Coronavirus

[Witton Park]

Under the first past the post system in the U.K. (and the electoral college in the US) no party can just represent working class people and expect to win an election. Working class in both places is also split racially which often means that being say representative of immigrants rights might make you less appealing to working class people who resent immigrants.

The name of the game is proportional representation, where a government has to be formed most often on compromise and respecting alternative points of view. That’s the answer going forward and you might argue that voting for Keir Starmer next time round might afford a slight chance of getting that

Then no one gets what they vote for.

If I were to pick a system that would seem to work well, I'd opt for the Swiss system. More power locally and can anyone name a Swiss politician?

[Fellbeast]

And in other news, and getting back to the subject, the ZOE app is beginning to see really promising falls in the rate of new cases of the virus around the UK. The daily rate is a still high 37,000 ish but that’s down from 43,000 ish a week or so ago

[Mossdog]

Under the first past the post system in the U.K. (and the electoral college in the US) no party can just represent working class people and expect to win an election. Working class in both places is also split racially which often means that being say representative of immigrants rights might make you less appealing to working class people who resent immigrants.

The name of the game is proportional representation, where a government has to be formed most often on compromise and respecting alternative points of view. That’s the answer going forward and you might argue that voting for Keir Starmer next time round might afford a slight chance of getting that

I know where you're coming from Stolly, but I don't think you're right. 'Working class' people aren't, nor have ever been, a homogeneous group, hence my use of inverted commas. They've been people of all colours (I hate the concept of 'race'), genders, sexual preferences, etc., where the most important thing they shared was a united belief that everyone should have equality of opportunity', to allow their talents (often lost under disadvantaged circumstances) to develop and thrive (thereby benefiting all of the country).

Nor indeed have Labour voters always been 'working class', as I guess many, like me, through educational opportunities and career options edged into other income brackets. Indeed, many of the so-called 'middle-classes' or even 'upper' also supported Labour through a wide collective belief in a fairer society. What has changed so significantly is the advent of identity politics, where shouting out about being 'different' and 'proud to be black/white/etc.' and 'woe-is-me' has become the driving motivation and claim for reparations and the like, from everyone else. We've already seen in the Labour party how this has lead in infighting between say, the Labour Women's Network and Trans groups vying for ascendancy in who has the loudest grievance to gainsay the other, and best right to claim most hard-done-by. It's all so toxic and negative.

[Flem]

The Ed Conway stuff on twitter is brilliant. I don’t think that telling people the truth is in the Boris/Dominic playbook though....

What have Boris and Dominic got to do with all this? It's those slimeballs Vallance and Whitty who are running the show now. Surely that's obvious to even the most freedom-hating people on here. V & W have been planning for this behind the scenes for decades. (They probable made the virus themselves.) Poor old Boris is so honest and trustworthy himself that he assumes everyone else is the same. He just doesn't understand that some people scheme and plot and dissemble and manipulate others in order to get their own way. It's all so alien to him that he can't see what's going on. And he's so loyal that now that V & W have been caught out using out-of-date graphs, he still feels he has to defend the use of those graphs so as to remain loyal to his advisers (or, rather, de facto masters), V & W, even though he himself had nothing to do with those graphs. (Look at how loyal he remained to May, for example, even when it was causing real damage to his own ambitions - not that he actually had any ambitions himself, of course.) V & W have done him up like a kipper. And as for Dominic - he's just too nice and self-effacing for the role he's in. He needs to stand up for himself a bit more, and stop running away from controversy. Dominic's the most open and honest guy ever to have set foot in Downing Street, but he hates causing offence to anyone. He needs to be more assertive in expressing his opinions to Boris, and Boris needs to have more confidence in himself.

[Flem]

I'd credit Trump with making progress with North Korea, the Middle East and he's also standing up to China - the first Western leader to do that.

Not 'standing up' to Putin quite so much, though. And also, apparently, paying quite a lot in taxes to China through 'business ventures', while paying very little himself in USA income tax.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trum...re-nyt-2020-10

While doing business between 2013 and 2015 Trump paid $188,561 in taxes to China. He paid $750 in taxes to the US in 2016 and 2017.

[Fellbeast]

Then no one gets what they vote for.....

Riiiiiight. People didn’t get what they voted for anyway in the last election. The majority weren’t in favour of the conservatives (or even the conservatives plus the brexit party), but the conservatives never the less ended up with an 80 seat majority. The current government is completely unrepresentative of the voting population

[Witton Park]

Riiiiiight. People didn’t get what they voted for anyway in the last election. The majority weren’t in favour of the conservatives (or even the conservatives plus the brexit party), but the conservatives never the less ended up with an 80 seat majority. The current government is completely unrepresentative of the voting population

Stolly you are twisting what I said.

In 2010 we ended up with a coalition. That wasn't on the ballot paper. Now of course that was the only real option to have a functioning Government, but recall the horse trading.
It could also have been a Labour led coalition.
The direction was in the hands of a few politicians, not the electorate.

At least 43.6% of the UK got what they wanted in 2019 and in 1997 43.2% did. That to me is a better outcome than 0%.

By the way, the majority is not the majority who voted as I'm sure you and many have pointed out with regards to the Brexit referendum many a time.
Only 38% of those registered voted against the Tories in 2019.

[Fellbeast]

Stolly you are twisting what I said.

In 2010 we ended up with a coalition. That wasn't on the ballot paper. Now of course that was the only real option to have a functioning Government, but recall the horse trading.
It could also have been a Labour led coalition.
The direction was in the hands of a few politicians, not the electorate.

At least 43.6% of the UK got what they wanted in 2019 and in 1997 43.2% did. That to me is a better outcome than 0%.

By the way, the majority is not the majority who voted as I'm sure you and many have pointed out with regards to the Brexit referendum many a time.
Only 38% of those registered voted against the Tories in 2019.

Nothing to do with the virus I guess but interesting all the same. Coalitions are a good thing and just because our political system hasn't been used to them doesn't mean they're bad. Like i said it forces compromise and the setting of more realistic expectations. (Saying that the Lib dems blew the last coalition so badly, I'll admit it is not a great example). The key thing is that proportional representation gives each individual vote worth whereas a vote in the current system only has value in closely contended constituencies - I live in the Skipton & Ripon constituency where the conservatives could put up a glove puppet as a candidate and still win so a general election is virtually pointless from my point of view - that's true of lots of voters and 'can't be arsed to vote in the circumstances' non-voters

[Witton Park]

You got made a moderator, go back and delete the posts that aren't on topic.
You'd have my support for what it's worth.

[Fellbeast]

This offers a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Pfizer vaccine looking 90% effective https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54873105