Obama; a tidal wave of potent promise that became a drab damp patch of disappointment. If that doesn’t induce a sigh of impotent lassitude you’ve got more “Yes We Can optimism” than Rolf Harris’s art dealer.
In the episode of The Trews in which I interviewed Ed Miliband there is no Damascene moment. I did not tumble back in a white beam of enlightened reverie, scales falling, realising that the Westminster machine, with a different pilot will serve ordinary people. We decided to endorse Labour before we approached them for the interview.
The simple truth is I don’t have a “ready to wear” system of government to offer people on May 8th and neither does anyone else I’ve yet spoken to.
My fundamentalist abstemiousness became untenable because of mates making practical pleas of varying import;
1. “My brother has MS, if the Tories get in, his independent Living Fund will be cut and he’ll have to go in a home or move into mine…”
2. “My kids can’t do a production at school because of budget cuts…”
3. “My daughter can’t go to university because we can’t afford to pay a student loan back…”
4. “Our drug treatment day care program is being shut down due to cuts…
In the grand scheme of Revolution these are small problems, I agree, small problems that can be somewhat assuaged with the small solution of getting rid of the Tories.
Ultimately what I feel, is that by not removing the Tories, through an unwillingness to participate in the “masquerade of democracy”, I was implicitly expecting the most vulnerable people in society to pay the price on my behalf while I pondered alternatives in luxury.
The reason I didn’t suggest it sooner is because, twerp that I am, I have hope. I really do believe that real, radical change is possible that the tyranny of giant, transnational corporations can be ended, that ecological melt-down in pursuit of imaginary money can be arrested and reversed, that an ideology that aspires to more than materialism, individualism and profit can be realised and practiced.
People that know a lot more about this than me, and probably you, advised me that we’ll be better off rucking with a Labour government than a Conservative one – if that strikes you as a pitiful choice, more sympathetic I could not be – but some people are facing much worse dilemmas than reneging on a puritanical political stance.
Does this country need a radical new political movement? An equivalent of Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain? It feels like it does and when the next administration fails to deliver because of the limitations of parliamentary politics I’ll happily participate in setting it up. With you.
Do we need an international confederation of new political alliances that are committed to real change, real democracy, a revolutionary alternative to capitalism? That can challenge the IMF, WTO, WBO and all the other global acronyms so portentous and phony they may as well be the wrestling federations they sound like? Of course we do, my schedule’s pretty clear, I’ll join in. Will you?
What Ed Miliband said on The Trews that seemed positive is that his government will be responsive to activism and campaigning. That will be pretty easy to evaluate quickly. Are media monopolies being broken up? Are the urgently needed houses being built? Is austerity continuing? Is the NHS still being privatised? Are we still blaming immigrants, the disabled and disadvantaged for massive economic problems that they can’t have created? Is domestic policy being dictated by unelected elites in the financial and corporate world?
If the answer is yes then you know that democracy in its current form is near redundant, that we are not offered reasonable alternatives and that parties that try to, like the Greens are stymied to the point irrelevance by ancient electoral architecture.
My position will not have changed on May 8th, I’ll be doing my best to amplify movements I believe in, from housing, to trade unions, football fan campaigns, social enterprises, digital activism, student occupations, organic agriculture, crypto-currencies; the same things I’m doing today, the things I’ve been learning about for the last 18 months; since I said I don’t vote on the telly.
My recommendation that people vote Labour is an optimistic punt that the degeneration of Britain will be slowed down and the lives of the most vulnerable will be a little more bearable than they’d’ve been under the Tories.
Nothing more ambitious than that.
It will take serious activism, committed action comparable to the sacrifice of those whose memories are continually evoked as a spur for us to vote. The women who died for that right, the people all over the world branded terrorists and imprisoned or executed for demanding democracy.
I fully understand that real change, real democracy is not something that can be palmed off in a booth twice a decade, a crossed box and crossed fingers. Democracy is for life, not just elections.
We Can Change Whatever We Want
May 6, 2015
A mate who I trust said to me;
“You know what this election boils down to? Who do you want to be protesting against on May 8th?
Or whenever they finish counting, negotiating and posturing?
David Cameron and a Tory coalition or Ed Miliband and one led by Labour?”
I suppose, implicitly my argument has always been – the Tories – let them wrench out the organs of the nation with such ferocity and contempt that usually phlegmatic people are dragged into the war against the establishment by the dreadful, eviscerating G-force.
The conservatives are such cinematic villains, the Etonian gits with their Freudian slips; the “West Villa United” supporting, “career-defining”, Darth Vader toffs. If you’re auditioning for heads on spikes “come the great day”, there’s no competition.
Like the fierce and exciting Nicola Sturgeon, or anyone with ears, I thought the difference between the two main parties was insufficient. Ed Miliband’s campaign manager, David Axelrod – a more appropriate name for a spin-doctor it’s difficult to imagine – he may as well be called Zach Huxter, is the bloke who delivered unto us Barack Obama; a tidal wave of potent promise that became a drab damp patch of disappointment. If that doesn’t induce a sigh of impotent lassitude you’ve got more “Yes We Can optimism” than Rolf Harris’s art dealer.
In the episode of The Trews in which I interviewed Ed Miliband there is no Damascene moment. I did not tumble back in a white beam of enlightened reverie, scales falling, realising that the Westminster machine, with a different pilot will serve ordinary people. We decided to endorse Labour before we approached them for the interview.
The simple truth is I don’t have a “ready to wear” system of government to offer people on May 8th and neither does anyone else I’ve yet spoken to.
My fundamentalist abstemiousness became untenable because of mates making practical pleas of varying import;
1. “My brother has MS, if the Tories get in, his independent Living Fund will be cut and he’ll have to go in a home or move into mine…”
2. “My kids can’t do a production at school because of budget cuts…”
3. “My daughter can’t go to university because we can’t afford to pay a student loan back…”
4. “Our drug treatment day care program is being shut down due to cuts…
In the grand scheme of Revolution these are small problems, I agree, small problems that can be somewhat assuaged with the small solution of getting rid of the Tories.
Ultimately what I feel, is that by not removing the Tories, through an unwillingness to participate in the “masquerade of democracy”, I was implicitly expecting the most vulnerable people in society to pay the price on my behalf while I pondered alternatives in luxury.
The reason I didn’t suggest it sooner is because, twerp that I am, I have hope. I really do believe that real, radical change is possible that the tyranny of giant, transnational corporations can be ended, that ecological melt-down in pursuit of imaginary money can be arrested and reversed, that an ideology that aspires to more than materialism, individualism and profit can be realised and practiced.
People that know a lot more about this than me, and probably you, advised me that we’ll be better off rucking with a Labour government than a Conservative one – if that strikes you as a pitiful choice, more sympathetic I could not be – but some people are facing much worse dilemmas than reneging on a puritanical political stance.
Does this country need a radical new political movement? An equivalent of Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain? It feels like it does and when the next administration fails to deliver because of the limitations of parliamentary politics I’ll happily participate in setting it up. With you.
Do we need an international confederation of new political alliances that are committed to real change, real democracy, a revolutionary alternative to capitalism? That can challenge the IMF, WTO, WBO and all the other global acronyms so portentous and phony they may as well be the wrestling federations they sound like? Of course we do, my schedule’s pretty clear, I’ll join in. Will you?
What Ed Miliband said on The Trews that seemed positive is that his government will be responsive to activism and campaigning. That will be pretty easy to evaluate quickly. Are media monopolies being broken up? Are the urgently needed houses being built? Is austerity continuing? Is the NHS still being privatised? Are we still blaming immigrants, the disabled and disadvantaged for massive economic problems that they can’t have created? Is domestic policy being dictated by unelected elites in the financial and corporate world?
If the answer is yes then you know that democracy in its current form is near redundant, that we are not offered reasonable alternatives and that parties that try to, like the Greens are stymied to the point irrelevance by ancient electoral architecture.
My position will not have changed on May 8th, I’ll be doing my best to amplify movements I believe in, from housing, to trade unions, football fan campaigns, social enterprises, digital activism, student occupations, organic agriculture, crypto-currencies; the same things I’m doing today, the things I’ve been learning about for the last 18 months; since I said I don’t vote on the telly.
My recommendation that people vote Labour is an optimistic punt that the degeneration of Britain will be slowed down and the lives of the most vulnerable will be a little more bearable than they’d’ve been under the Tories.
Nothing more ambitious than that.
It will take serious activism, committed action comparable to the sacrifice of those whose memories are continually evoked as a spur for us to vote. The women who died for that right, the people all over the world branded terrorists and imprisoned or executed for demanding democracy.
I fully understand that real change, real democracy is not something that can be palmed off in a booth twice a decade, a crossed box and crossed fingers. Democracy is for life, not just elections.
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
It's not democracy until we get rid of party politics and the whip system.
Whoever you vote for will not do as they should - represent and protect their electorate. They will turn up to the big fun palace with subsidised bars and vote whatever their boss says, irrespective of your views. They will do this so that winning candidate X, a corner store holder, successful businessman and pillar of the (business) communiuty with 10 years experience, can ingratiate themselves with the party leader, climb the slippery pole and get a ministerial post where they're in charge of the NHS or schools or something.
Why do we need over 700 people for that? Why not just vote in a "party leader" and pay for JUST that one, and the opposition. The rest can work for a living, and attend conferences where they try and moderate the party leader's madness.
Because so few people vote, all the politicians have to do is convince those with lower than average IQ to vote for them (Sun readers?). There is no way intelligent people are taken in with their drivel - hence the dumbing down into sound bites, and carefully rehearsed camera opportunities.
This way our vote will matter. Where I am, Labour has no chance, so it's a toss up between Lib Dem or Tory. A vote for the party I want is wasted. This brand is not democracy - let us not believe it. Let us INSIST on democracy.
Whoever you vote for will not do as they should - represent and protect their electorate. They will turn up to the big fun palace with subsidised bars and vote whatever their boss says, irrespective of your views. They will do this so that winning candidate X, a corner store holder, successful businessman and pillar of the (business) communiuty with 10 years experience, can ingratiate themselves with the party leader, climb the slippery pole and get a ministerial post where they're in charge of the NHS or schools or something.
Why do we need over 700 people for that? Why not just vote in a "party leader" and pay for JUST that one, and the opposition. The rest can work for a living, and attend conferences where they try and moderate the party leader's madness.
Because so few people vote, all the politicians have to do is convince those with lower than average IQ to vote for them (Sun readers?). There is no way intelligent people are taken in with their drivel - hence the dumbing down into sound bites, and carefully rehearsed camera opportunities.
This way our vote will matter. Where I am, Labour has no chance, so it's a toss up between Lib Dem or Tory. A vote for the party I want is wasted. This brand is not democracy - let us not believe it. Let us INSIST on democracy.
Whistlin' Dixie
Player Valuation: £50m
Nor would I.
Puzzles me though, why MP's who were elected & paid to govern, are allowed to abstain.
Guest89
Player Valuation: £1m
I think it was back in 2014 Nick Clegg lead a trade delegation to Latin America, delivered a few speeches in fluent Spanish that were very well received and laid a very good base for opening up trade with that fast growing part of the world where we've run the risk in the past of being left behind. I considered that one of the single best political acts of the last 5 years.
Overall, I was very apprehensive about the coalition when they came to power back in 2010, but overall I think the Lib Dems have been a good moderating influence. There's no single party manifesto that resonates with me perfectly, of all 3 major political parties, there's aspects of all of them that I like and that I dislike. All things considered, speaking as someone who voted Labour last time and was actually a member of the party for a year, I'm voting Lib Dem this time around.
Overall, I was very apprehensive about the coalition when they came to power back in 2010, but overall I think the Lib Dems have been a good moderating influence. There's no single party manifesto that resonates with me perfectly, of all 3 major political parties, there's aspects of all of them that I like and that I dislike. All things considered, speaking as someone who voted Labour last time and was actually a member of the party for a year, I'm voting Lib Dem this time around.
Think maybe bringing in online voting as an alternative to the slightly old fashioned polling stations might improve turnout slightly, but I am dead against the compulsory vote.
John Bercow has pledged to bring in online voting for the 2020 election, and there are plenty of technologies that allow you to vote via your phone and so on.
Long overdue imo.
Mrk
Player Valuation: £40m
Even though I often get exasperated by the Lib Dems frequent illiberal manoeuvres, I think they've genuinely done a good job. I'm still torn.
The Esk
Player Valuation: £70m
Whilst I accept we must use technology to widen participation and make the process more efficient, personally I'd hate to see polling stations disappear.
I love actually going to vote. My polling station is 50 metres from where I live, so will be first in the queue just before 7am in the morning.
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