The Super-Reluctant Builder/Bidder and Us

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

The rules were pants before and they're pants still now. And the rules do not have to be these rules.

We're not talking evolution, gravity or relativity here which are all absolute, undeniable, unchangeable fact. We're talking about a stage on a continuum that so far has not passed and will continue to fail the tests of time because it isn't fit for purpose and delivers incongruous, demonstrably unrepresentative, undemocratic outcomes.

That apart it's great!

Simple, anyway.

Definitely simple.

No there not, I prefer FPTP, long may it continue

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

It’s simple to understand.
It doesn’t cost much to administer.
It’s is fairly quick to count the votes and work out who has won; meaning results can be declared relatively quickly after the polls close.
In a political environment, FPTP enables voters to clearly express a view on which party they think should form the next government.
FPTP is ideally suited to a two-party system and generally produces single-party governments, although the 2010 UK General Election was an obvious exception
Single-party governments by and large don’t have to rely on support from other parties to pass legislation, though as the UK has found that is not always necessarily the case as the current Coalition Government demonstrates.
Some would argue that FPTP voting systems encourage broad-church centrist policies and discourage extremist points of view, now I'm all for that ! and I'm not and never have voted Tory

Nice to see Sajid David's name on this list:



... he's the one insisting on 40% support for a strike without which it will be illegal. By the same criterion he is illegally occupying a seat in Westminster.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Nice to see Sajid David's name on this list:



... he's the one insisting on 40% support for a strike without which it will be illegal. By the same criterion he is illegally occupying a seat in Westminster.

As I've said before you can dress it up to suit your own allegiance as much as you like and use whatever statistics you can dig up but you also should look at the history of %age of votes electing Trade Union Leaders over many years, quite low in many cases and modern history illustrates these leaders as being as corrupt, deceitful and downright liars as any politician, in fact they all deserve each other

Graiser wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Nice to see Sajid David's name on this list:



... he's the one insisting on 40% support for a strike without which it will be illegal. By the same criterion he is illegally occupying a seat in Westminster.

As I've said before you can dress it up to suit your own allegiance as much as you like and use whatever statistics you can dig up but you also should look at the history of %age of votes electing Trade Union Leaders over many years, quite low in many cases and modern history illustrates these leaders as being as corrupt, deceitful and downright liars as any politician, in fact they all deserve each other

Let me just get this clear in my mind...

FPTP for electing MPs is a Good Thing
FPTP for electing Trade Union leaders is a Bad Thing

Have I got that right?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Graiser wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Nice to see Sajid David's name on this list:



... he's the one insisting on 40% support for a strike without which it will be illegal. By the same criterion he is illegally occupying a seat in Westminster.

As I've said before you can dress it up to suit your own allegiance as much as you like and use whatever statistics you can dig up but you also should look at the history of %age of votes electing Trade Union Leaders over many years, quite low in many cases and modern history illustrates these leaders as being as corrupt, deceitful and downright liars as any politician, in fact they all deserve each other

Let me just get this clear in my mind...

FPTP for electing MPs is a Good Thing
FPTP for electing Trade Union leaders is a Bad Thing

Have I got that right?

Nope, just making the point that a large percentage of Trade Union Leaders have achieved their roles with equally low percentage of their membership as your dislike of some MP's gaining their seat with similar low %age of their electorate, Sod's law innit

Only 13.5% of the electorate voted against FPTP in the referendum in 2011. Bleddy democracy eh? 86.5% of the electorate must just be stupid I guess or just don't give a shit.

Much as I consider FPTP to be flawed once again that isn't the issue.

The issue here is how can the government consider itself to be legitimised by FPTP but at the same time find FPTP to be unfit for purpose for the purpose of counting the votes in a strike ballot?

The wider irony that they are trying to impose a 40% limit that the government itself doesn't meet, as doesn't the minister in charge of the policy in his own seat, notwithstanding.

I'll say again, when the NUT voted on whether to take strike action, of the 326,000 membership, 256,000 did not vote yes!

70,000 voted for a strike but because the turnout was low then the strike went ahead.

You didn't have a problem then with the NUT, but have one now with the Tories.

You are every bit as hypocritical as they are.

Isn't that all arse about face?

In the NUT ballot 70,000 out-polled the others and the strike went ahead. FPTP. Simple.

And FPTP is considered robust enough, not by me but I'm not the one trying to impose anything on anybody here, to elect Sajid David as an MP and the Tories as a government who then appoint David as a minister who then wants to impose a 40% limit which as an individual and as a party they themselves fail to meet.

It really isn't complicated.

And it really is hypocrisy.

The Huff view  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/cathy-warwick/queens-speech-trade-unions_b_7449584.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-politics

Seems to me that comparing a parliamentary election and a strike ballot is unfair. In a parliamentary election there are never just two parties standing therefore the votes are always going to be spread more thinly, making it very difficult if not impossible to achieve a 40% threshold of all voters for a single party candidate. In a strike a ballot the choice is simply strike or don't. If a strike is wholly justified they'll get the votes required if it's not they won't. Strikes effecting essential services at hospitals, transport and schools etc should surely have the most robust support to go ahead.

Hitch, thank God, (lol at the irony) so let's make that goodness...

Points out that SFD is comparing apples and oranges.

Not sure what the Huffington Post has to do with it. But then again it's political editor is Mehdi Hasan who wrote Ed Miliband's biography and also The Debt Delusion. Hardly neutral!

And SFD, I'm accusing the Unions and the Government of being two sides of the same coin.

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Not sure what the Huffington Post has to do with it. But then again it's political editor is Mehdi Hasan who wrote Ed Miliband's biography and also The Debt Delusion. Hardly neutral!

And SFD, I'm accusing the Unions and the Government of being two sides of the same coin.

Its a point of view that explains SFDs point for the benefit of the "hard of understanding".

Of course are far as the proposed Union strike threshold is concerned it effectively treats every abstention as a 'No' vote. And combined with the fact that the government insist that the ballot should be a postal one and will not allow a quicker cheaper easier to engage with online ballot then you might just come to the conclusion that it's a stitch up to make things as difficult as possible for unions and their members.

Chancellor wrote:

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Not sure what the Huffington Post has to do with it. But then again it's political editor is Mehdi Hasan who wrote Ed Miliband's biography and also The Debt Delusion. Hardly neutral!

And SFD, I'm accusing the Unions and the Government of being two sides of the same coin.

Its a point of view that explains SFDs point for the benefit of the "hard of understanding".

Yet another patronising reply by a Leftie.

I "understand" completely what your saying.

I just happen to think you're wrong.

Despite all reasoned argument otherwise.

Working class Tories are the worst.

Tringreen wrote:

Working class Tories are the worst.

What about Upper Class Tories like Graiser beh ?

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Chancellor wrote:

Rollo Tomasi wrote:

Not sure what the Huffington Post has to do with it. But then again it's political editor is Mehdi Hasan who wrote Ed Miliband's biography and also The Debt Delusion. Hardly neutral!

And SFD, I'm accusing the Unions and the Government of being two sides of the same coin.

Its a point of view that explains SFDs point for the benefit of the "hard of understanding".

Yet another patronising reply by a Leftie.

I "understand" completely what your saying.

I just happen to think you're wrong.

Your comprehension failed to reveal itself to me in any meaningful way to such an extent that I thought you were just being whooshed.

The disagreement bit came through loud and clear although the reasons behind it never did.

tigertony wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

Working class Tories are the worst.

What about Upper Class Tories like Graiser beh ?

Feck off Tony, you can accuse me of most things (especially farmyard gymnastics!) but a Tory voter , not on your frigging nelly