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Hung parliament - good or bad?

Started by chris@seary.com, April 26, 2010, 11:09:47 PM

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chris@seary.com


ABERS

Hanging is too good for the lot of them!

anglefire

Frankly, I don't know.

On some fronts it could be argued to be good, in so far as extremes won't go through. On the other hand there is a risk nothing will go through.

But I suspect 1 of three things will happen.

1. The Tories get in, and there is a slash and burn and unemployment goes through the roof and we go back into recession. Eventually get of out the hole, with probably as much debt as we have now and likely to have in the next 12 or 24 months. What industry that is left is really killed off.
2. Labour get in, and we get more into debt and the economy stutters on, eventually comes out of it and we pay the "Loan" back over the next 50years or so. The people want more cheap consumer goods, which are made by the Chinese and our industry goes down the pan anyway.
3. Some thing happens and the people realise that China is an oppressive regime and stop buying stuff from them or increase import tax to a level that makes our stuff competive. Industry in this country and the west in general gets back on its feet and start being self sufficient. Cost of stuff goes up, because the west has higher labour costs. People can't afford to buy stuff.

What I don't see happening is the liberals getting in, or there being a hung parliament.

What I find interesting is that my father during the Thatcher years berated the Tories and their policies. Some 15/20years later he is now berating the Labour policies and how much better off we'd be under the tories. Reminding him of Thatcher does tend to shut him up.

I will also say that I genuinely don't know who I will vote for. I don't think I trust any of them to do anything for the masses, but for their own ego's or cronies.
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I'm not sure any one party offers the full solution - so maybe a hung parliament might not be such a bad idea. As long as the BNP are not involved - that sort of bigotry we can do with out.

My problem is having trust in any of the MP's to be doing the job for the right reasons - representing their country for the right reasons.
I still think their are many MP's who will be doing it to cream the system. Seems to be the way of the UK at the moment.

I think this country is in a very big mess at the moment, and needs to take time to find its identity again. Also, it needs to get rid of some of the PC brigade...
I'm English, and i'm British - and i used to be proud of it - but i'm given to understand that such a statement may offend some of those who were not born here!

Colin

One of the reasons that i left the Uk was the way the PC brigade had taken over.

Something not one of the politicians has mentioned is an easy way to make an enormous saving is to do away with the local assemblies, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland one. All those are are expensive job creation schemes for the politicians and their hangers on. What did the members of these assemblies do 20 years ago before they existed? Where was everything that they do now done before? Close them down, sell off the buildings (if you can), pay them 'means tested' dole for 12 months and move all the "work" that they do back to the  United Kingdom departments that used to do it. That will help us out of the recession far faster than anything that has currently been suggested.

A hung parliament is a bad thing because it won't last 5 years and they will spend millions  on another General Election before the 5 year term is up which costs us all more.

Good luck to you all back in "Blighty"

ABERS

#5
At the moment it looks as the most likely outcome on May 7th is that we end up with a hung parliament, which I think is the worst scenario of all. Instead of running the country and taking the hard decisions that are needed, those at the helm will spend most of the time horse trading.
There is no doubt that our electoral system is antiquated and doesn't truly reflect the 'will of the people' but then again any government, returned to power, whatever its colour, needs the ability to be able to govern without running to another party to get it's programme through. It will have already had to satisfy its paymasters and vested interests without appeasing its opponents as well. Mind you I suppose one can look at the National Government set up during the war, that seemed to serve us pretty well then.

The current bunch are blamed for the colossal debt we have, but its a situation not of their making, the banking crisis emanating from the U.S. forced their hand to take action, and one, I suppose, has to be grateful that they did. I can't envisage what would have happened if we'd had a hung parliament when that all blew up, or the wallpaper kid was in charge.

I can't recall any of the other two parties saying what they would have done in the circumstances, only what they see as a solution to the current one. I'm always attracted to the doer not the sayer, and the sound bite 'you don't ask a boy to do a man's job' has some resonance with me.

It's strange to hear comments from people about their own circumstances, that's only natural, but I always see that as a reflection of those dark days of divisiveness 'The Thatcher Years' where the devil take the hindmost was the mantra of the day.

Whatever the outcome you can bet your boots you or I won't like it some 12-18 months down the road! >:(

hevans

#6
We've now had 25+ years of single party rule (first tories, then labour), "how's that working out for ya?" Any really "tough" decisions made that were made for the right reason, or lots of poor decisions forced through a spineless parliament?  ???

A Hung parliament (sadly without the use of ropes) is not such a bad thing. It keeps the controlling interests of a single party in line and forces middle of the road compromise. 10 of the 16 best performing economies are "hung", or coalition governments. Such a state requires that the politicians work for their money and don't force offensive legislation through (such as this digital rights act, the terrorism act, the Iraqi adventure, etc.).

Politicians don't make Hard decisions, leaders make them and it's been many a year since I've seen a hard decision being made by any of the past governments.

A different kind of politician from what we currently have is required for a coalition government, one that knows how to compromise and focus on what's important, and one that will represent the electorate. And the best part, the lack of "stability" in their position means the bastards won't be in for 12+ years with an electoral margin that makes them generally ignore the wishes of the electorate. I'd be happy to have a system where there's a new vote for them every year, keeps them on their toes and aware they're not invincible and unaccountable. The coalition government ensures there is a lack of stability in the MP's gravy train, but this averages out over the lot of them (the 600+ idiots) to provide considerable stability in the enacted policies.

H.

chris@seary.com

#7
Good post, Hugh. Indeed, many countries do govern very successfully with coalitions.

Interesting that you mentioned ignoring the wishes of the electorate - good point. It doesn't say much for our politicians if they can only govern if they're able to completely ignore for the next 5 years everyone who didn't vote for them  (by having an overall majority).

Some of my thoughts on our first past the post system:

If you have one of the parties being ineffective and unelectable (Labour 1980 to 1997, Conservatives 1997 to ?), then the party in power can stick two fingers up to anyone who doesn't vote for them, and the party that the opposition are supposed to represent have no representation for many years. And once those parts of society have been alienated, then that alienation stays for a long time. For instance, will Labour ever bother to compete for the rural vote? Would David Cameron even bother visiting some of the regions that were so depressed during the 1980s?

And when the parties are at level pegging, the representation doesn't seem better. Now that the tribal socialist/capitalist thing from the 1980s is gone, parties have become more precise with their analysis of voters and they hone in on a particular demographic at the peak of the bell curve, which is the 'Basildon Man', 'Wiltshire Woman' etc that the press like to put in their headlines, and the election machine goes into overdrive to attract this person. So the whole election campaign becomes focused on some crappy little floating voters who want:
-better schools and public services
-but at the same time, lower taxes
-cheaper petrol so they can afford to drive back and forth from Sainsbury's in their 4x4
-some retarded gumph on immigration

You can see why young people become disinclined to vote.

Abers made some good points about the economy. Before Nick Clegg started to become prominent, Cameron and Brown spoke only about the economy. How pointless! Every country in the world has spent huge amounts of cash to prop up the banks and pump money into their economies. Now, they have to cut public services and raise taxes to pull back the money. End of story! Why bother whiffling on about whether VAT or NI is going to be raised? Now Clegg has pushed the boundaries a little, other policies are now being discussed, and the two parties are trying to reach out to more people.

The major achievement of Clegg, for me, is that he's encouraged large numbers of people to register to vote. Excellent stuff.

Personally, I think that the worst possible outcome would be a small overall majority for the Conservatives. This is what happened to John Major. A small number of extremely unrepresentative right wingers held an enormous sway over the country which caused a lot of resentment towards the Conservative party. In the end, after the party whip was withdrawn from the eurosceptics and a couple of MPs died, we ended up with a hung parliament anyway.

Trickee

I am finding that not one party are giving us a clear statement on what they will do and what the true cost is to the man on the street. if we have to endure some pain then so be it if it means the recession can turn a big corner i have had a property on the market for 3 years and no sign of a sale and what a waste of time the HIPS is.
Gordon brown struggles as a firm decisive leader so maybe a hung parliament might not be a bad thing, a combination of policies could be the right medicine the country needs ;)

Jonathan

It's Guest's round

Malcolm1938

Why is it that the politicians see a hung parliment as a problem - They seem to think the only answer to a hung parliment is a short term coalition followed by a new election asap. When a hung parliment is elected what is really needed is a government of National Unity (Like during the war) where all the best brains from all the elected MP's work together to solve the countries current problems. With the mess we are in following the recent recession wouldn't this work.

I know the answer is probably NO because we do not have enough politicians willing to put Country above either Party or Self.

It's so easy to see why so many people have so little faith in them....

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Don't know a whole lot about British politics, but I get inundated with both American and Canadian politics on a regular basis. Based on what I read here, seems to me that Politicians in all 3 countries, are of the same stripe. Self centered, egotistical snobs who are not into politics for the people but rather for themselves and what perks come with the job. They are so caught up in party policies that they can't step outside their little narrow definitions of themselves enough to cooperate and govern for the best. Then again, I'm not really sure that any of them know how to govern for the best. Good Luck, I suspect the same will be happening here soon.  :(
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hevans

Quote from: CannOffice on April 27, 2010, 08:12:24 PM
Why is it that the politicians see a hung parliment as a problem

Well, I would say that anything they don't like, is something that must be good for democracy.

H.

Oldboy

Quote from: chris@seary.com on April 27, 2010, 05:32:29 PM

Interesting that you mentioned ignoring the wishes of the electorate - good point. It doesn't say much for our politicians if they can only govern if they're able to completely ignore for the next 5 years everyone who didn't vote for them  (by having an overall majority).


They, (the MPs) had a free vote on the abolition of hanging and voted according to their conscience.The majority of the people wanted it to be retained so, rather than reflected the views of the people who voted them into parliament, they decided we didn't understand the situation and voted accordingly. Nothing new there then!  >:( >:(

hevans

#14
Quote from: Oldboy on April 27, 2010, 11:22:08 PM

They, (the MPs) had a free vote on the abolition of hanging and voted according to their conscience.The majority of the people wanted it to be retained so, rather than reflected the views of the people who voted them into parliament, they decided we didn't understand the situation and voted accordingly. Nothing new there then!  >:( >:(

One problem with politics and democracy is the contradiction that a country needs Leaders that have a vision of a better future but at a cost that the electorate might not initially condone - they would be unelectable. Look at the US with the health care bill, currently there is general disapproval (probably driven by fear of change) for the system, but in 10-15 years it will become a no-go area for political budgetary hacking and slashing as the people will have gotten used to it. A true leader will sell the idea to the public at the cost of their popularity in the opinion polls. This does, of course, mean that they appear to be going against the wishes of the people, but at a deeper level, they are going against the current wishes of the people but with their future wishes to build a better society (of course it's difficult to predict the future and bad decisions are made).

Some issues are more complex and difficult to explain, so complex that they wouldn't fit into the space of a Daily Mail headline. Which is somewhat analogous to the lossy compression you get with JPEGs when you compress a 1024x768 image down to 5kb, you lose a lot of important detail.

Sadly, neither, blear, brown nor cameron have/had a vision. Their regimes are of the self serving kind, keep the status quo of their financial backers going (digital bill, terror act, war in iraq, etc.). No vision for a better future for the society, they just want to govern for the benefits of their paymasters, not lead.

In the case of capital punishment, if you asked the majority now whether to bring it back, you'd probably find it wouldn't be supported. It's also demonstrated to not work, or serious crime in the US would be the lowest in the world.

I'd like to see term limits imposed on MPs. They can be in office for 1 term, and then they have to find another job, but be prohibited from employment by any entity that provided them financial backing in the preceeding 10 years.

H.

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