The moronic state of British Politics

As some may be aware, there have recently been votes in England (and the errata) for local councils and the AV voting system, amongst others.

In both cases, people appear to have used these votes to "send a message to Whitehall" of their displeasure rather than what they're voting for...

I'm not concerned about votes not going my way, but it does piss me off that the one chance to review the English voting system in probably decades and councillors who will run local services was greatly determined that people didn't like Nick Clegg.

It has come to the point that I feel that when votes are conducted there should be boxes for rating parties from 1 to 10 and the leaders of the parties from 1 to 10 to let people blow off their vent up anger and vote the way they want.

Does the house agree, or do I need to reserve a booking at Speakers Corner?

~:smoking:

I'm not sure Nick Clegg was that big a factor. I can't speak for the great British public, but myself, I rather like the guy but voted against AV. The idea of second preference votes having the same weight as first preferences seemed daft. It might have been a closer run thing if it was genuine proportionally representative system on offer, but almost no one thinks AV is their first choice for a voting system.

And personally, I am not convinced about government by coalition becoming the norm. I prefer a system, like first past the post, that usually allows the larger party to form the government. I rather like the alternating of parties in government - it seems rather healthy as they do seem to run out of ideas or at least, the public tend to get disillusioned with them at some stage.

Maybe coalition could work - I rather admired the way they set up the Lib/Con coalition. But I can see it not working in many cases - a putative Lib/Lab coalition negotiated at the last election looked like a potential disaster (Brown and Clegg really not communicating well). And with the current coalition appearing to be electoral poison to the Liberals, I am not sure this is a sustainable model for the UK.

A broader point is that I am pretty conservative about constitutional issues - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Personally, I think referendums should only pass if a majority of the population (not voters) vote for it.

I don't think the referendum vote was moronic. I think the outcome was pretty smart. (But you may have a point about the quality of the campaigning.)

I also don't think the AV defeat was mainly an anti-Clegg vote, although his actions over the last year certainly didn't help. The Scottish and English council elections were a different story: there's little doubt there was a clear anti-Clegg message in how people voted.

Simulations suggest that AV doesn't result in a lot more coalitions: the big majorities of Blair and Thatcher, for instance, would probably have been enhanced under AV. And in many ways, this really put people off the system. The big problems with our current voting system, I believe, are the number of effectively wasted votes on a local level and the disproportionality of representation on the national level. AV does little or nothing to address either.

Indeed, arguably it would be a roadblock to a more representative system, as it gives the appearance of fairer voting without actually really delivering it. If the Scottish and Welsh elections are any guide, smaller parties such as the Green will get extra votes, maybe going from 1% to 3-5%, but that would still be well short of the ~40% support needed to win under AV. So they'd still get nothing (outside Brighton and perhaps Norwich South).

There are many arguments against AV, and econ raises one of the bigger ones for me: I don't think that 4th or 5th choices should potentially count as much as 1st choices.

About the only solid argument in favour of AV that I heard was that it allows voters, under most circumstances, to vote for their first preference, as they would believe that their vote would eventually count for someone in the running if their first choices were eliminated.

Basically, no one wanted AV, it is a miserable (even mendacious) voting system that is frankly suffers from all the main problems as (the rather poorly named) First Past The Post. Indeed, even it's one obvious pro point, that it ensures MPs need 50% support is misleading, because it relies on every voter ranking every candidate.

It seems highly unlikely to me that they will: I wouldn't rank the BNP, for instance. Tories will probably only rank 1 or 2 parties. So, if neither of their choices are elected, their votes are eliminated. So, in practice the winning margin will be lower than 50% after the first round (I read predictions of 40% or so in constituencies where it goes beyond the second round, but it's difficult to know as AV is somewhat unpredictable). All AV ensures is that if it comes down to just two candidates, the winner will have been ranked higher in the still active votes than the 2nd placed candidate. That sounds good, but virtually no constituency will be decided this way.

Only about 15% of current MPs were elected by FPTP with less than 40%. Indeed 218 had over 50%, and a further 80 had between 47.5% and 50%. It's highly unlikely AV which made any difference to these safe seats, unless it's one of those rarities where two candidates poll over 40% (a candidate with over 47.5% is likely to be elected in subsequent rounds simply by virtue of the number of active votes decreases at every round and so once 5% of the original votes are eliminated, the winning margin is now 95% and so they are elected even if no one else expressed a preference for the candidate).

The mean first choice support for candidates at the last election was 47.0%. AV gives the appearance of addressing an issue that isn't really that major with FPTP and indeed could have negative side effects if parties perceive they need candidates who appeal to a broader section of their constituency, we could end up with ever more bland and vacuous MPs than we have at the moment. :no:

I was going to vote No. In the end though, seeing that AV was likely to be defeated, I voted Yes hoping a narrower defeat would help any future PR campaign. First time I've ever voted for something hoping it was narrowly beaten... :laugh4:

And yes, if this had been referendum on a system people actually could get behind, it would have been an awful lot closer. In fact, I believe a decent PR system (eg STV) probably would have passed.

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Originally Posted by rory_20_uk

Does the house agree, or do I need to reserve a booking at Speakers Corner?

~:smoking:

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Nope.

AV was utterly demolished, and while that may in part be attributable to the anti-clegg mentality it does not change the fact that it was a poor referendum put to a disinterested public.

The difference between AV and FPTP is too small for the "yes" campaign to make a convincing argument against a known tendency for conservatism in referenda.

Likewise, electoral reform over systems of voting simply was not a priority, or even an interest, for much of the electorate.

But the thing that made the result a disaster rather than a close run thing was the presumption of virtue.

We were regaled with tales of dogs and cats, along with wonderful explanations of why it is not a good idea to let representative government to fall to the former. Its all very entertaining but it is a fantastic example of exactly why the “yes” vote is destined to lose; because it panders to the idea of a progressive-majority and ignores the fact that their are multiple ‘dog’ candidates too.

This prevented the “yes” campaign from communicating with, and persuading, those people for whom the principle of proportionality or ‘vote-power’ simply is not a significant priority.*

The same can be said about the argument in favour of grown-up and consensual politics; does the “yes” vote actually understand that their are people who like the benefits that an adversarial electoral system brings? * *

It is difficult to bring people round to your way of thinking when you are not interested in debating the merits of alternative views because it is apparently mere propaganda mouthed by useful idiots on behalf of scoundrels.

If we can accept that the Conservatism is an attitude whose ambition is not to oppose all change but to resist and balance the volatility of current political fads and ideology, then we must likewise accept that there are people of a progressive bent too, and that it is beneficial for society to have a balance of the two.

I am wholly in agreement with the old saw that conservatives fight to protect the systems they fought to reject a generation earlier………….. but:

How did the “yes” campaign try to appeal to the small “c” conservatives in Britain?

The answer is they did not, the presumption of virtue, a failing for which their cause paid a heavy price.

If they “yes” campaign was truly serious about persuading the country at large about the merits of electoral reform why then was UKIP marginalised from the their campaign?

The electorate is allegedly composed of adults of legally sound mind, so any argument that the referendum was lost because the “no” campaign didn’t play fair is really a confession that people cannot be trusted with representative democracy. Why not be honest about the implications of that confession? Stop pussy-footing around with electoral tinkering and just advocate the benign governance of technocrats, like the EU or perhaps the PRC……..

I do not think that AV is significantly worse than FPTP, but the “yes” campaign has failed to demonstrate to the real majority that AV will be any kind of an improvement, or that the affair was worth their time and effort.





* The ranking of preferences was deemed a de-facto good-thing, without appreciating that its unpredictability often serves to hinder Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition from holding the Gov’t of the Day to account, as well as trivialising that which should remain fundamental; who you authorise to act in your name. Therefore the assumption that disenfranchised voters must be succoured at all costs does not necessarily hold true for many.

* * The politics of consensus was deemed a de-facto good-thing, without appreciating that the coalition politics that breeds such consensus likewise undermines the manifesto mandate which provides both a platform for radical policy making and a tally-sheet against which failure can be punished. Therefore the assumption that european style politics is a natural direction does not necessarily hold true for many.

AV would make voting much more fun. I'd wish we'd had it here. But fun isn't a very good reason to pick a new voting system, now is it ;)

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

* The ranking of preferences was deemed a de-facto good-thing, without appreciating that its unpredictability often serves to hinder Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition from holding the Gov’t of the Day to account, as well as trivialising that which should remain fundamental; who you authorise to act in your name. Therefore the assumption that disenfranchised voters must be succoured at all costs does not necessarily hold true for many.

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Unpredictable wha???? why would you see it as unpredictable, unless what you really mean is unpredictable for headcounting in supposed safe seats etc etc.

On the idea the opposition can hold any government to account, basically that never happens at all, we just tend to think it does cos of all the times governments fell.

Be careful about dismissing voters your FPTP style ends up putting huge numbers of people who did not vote for there MP out of the loop, continue on that path and see where it leads you may not like it much. The days or natural government parties are pretty much over if our electoral styles dont reflect this we risk a lot for what takes very little effort to fix in the grand scheme of things.

It should have been STV and it should have gone through.

That's precisely what I don't understand about FPTP: the fact that it inherently, effectively discards legitimate votes at a rate that would make some less democratic countries blush.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Unpredictable wha???? why would you see it as unpredictable, unless what you really mean is unpredictable for headcounting in supposed safe seats etc etc.
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av was somewhat unpredictable in its outcomes, achieving some extra proportionality for the lib-dems provided they remained a centrist party, but very unproportional results to the loser in landslide conditions.

it's why jenkins discarded it.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

That's precisely what I don't understand about FPTP: the fact that it inherently, effectively discards legitimate votes at a rate that would make some less democratic countries blush.

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we get to decide what constitutes representative and democratic government, and we chose to keep our adversarial system.

it's the way we roll.

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Originally Posted by Beskar

It should have been STV and it should have gone through.

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if it had been STV there would have been a greater chance of it winning, as it would have been a clearer case to make for change.

but i would have been even more opposed, i like the constituency link, i like majoritarian government, and i like the manifesto mandate to legitimise radical policy.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Be careful about dismissing voters your FPTP style ends up putting huge numbers of people who did not vote for there MP out of the loop, continue on that path and see where it leads you may not like it much. The days or natural government parties are pretty much over if our electoral styles dont reflect this we risk a lot for what takes very little effort to fix in the grand scheme of things.

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i'm afraid i subscribe to a sink or swim mentality towards civil society, and believe that by creating endless mechanisms to protect against bad outcomes you do nothing but infantilise the political process.

the dangers you note are real, but i'll watch britain go over the cliff rather than lower my expectations any.

The trouble is of course that FPTP doesn't automatically provide a constituency link, a majority government or the implementation of manifesto promises anyway.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

i'm afraid i subscribe to a sink or swim mentality towards civil society, and believe that by creating endless mechanisms to protect against bad outcomes you do nothing but infantilise the political process.

the dangers you note are real, but i'll watch britain go over the cliff rather than lower my expectations any.

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Then thankfully most people in Britain are not like that or 13yr olds would be still working down the pits or whatever else was fine till it wasnt.

There is no way you believe that fall of the cliff lark.

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Originally Posted by Slyspy

The trouble is of course that FPTP doesn't automatically provide a constituency link, a majority government or the implementation of manifesto promises anyway.

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it does a better job of providing that than the alternative.

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Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Then thankfully most people in Britain are not like that or 13yr olds would be still working down the pits or whatever else was fine till it wasnt.

There is no way you believe that fall of the cliff lark.

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apparently most are, for despite repeated warning of unfairness and potential disengagement they still voted for the simple majoritarian system we use now.

no indeed, while the dangers you note are real i think we will continue to cope just fine with FPTP, which is why i am not at all concerned about losing the 'benefits' of AV.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

apparently most are, for despite repeated warning of unfairness and potential disengagement they still voted for the simple majoritarian system we use now.

no indeed, while the dangers you note are real i think we will continue to cope just fine with FPTP, which is why i am not at all concerned about losing the 'benefits' of AV.

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My last quote wasnt about FPTP twas about your supposed belief that a philosophy summed up as "No change is best" when clearly change has been at the forefront of the UK political scene.

oh dear god no, i have nothing against change, and in fact i am all in favour of giving government power and mandate to make radical change.

frankly, ideologically i am neither progressive nor conservative, and the closest parallel i can find is baron hailsham:

"not to oppose all change but to resist and balance the volatility of current political fads and ideology, and to defend a middle position that enshrines a slowly-changing organic humane traditionalism."

but that has nothing to do with AV, which is an inferior electoral system to FPTP for all that the difference is small contrasted against PR systems.

Conservatives and Lib-Dems are at their most self-destructive when they forget that conservatism and progressivism are supposed to be attitudes to guide and shape ideology, not ideology in an of themselves.

Clegg has really screwed the pooch on this. Really, really badly. He's been totally outmanoeuvred by the Tories and blown the single big chance that the Libs have had to return to being a mainstream party in 100 years.

As with all British politics the issue was fudged, and the fudge was fudged, and the reporting of that has been fudged further. We were offered a crap version of the same crap system which people were rightly uninterested in (not disinterested....). And now the Tories are saying that this is a vote for no change ever. All the while:

UK's richest get richer in Tories' first year

Of course we are all in it together. No change, more cuts, etc...

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

we get to decide what constitutes representative and democratic government, and we chose to keep our adversarial system.

it's the way we roll.

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'Course you do. But it is still surprising how many votes FPTP is willing to simply discard.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

Clegg has really screwed the pooch on this. Really, really badly. He's been totally outmanoeuvred by the Tories and blown the single big chance that the Libs have had to return to being a mainstream party in 100 years.
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no he hasn't.

he had no choice but to get a referendum on voting if he was to persuade his party to enter a coalition with the 'nasty' tories.

he knew he would never be offered a choice that he could win.

he made the best of it and accepted a p00p choice as well as the promise of PR in the lords.

the p00p choice failed, as he expected, but now he can offer proportional representation.

it is labour that has real problems.

You presume that the Lib-Dems are willing to continue being the eternal bridesmaid of progressive-left politics in Britain.

Labour have failed to get a majority in Wales, they have failed to demonstrate recovery in England, and their power-base in Scotland now lies broken.

Crazy as it sounds right now surrounded by the ashes of defeat this actually represents a massive opportunity for the Lib-Dems.

They can and will recover their electoral base over the next four years provided the coalition survives and repairs the economy, during which Labour will continue to be a wreck.

Come the 2015 election they can begin to present themselves as the natural home of responsible progressive-left politics.

The defeat of AV made me put on my -sad face- for the entire day.

FPTP is really ridiculous. It's not as conductive to democracy as other forms of voting period. AV wasn't the best alternative, but it was better. The mathematics behind alternative forms of voting are not partisan lies. And now that Britain hangs onto FPTP, it seems even more unlikely such a movement will arise in the US.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

no he hasn't.

he had no choice but to get a referendum on voting if he was to persuade his party to enter a coalition with the 'nasty' tories.

he knew he would never be offered a choice that he could win.

he made the best of it and accepted a p00p choice as well as the promise of PR in the lords.

the p00p choice failed, as he expected, but now he can offer proportional representation.

it is labour that has real problems.

You presume that the Lib-Dems are willing to continue being the eternal bridesmaid of progressive-left politics in Britain.

Labour have failed to get a majority in Wales, they have failed to demonstrate recovery in England, and their power-base in Scotland now lies broken.

Crazy as it sounds right now surrounded by the ashes of defeat this actually represents a massive opportunity for the Lib-Dems.

They can and will recover their electoral base over the next four years provided the coalition survives and repairs the economy, during which Labour will continue to be a wreck.

Come the 2015 election they can begin to present themselves as the natural home of responsible progressive-left politics.

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You seem to be putting a brighter spin on it than even the most optimistic Lib Dem spokespeople would dare to try.

The lib-dems have depended on the anti-establishment vote for at least a generation, the enthusiastic kiddies who are certain there is injustice to be righted, but i have always understood that clegg and his merry band of orange bookers intended to use the coalition to turn the Lib-Dem's into a party of government.

An establishment party in short, so they knew a year ago they would lose the rebels-without-a-cause.

And just how unreliable those anti-establishment votes are was amply demonstrated by the AV referendum; they need to be fired up by the righteousness of their cause if they are to keep the momentum necessary to actually make sure they stand in front of a ballot box at the appointed hour.

I figured out some time ago that the best way to bring this AV foolishness to a halt was to challenge the 'enthusiasts' on their own ground, via twitter, reddit, the independent, and all i had to do was present reasoned and principled argument that would allow doubt to creep in.

Did i convince them?
Did all the many other people convince them?

No, but i did not need to create cohorts of zealous FPTP advocates to achieve my end, all that was necessary was to undermine their absolute certainty in the worth of their cause and the likelihood of their actually turning out to vote would drop by 80%.

These are worthless individuals for a party to depend on for its core vote, and Clegg knows it to.

Labour has a leader in-hock to the unions, and a chancellor in-hock to deficit denial, in all likelyhood they will still be a shambles come 2015 when the coalition announces the end of austerity britain and tax cuts for all. At which point the Lib-Dem's may well look like the better choice for those among the electorate of a progressive-left bent.


p.s. i dont claim to have had any significant impact on the referendum, but the goal was clear so i played my part, and lo did I see the result i desired.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

it does a better job of providing that than the alternative.

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Actually, you are incorrect.

There would have been higher chance of a majority government under a AV / STV at least within the first decade.

There would be a significant increase of first party votes, for parties such as: Libdems, Greens and UKIP, however, if they failed to achieve the desired targets, those votes would simply turn into votes for Labour and Conservatives. As the system hasn't "sunk in", this would give far larger majorities to both Labour and Conservatives who would be winners of the "second tide" voting circle in a game of the "lesser evil".

It would have given far more representation to the people, in the sense of "I like Strawberry best, Furunculus likes Orange best, we are both fine with Apple flavour" and if Apple won, even though it wasn't our first choice, we have at least come to a 'compromise' on the issue which in actual fact would further enforce your stated desire of being in the "middle".

lets not mix AV with STV, which was not on offer.

the study i read was quite categoric that AV would increase the chance of coalitions, for all that coalitions were becoming more likely due to a more plural voting pattern.
in doing so it would damage the utility of the manifesto mandate.
and it would lead to less radical policy due to the need to tailor policies to the expectations of potential coalition partners, and yes, this was the australian experience.

The yes camp lost because they were even more uninspired than the no camp. As for the elections as a whole, the real winners were the Conservatives. Nationally they polled a tiny % behind Labour, very good for a government which has been in power for a year and which has made some tough decisions. Labour have now essentially handed the SNP their referendum on a plate and the country faces much bigger problems than how we elect our MP's if the referendum bill becomes a reality.

A couple of people over at the Guardian are trying to spin the SNP surge as a result of the Lib Dem collapse. Complete rubbish. The voters were clearlly so inspired by the "alternative" to this government in Scotland that the leader of Scottish Labour only retained his seats by a few hundred votes.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

it is labour that has real problems.

You presume that the Lib-Dems are willing to continue being the eternal bridesmaid of progressive-left politics in Britain.

Labour have failed to get a majority in Wales, they have failed to demonstrate recovery in England, and their power-base in Scotland now lies broken.

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Actually, I think the situation is quite well balanced, a lot can and will happen between now and 2015.

Labour have challenges, but are likely to have solidified their wavering base in Scotland and Northern England due to the Lib Dems decision to work with the Tories. That means they are probably freer to move to the centre and make in roads into middle England, where the next general election is almost certainly going to be won or lost.

Labour actually did ok in Scotland (*), their vote share remained stable, despite a lacklustre campaign and a poor leader. The reason for the FPTP defeats was the collapse of the Lib Dem vote, which switched to SNP, a fellow left of centre party with the best First Minister candidate by a country mile. It's highly unlikely that this will happen in a general election for a number of reasons: a) Alex Salmond is head and shoulders about the other party leaders in the Scottish Parliament and so many of the votes were for him personally as First Minister (this won't be the case for Westminster), b) the Lib Dem vote will probably recover a little in the meantime (although they are likely to be punished in Scotland for some time unless they jettison Clegg soon), c) Scots are adept at tactical voting: as in 1997, I suspect they will rally to an anti-Tory banner and vote for whomever can defeat them. This will likely mean Labour doing very well indeed. Can't speak to Wales, but they seemed to do ok there as well, gaining vote share and seats.

The Tories doing not too badly in the recent elections was frankly to be expected: most of their core vote and swing voters in middle England are happy enough with what Cameron has been doing and this has been reflected in polls since the election. Labour is still unpopular in the South, and Ed Milliband hasn't made any great in roads there. And the Lib Dem collapse disguised the loss of seats, as the Tories gained as well as Labour.

But Cameron has potential problems down the road: he's never been that popular with his idealistic right wing, and they may well start causing problems later on, particularly if Labour's numbers stay reasonably high vs their own and the Lib Dems push for more compromises to keep them in the coalition. But most importantly, the main cuts haven't bitten yet. A lot of the media seem to be forgetting that although people know in theory what's in store for the country, the average person hasn't yet experienced any of it. For instance, slashing the of police budgets will hit the Tory vote in middle England, and cries of it's all Labour's fault have already begun to fall on deaf ears.

The Lib Dems clearly have the most thinking to do. If they think they will regain support in Scotland and Northern England when people discover they've actually been doing a great job after all, I think they are kidding themselves. So I think they can either go full bloodied against the Tories for the liberal centre-right vote, or replace Clegg and withdraw from the coalition within a couple of years, then try to reinstate their old strategy of being Tory-lite in the south and the progressive alternative to Labour in the North. Otherwise, with Clegg at helm, they are likely to lose a lot of seats (including his).

I must say, though, it seems awfully strange to believe that a 10% swing to Labour is a bad result for them, especially given how unpopular they were just a year ago.

(*) Labour's Scottish constituency vote was only down 0.5% nation wide. LD down 8.25%, Cons down 2.7%. Oh, as for the Labour leader, here's the figures for East Lothian: 2007 Lab 35.4%, SNP 28.4%, LD 18.1%. Con 18.1%. 2011: Lab 39.0%, SNP 38.5%, Con 16.6%, LD 5.9%. That's absolutely clear: it was not a collapse of the Labour vote per se: the problem for Labour was that the disaffected Lib Dems switched to the SNP instead of them. As I explain above, that's highly unlikely to happen in the General Election.

oh certainly, labour is not doomed.

all i would argue is that if labour continues to play a poor hand (go left my friend), and the lib-dems continue to play a good hand (survive the coalition), then the latter do have a good shot at permanently breaking the formers monopoly on left-of-centre political power. it wouldn't happen all in 2015, but it would start there. it is also not that unlikely provided labour are still in deficit-denial mode at a time when the economy is demonstrably a healthy and growing entity.

as to the 10% swing.............. it's not enough, they needed to get 1000+ english seats for ed's leadership to be taken seriously, they got just 800.

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Originally Posted by Furunculus

lets not mix AV with STV, which was not on offer.

the study i read was quite categoric that AV would increase the chance of coalitions, for all that coalitions were becoming more likely due to a more plural voting pattern.
in doing so it would damage the utility of the manifesto mandate.
and it would lead to less radical policy due to the need to tailor policies to the expectations of potential coalition partners, and yes, this was the australian experience.

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The manifesto mandate is an abortion of an idea. Every party makes impossible promises to the voters and as things never work out over the 5 years as planned things have to change. And manifestos are mainly advertising ploys - so need simple ideas for the people to grasp: "save the NHS!" "New Labour, New Danger!"

It's getting older, but the invasion of Iraq was not on any party's manifesto - nor was any stipulation about the party's level of Jingoism. Labour wanted to do it, and the Tories didn't want to be the party not in on it should things go well. Most people were against it - but so what?

Radical swings of ideals means that we get a decade of stripping out levels of bureaucracy, giving power locally followed by a decade of centralising and targets (inaccurate broad brush statements I know). Structures take time to be sorted out, and often before they've even started to get into swing they're being radically altered by the other lot. A more nuanced approach with slow, subtle changes would work a hell of a lot better.

Manifestos would have to become more... grown up. Core beliefs that can not be altered and those which can. If parties could avoid suicidal statements that would be good too. Allow the voters to see the likely outcome of groupings in Parliament as opposed to two diametrically opposed forces.

~:smoking:

your opinion not mine.

i am willing to risk a great deal that the ideas which i oppose won't be so damaging as to completely counteract the good in the ideas which i support.

i loathed the labour years and pretty much everything they did, but i believe the damage a worthwhile compromise to achieve a system of governence that is more flexible and more able to adapt.

not everyone shares my particular brand of political nihilism and that is completely understandable, but i expect the mother of all parliaments to keep on outperforming the the vast majority of others, and I will laugh if we are so diminished as to use this power to direct the country into permanent decline. we will have got what we deserve.