The moronic state of British Politics

[Furunculus]

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.

[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.

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...

[Furunculus]

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.
.

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.

[a completely inoffensive name]

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.

[Idaho]

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.

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

[Furunculus]

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.