The UK Election!!!!

That makes no sense.(Also, I'm not huntard)

If you would have asked me before the election I would have told you that all of the parties would be watering down their policies AND they would introduce measures that they didn't put into their manifestos.I would also point out that a Hung Parliament is exactly what was predicted before the polls opened. So if you didn't want to vote (presumably Conservative) because they may end up forming a coalition or other deal you probably weren't paying attention. I even put a party political broadcast from the Conservative party that said there was a good chance of a Hung Parliament which would mean closed-door deals would be being made. Their view was that you should vote Conservative to try and avoid that situation.You probably should have abstained or voted for an smaller party if you really did not want to vote for a Party that was likely to have most of the power but would have to make compromises.

You could say that about individual parties too. Not everyone in each party subscribes wholly or equally to every official party policy. The tories have the factions over Europe (primarily) and the Libs and Labs have their internal differences too. So if no single party can command a majority..... Then what? Well no doubt you can tell us all what it is that people did vote for given the result we have? You seem to be suggesting that there is some obvious and necessary result that everyone else is missing or denying?If so - What is it?

I asked you which you preferred - STV or the ability for people to have petitions debated and reading time made. You thought the petitions idea was a big step and STV was a tiny one.Have you now changed your mind, or would you be ecstatic with petitions being debated and merely a lot happier with STV?Note: STV doesn't necessarily mean we'll know what the preferred coalitions are - but theoretically some useful information could be pulled if the data was sorted electronically.

This is true. I had some late night discussions pre-election where some buddies tried an evidence based approach to the policies put out by the parties. Each party had at least one policy that everybody agreed was poor, and some ideas of a superparty that had a sufficient mix of ideas to garner the most support amongst us.In the end most people had decided to pick the Party who had the policies they most disliked and tactically vote against that Party.

Put plainly, I'm suggesting it may be better for the most numerous minority to get exactly what they want, than for no one to do so.

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"Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred."

Yeah, I think that makes no sense.The best outcome for a consensus decision is that a compromise is reached which is acceptable to the majority. Having a happy minority is a way back from that.It's also a shoddy way to run a government. Strong government is not a good thing, it's a bad thing. It leads to bad decisions being muscled through (as the last 30 years clearly show) rather than considered compromises.

Would you have told me exactly which policies would be watered down and under which circumstances or which measures they would add-on? No, I don't think so. It's ok speculating about other people's intentions by when it comes to the crunch all you have a manifesto and a cross on a ballot. Nowhere, in any party's manifesto did I see anything about what could happen if things didn't turn out as expected or what were their preferred alliances and how they would go about forming them if necessary.So you could have told me all you wished but it would have made no difference, because you're not the candidate or the party, you're just a punter, like me. And the way the Tories would deal with a Hung Parliament was described....exactly where in their manifesto...?You can point out all you want but it's not you I'm voting for so why should I take your word for it? In other words: "if there's a Hung Parliament we don't know what we'll have to add/extract from our policies, but vote for us anyway just in case".or in Labour's instance: "if there's a Hung Parliament you may even get a new Prime Minister in addition to some, yet unknown, change in policy"hardly a case for an informed, clear choice for the electorate, don't you think? So I should have to change my voting preferences just because the system is seriously flawed..?! I thought the system was there to serve the citizens, not the other way round!I hope you can see why I'm vehemently calling for the introduction of direct democracy,

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"Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred."

I still don't know, given the result we have, who you think should be forming the current government. Or why.Are you going to enlighten us?

The difference being that where individual parties are concerned the 'whole' is already known before you get to the ballot and you don't have to second guess what 'sum of the parts' you're going to end up with, as is happening now with this coallition . Then IMHO we have to seriously consider what's wrong with our system and how to go about fixing it. The thing in representative systems is that it's very hard to tell what the people want, that's why we're in the mess we're in. Noone knows what the people want, just by looking at the results. You may argue that they wanted Labour out but not Conservatives in. You may argue that they wanted Conservatives in but only in a coallition. Either point of view is at the same time valid and invalid, depending on how you look at it.Now imagine if people could vote directly on policies instead of having to choose a generic set under a party guise. There would be no ambiguity and people would get exactly what they want. That'd be the day, wouldn't it? The obvious observation that many people are missing or denying is that the current electoral system is seriously flawed, broken, messed up. A radical shake-up is needed asap.As for who should be the winner of this election, as I alluded in my original post on this thread, it really doesn't matter.

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"Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred."

Isn't that what the lib dems (and now the Labour leadership even if not the MPs as a whole) are now proposing? Ah. So your answer to the current question is to not be in a position of having to answer the current question in the first place.I don't really see how that places you in a position to complain about the potential coalitions that are looking likely.

Of course I'd be much happier with public voting on which issues to debate (that was the original suggestion IIRC), that'd be much closer to true democracy. I'd also be happy -especially given the current situation- with STV. So no, I haven't changed my mind: STV good, direct petition/debate much better.On a separate note, I think you sometimes treat propositions as an XOR instead of an OR. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

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"Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred."

You seemed to suggest you'd be a lot happier with STV, but previously you seemed to indicate that while it was a positive step, it was only a very small one. Therefore, I suspect you would be absolutely ecstatic if petitions got debated since if a very small step can make you a lot happier it stands to reason that a big step would be outstanding pleasure. So I asked if that was the case.There is no presumption of exclusivity going on here, I appreciate you think both are positive, I was merely asking if you still relatively ranked them the same and whether my hypothesis about how happy petition debating must make you, should it get in. After all, it is possible that being presented with the possibility of a non-Conservative Party run government caused you to reassess your priorities.Was it so unreasonable of me to assume that you are not dogmatic and that you might, under some circumstances, change your mind and that your words might possibly have been indicative of such a shift in priorities and then for me to ask if that was indeed the case?The original suggestion by the Conservative Party, at least the specific part I was discussing was:

quote:

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So, with a Conservative government,
any petition that secures 100,000 signatures
will be eligible for formal debate in Parliament.

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It isn't quite the same as saying this would determine what issues are debated. If this had been in place these last few years we'd have seen the following being eligible for formal debate:

quote:

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Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy

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Create a new public holiday, the National Remembrance Holiday to commemorate The Fallen

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Allow the Red Arrows to Fly at the 2012 Olympics

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Reduce Fuel duty to bring fuel prices back to an acceptable level

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Abolish plans to build a 100 million mega Mosque.

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Fuel duty reduction, now VAT has increased to 17.5%, please deduct the duty which was levied when vat was reduced to 15%.

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Ensure that inheritance tax is scrapped in this year's Budget

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Create a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital within the UK

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All of them have a response on the petitions website. It would be interesting to see how many of these have actually undergone formal debate in the House. Just to see how much impact the Conservative Party's proposal will actually have on the content of the debate.

Well, it's official, you're getting a tory/libdem coalition.

Booooo. Hiiissssss. Oh well.A couple of months ago a thumping tory majority looked a very likely result. I think that would have socially destructive and catastrophic for many.A tory government which is tempered by the relative social compassion of the liberals is far superior as far as I am concerned.So we got there in the end. Twists and turns and some near misses. But ultimately I think we got broadly what the country voted for. A change from 13 years of Labour. But not the same old conservatives that have done so much damage in the past.I hope it works out but cannot help but think the libs will have some difficult times with their new bedfellows. The next European issue could be very telling as to their real status.