Saturday 23 February 2013

That No One Should Be Missed

Marta Andreasen is quite unusual in having defected to, rather than from, the Conservative Party.

Since the introduction of party lists, the Conservatives have lost MEPs both to UKIP and to the Lib Dems. In the East Midlands, it has lost them to both.

The Burkean principle of a representative rather than a delegate arguably has not applied since party labels started to appear on ballot papers. It certainly does not apply to someone elected from a closed party list.

3 comments:

  1. People want the party labels on ballots because a lot of them would vote for a donkey if it was wearing the right colour rosette.

    The refusal of millions to actually bother looking at what policies they are endorsing by voting for certain candidates has led us into a lot of bother.

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  2. David,

    Equally it negates the concept of the so-called 'Free Vote', as the recent vote on gay marriage in E & W debate seems to have proved.

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  3. How, either in your general or in your specific case? It probably makes them much less likely, though. I can see that.

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