Gazza wrote on May 7^th, 2010 at 10:13am:



This election could be the last of first past the post though as both Cameron AND Brown have offered reforms to the electoral system in an atempt to do the deal with Clegg. The Lib Dems have a lot of bargaining power and it looks like Clegg will get himself a nice new job in the Cabinet. It is likely that Labour will ditch Brown and try and rebuild in time for a seemingly inevitable election in a few months. Just imagne it, Mandy as PM.....

Also Gazza, what do you think of aul Peter Robinson losing his seat to Naomi Long in East Belfast?

By a 'majority', do you mean a majority of the seats or the electorate?

Its pretty much impossible to get 50% of the votes in a UK election. If a party was to get even about 42% they'd have a landslide victory.

As for a majority of the seats - World War Two ended 65 years ago tomorrow. If you added up all the time since then that the UK has had a government which didnt have a working majority, it would probably be about two years in total.

The system discriminates in favour of a two-party system, but whilst the 3rd most popular party gets under represented, its still preferable to giving a lot of smaller parties an influence their mandate doesn't warrant.

Italy, to give an example of what Jizzy was alluding to earlier, has had 61 changes of government since the war. This will only be our seventh. 'Nuff said.

Gazza wrote on May 7^th, 2010 at 6:15pm:



I think you're right. Alliance played it right though, they drew attention to their own policies rather than just run a slur campaign against Robinson. Naomi Long was right when she said that we need postive ploitics, which in my opinion doesn't involve pacts to try and keep out certain parties and politicians. It is also the reason that the TUV will get nowhere. I think that it is a great thing that we have an MP that isn't just another DUP/Sinn Fein member who was elected due to the old orange and green carve up. Hopefully Alliance can consolodate this victory in the Stormont elections which are next year I believe, and we can soon get a better political system that doesn't just revolve around nationalism/unionism and so on. The Tory/UUP alliance didn't really go anywhere but I hope that in the future, this will not stop Labour and Conservatives puting forward candidates here as they do in Wales and Scotland. It would be nice then to have an election in Northern Ireland that is based on politics and policies that people care about rather than old sectarian divides. The problem with this is that these divides are still relivant to older generations than my own because they lived through the violence of the past, and it is the older generations who tend to vote. But in a few generations, I really think that politics in N.I can be better and fairer.

Sorry to go off on one, but I've ben discussing this election all day, and just wanted to gather my views!

I can see the point of course, but Italy is the poorest example. Governments are less stable over here, but there's usually no very big movements in lawmaking or anything. Since WWII it's been between the social dems, the christian dems, and the conservative liberals. There's never been a working coalition without two of these three parties. It's that way in most countries with coalitions: two or three parties decide for the most part, the smaller guys only have a big influence on their prime issues.

Anyway, IMO it's far from perfect either way.

can you imagine an american election thread being this civil....? ha!

Joey wrote on May 8^th, 2010 at 11:47am:



We were on our way but were robbed by that useless fucker Brown en route and couldnt afford it. Apologies.

with apologies to Riffhard...

it's coming soft and it's coming slow...

yep - Gazza's correct .... currently there's a one-eyed Scottish idiot squatting in Downing Street, although 'Breaking News' indicates a Con-LibDem deal is imminent. 

now let's have a group hug and get on with trying to sort out the economy. 

technically you are quite correct.....but if there's an excuse to call Brown, a 'squatting one-eyed Scottish idiot', i'm going to take it, and now seems an opportune time.

Another question for the Brits: why is it that a prime minister can decide to leave and appoint a new guy that waits with elections for several years? Blair did it with Brown, and if I recall correctly Thatcher did the same with Major. I can see why one would vote for Blair or even Thatcher (not me, I'm a lefty), but it would've pissed me off if they decide to step down and leave a turd to run the office. The USA has it covered with the running mate, but wouldn't it be normal to announce an election if the PM steps down?

You see, this is the thing: although you are voting in your own constituency and for the local candidates, your eyes are on the bigger deal: I.E., the party you want in government and the prime minister. All you can do is vote for the party you hope to govern and hope the rest of the constituency is voting the same way.  It is flawed however, as one can’t help that your vote is waste if the party you vote for fails to gain the seat where you are. Part of me wishes the deciding factor is based on the actual number of votes and not just which party gains the majority of MP’s.

which from this distance seemed like a mistake  - brown looked all right when he popped his head over the barricades once a year at budget time - plenty of gravitas there - but as leader of the troops on the 24/7 news cycle he just comes across as a bit stodgy 


still that's politics - he had put in the time so he was '"entitled"