We only ever have these things in Britain because "they have them in America", a non-argument advanced in all sorts of causes by people who think that it is unanswerable, rather than merely unworthy of a response.
Look what has been done to our foreign policy. Look what is being done to our NHS.
With the re-election of the incumbent at Clacton, the only candidate with whom UKIP could have won the seat, there are now 12 parties in the House of Commons, of which four have precisely one seat apiece.
One of those three outpolled the Liberal Democrats at this year's European Elections, while one of the other eight has more members than the Lib Dems (and far more than UKIP).
Not only would the necessary debates with six participants on each side of the moderator last for four, five or six hours, but they would look like the Last Supper, at least as depicted by Leonardo da Vinci.
The last experiment of this kind gave this country a hung Parliament, and thus The Orange Book as the basis of the most viciously right-wing government since the War, a government for which nobody had voted.
Never again.
None of the other parties has ever-or could ever-win a national UK election or get over six million votes, as UKIP did.
ReplyDeleteThe very thought of the Greens getting anything like that at any election is hilarious. I'm still laughing, thinking about it.
Anyone fancy voting for extra recycling, 'dual-sex toilets, 'Transgender History Month' in primary school, and wind-farms?
UKIP is national-they are confined to one or two weird places-in the case of the Greens that's Brighton, (which they are welcome to).
In the case of Respect, it's the kind of places that have lots of women walking around dressed like bats, anti-Semitic bookshops and poppy-burnings.
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah. Blah. The party of angry, bitter old men on the Internet. There in all its glory. So much for believing in our parliamentary system.
DeleteQuite right, anonymous. The idea of the Greens being a national party is completely and totally false; one only has to look at the fact that in Claton they only came 200 odd votes ahead of the Lib Dems. They're popular in bourgeois liberal places (ie London, Brighton, and a few others) but, as any one will tell you, those places are not representative of the rest of Britain. Now, on your assertion that Claton was the only seat UKIP will win because of the MP that defected to them, I too think this is false. This would be a reasonable assertion, considering Carswell's local popularity, but only if you ignore polling in a multitude of other seats on the eastern coast of England (and, I think, some areas of the north too). If you watch Farage's most recent conference speech (or one of them, anyway) they do a little bit of analysis of these polls.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, Mr Lindsay, you allow your personal dislike of UKIP, and your tribalism in general, get in the way of actually making a rational analysis. It really does make for some truly boring and partisan blogs.
UKIP has the same number of seats as the Greens (albeit acquired far more recently), and we either have a parliamentary system, or we do not.
DeleteThen sure, like me, you should be opposed to these ridiculous TV debates. They're completely opposed to the concept of parliamentary democracy as they make out we vote for a government, rather than voting for an MP.
DeleteYes, indeed.
DeleteAs I said before there is a good argument to be had for letting all non-Ulster parties with 1 MP into the debates & making them a Nordic-Multiparty affair.
ReplyDelete