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Post by finsobruce on Feb 19, 2020 17:57:02 GMT
I tend to agree with Mrs Patrick Campbell in not caring very much, "so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!" Any relation to Ronnie Campbell- he also had a thing for horses. Both , in their own unique ways, performers but sadly I think eight letters is all they have in common.
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Feb 19, 2020 18:09:16 GMT
Well, I occasionally use Luncheon Vouchers sometimes and Liverpool Victoria have always been helpful, so on balance I'm in favour... But do you watch Somali National Television? I'm not a big fan myself. SNTV is a good sport provider, though. (There is a Somali cafe near my house which shows what I assume to be Somali TV. It's like watching an Italian talk show but with more excitable hand gestures).
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Feb 19, 2020 19:56:22 GMT
But do you watch Somali National Television? I'm not a big fan myself. SNTV is a good sport provider, though. (There is a Somali cafe near my house which shows what I assume to be Somali TV. It's like watching an Italian talk show but with more excitable hand gestures). Italian TV looks like a parody of what people imagine Italian telly should be. If you've ever seen C'e posta per te, you'll know what I mean. It's like the Mirror describing Liberace.
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Post by greenchristian on Feb 19, 2020 20:27:38 GMT
Position on changing the Lord's, in 2012? We've been wanting an elected upper house for decades. Yes but you were stepping up the urgency. In 2012 it did feel like a party that had lost its battle for a permanent balance of power in the lower house was now straining all its might to get it in the upper house, no matter how rubbish the Clegg Proposals were. How so? They'd lost a referendum on switching from one non-proportional electoral system to a different non-proportional electoral system. If the referendum had gone differently it would not have guaranteed hung Parliaments, let alone ones where the Liberal Democrats consistently held the balance of power.
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Post by johnloony on Feb 20, 2020 0:06:32 GMT
What is the consensus view of the threadgoers on SNTV? No point in having SNTV unless you have STV. SNTV would mean having STV-sized constituencies and STV-style candidate lists.
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Post by timrollpickering on Feb 20, 2020 9:53:51 GMT
Yes but you were stepping up the urgency. In 2012 it did feel like a party that had lost its battle for a permanent balance of power in the lower house was now straining all its might to get it in the upper house, no matter how rubbish the Clegg Proposals were. How so? They'd lost a referendum on switching from one non-proportional electoral system to a different non-proportional electoral system. If the referendum had gone differently it would not have guaranteed hung Parliaments, let alone ones where the Liberal Democrats consistently held the balance of power. Leaving aside the widespread "AV will enhance Nick Clegg" view in 2011, for most Lib Dems AV was only ever a stepping stone. It was a compromise to get support from Labour to knock out FPTP and get the public used to numbering ballot papers with the real prize of STV or AV+ further down the line. (Remember that, contrary to myth, AV did not just emerge in the Coalition talks. It had emerged between Lib Dem and Labour reformers in Westminster and Whitehall circles sometime before 2004 and had become more prominent in the last year of the Brown government.)7 Then the public did the disservice of refusing to vote for even the mildest of reforms to the voting system - and, contrary to latter-day attempts at spin, there was no credible sign that this was because they really wanted STV or AMS or AV+ - so many realised that reform of the Commons voting system was unachievable for at least another generation. Hence the doubling-down of attempts to secure the balance of power in the Lords.
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mboy
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Post by mboy on Feb 20, 2020 10:28:40 GMT
How so? They'd lost a referendum on switching from one non-proportional electoral system to a different non-proportional electoral system. If the referendum had gone differently it would not have guaranteed hung Parliaments, let alone ones where the Liberal Democrats consistently held the balance of power. Leaving aside the widespread "AV will enhance Nick Clegg" view in 2011, for most Lib Dems AV was only ever a stepping stone. It was a compromise to get support from Labour to knock out FPTP and get the public used to numbering ballot papers with the real prize of STV or AV+ further down the line. (Remember that, contrary to myth, AV did not just emerge in the Coalition talks. It had emerged between Lib Dem and Labour reformers in Westminster and Whitehall circles sometime before 2004 and had become more prominent in the last year of the Brown government.)7 Then the public did the disservice of refusing to vote for even the mildest of reforms to the voting system - and, contrary to latter-day attempts at spin, there was no credible sign that this was because they really wanted STV or AMS or AV+ - so many realised that reform of the Commons voting system was unachievable for at least another generation. Hence the doubling-down of attempts to secure the balance of power in the Lords. There's a lot of revisionism in here. First, the plan for an elected Lords was in the Coalition agreement - p26: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78977/coalition_programme_for_government.pdfAttempting to implement the Coalition agreement isn't a "doubling down", it's just doing what was said would be done. Second, there were a number of Lib Dems - such as myself - who would have been fairly happy with an AV lower house, STV upper house, settlement - which is what the Australians have. I do not foresee there would have been a great drive to PR if all that had come off.
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Feb 20, 2020 12:19:04 GMT
I was one of those who is in favour of electoral reform but voted against AV because I think it's worse than FPTP and I oppose preference voting
I think the LibDems should have fought a much harder bargain. If something on the lines of the Scottish system had been offered Labour would have found that harder to oppose without appearing hypocritical and if Clegg had insisted on no official party position in the referendum that would have helped.
But I still think there are many in the LibDems who only want STV. Whereas a lot of Labour electoral reformers favour AMS type systems. They saw AV as a stepping stone to STV as it's a preference system
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Chris from Brum
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Post by Chris from Brum on Feb 20, 2020 12:25:58 GMT
I was one of those who is in favour of electoral reform but voted against AV because I think it's worse than FPTP and I oppose preference voting I think the LibDems should have fought a much harder bargain. If something on the lines of the Scottish system had been offered Labour would have found that harder to oppose without appearing hypocritical and if Clegg had insisted on no official party position in the referendum that would have helped. But I still think there are many in the LibDems who only want STV. Whereas a lot of Labour electoral reformers favour AMS type systems. They saw AV as a stepping stone to STV as it's a preference system I would strongly *prefer* STV. But it's not the only game in town, and AMS systems can be justified, though with better allocations of list members than in the Scottish system (slightly) and Welsh system (substantially). My beef there is the two classes of members, I'd prefer a single type, and STV delivers that. I don't like pure list systems, and SV is an abomination.
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Feb 20, 2020 12:28:41 GMT
I was one of those who is in favour of electoral reform but voted against AV because I think it's worse than FPTP and I oppose preference voting I think the LibDems should have fought a much harder bargain. If something on the lines of the Scottish system had been offered Labour would have found that harder to oppose without appearing hypocritical and if Clegg had insisted on no official party position in the referendum that would have helped. But I still think there are many in the LibDems who only want STV. Whereas a lot of Labour electoral reformers favour AMS type systems. They saw AV as a stepping stone to STV as it's a preference system I would strongly *prefer* STV. But it's not the only game in town, and AMS systems can be justified, though with better allocations of list members than in the Scottish system (slightly) and Welsh system (substantially). My beef there is the two classes of members, I'd prefer a single type, and STV delivers that. I don't like pure list systems, and SV is an abomination. It's actually the two classes of members I favour. Indeed I would actually have a different job description with the constituency members doing the local community stuff. I am in favour of list members focusing entirely on policy and parliamentary work. Be a lot easier to bring in experts who would have a lot to offer but don't want the constituency side of being an MP.
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Chris from Brum
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Post by Chris from Brum on Feb 20, 2020 13:40:28 GMT
I would strongly *prefer* STV. But it's not the only game in town, and AMS systems can be justified, though with better allocations of list members than in the Scottish system (slightly) and Welsh system (substantially). My beef there is the two classes of members, I'd prefer a single type, and STV delivers that. I don't like pure list systems, and SV is an abomination. It's actually the two classes of members I favour. Indeed I would actually have a different job description with the constituency members doing the local community stuff. I am in favour of list members focusing entirely on policy and parliamentary work. Be a lot easier to bring in experts who would have a lot to offer but don't want the constituency side of being an MP. I hear you there, but the disadvantage is that you're combining FPTP with a top-up element. FPTP would mean that the constituency members would overwhelmingly be from (probably) two dominant parties, with the top-up members - your "experts" - coming from the smaller parties. That doesn't feel right to me.
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Feb 20, 2020 14:13:21 GMT
It's actually the two classes of members I favour. Indeed I would actually have a different job description with the constituency members doing the local community stuff. I am in favour of list members focusing entirely on policy and parliamentary work. Be a lot easier to bring in experts who would have a lot to offer but don't want the constituency side of being an MP. I hear you there, but the disadvantage is that you're combining FPTP with a top-up element. FPTP would mean that the constituency members would overwhelmingly be from (probably) two dominant parties, with the top-up members - your "experts" - coming from the smaller parties. That doesn't feel right to me. Depends on the system and how it is organised. Take the point, though, so it might be that there may be more list than constituency members. Or two separate votes, one for the national list, the other for a constituency member.
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mboy
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Post by mboy on Feb 20, 2020 15:51:53 GMT
I think the LibDems should have fought a much harder bargain. If something on the lines of the Scottish system had been offered Labour would have found that harder to oppose without appearing hypocritical and if Clegg had insisted on no official party position in the referendum that would have helped. This is also revisionism, because it pretends there was ever a possibility that a 6-party coalition of "everyone except the Tories" could have been formed. The reality was that it was a Tory minority govt or a Tory + LD govt of some kind. The Tories were *never* going to accept a proposal for full PR (even with a referendum) they would have just gone it alone if that was our red line. In retrospect, we should have asked for STV in Eng/Wales local govt and Euros, and AV for mayoral elections - all of which wouldn't have required a referendum.
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Feb 20, 2020 15:58:14 GMT
I think the LibDems should have fought a much harder bargain. If something on the lines of the Scottish system had been offered Labour would have found that harder to oppose without appearing hypocritical and if Clegg had insisted on no official party position in the referendum that would have helped. This is also revisionism, because it pretends there was ever a possibility that a 6-party coalition of "everyone except the Tories" could have been formed. The reality was that it was a Tory minority govt or a Tory + LD govt of some kind. The Tories were *never* going to accept a proposal for full PR (even with a referendum) they would have just gone it alone if that was our red line. In retrospect, we should have asked for STV in Eng/Wales local govt and Euros, and AV for mayoral elections - all of which wouldn't have required a referendum. You have misread what I said. I think that Clegg should have driven a harder bargain with the Tories on the lines above. Cameron was desperate for power. In my view he would have accepted a referendum on it because he thought he could win it. Sound familiar?
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Post by timrollpickering on Feb 20, 2020 16:05:05 GMT
The Coalition Agreement was not as tight on this as Lib Dems later made out. It agreed to set up a committee to bring forward proposals on changing the Lords but not commit the two parties to rubber stamping whatever the committee came up with. As discussed above it seems to have been written by someone very familiar with the history of such proposals (as indeed the relevant section of the 2010 Conservative manifesto was) who knew the fallacy in just bringing forward a package and expecting to force it through. There was no real attempt to build consensus. And the ramping up of pressure on this in 2012 was all too clearly a doubling down after previous setbacks. I suspect you're not in the majority of your party on this. Or at least in the majority of your party's long term members - I'm not sure what the #FBPE crowd think about any of this beyond "What would have kept us in?"
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Post by timrollpickering on Feb 20, 2020 16:07:16 GMT
I was one of those who is in favour of electoral reform but voted against AV because I think it's worse than FPTP and I oppose preference voting Unfortunately that was an extreme minority view and there was no sizeable "No to AV, Yes to PR" campaign that could credibly take responsibility for the win to take the cause forward. As often said, nobody seriously believe It's David Owen Wot Won It (except, maybe, David Owen).
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Post by timrollpickering on Feb 20, 2020 16:11:18 GMT
I hear you there, but the disadvantage is that you're combining FPTP with a top-up element. FPTP would mean that the constituency members would overwhelmingly be from (probably) two dominant parties, with the top-up members - your "experts" - coming from the smaller parties. That doesn't feel right to me. You are aware that an "STV+" version (basically STV combined with a top-up list) has been gaining a bit of ground in recent years, in part because people have realised that STV would still punish parties with scattered votes? For example in 2015 the Greens were claiming that "PR" would have given them 24 seats but most of the STV calculations had them on just 2 whilst Ukip projections were quite variant dependent on the system. How would you feel about that?
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mboy
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Post by mboy on Feb 20, 2020 16:14:13 GMT
This is also revisionism, because it pretends there was ever a possibility that a 6-party coalition of "everyone except the Tories" could have been formed. The reality was that it was a Tory minority govt or a Tory + LD govt of some kind. The Tories were *never* going to accept a proposal for full PR (even with a referendum) they would have just gone it alone if that was our red line. In retrospect, we should have asked for STV in Eng/Wales local govt and Euros, and AV for mayoral elections - all of which wouldn't have required a referendum. You have misread what I said. I think that Clegg should have driven a harder bargain with the Tories on the lines above. Cameron was desperate for power. In my view he would have accepted a referendum on it because he thought he could win it. Sound familiar? Cameron already *had* power - he was Prime Minister remember, as Gordon Brown had resigned before the end of negotiations and the Queen had appointed him. I'm reasonably sure it has since been made public that the Tories weren't willing to accept full PR, though I cant remember where that was. They were not going to go further than AV.
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Post by timrollpickering on Feb 20, 2020 16:16:57 GMT
The Tories were *never* going to accept a proposal for full PR (even with a referendum) they would have just gone it alone if that was our red line. In hindsight I think we could well have agreed to an STV referendum and gone all guns blazing to defeat it (you would never have got the parties to agree to not take positions on it). I think it would have been easy to defeat because STV is so complicated - those who were on the old forum in 2011 may recall I explained how the surplus rules work in Northern Ireland (whilst discussing the Republic's election that year) and some Lib Dem posters responded to say they'd just gone off the system. Of course with such a defeat we'd probably now get the electoral system change movement complaining about the difference between Gregory, Inclusive Gregory and Weighted Inclusive Gregory and saying that we must have a different version of STV without a referendum.
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Merseymike
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Post by Merseymike on Feb 20, 2020 16:19:06 GMT
You have misread what I said. I think that Clegg should have driven a harder bargain with the Tories on the lines above. Cameron was desperate for power. In my view he would have accepted a referendum on it because he thought he could win it. Sound familiar? Cameron already *had* power - he was Prime Minister remember, as Gordon Brown had resigned before the end of negotiations and the Queen had appointed him. I'm reasonably sure it has since been made public that the Tories weren't willing to accept full PR, though I cant remember where that was. They were not going to go further than AV. They would I think have accepted a referendum in the expectation of winning it. But the LibDems assumed far too much in the way of the Tories being 'good sports'
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