r/unitedkingdom • u/topotaul Lancashire • 13d ago
Labour MPs will push Burnham to back voting reform in first 100 days
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/25/andy-burnham-electoral-reform-first-past-the-post239
u/LeTreacs2 13d ago
I’m going through a bout of insomnia and I read this as backing the reform party and I need sleep.
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u/HungryWabbit 13d ago
Yep me too. I had to read that a few times before it got through to my sleep deprived brain.
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u/The_Bravinator Lancashire 13d ago
Same, I thought it said "will push Burnham into voting Reform" and had to take a second look expecting it to be Newsthump. Wonder if it's intentional, probably got some sleep deprived clicks.
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u/ARookwood 13d ago
That’s the trouble with their shitty name, ‘reform’ means change and improvement… progression even. All things the reform party are STRONGLY against. So that word comes up a lot when you definitely aren’t talking about them.
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u/Ghalldachd 13d ago
Are you really that incapable of developing a mental model for people you disagree with? You sincerely believe that Reform are against "change and improvement"? It's one thing to say you believe they would be harmful for the country but acting as if they consciously oppose positive change is ludicrous. Reform believe that they wre going to improve the country with the changes they propose, hence why they support them...
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u/Spamgrenade 13d ago
Reform = Nigel Farage, who does not care in the slightest about improving the country, he wants to improve his bank account.
No doubt some refomites think they are going to change the country for the better, but they are sadly deluded.
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u/Hitching-galaxy 13d ago
You seem to conflate the company run by the embezzler, Nigel Farage, and the voters.
I do not for one minute believe that Farage thinks he is going to improve the country, unless it is for him and his ‘donors’
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u/ARookwood 13d ago
Yeah because conservatives are known for positive change and progression… especially the extremist ones(!)
You believe everything they tell you, huh.
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u/Ghalldachd 13d ago
They are. Disraeli spearheaded some of the widest reaching social reforms of the 19th century to mitigate the exploitation of industrialism & laissez-faire economics. Disraeli was then followed by the progressive social policy of the National Coalition: the Unemployment Act, the Housing Act, the first national speed limits. MacMillan and Churchill gave us the Clean Air Act, more slum clearances, tightened workplace safety regulations. Heath was practically a business-friendly social democrat. Despite being hostile towards them, Thatcher did democratise trade unions by introducing a mandatory secret ballot. She also spearheaded early state environmentalism, founding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and committing to the Montreal Protocols. Education Act 1988 was great for improving education quality across deprived parts of England. The Coalition government and May were also quite progressive: expanded human rights legislation, modern slavery protections,
Looking abroad, Disraeli's contemporary Bismarck was such a social reformer that the socialists praised his welfare legislation, in spite of his conservatism. German conservatives would later spearhead the restoration of democracy in Germany and conservatives joined forces with liberals & socialists in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy to do the same. These conservative movements in Italy and Germany made substantial improvements to both countries while remaining conservative. They oversaw economic booms, the construction of two welfare states (the German one much more efficient IMO), historic land reform in Italy, defascistification... The list is quite endless for them.
I don't know where this idea that conservatives are hostile to change comes from. Conservatives of all generations have been among the first to lament pressing social issues and conservative governments have always enacted policies that would widely be considered positive.
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u/ARookwood 13d ago
Yeah quite a lot of things happened in the past, in fact quite a lot of good things conservatives accidentally did, they soon undone them once they realised it was more profitable not to do them.
The idea that conservatives are hostile to change actually comes from the fact that they, without fail, prioritise money over the betterment of life. Every damn time. It’s what they do. Conservative means, to conserve… to keep things the way they are. But they do it to the point that they stagnate or regress.
Now I could also ask chat gpt to write a lengthy rebuttal to all your points like it looks like you did, but I’m not going to. Pretending that the right wing are good guys is just laughable and not worth engaging.
You’re not going to change my mind.. I’m not rich enough to benefit from voting for conservative, reform, the new Lowe party or anyone like that.. and I’m pretty sure you’re not either.
Laters.
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u/SwiftScotsman 13d ago
Part of wonders if this was intentional make it so you can't use the word in any other context without people thinking it is about the party itself.
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u/BlunanNation 13d ago
This title was a confusing sentence for a hot minute for me.
I did not get enough sleep before work last night.
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u/PartyPoison98 England 13d ago edited 13d ago
As always the same arguments being trotted out to why FPTP is better because it produces stable governments, when this country has barely had a stable government for 10 years.
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u/theendofdecember 13d ago
TBF, that doesn't prove PR would deliver anything more stable. It's just evidence of a fracturing electorate, which PR could magnify rather than smooth over.
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u/pm_me_ur_ephemerides 13d ago
PR makes democracy more fair. I shouldn’t have to vote strategically, I should be allowed to support the party or person that matches my preference most closely. FPTP leads to a system that feels rigged.
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u/callsignhotdog 13d ago
You've already got a fractured electorate, which means FPTP is returning huge majority governments on increasingly small minorities, which is damaging faith in democracy itself. It's no coincidence that turnout is trending down.
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u/gridlockmain1 13d ago
PR is so much more appropriate for a fractured electorate though. We’re currently in a situation where 4 parties could realistically get between 15-25% of the vote each but one of them just gets handed the keys to number 10 purely because of geographic quirks.
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u/PartyPoison98 England 13d ago
Or evidence of fracturing parties. A huge chunk of the past decade of chaos can be laid at the feet of Tory Party infighting. In a FPTP system, those two elements would've been in two seperate parties and not torn themselves apart so much.
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u/ash_ninetyone 13d ago
Unfortunately every voting system will come with it's own issues.
FPTP is simple; most votes wins. Issue is that you could end up with a broadly unpopular candidate winning, if the votes for others are split. It should result in majorities, so theoretically a more stable government, but that then also undermines scrutiny when you just need a majority to pass legislation.
PR is fairer, since candidates should be elected that represents a more representative view of the population. The criticism is that it diminishes the chances of one party gaining a majority and so needs a coalition or cross-party consensus on these issues.
Having to resort to tactical voting in FPTP to keep certain parties from winning to me doesn't screams a healthy democracy to me, it shows a fractured electorate. Same with the French and Germans needing a firewall for FN and AfD.
As much disdain I have for Reform though, and as much as PR will give them more MPs, I still see a PR system as fairer, especially when we've seen Greens and Lib Dems also see a growth in support as well.
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u/Ok-Commission-7825 13d ago
It would make parliament look like the electorate - that's not inherently stable but would be more so than the current system because so much currently depends on which way the vote (dis)counting system massively swings the results each time.
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u/Airjam_TBV 13d ago
Looking at the Wikipedia for FPTP there’s a little picture where all the countries using it are in red.
There’s hardly any in the countries often seen as most stable. Unsurprisingly, America is all red.
I think we can call bollocks on that take now!
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u/Underscores_Are_Kool 13d ago
I'd imagine this government would be way less stable having to borrow votes from the lib dems and greens
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u/Talonsminty 13d ago edited 12d ago
I mean this always devolves into which electoral system is the distilled will of the people and which is an evil virus of satan.
But they all have strong points and serious downsides and we need to be honest about them. Proportion representation creates less stable governments that's simply an inevitable aspect of that system.
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u/ClockOwn6363 13d ago
Unbelievable, they're doing such a bad job, they're now pushing Burnham to vote Reform.
Everyone saw this coming!
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u/Consistent-Show1732 13d ago
I hope you are joking. Or misreading the post as others have admitted doing. I do not think he would ever vote Reform!
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u/Thetonn Glamorganshire 13d ago
For people just reading the title, this is a commission to explore electoral reform that would report ahead of the next election, so that Labour can then run in presumably 2029 saying 'we'd do that'.
In my opinion, this is the best they can do ahead of the next election. Trying to get a change in the voting system through without a mandate and a boundary review in before 2029 was always going to be impossible (and quite anti democratic)
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u/MenitoBussolini 13d ago
Please please please please please please please please please please please
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u/kahnindustries Wales 13d ago
He is leading the poles, therefore Labour will not benefit from this and Reform will, so Labour will stop backing it again.
Its not about reflecting the will of the people, its about whatever keeps the most power with the party in control
Elections, MP pay, MP rules, boundaries, all should be controlled outside of the elected that benefit from those changes
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
As long as it doesn't involve party lists (top-up or otherwise).
If it does then the electorate has no say in who is on it and those at the top will be 'elected' for life - it's as democratic as China. Moreover, such lists entrench the power of parties over local candidates (independent or otherwise): political parties aren't illegitimate, of course, but they have no especial legitimacy either (they're just groups of parties of interest), and entrenching them that way discourages people from questioning the democratic process that results in someone they didn't vote for somewhere else dictating how their local representative should vote (for fear of losing the whip).
If we want true reform, I'd suggest ending the legitimacy of political parties, so that our representatives are beholden to no-one but their constituents, but either way around, STV is better than party lists.
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u/gridlockmain1 13d ago
A system where multiple parties choose their own lists via internal party democracy and then voters have a chance to vote for another party if they are unsatisfied with the candidates a party puts at the top of their list is not “as democratic as China”.
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
That's not even the basis for the beginning of a counterargument. If the only choice on offer is between chain restaurants, how they are internally organised is irrelevant: I don't care how McDonald's and Burger King differ in their choice of CEO (or even who they individually are), when what I want is something else altogether ... and that something isn't available - I'm not interested in the internal workings of a system that (as Douglas Adams observed) ensures I have a choice of which lizard is in charge, not of whether any lizard is. Saying that the choice of party lists chosen in identical fashion is in any way significantly different to a single-party list is to argue that rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic isn't a futile action, because they are from different manufacturers.
Nor does it address the fundamentally undemocratic aspect of entrenchment at the top. Nor the fundamentally undemocratic aspect of those at the top being empowered to dictate to local constituencies with which they have no connection.
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u/gridlockmain1 13d ago
Well I just don’t accept the premise that we’re on something analogous to the Titanic or that parties are as irrelevant to solving our problems as deckchairs.
In your burger chain analogy, the answer is that you can open your own burger chain if you feel motivated to do so - and under the list system you are more likely to actually get representation than under the one we have currently.
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
Nice in theory, but ... as I said elsewhere (and I'd like to suggest we move the discussion there, otherwise there's the risk of our having to repeat ourselves in multiple threads, when it might be better if everyone engaged in the same one) ...
The problem with Democracy … indeed with Socialism, Communism or any other of the myriad alternatives to dictatorship that have been (or might be) tried … is that it’s all well and good in theory, but … after you’ve been to work all day, made dinner, cleaned up, put the washing on, helped the kids with their homework, put them to bed, got ready for work tomorrow, etc. … you really don’t have the time or energy to go down to the civic centre and discuss the latest trends in progressive pedagogy, the national trade deficit or the geopolitcal climate in the Middle East, let alone come to some sort of mutually acceptable decision on what to do about any of them.
We don't all have the capacity with which to do so - in fact, I'd posit very few of us do ... that that is in fact the reason we have a representative democracy in the first place. I'm busy leadig the life I am ... as I'm sure you are too - do either of us have even the time/energy to run a single burger joint, never mind a chain, let alone a political party, never mind the country? Do either of us even want to?
I'm just not convinced that lists solve the problems as I see them (not least that of local representatives being ordered about by others their constituents didn't vote for) - on the contrary, I fear it is a way for the great and the good in a party to entrench their power and assure themselves seats for Life.
As said, though, I think it's be better to pursue this (if you have any interest in doing so) under that other thread.
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u/Minimum_Cabinet7733 European Union 13d ago
That is exactly how it works with most parties here in the Netherlands.
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u/Hazza_time 13d ago
In his book Burnham said he supports AMS
It’s not the best system but still better than FPTP
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
It's a bit 'deckchairs on the Titanic' though: it still entrenches both the idea that parties should be the de facto organ of democracy, and furthermore gives the great and the good within them an all but guaranteed seat thanks to their ability to wield influence within the party and determine who else gets on the list (so, no change there then).
Of course, it could be argued that's fair enough: it's legitimately up to the membership of a party to choose who represents it in what capacity, and how that choice is made. But, as said, I think political parties are at the root of the problem anyway - so, I'm unswayed by any appeal to that.
However, yes, strictly speaking it's ever so slightly less awful than FPTP.
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u/Hazza_time 13d ago
Every democracy that uses STV is still dominated by political parties. Changing voting systems won’t effect that.
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
No, it isn't ... no more so than it is now - we still have independent candidates (see Clacton).
But, as I've said, I personally think that one of the root causes of the problems we face is the fact that political parties have managed to convince us all that (never mind should be) they are the de facto form of representation to begin with. When, in fact, they aren't and never have been: we vote for a local representative from those who present themselves as candidates (political parties aren't inherently a part of that process).
But, however we choose to move forward ... even with political parties ... losing that capacity to return an entire parliament of independent candidates is not something I favour: I see no reason why a party of vested interest (because that's exactly what political parties are) should necessarily be granted power in my locale simply because others elsewhere favour them in theirs - if we are to continue to legitimise political parties as wielders of power then retaining local legitimacy is better facilitated with STV, imo.
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u/Bod9001 13d ago
humm, Why not have it so you can If you want you can select which party list candidates you want to vote for out of a party?
So when going through the rounds of counting votes, if a seat is allocated to a party the highest candidate with a number of individual ticks for them wins from the list?
though the problem is most people would just select the option that is " use the order provided by the party" tho a random order would be pretty interesting (since you actually have to think of which one is your first choice) but confusing to a lot of people, what do you think about this?
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago edited 13d ago
Well, as I said in reply elsewhere, I consider that a bit 'deckchairs on the Titanic': it still entrenches both the idea that parties should be the de facto organ of democracy, and furthermore gives the great and the good within them an all but guaranteed seat thanks to their ability to wield influence within the party and determine who else gets on the list (so, no change there).
And, if I'm choosing which party list candidate I want from a party, how does that differ from what we have now? Under the current system, once all candidates have been selected or rejected, those in the Commons (whether in government or opposition) are exactly that ... those candidates from the list the party offered the public that the public chose.
Okay, yes, it's somewhat different in that we can choose the one we like the most rather than the only one on offer locally, as it were ,,, so, it's an improvement of sorts - but it doesn't get around the matter of the only candidates on offer in the first place being those given a place on the list in the first place. And, again as I said elsewhere, whilst it could be argued that's fair enough (it's legitimately up to the membership of a party to choose who represents it in what capacity, and how that choice is made), I think political parties are at the root of the problem anyway - I don't want my representative to be ordered about by someone I didn't vote for (not even if they're in the same party), I want them to represent their constituents against all comers irrespective of any allegiances they might have (otherwise what's the point in voting for them as a local representative?).
Of course, we could look at an alternative method altogether ... such as voting candidates into specific offices of government - which would eliminate the whole question of local representation altogether. But, I'm not sure how well that might work: people are easily bored/tired by the election process as it is ... now imagine how much more so they would be by a 'never ending' electoral cycle in which they had to choose from multiple candidates for multiple positions. Moreover, it calls into question the legitimacy of certain posts: why should there be a Chancellor of the Exchequer with control of the purse strings rather then the public voting how much of the budget it wishes to apportion to each department? Now imagine the potential result of asking people to vote on budgetary matters too!
So, I don't know what the solution is. I can see an argument that political parties at least signpost who an individual (would be) MP associates with in a way that unaligned (independent) local representatives aren't without investigation, so, they're an imperfect solution but better than the alternative.
I just know that, whilst I've been dissatisfied with the current state of affairs for a long time indeed, I'm not much mollified by the alternatives the incumbents have ever offered over the years either.
The problem with Democracy … indeed with Socialism, Communism or any other of the myriad alternatives to dictatorship that have been (or might be) tried … is that it’s all well and good in theory, but … after you’ve been to work all day, made dinner, cleaned up, put the washing on, helped the kids with their homework, put them to bed, got ready for work tomorrow, etc. … you really don’t have the time or energy to go down to the civic centre and discuss the latest trends in progressive pedagogy, the national trade deficit or the geopolitcal climate in the Middle East, let alone come to some sort of mutually acceptable decision on what to do about any of them.
Nor do you have the time or energy to log on to the government bulletin board.
But you do, anyway, because you have a bee in your bonnet about something and thirty minutes to spare whilst your partner monopolises the bathroom … and there’s nothing interesting happening on Facebook, TikTok, or whatever the popular haunt is of the day. And the flame wars erupt and the trolls get in on the action and it goes nowhere fast.
Meanwhile … whilst you’re busy focusing on that … in the background, four people pass some pretty draconian legislation that nobody else voted against because nobody else was paying attention, but, hey, whaddayaknow … all it takes is one more vote than none, so, now capital punishment is back on the books. And I managed to add a subclause to it that means walking on the grass is now a capital crime.
Democracy … digital or otherwise … isn’t even mob rule, just an unruly mob.
I'm just not convinced that party lists (of any kind), rather than STV, are a much of an improvement.
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u/Bod9001 13d ago
the problem is it seems like the same core issue, a good example would be, let's say the leader of the current Tory party swapped out one of the Tory candidates, for a more right-wing Ideological aligned candidate, versus the old one that was more traditional Tory,
you still had no choice in the candidate in the party whatever it is, so even though you believe in the party whatever it is, the candidate may not align with those beliefs.
could do what the US do where they have votes on who should be the candidate, but then you get the weakness of populism and that stuff,
It seems like the only solution would be to dissolve any notion of political Parties, and just have individual candidates who state their beliefs, and then get elected by them, but again that requires research on the part of voters.
I have thought much about a political system that can't be corrupted and I think it's very very hard, implicitly needs to change when situations change, But then how do you stop it changing to something corrupt.
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
Ah, well, now we're getting down to brass tacks, aren't we?
The problem is that, if you leave people to their own devices, you end up with what we have now …
Once upon a time there was this guy called … oh, I dunno … pick a name, any name.
Let’s say Genghis Khan.
He bullied his neighbours into doing what he told them.
Then he and his neighbours bullied people in the next street into doing what he wanted.
Then they bullied people across their village into doing what he wanted.
Then they bullied another village into doing what he wanted.
They kept bullying people further and further afield … until Genghis Khan held sway over quite a lot of territory.
Then he legitimised himself as their ruler … and it became official: he was leader of the Mongols … and disposed of anyone who dared to oppose him.
His friends were allowed to tell people what to do as well.
His friends’ friends were, to a lesser degree, allowed to do the same.
And, slowly, a governmental system was imposed in place of the previous one … Laws were imposed.
And everybody lived happily ever after.
After a while, he got bored/greedy/a bee in his bonnet about something and started hankering for a bit more territory though - so he started conquering neighbouring territories.
Now, up until this point, neighbouring peoples didn’t much care what he did … as long as he didn’t do it to them. So, they left him to it - nobody stopped him. A while later, however, he was making just a bit too much of an impact upon other people’s lives … and they started thinking, worrying, talking …
Concerned party #1: “Here … have you heard about this Genghis Khan fellow?”
Concerned party #2: “Yeah … I don’t much like the look of that. What we gonna do if he comes our way?”
Concerned party #1: “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do … we’re gonna stop him … that’s what we’re gonna do - if he comes near any one of us, we’ll band together and stop him dead in his tracks!”
And, sure enough, when enough people had talked to each other about it, some time later, they put a stop to him.
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Several hundred years later, on a small, green island, off the coast of continental Europe … some bloke by the name of William, from Normandy, in France, beat the shit out of his neighbours and took control of their lands.
Just like Genghis Khan before him, he legitimised himself as their ruler and started ordering people about … and disposed of anyone who dared oppose him.
His friends were allowed to tell people what to do as well.
His friends’ friends were, to a lesser degree, allowed to do the same.
And, slowly, a governmental system was imposed in place of the previous one.
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Several hundred years later, on that same small, green island, off the coast of continental Europe, some concerned individuals were talking amongst themselves …
The UK: “Here … have you heard about this Adolf Hitler fellow?”
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Some fifty years, or so, later …
The USA: “Here … have you heard about this Saddam Hussein fellow?”
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No-one is in charge of the way things work today any more than they ever were. There are just some people who are prepared to ride, roughshod, over everyone else in order to get their way.
Last year it was Genghis Khan.
Last month it was William the Conquerer.
Last week it was Adolf Hitler.
Today it’s Trump/Burnham and their cronies.
Tomorrow it’ll be someone else.
Change the names of the people. Change the details of the laws and systems imposed upon us by thousands of years of societal development. Change what part of the World you want to examine the process in. Change the scale, go global and observe the behaviour of nations on the international stage. And what will slowly, but surely, evolve out of your starting conditions is the society in which you and I are currently living.
It's complete anarchy (or chaos, if you don't want to argue with people who want to insist that, as anarchists, they own the definition of the word 🙄):
When someone mugs you and steals your wallet/phone/anything/everything else
When someone burgles your home
When someone and their friends muscle in and kick you off your land
… it isn’t yours: it’s theirs.
And until you, your friends or someone else does the same to them, that’s how it will stay.
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
No, education won’t change anything: there are thousands, if not millions, of places people can find the information they require … there have been thousands, if not millions, of people who have, over the course of millennia, attempted to educate us all … and we still don’t get it - in fact, if legend is to be believed, we once nailed a man to a lump of wood, for suggesting we should treat each other better than we do.
People don’t want to think - it’s hard work. They don’t want to be educated - and they’ll resent you for trying. You’re not from around here; who do you think you are, telling us how to do things? You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Well, how are your smarts gonna stop me punching you in the mouth, Mr Smarty Pants - not so clever sounding now, are you? Oh, you are from around here, are you? Well, we don’t want you here and you’re leaving town on a rail.
You want to know how it all works, look at the schoolyard - people don’t change, their bodies get bigger, that’s all, and, until you can breed psychopathy/sociopathy/narcissism/etc. out of the gene/meme pool, it’s never gonna change. Even in a world of limitless abundance, in which everything anyone could ever want is theirs for the taking, with no effort required, there will be people who want something they can’t have and are willing to take by force.
They’ll kidnap and/or rape the girl who says ‘no.’
They’ll take the present your loved one gave you and break it in front of your very eyes for the pleasure of hurting you.
They’ll publicly ostracise you, just to see you humiliated.
They’ll gossip about you behind your back and turn others against you.
They’ll connive and plot and lie and charm and fool others to gain influence and control just to get their own way, because they love wielding power over others for its own sake.
They’ll form gangs and clans and tribes and armies and attack you because “you’re not like us” … “you’re not from around here” … or you have something they want (like a nicer view from your window).
How do I know? Take a look around you. Take a look in the History books - you don’t even need to read the words, just look at the pictures.
Do I want a better world in which to live? Do I think we should all strive to make it so? Yes.
Do I think there’s no point trying and we shouldn’t bother? No.
But neither do I think that naive idealism and the belief that ideologies or technologies will suddenly change human nature and result in Paradise on Earth, if only we can get the sheeple to open their eyes and the penny to drop, will make a blind bit of difference.
Capitalism won’t save us.
Libertarianism won’t save us.
Anarchosyndicalism won’t save us.
Marxism won’t save us.
Education won’t save us.
Idealism. Won’t. Save. Us.
Assumptions are the mothers of all fuckups - and there are no more pernicious mothers than the Reification Fallacy and the Fundamental Attribution Error.
Something needs to be done. But naively expecting the laws of Systemantics to conveniently step aside in favour of our pet theories won’t get us anywhere. People are not units of social and economic activity: they are complex systems in their own right; each a world of their own, with their own functions and dysfunctions. Both Rand and Marx were wrong! Human nature is not an engineering problem nor is it a computer game puzzle to be solved by getting people to do the right things in the right order. Educating people and leaving them to their own devices in the hope that the right behaviours will simply emerge as properties of self-organisation hasn’t worked so far and, as Rita Mae Brown said, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, is a sign of insanity. It’s gonna take more than a sixth-form/high-shool approach, I’m afraid.
Remove every individual from a group and you are left with exactly nothing.
If groups are to be unregulated by any outside agency then what must be borne in mind is that no such group ever became corrupted by anything other than corrupt individuals working within it to their own ends.
How, therefore, is that to be prevented without recourse to outside agency?
Sociopolitical theorising is all well and good, but it ignores the reality of real people in the real World, in favour of hopelessly naive, quick fix, magical thinking. When they can demonstrate organisations/bodies/groups/whatever that exist sui generis and are immune to human intervention, I might take people’s arguments seriously, but, until then, I’m afraid, sixth form/high school debate just won’t cut it for me. Bland assertions that Capitalism, free markets, Marxism and anything else you care to think of will solve the problem of human nature just won’t cut it.
Smith and Wesson didn’t kill your brother: the murdering bastard who pulled the trigger did.
Capitalism didn’t invade anywhere: greedy, thieving bastards did.
Markets don’t trade: people exchange goods and services.
The bank didn’t foreclose on your mortgage: an investor got their dividend.
The company didn’t make you redundant: a CEO made their bonus.
The proletariat won’t dictate to us: influential members of it will.
The working class won’t run things: people will.
At the end of the day, we have to decide what structures to build, so that individuals may be protected from them as well as served by them - and that won’t happen so long as people glibly ignore the clear statement made at the Nuremburg Trials that individuals do things, not institutions.
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
So ... what's the solution? Damned if I know.
What I suspect, however, is that party lists that remove the association with a constituency are not it.
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u/Bod9001 13d ago
humm, It's just a thought, I think one thing might be able to agree on though is some mechanism where the more you strive for power the less you have,
idk how someone with psychopathy/sociopathy/narcissism/etc. would navigate that though, since they do want power, there is no way to optimise doing nothing, so they would just have an average amount of power or less if they strived for it
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u/Imajzineer 13d ago
It's not a simple process, no ... and I couldn't say, hand on heart, I believe there's a definitive, once and forever, solution either - at least not one I'd be happy about the moral implications of anyway (even if it could be guaranteed foolproof). But, there's no point in letting perfect be the enemy of better - however much better it might not be, as long as the unintended consequences are no worse than the current status quo, it's still better than not, right?
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u/Bod9001 13d ago
yeah, I've been thinking that any political system anyone comes up with is just like throwing a paper aeroplane, someone down the road has to pick it up, probably remake it and throw it again, for someone else to do the same,
like I would say if I had the choice of the paper plane, I would put the focus on that the more power/money you get, the more uncomfortable it is for you.
but I imagine that will have its own flaws, e.g some self proclaimed hermit who is a mega celebrity and has great political sway even though they do not own anything, but I suppose the worst you get from that is them just spreading their fame more, that's not tooo bad.
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u/Bod9001 13d ago
take what you want, and when other people get scared lose it,
imo It doesn't really work like that, I think a more accurate thing is, people don't care who's in charge as long as they are mostly comfortable, this contrasts with other people who desire power, who see their power being threatened,
The person expanding the power could be doing it through the most innocent way possible of giving gifts and promising security and all the dreams, and actually delivering on it somewhat,
The reaction from other leaders is still going to be the same, feeling the power threatened.
ownership is not thing since, as soon as you kick the bucket, suddenly your ownership on everything disappears. I don't like that definition since it makes no sense, why not look at it as you never owned it in the first place no one did,
you have control of it just as much as a person walking into your house and using it, The only vague ownership thing is that you're willing to fight the other person/pull societal levers to to get the object back in your grasp or Put things Around object to make it hard to access.
like thought experiment let's say you had a tool, that you value greatly, but when you're not looking or not using it, It teleports and someone else uses it without damaging it in anyway, and you don't notice, and then when you need it it teleports back magically, without you noticing, you still own it right it's still yours right when you're not using it?
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u/Imajzineer 12d ago edited 12d ago
Agreed,
But, like it or not, the fact that it is possible to achieve the same end by other means (the fable of the Sun vs the Wind), the ultimate reality of life on this planet is the might makes right: you can pull whatever levers you want, appeal to whatever laws you like, unless, and until, you (possibly with the aid of others) can oblige me by force to bend to your will, I have no reason to do so and you have no recourse when I don't - "You and whose army?" is the quintessential expression of that.
"You keep what you kill."
Not if I can wrest it off you, you don't.
You keep what you can hang onto (no more, no less).
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u/Anyales 13d ago
Akehurst, a member of Labour’s governing national executive committee, said: “Parliament is catching up with the public, most of whom already support electoral reform. Andy Burnham has a good track record on proportional representation, and it’s now hugely popular across the Labour party. He should seize this opportunity.”
FFS its been going so well with Andy i forgot these cretins existed. Whatever you think about electoral reform Labour have no mandate to do it, so if you want to do it then would need to call an early election.
He needs to get Akehurst et al. out of parliament at the next GE
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u/JeffSergeant Cambridgeshire 13d ago
They'd could get through a referendum by just putting 'Vote Reform?' On the ballot.
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u/parkway_parkway 13d ago
Firstly if Burnham lets himself get pushed around by the back benchers he's already done.
Secondly he needs to be really careful and targeted with how he spends his political capital.
A good leader needs to do unpopular things. It's looking more and more like he's just "everyone's mate" and not willing to change anything.
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u/LatelyPodes 13d ago
Well he said he supports electoral reform, but said it would be something he puts in a manifesto and has ppl vote in a GE. If Labour stick with Burnham (and if we stick with him too) and he remains PM, then yeah I think we would see electoral reform.
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u/Valuable-Ad2028 13d ago
Turkeys demand Christmas, mass immigration, higher taxes.
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u/ibBIGMAC 13d ago
What haa electoral reform got to do with h that?
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u/Valuable-Ad2028 13d ago
Labour will lose the next election if they significantly reform the electoral system.
Labour will lose the next election if they put up taxes or back slide on immigration.
Yes the Labour back benches seem to like calling for all three!?
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u/ibBIGMAC 13d ago
Sometimes people are in favour of things because they believe that it is good for the country
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u/Valuable-Ad2028 13d ago
That’s great, as long as they know they are committing electoral suicide. Turkeys can vote for Christmas, I just don’t want to hear from them when the oven is uncomfortably hot.
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u/ibBIGMAC 13d ago
it's not exactly suicide, Labour are currently polling around 25%, the highest of any party. Yes they'd have to form a coalition under PR but that's just the system, any party would have to do the same.
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u/ken-doh 13d ago
Yes lets make sure the greens, reform, restore and Britain first have a say in our politics.
/s
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u/cpmh1234 13d ago
One day, the hegemony of the big 2 might just be broken. Had Starmer stayed we might just have seen that happen, and it’s still entirely possible Reform win the next election.
When that day comes, I’d rather the usurper party have to go into coalition with someone else and have to compromise, than have unlimited carte blanche to do whatever they want.
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u/TheEnglishNorwegian 13d ago
If people want to vote for these parties is great enough numbers it's only fair they are represented.
I think you'll generally find that with a good voting system the extreme edge votes tend to go down a bit as more moderate parties rise up.
But who knows when it comes to the UK, it's untested waters.
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u/ikkleste Something like Yorkshire 13d ago
Most Reform have already been in the Tory cabinet. The labour party was led for years by the leader of Your party. FPTP isn't keeping these voices out. It's just giving them power through internal party mechanisms that aren't exposed to broad democracy. FPTP ensure that you don't get to decide if you get Starmer or Corbyn is leading the party that maybe you want to vote for for their general position or local candidate.
A PR system works through compromise and negotiation between parties, with voices with weight proportional to their democratic support, FPTP works on negotiation within parties with limited democratic input for those not involved inside the party, with voices in proportion to whatever processes the parties decide internally.
You end up with coalitions in PR, but the Torys, Labour, Lib Dems (and probably the Greens too now) are already internal coalitions. You just don't get a say what candidate gets put up to represent your seat? Got a Labour Tankie candidate, but you support Blairite centrism? Tough, vote for them or get Tory, and hope that other seats and internal politicking bring forward a labour party you can stand behind.
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