So what are your thoughts on the new UK Conservative / Lib Dem Government

[Disciple of Nagash]

As the title states - what are you thoughts on the UK's new government.

Personally I feel that Labour made many mistakes, and that this new government could actually make some good changes. Straight away they have mentioned abolishing the ID card scheme which I was against, so that's a from me!

What do the rest of you think?

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

I think this government has potential, in the sense that reversing mistakes made by labour, while keeping improvements, would mean they have improved the country. However, I HATE the referendum on alternative vote, alternative vote is no way proportional representation, it's even less proportional than FPTP.

Call me cynical but I think they are doing this because if we vote for the reform the tories and media will claim we got what we wanted (even though people want real proportional, 6% votes meaning 6% seats for example). If instead we vote against this change, the tories and media will use it to claim we don't want proportional representation, very cunning and *^*&*&(& ^& unfair.

I would like them to have a referendum on Lisbon treaty at the same time because previously Cameron promised it, then went back on his word, and because the trend of getting closer to europe means soon we'll be part of the US of Europe which I really don't want.

 

[Marcus Von Drac]

Well so far they haven't done anything to annoy me, but lets give them a chance to get settled. They certainly have potential, but Cameron and Clegg have some policies that don't exactly click together (Immigration for example). As to the point Order of the Blood Dragon makes on proportional representation, I reckon they don't actually want it at all, as suddenly the Lib Dems would be a real power to scare the Tories, and even groups like the BNP would get representatives; not something I'm keen on.
However, I may be just slightly biased against Cameron ever sinced he thought a good way to get rid of national debt was to make students pay back uni fees quicker .

 

[Xacatecas]

A lot of people don't want proportional representation, hung parliaments and extremists with seats are a BAD thing for everyone. The country and government are bankrupt, like after every time labour gains power, so in my opinion its doubtful they will do anything 'good' aside from (hopefully) reducing the debt to manageble levels, one of the few things they can both agree on.

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

So we shouldn't have proportional representation out of fear of hung parliaments and extremists...
Well it's not exactly democratic for 20% of votes to mean 8% of seats (in the case of Lib Dems if I remember correctly) and saying we shouldn't have PR for fear of extremists would be going down a dangerous road, we'd end up having UKIP banned just because they want out of Europe, then what?
about 2% of Brits who voted wanted the BNP so those 2% should have their say regardless of whether anyone agrees with their views or not. I can't remember the quote, but someone once said something along the lines of 'I disagree with your view, but I will fight for your democratic right to have that view'
I for one dislike alot of the views of the big three in terms of Iraq (the technically illegal war) but I accept that they are allowed to have that view, so I think it would be fair for all views to be accepted in that manner regardless of another person's opinion of that view.
I wanted tories to have power to save the economy, but at the same time I wanted PR so I hope Lib Dems will be able to deliver it.

 

[Xacatecas]

You say we should have PR so that Lib Dems get the amount of power that they should have, yet according to the vote, they should not be in government. Because we don't have PR and always have majority governments, the Lib Dems have more power than they ever have had before.

What we should have, is a redrawing of the boundaries that isn't a total political power seizure by the labour party. Since they redrew the boundaries of constituencies in thier first term, they now have, on average 10,000 less people voting for them than either of the other 2 parties, so they won a majority of seats with a minority of votes.

 

[Marcus Von Drac]

Are you kidding me? Labour got 29% votes, Lib Dem got 23% votes; you can't say the voters don't want them in government. And yet despite it being only a 6% gap, Labour have 258 seats, and Lib Dem 50 something seats. Fair? I think not. As for the boundries, what do you suggest (Not being insulting here, I'm actually curious), redraw them so we have a similar number of voters in each constituency, thereby giving all parties fair chance? A major shake up like that would be amusing to watch in the extreme.

 

[Xacatecas]

Are you kidding me? Labour got 29% votes, Lib Dem got 23% votes; you can't say the voters don't want them in government.

Thats exactly what im saying, only 23% of people wanted them in government, a serious minority, and yet they are in government now.

And yet despite it being only a 6% gap, Labour have 258 seats, and Lib Dem 50 something seats. Fair? I think not.

No indeed, not fair, but should the SNP and BNP have seats in government too? According to proportional representation (which the majority of people do not support enough to vote Lib Dem) they should have 20ish seats each.

As for the boundries, what do you suggest (Not being insulting here, I'm actually curious), redraw them so we have a similar number of voters in each constituency, thereby giving all parties fair chance? A major shake up like that would be amusing to watch in the extreme.

Well they are redone every 10 years or so, the last one being in 2007. In 2005, on average there were 44,000 voters per tory seat and 27,000 per labour seat. At the same time, the Labour strongholds of Wales and Scotland are overrepresented in the commons according to population.
How to change it? Im not sure, the boundary commission's brief is narrow in the extreme and anything like that seems to be power grabbing by the party in power unless its kept quiet.

Still its good to see that at least Nick Clegg stands for what he believes in unlike the others.

 

[Marcus Von Drac]

Are you kidding me? Labour got 29% votes, Lib Dem got 23% votes; you can't say the voters don't want them in government.

Thats exactly what im saying, only 23% of people wanted them in government, a serious minority, and yet they are in government now.

Yeah, but only 36% of the population wanted the Tories in power, hardly a majority vote. The problem is our current ‘past the post’ system is actually the best way we have of ensuring a government is formed (until now that is). My problem is that it doesn’t appear to give a fair split of seats to the parties, whereas proportional representation would.

And yet despite it being only a 6% gap, Labour have 258 seats, and Lib Dem 50 something seats. Fair? I think not.

No indeed, not fair, but should the SNP and BNP have seats in government too? According to proportional representation (which the majority of people do not support enough to vote Lib Dem) they should have 20ish seats each.

I’ll concede that point. I, like a lot of people, would rather not have the BNP/SNP with seats in government.

As for the boundries, what do you suggest (Not being insulting here, I'm actually curious), redraw them so we have a similar number of voters in each constituency, thereby giving all parties fair chance? A major shake up like that would be amusing to watch in the extreme.

Well they are redone every 10 years or so, the last one being in 2007. In 2005, on average there were 44,000 voters per tory seat and 27,000 per labour seat. At the same time, the Labour strongholds of Wales and Scotland are overrepresented in the commons according to population.
How to change it? Im not sure, the boundary commission's brief is narrow in the extreme and anything like that seems to be power grabbing by the party in power unless its kept quiet.

Still its good to see that at least Nick Clegg stands for what he believes in unlike the others.

I didn’t know the figures for voters in the different regions, I find it kind of crazy for it to be 17,000 person difference. To be honest I don’t know what the tories would achieve by redrawing the boundaries, unless they were to try and reduce their ‘safe’ seats in size, and as it were shift more of their voters into current labour seats, which would not doubt be opposed.

As to the point of Nick Clegg, that’s been one of his biggest selling points – he vows to stick to his promises (and actually does it). Well, that and the fact he wasn’t called Menzies. :tongue:

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

Well labour redistributed in the way you just said, unfortunately, that crooked tactic is perfectly legal. As for allowing SNP and BNP to have seats, well SNP already have some seats, they'd get a couple more under PR. And as for BNP, I'd rather not have a party focused on race in parliament but it would not be right to deny fair democracy based on one legitimate party's views (yes somehow they are legitimate).
The reason they are legitimate is because under current race relations laws it is easier to get a job if non-white than if you are white because of government quotas, this is necessary to make sure white bosses aren't unfair to non-whites but it is this law that actually pretty much makes the BNP an allowed party. Ironic isn't it. :mad2:
Although coalition governments do have their flaws, they can work fine as proved in many other european countries (alot of whom always have coalitions), what PR really does in this case is allow people to vote for parties that are slightly different in policy rather than grouped up parties like Labour is.
One party in British politics could easily be divided into 3 or 4 (Lab left, centre and right) and still have a say in politics by having their fairly elected MPs form a coalition, that way then the government knows what type of policies people want most. e.g. if most voted Lab left, then the overall lab coalition would tend towards the left (as they'd have the most MPs out of the parties) then a higher number of people would see the policies they want put through.
Then the main parties actually doing what's wanted would mean that parties like the BNP would not be needed as people would have a better variety of choices that actually make a difference. e.g. I know of a BNP voter who votes for them based on the BNP being more economically left than the big 3, if a Lab left party was formed and could have a decent say in politics then he'd most likely vote for them.

 

[Irisado]

I'm a Liberal Democrat supporter, and I'm naturally disappointed that they ended up having to form a coalition government with the Conservative party, but from the standpoint of realpolitik, there really was not much of a credible alternative in my view.

As things stand, the coalition is off to a reasonable start, but I do have concerns about the change to the electoral system being kicked into the long grass by the Conservative party, as neither the Conservatives, nor Labour, sincerely want reform of the electoral system, since the first past the post system favours them.

Alternative Vote (AV) is a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough, so the Liberal Democrats are going to have to campaign very hard, in order to get their proposed form of proportional representation, Single Transferable Vote (STV), into a new voting system.

Managing to reform the electoral system is, for me, the key test of this coalition government, as first past the post is a horrible system which does not fairly represent the votes cast by the people of this country, as others have shown in posts above, so I will be watching developments on this issue very closely.

 

[Xacatecas]

But the Liberals really don't have anywhere near the mandate to even suggest changing the electory system. If it was an issue people cared deeply about, the would vote liberals, but over 60% of the electorate didn't. Doesn't that suggest that we shouldn't change the system even if a backroom deal got some liberals into government?

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

Well after the first live debate more people wanted libs than the other parties, but then the media attacked them to prevent the libs getting real influence in politics (e.g. the mad suggestion that clegg was a nazi).
Besides, right now I think the main concern is the economy for most, whatever party appears to promise the best deal for a voter in terms of money is most likely to win their vote. If the economy was doing well, then more people would focus their voting concerns on other issues, such as PR. I voted Lib Dem because my only concern was PR, I think none of the parties really offered my ideal policies.

 

[Xacatecas]

Doesn't change my point though that not enough people wanted PR enough to vote liberals. Sure that might all change in the next election, but this term there is no way they have the mandate for PR.

I agree though that everyone's focus should be the economy (always is after a labour government!)

 

[Irisado]

But the Liberals really don't have anywhere near the mandate to even suggest changing the electory system. If it was an issue people cared deeply about, the would vote liberals, but over 60% of the electorate didn't. Doesn't that suggest that we shouldn't change the system even if a backroom deal got some liberals into government?

If there were no mandate to change the electoral system, then one of the parties would have ended up with an absolute majority in my view.

First past the post is meant to provide us with clear and strong government from one party. It has failed to do this, which means the system is broken.

It is also important to point out that the so called 'magic figure' when it comes to determining legitimacy in terms of the share of the vote is forty percent, and none of the three main parties achieved this.

Consider too that under a system of STV, the Liberal Democrats would have gained many more seats than fifty-seven, and that their vote share actually went up, albeit not by much, yet they actually lost seats.

For the moment, I suspect that the coalition will focus on economic issues, as Order of the Blood Dragon implied, because this is the area where there is the most agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, however, this is not the key area, for me, in terms of evaluating the success or failure of the coalition government.

 

[Xacatecas]

If there were no mandate to change the electoral system, then one of the parties would have ended up with an absolute majority in my view.

thats a logical fallacy - like saying if the liberals didn't exist the other parties would get more votes but as they do exist, they should be in government

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

If it was an issue people cared deeply about, the would vote liberals, but over 60% of the electorate didn't. Doesn't that suggest that we shouldn't change the system even if a backroom deal got some liberals into government?

This argument of yours is somewhat contradictory as it implies that the electorate have never 'cared' about what party should be in power. The BNP only got about 2% of the vote but that's enough for most to think that immigration has become an important issue (important enough that peopl vote for the specifically anti-immigration party despite their racist policies and the huge anti-bnp campaigns by groups such as UAF).
In that case one could argue that the massive shift in vote from lab to con shows how important some sort of change is to the public. And the same argument could be used for people wanting PR, despite the risk of problems with a hung parliament (even more risky with the poor economy we have right now), over 20% of people were willing to have a hung parliament for lib dem policies.
Still, I agree that PR may not be an important issue, instead other issues are probably important for libs but that doesn't mean its not 'right' to have PR. My argument for PR boils down to an opportunity for every vote to actually influence who wins how many seats. I live in Bury, a conservative seat, so me and, well, upwards of 10,000 people could vote but not make a difference at all. Its not right that a vote in a tight seat makes such a big difference while a vote in a safe seat makes such a little difference.
The 1951 (I think) election is a good example of the unfair voting system, Labour had a higher number of people who wanted them in power, but the voting system meant that the Tories got power instead.

 

[Irisado]

thats a logical fallacy - like saying if the liberals didn't exist the other parties would get more votes but as they do exist, they should be in government

I don't think it is.

When a party gets twenty-three percent of the vote, it simply cannot be dismissed, and you are still thinking too much in terms of seats in my opinion.

The absolute figures were as follows:

Conservatives: 306 seats 36% of the vote
Labour: 258 seats 29% of the vote
Liberal Democrats: 57 seats 23% of the vote

The Liberal Democrat vote went up by 1% compared to 2005, yet they lost seats, whereas Labour's vote went down by 6.2% compared to 2005, yet Labour still ended up with 101 more seats than the Liberal Democrats.

How can you be so sure, therefore, that people did not want the Liberal Democrats to be in government? I know that I did, and so did other people who I know.

The Conservatives had a disappointing night. Receiving only thirteen percent more of the vote share than the Liberal Democrats does not suggest that they were overwhelmingly supported by the British public when it came to their being seen as government material, particularly away from central and eastern England, so nobody gained a large enough percentage of the vote share to claim legitimacy, which is why we have ended up with a coalition government.

If enough people had wanted the Conservatives in government they would have won an absolute majority, owing to the way in which our voting system works. The fact that this did not happen speaks volumes, and with Labour's vote share going down, it appears to me that the Liberal Democrats were viewed as a more credible governing party than Labour by many on the basis of the vote share.

Of course, more information will become available about voting trends once the special issue of Parliamentary Affairs is published, so this may reveal some interesting information to shed some light on this issue.

In the meantime, I'm paying close attention to the cuts to see just how hard universities are going to get hit, and I have a feeling it's going to be bad news.

 

[Goggalor]

Wow you go away for 10 weeks and all this happens. I have yet to see what exactlyhappened, have only been in sunlight out for 2 days, but this could be a good thing. some alternative thinking in government. but please stay away from PR as that only leads to weak governments. our voting system is not perfect but gives us a stable democracy. however an elected lords would be something i would support. i am now off to find out what else i missed.

 

[Annie]

"So what are your thoughts on the new UK Conservative / Lib Dem Government "


BLERGHH!!

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

"So what are your thoughts on the new UK Conservative / Lib Dem Government "


BLERGHH!!

Quoted for Truth!!!

On a serious note, the new budget will increase VAT (the dreaded regressive tax on the poor) and of course the rich are getting taxed more money, but as a % of their earnings it seems the really wealthy (like top 5-10% of earners) will pay a smaller % than the poorer parts of society (as usual).
Also, I noticed a poll asking what people would rather reduce to save money, with 25% of them saying benefits (probably those who don't get any benefits) and a massive 43% wanting foreign aid to be reduced (which the govt have ring-fenced meaning it won't be reduced).
Now that's what really annoys me about this govt and the lab party as well, alot of this foreign aid seems to be wasted to me, not just because it helps LEDC populations rise which means in the end the aid is saturated and essentially useless. Also because some of this goes to India who have nukes, a big military and a space program yet can't afford the basics for some of their people, so we are basically subsidising their nukes and space plans. Another case is in an African country (can't remember which) they have sent a million condoms even though its a staunchly religious catholic country and previously the condoms have been burned when they tried that. Overall I'm just saying that these govts really annoy me by making cuts that hurt us rather than cutting waste, especially when the media (obviously on their side) go and say these cuts are necessary despite there being obvious waste elsewhere that they refuse to cut.

Rant terminated at 12:04 GMT.

 

[Johnny B]

On a serious note, the new budget will increase VAT (the dreaded regressive tax on the poor) and of course the rich are getting taxed more money, but as a % of their earnings it seems the really wealthy (like top 5-10% of earners) will pay a smaller % than the poorer parts of society (as usual).

The seriously rich will likely avoid a lot of what they are hit with (part of the reason why they are so rich to start with) and can easily afford the rest. The banks will also recoup their losses by charging more fees so, as usual, its the average people who get f**cked.

Also, I noticed a poll asking what people would rather reduce to save money, with 25% of them saying benefits (probably those who don't get any benefits) and a massive 43% wanting foreign aid to be reduced (which the govt have ring-fenced meaning it won't be reduced).

We also appear to be fighting a pointless war in afghanistan that we can't win. For no particular reason. That costs money too.

 

[Order of the Blood Dragon]

Completely agree with you, in that poll 20% would have preferred cuts to defence (presumably by withdrawing from Afghanistan or not using trident)

Once again Average Joe takes the medicine for the bankers and co.

 

[Irisado]

Liberal Democrat back benchers are not happy with this budget, despite what they may say to the camera. Their body language in the House of Commons (I watched the budget and the subsequent debate live on Tuesday, as I was at home feeling ill) really showed that they looked very down.

This is a Conservative budget, and when Osbourne announced a twenty percent VAT standard rate, I was shocked, and not at all impressed.

I'm now very concerned that the Conservatives have negotiated too good a deal for them at the expense of the Liberals, and this is very worrying for Liberal Democrat supporters like me.

 

[Bishop]

But the Liberals really don't have anywhere near the mandate to even suggest changing the electory system. If it was an issue people cared deeply about, the would vote liberals, but over 60% of the electorate didn't. Doesn't that suggest that we shouldn't change the system even if a backroom deal got some liberals into government?

First past the post is meant to provide us with clear and strong government from one party. It has failed to do this, which means the system is broken.

"First past the post" has failed to provide us Canadians with a majority federal government the last 3 (or 4?) times we've had an election. It clearly is broken and should be fixed!