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I think the best thing (from a Labour point of view) would be a Conservative minority that's ineffective, then has to call a new election which would give the probably-new leader time to sort out his party and work on the mistakes of this election campaign, ie. getting more of the Cabinet out in public and more question and answer sessions on the street (without drama!).
I think that the Lib Dems are completely stupid if they go with Conservatives on a tenuous promise of looking into electoral reform. But then if Gordon Brown is being difficult, they might feel that they have to align with somebody. From what it sounds like, Gordon Brown will definitely offer PR and hope that the Lib Dems come calling!
I can't believe that the Lib Dems would be so flippant as to form a coalition with the Conservatives.
Considering their disagreements on major policy issues, such as reform, immigration and trident, not to mention all the other clear divisions outlined in the tv debates, Clegg would totally lose all credibility.
Locally as well, they have been persuading Labour to vote tactically to keep the Tories out, so it would be completely contradictory to then decide they would work together. Lib/Lab any day :-)
I'm actually not too surprised by the lib dem result, 3 weeks of good polls after tv appearances isn't enough to counteract years of being in third place. Many of differences between Lib dem and Conservative policies are also found between the lib dem and labour, and I don't think it can be claimed that there are only 'clear divisions' between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. The country has clearly spoken, and the party with the highest number of seats and percentage of votes should be in charge of the country. This party happens to be the Tories, whether you agree with them or not.
I'm not to surprised at the Lib Dem result either, although it was perhaps a litter poorer than expected. Cleggmania was ridiculous, and it was pretty clear from the offset that any increase in popularity for Clegg as a result of the debates was going to be offset somewhat by a stepping up in the scrutiny of Lib Dem policies. At the end of the day, I think that the both the fear tactics used by the Conservatives to discredit hung parliaments (fat lot of good it did them) and the combined Labour-Tory tactic of saying that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the other party won through and caused people to think twice before they made their mark on the ballot paper.
With regards to the next couple of days and weeks I agree with Occultus that at the end of the day the Conservatives won both the popular vote and the simple commons majority and therefore have the most legitimate claim to number 10. While the country has spoken, I'm not so sure that the country has clearly spoken. This is no '97, and one of the BBC polls suggested that a good number voters actively wanted a hung parliament rather than it being just a consequence of the votes. The Daily Mail/Sun description of Brown as 'shameless' and 'desperate' is entirely unwarranted. This is how our political system works. If you don't like it by all means attempt to change it when you get in.
Like Allie, I'm hoping for a Conservative minority government.I think the Lib Dems would discredit their whole election strategy by compromising and colluding with the 'old parties' who Clegg has spent the whole election desperately trying to distance himself from. Providing there is no coalition, the best thing now for Labour is for Brown to step down, elect a new leader, work with the Lib Dems on an ad hoc basis to oppose Conservative policies which they are united in their disagreement of (a fair few) and start preparing for the next election. There does come a time for change.
I too think it would be a mistake for the Lib Dems to rush into a coalition with the Conservativs, just to grab the oppportunity for a bit of power. It would totally discredit Nick Clegg, and the party, after all their criticism of the Conservative's policies in recent weeks, ecpecially if David Cameron can't offer them anything more concrete than a committee to investigate the possibility of electoral refom. The one conclusive thing we can see from this election is that FPTP is not working. 10 million votes becomes 306 seats for the Conservatives, and yet 6 million votes for the Lib Dems wins just 57 seats? Less than a third of the seats the Conservatives got, even though the Lib Dems got more than half the vote they did.
I personally support the idea of a Lab/Lib coalition, although I'm not sure how effective it would be when faced with questions of legitimacy... Nick Clegg has a lot of power in his hands, but he has to be careful with his negotiations, otherwise he might find himself with nothing. David Cameron and the Conservatives are effectively 'the winning party', and they are not going to let their chance of running the country slip away without a fight. Taking that into consideration, I agree with Allie that an ineffective minority Conservative government may be the best option right now. Labour could really benefit from some extra time to work out their leadership issues (David Miliband FTW), and the Lib Dems could use this time to negotiate with Labour, whilst also trying to consolidate their vote and work out what went so wrong for them this time, other than the electoral system. If there is another election, I don't want it to produce a decisive Conservative majority, and the best way to prevent that could be to have a useless minority Conservative governement which will lose them votes...
Locally, the results are great for the Liberal Democrats, with Paul Burstow winning in Sutton and Tom Brake getting a comfortable majority in Carshalton and Wallington. Unfortunately, we might be doing all this again in a few months time, so maybe a bit early for celebrating another 5 years in a Liberal Democrat constituency, especially as the Conservatives will probably be needing this constituency more than ever.
I also agree that a Conservative minority government would be the best option. Not only does it seem that many Lib Dem MPs do not wish to form a coalition, but neither do some Conservative MPs. Personally, I would prefer a Conservative minority government made up of people that have the same ideologies, than a coalition made up of people that could potentially disagree on important issues (such as the EU and electoral reform).
However, I do think that the Conservatives have more right to form a government than any other party because they got the highest share of the vote (seats wise and proportionally) and because if they do not get the chance, the idea of democracy in the UK would be put under question. I do not think a LibLab coalition would be a good idea because a. They would still not have a majority and b. As conservatives got the highest share of the votes, it would be rather undemocratic.
Locally, if the Lib Dems do join with the Conservatives, there could be a problem. Many Labour supporters voted for the Lib Dems because they did not want a Conservative MP and because a vote for Labour is a wasted vote; by joining with the Conservatives, these people may feel that their opinions are not accurately represented (this could also be a problem in other constituencies where the Lib Dems narrowly beat the Conservatives)
I think we are just going to have to trust the decisions that are made for us and we may have a few months of political turmoil as the leading politicians work out how things are going work.
So it looks like they're going to co-align (?!) and that's the most ridiculous thing ever, since the Tories are going to make sure that nothing comes of Proportional Representation and that they can maximise the Tories in the Cabinet.
And Gordon Brown's apparent refusal to step down is just a bit stupid. There are growing calls for him to step down from people within the party, and many members of the public think he should go. And besides, the longer he stays, the more speculation there'll be in the papers about who's going to take over and the factions within the party which frankly I can't handle... The news that Ed Miliband wants to run against David Miliband is traumatic enough for me!
The issue is, if the Lib Dems chose to not side with the Conservatives, they would be blamed for essentially creating a weak government at a time when the country needs a strong one. What with the pound already decreasing in value and the budget needing to be passed soon, there would be a certain level of chaos if some sort of compromise isn't established. To be honest, it places the Lib Dems in a very difficult position - I think it'll be detrimental to them whatever they choose to do.
I think that while many people weren't wanting a hung parliment, it has to be a good result to show just how flawed the FPTP system is. Bring on electoral reform!!
I am not sure anyone can argue that FPTP is a great and completely flawless system, but the conservative position on the matter is more that it is the least-worst! The fact that in this election the conservative party won a higher share of the votes than labour did in the last election and we now have a hung parliament when labour got a majority of 60 seats is a great example of this.
If you want to argue for Electoral Reform however, do not point out the flaws in what we have got, but instead point out the lack of flaws in what you are suggesting!
If on the other hand you are not entirely sure what would take its place and how it would work, I suppose that it would be helpful to fully assess what the pros and cons of another system would be, especially the consequences of a PR system. Do you not agree that it would be foolish to promise a PR system before it had been carefully thought out by all parties first? Perhaps we could have some kind of all-party committee of enquiry on political and electoral reform before making such a promise?
They already had the Jenkins Report (i think that was the name of it) which concluded that AV+ would be the best system, and that at least is semi-proportional, and decidedly better than FPTP.
I think the conservative stance on this issue, the "oh well we'll maybe have a committee" approach, shows just how anti-change they really are, and how they know the FPTP benefits both themselves and labour far more than it does the lib dems or any of the other parties.
Bring on PR - and for those who use the fact that the BNP may get a seat as a reason against PR, at least the system will be fully representative - if people want to vote for them then it's only right they should be represented - however far we disagree with their views!!
I feel a conservative government, in the long run, will be worse for the economy - as many of our current problems stemmed from the Thatcher/Major era, not just from Gordon Brown after the rise of New Labour.
And not all coalitions end up with a weak economy. Germany is a great example of this - it has coalition government and one of the stronges economies in Europe, it's just that we Brits haven't yet learnt to think that any way other than our current system may actually be better!!
Just as a passing thought, it seems ironic to me that party who proposes PR most strongly, who got the smallest proportion of votes of the three main parties, is holding the party that got the largest proportion of votes to ransom over PR! The party who got the least votes appear to have a disproportionately large amount of power…?
The Jenkins Report of 98 simply concluded that it was the best of the (three I believe?) solutions that it was asked to look at. There is, of course, a huge range of ways that our current system could be made more proportional that the report did not mention at all (for example the PR Squared method which is proportionate but still lends for overall majorities by making the seats proportionate to the square of the vote).
The idea that the abolition of the FPTP system is opposed by the Tories because it benefits them most is simply incorrect. Yes it does benefit them over the Lib-Dems, but then so does ANY political system designed to create majorities in Parliament. However, the current boundaries actually could be argued to benefit Labour due to the disproportionate representation of Scotland and Wales (traditionally areas with more Labour support than Conservative.)
You are right that some coalition governments work, and I have no doubt that eventually, kicking and screaming, British politics could be brought round to finding away of making a coalition bases system that works. However I believe that in that interim there would be much uncertainty very much like what we have at the moment. Currently we are at war, have the biggest public debt in living memory and are facing massive social issues regarding immigration, welfare and education. Is now the time to abandon our political system and place our political outlook into uncertainty? Certainly not.
On a final note, you may believe that creating a committee shows an “anti-change” belief, but if they promised something without fully assessing it, it would simply be extremely irresponsible. This is no minor change to the way people tick the box on election day, this is a proposed complete alteration of British politics as we know it and hence I would argue should be thought-out and discussed between all parties not as some form of trump-card in a scramble for a coalition.
well i think that PR is most definitely long overdue in the British system, and i fell that yes, while it shouldn't be used to secure a coalition, it does need to be seriosly addressed, and sadly it does not seem that the conservatives would do thi, even with a committee...
well, our current system has also provided much uncertainty, as it has left coalition talks going for 5 days now, with little sign of progress really. we have just as much uncertainty with FPTP in the hung parliament situation!
and as for a system that is designed to produce a majority - where is that said majority?? it hasn't happened this time...
and if we do keep FPTP, effectively a vote for either Labour or Conservative is worth a lot more than a vote for the Lib Dems. i just don't see how it is fair that 10 million votes produce over 300 seats, 8 million produces a good 250, and 6 million, yes that's right a large proportion - 6 MILLION (not much less than the others) produces only 57 seats?? how is that a true democracy??
also, while yes Wales and Scotland are traditionally more labour-inclined, during the Thatcher years, there was support from those places too, hence the incredibly large majority she enjoyed, tus showing that if they do feel the Tory candidate is best, they would be willing to vote for them. Maybe they saw through the transparency of David Cameron's campaign, and to the problems a Tory administration could cause, or they just remember what life was like under Thatcher and frankly don't want that again!!
Yes, the Lib Dems do seem to be "kingmakers", well PM-makers, in this situation, however i notice that while Labour and Conservative could choose to work together, this has not happened! Thus meaning only the Lib Dams have enough seats to be able to help either side gain a majority (though with labour they would need other parties supporting too). And as has been said, thats a result of FPTP!
Did i miss someting though, i thought FPTP was meant to produce a majority - and for those who may not have noticed - we have a hung parliament...!!
well, the Lib Dem result Nationally was disappointing and frankly unexpected...
ReplyDeletecan't believe they managed to gain votes and lose seats!!
I think the best thing (from a Labour point of view) would be a Conservative minority that's ineffective, then has to call a new election which would give the probably-new leader time to sort out his party and work on the mistakes of this election campaign, ie. getting more of the Cabinet out in public and more question and answer sessions on the street (without drama!).
ReplyDeleteI think that the Lib Dems are completely stupid if they go with Conservatives on a tenuous promise of looking into electoral reform. But then if Gordon Brown is being difficult, they might feel that they have to align with somebody. From what it sounds like, Gordon Brown will definitely offer PR and hope that the Lib Dems come calling!
I can't believe that the Lib Dems would be so flippant as to form a coalition with the Conservatives.
ReplyDeleteConsidering their disagreements on major policy issues, such as reform, immigration and trident, not to mention all the other clear divisions outlined in the tv debates, Clegg would totally lose all credibility.
Locally as well, they have been persuading Labour to vote tactically to keep the Tories out, so it would be completely contradictory to then decide they would work together. Lib/Lab any day :-)
I'm actually not too surprised by the lib dem result, 3 weeks of good polls after tv appearances isn't enough to counteract years of being in third place. Many of differences between Lib dem and Conservative policies are also found between the lib dem and labour, and I don't think it can be claimed that there are only 'clear divisions' between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.
ReplyDeleteThe country has clearly spoken, and the party with the highest number of seats and percentage of votes should be in charge of the country. This party happens to be the Tories, whether you agree with them or not.
I'm not to surprised at the Lib Dem result either, although it was perhaps a litter poorer than expected. Cleggmania was ridiculous, and it was pretty clear from the offset that any increase in popularity for Clegg as a result of the debates was going to be offset somewhat by a stepping up in the scrutiny of Lib Dem policies. At the end of the day, I think that the both the fear tactics used by the Conservatives to discredit hung parliaments (fat lot of good it did them) and the combined Labour-Tory tactic of saying that a vote for the Lib Dems is a vote for the other party won through and caused people to think twice before they made their mark on the ballot paper.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to the next couple of days and weeks I agree with Occultus that at the end of the day the Conservatives won both the popular vote and the simple commons majority and therefore have the most legitimate claim to number 10. While the country has spoken, I'm not so sure that the country has clearly spoken. This is no '97, and one of the BBC polls suggested that a good number voters actively wanted a hung parliament rather than it being just a consequence of the votes. The Daily Mail/Sun description of Brown as 'shameless' and 'desperate' is entirely unwarranted. This is how our political system works. If you don't like it by all means attempt to change it when you get in.
Like Allie, I'm hoping for a Conservative minority government.I think the Lib Dems would discredit their whole election strategy by compromising and colluding with the 'old parties' who Clegg has spent the whole election desperately trying to distance himself from. Providing there is no coalition, the best thing now for Labour is for Brown to step down, elect a new leader, work with the Lib Dems on an ad hoc basis to oppose Conservative policies which they are united in their disagreement of (a fair few) and start preparing for the next election. There does come a time for change.
^sorry for it being long.
ReplyDeleteI too think it would be a mistake for the Lib Dems to rush into a coalition with the Conservativs, just to grab the oppportunity for a bit of power. It would totally discredit Nick Clegg, and the party, after all their criticism of the Conservative's policies in recent weeks, ecpecially if David Cameron can't offer them anything more concrete than a committee to investigate the possibility of electoral refom. The one conclusive thing we can see from this election is that FPTP is not working. 10 million votes becomes 306 seats for the Conservatives, and yet 6 million votes for the Lib Dems wins just 57 seats? Less than a third of the seats the Conservatives got, even though the Lib Dems got more than half the vote they did.
ReplyDeleteI personally support the idea of a Lab/Lib coalition, although I'm not sure how effective it would be when faced with questions of legitimacy...
Nick Clegg has a lot of power in his hands, but he has to be careful with his negotiations, otherwise he might find himself with nothing. David Cameron and the Conservatives are effectively 'the winning party', and they are not going to let their chance of running the country slip away without a fight. Taking that into consideration, I agree with Allie that an ineffective minority Conservative government may be the best option right now. Labour could really benefit from some extra time to work out their leadership issues (David Miliband FTW), and the Lib Dems could use this time to negotiate with Labour, whilst also trying to consolidate their vote and work out what went so wrong for them this time, other than the electoral system. If there is another election, I don't want it to produce a decisive Conservative majority, and the best way to prevent that could be to have a useless minority Conservative governement which will lose them votes...
Locally, the results are great for the Liberal Democrats, with Paul Burstow winning in Sutton and Tom Brake getting a comfortable majority in Carshalton and Wallington. Unfortunately, we might be doing all this again in a few months time, so maybe a bit early for celebrating another 5 years in a Liberal Democrat constituency, especially as the Conservatives will probably be needing this constituency more than ever.
I also agree that a Conservative minority government would be the best option. Not only does it seem that many Lib Dem MPs do not wish to form a coalition, but neither do some Conservative MPs. Personally, I would prefer a Conservative minority government made up of people that have the same ideologies, than a coalition made up of people that could potentially disagree on important issues (such as the EU and electoral reform).
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do think that the Conservatives have more right to form a government than any other party because they got the highest share of the vote (seats wise and proportionally) and because if they do not get the chance, the idea of democracy in the UK would be put under question. I do not think a LibLab coalition would be a good idea because a. They would still not have a majority and b. As conservatives got the highest share of the votes, it would be rather undemocratic.
Locally, if the Lib Dems do join with the Conservatives, there could be a problem. Many Labour supporters voted for the Lib Dems because they did not want a Conservative MP and because a vote for Labour is a wasted vote; by joining with the Conservatives, these people may feel that their opinions are not accurately represented (this could also be a problem in other constituencies where the Lib Dems narrowly beat the Conservatives)
I think we are just going to have to trust the decisions that are made for us and we may have a few months of political turmoil as the leading politicians work out how things are going work.
(Like Alys, I am sorry for the long comment)
So it looks like they're going to co-align (?!) and that's the most ridiculous thing ever, since the Tories are going to make sure that nothing comes of Proportional Representation and that they can maximise the Tories in the Cabinet.
ReplyDeleteAnd Gordon Brown's apparent refusal to step down is just a bit stupid. There are growing calls for him to step down from people within the party, and many members of the public think he should go. And besides, the longer he stays, the more speculation there'll be in the papers about who's going to take over and the factions within the party which frankly I can't handle... The news that Ed Miliband wants to run against David Miliband is traumatic enough for me!
The issue is, if the Lib Dems chose to not side with the Conservatives, they would be blamed for essentially creating a weak government at a time when the country needs a strong one. What with the pound already decreasing in value and the budget needing to be passed soon, there would be a certain level of chaos if some sort of compromise isn't established. To be honest, it places the Lib Dems in a very difficult position - I think it'll be detrimental to them whatever they choose to do.
ReplyDeleteI think that while many people weren't wanting a hung parliment, it has to be a good result to show just how flawed the FPTP system is. Bring on electoral reform!!
ReplyDeleteI am not sure anyone can argue that FPTP is a great and completely flawless system, but the conservative position on the matter is more that it is the least-worst! The fact that in this election the conservative party won a higher share of the votes than labour did in the last election and we now have a hung parliament when labour got a majority of 60 seats is a great example of this.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to argue for Electoral Reform however, do not point out the flaws in what we have got, but instead point out the lack of flaws in what you are suggesting!
If on the other hand you are not entirely sure what would take its place and how it would work, I suppose that it would be helpful to fully assess what the pros and cons of another system would be, especially the consequences of a PR system. Do you not agree that it would be foolish to promise a PR system before it had been carefully thought out by all parties first? Perhaps we could have some kind of all-party committee of enquiry on political and electoral reform before making such a promise?
They already had the Jenkins Report (i think that was the name of it) which concluded that AV+ would be the best system, and that at least is semi-proportional, and decidedly better than FPTP.
ReplyDeleteI think the conservative stance on this issue, the "oh well we'll maybe have a committee" approach, shows just how anti-change they really are, and how they know the FPTP benefits both themselves and labour far more than it does the lib dems or any of the other parties.
Bring on PR - and for those who use the fact that the BNP may get a seat as a reason against PR, at least the system will be fully representative - if people want to vote for them then it's only right they should be represented - however far we disagree with their views!!
I feel a conservative government, in the long run, will be worse for the economy - as many of our current problems stemmed from the Thatcher/Major era, not just from Gordon Brown after the rise of New Labour.
And not all coalitions end up with a weak economy. Germany is a great example of this - it has coalition government and one of the stronges economies in Europe, it's just that we Brits haven't yet learnt to think that any way other than our current system may actually be better!!
<<- also, sorry for the long post
ReplyDeleteJust as a passing thought, it seems ironic to me that party who proposes PR most strongly, who got the smallest proportion of votes of the three main parties, is holding the party that got the largest proportion of votes to ransom over PR! The party who got the least votes appear to have a disproportionately large amount of power…?
ReplyDeleteThe Jenkins Report of 98 simply concluded that it was the best of the (three I believe?) solutions that it was asked to look at. There is, of course, a huge range of ways that our current system could be made more proportional that the report did not mention at all (for example the PR Squared method which is proportionate but still lends for overall majorities by making the seats proportionate to the square of the vote).
ReplyDeleteThe idea that the abolition of the FPTP system is opposed by the Tories because it benefits them most is simply incorrect. Yes it does benefit them over the Lib-Dems, but then so does ANY political system designed to create majorities in Parliament. However, the current boundaries actually could be argued to benefit Labour due to the disproportionate representation of Scotland and Wales (traditionally areas with more Labour support than Conservative.)
You are right that some coalition governments work, and I have no doubt that eventually, kicking and screaming, British politics could be brought round to finding away of making a coalition bases system that works. However I believe that in that interim there would be much uncertainty very much like what we have at the moment. Currently we are at war, have the biggest public debt in living memory and are facing massive social issues regarding immigration, welfare and education. Is now the time to abandon our political system and place our political outlook into uncertainty? Certainly not.
On a final note, you may believe that creating a committee shows an “anti-change” belief, but if they promised something without fully assessing it, it would simply be extremely irresponsible. This is no minor change to the way people tick the box on election day, this is a proposed complete alteration of British politics as we know it and hence I would argue should be thought-out and discussed between all parties not as some form of trump-card in a scramble for a coalition.
<<-- from a conservative supporter maybe??
ReplyDeletewell i think that PR is most definitely long overdue in the British system, and i fell that yes, while it shouldn't be used to secure a coalition, it does need to be seriosly addressed, and sadly it does not seem that the conservatives would do thi, even with a committee...
ReplyDeletewell, our current system has also provided much uncertainty, as it has left coalition talks going for 5 days now, with little sign of progress really. we have just as much uncertainty with FPTP in the hung parliament situation!
and as for a system that is designed to produce a majority - where is that said majority?? it hasn't happened this time...
and if we do keep FPTP, effectively a vote for either Labour or Conservative is worth a lot more than a vote for the Lib Dems. i just don't see how it is fair that 10 million votes produce over 300 seats, 8 million produces a good 250, and 6 million, yes that's right a large proportion - 6 MILLION (not much less than the others) produces only 57 seats?? how is that a true democracy??
also, while yes Wales and Scotland are traditionally more labour-inclined, during the Thatcher years, there was support from those places too, hence the incredibly large majority she enjoyed, tus showing that if they do feel the Tory candidate is best, they would be willing to vote for them. Maybe they saw through the transparency of David Cameron's campaign, and to the problems a Tory administration could cause, or they just remember what life was like under Thatcher and frankly don't want that again!!
Yes, the Lib Dems do seem to be "kingmakers", well PM-makers, in this situation, however i notice that while Labour and Conservative could choose to work together, this has not happened! Thus meaning only the Lib Dams have enough seats to be able to help either side gain a majority (though with labour they would need other parties supporting too). And as has been said, thats a result of FPTP!
Did i miss someting though, i thought FPTP was meant to produce a majority - and for those who may not have noticed - we have a hung parliament...!!
<<- sorry it's so long! (again)!
ReplyDelete