I hear there's an election on...

[emilystrange]

that was crap, wasn't it?
what the f**k are people THINKING???

[markfiend]

I don't think they were thinking. They were fearing.

[abridged]

So dark all over England...

[Pista]

Blame that Maggie Simpson kid!

[emilystrange]

maybe 'wtf were they f***ing about at' ?

[Pat]

Scotland now has more Trident subs than pro-Trident MPs

[Nikolas Vitus Lagartija]

Scotland now has more Trident subs than pro-Trident MPs

And only one MP at the government table.

[RockNRoll Mercenary]

The result nobody wanted or expected.

[ribbons69]

The result nobody wanted or expected.

But everybody voted for.

[iesus]

Are there any thoughts about the electoral system in GB after the results?
I heard that parties with 1.5m votes elect over 50 seats and other with about the same votes or more 1 or none.

[EvilBastard]

Are there any thoughts about the electoral system in GB after the results?

That would be the electoral system that Labour promised to reform when they got in in 1997? Or the one that the tories had a referendum on in 2005, when they offered the electorate the choice between what "half of won't be represented by your government" and "If you hadn't answered Labour, what would your second choice have been?"?

The only option is proportional representation, which alas won't ever happen because whoever gets into is far too bloody cushy where they are to want to upset the apple cart.

It's a disgrace. The only thing worse would be that thing the sepos have, where you don't actually vote for a president, you vote for someone who says that he'll vote for the candidate you want, but without anything set in stone that says that he actually has to.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

Are there any thoughts about the electoral system in GB after the results?
.

put it this way- my vote was for an unfeasibly safe seat which has returned the same member of parliament for nearly 30 years -longer than i've ben eligible to vote even. in no way at all did my vote have any influence over the result beyond shoring up a certainty.....if i'd moved to warwick or better still scotland my vote could be said to have helped tip the balance one way or the other, but here i may as well have stayed in bed and counted my knob.

my point- we dont vote for the government, we elect a parliament. the most heavily represented "team" in said parliament gets to be the government. i would be in favour of parliamentary elections being proportionately representative and a seperate process in the way that local council elections are a seperate process.
voting for the government should be another seperate process again, the result being dependent on which "team" has the most votes overall, not the most elected members.

there was a very deliberately underplayed and confusing referndum on the electoral system 5 years ago, which was so hot on the heels of the last general election (one before this) and so not in the intersts of the majority of the new government that if you blinked you missed it, and if you didnt miss it you probably didnt understand it, and if you did understand it, you would probably have worked out fairly swiftly that you and the 47 other people taking part would change precisely f**k all.
it was actually just lip-service to appease the betrayed supporters of the coalition-enabling quislings of the liberal democrats, but in the way of these things pretty much assured that the subject was and is effectively closed.

[lazarus corporation]

Well that (the election, not the posts above) was a bit bollocks.

Been looking through the contenders for the Labour Leadership and I think Dan Jarvis is by far the best choice: ex-Major in the Paras (so has experience outside Westminster, and can you imagine the Sun or the Daily Mail successfully trying to attack his background or character?), left-wing on taxation, and not really associated with any factions within the party so could be good at uniting it.

A bit about him:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... e-minister

[markfiend]

There are a hell of a lot of UKIP voters who are pretty angry that their 12.6% of the national vote translated into just one seat while the LibDems got 8 seats from just 7.9% (not to mention SNP's 56 seats from 4.7%) (Edit to add: the DUP in Northern Ireland also got 8 seats but from a mere 0.6% of the national vote)

While I have heard some of my lefty friends laughing that the UKIP surge is a good argument against PR, it's hard not to feel that the democratic will of the people is regularly thwarted by our first-past-the-post system.

[emilystrange]

by all accounts, the 'couldn't be bothered to vote' Party won by a massive majority. in some seats, their 'vote' was more than the winning candidate got.

[Durly]

Jesus. Another FIVE YEARS of these utter bastards. Just great!

Re: the next Labour leader - Dan Jarvis has disappointingly (but understandably) said he won't be running as he doesn't want to spend time away from his family at the moment - his wife died a while ago and he has children he wants to be there for.
Andy Burnham seems to be the bookies favourite, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt will be in the running, Yvette Cooper is also said to be interested, as is Liz Kendall.

[lazarus corporation]

Re: the next Labour leader - Dan Jarvis has disappointingly (but understandably) said he won't be running as he doesn't want to spend time away from his family at the moment - his wife died a while ago and he has children he wants to be there for.
Andy Burnham seems to be the bookies favourite, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt will be in the running, Yvette Cooper is also said to be interested, as is Liz Kendall.

Yeah, just saw that Jarvis had ruled himself out (a great shame, but totally respect his reasons for doing so).

Stella Creasey is another possible contender.

[markfiend]

People have mentioned my MP, Rachel Reeves as a potential name-in-the-ring. A bit unlikely I think as she's shortly to go off on maternity leave.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

re. the labour party and its next leader/incarnation: before they choose their next leader -regardless of the candidates- wouldnt it be good if a committee of senior party members presided over an all-inclusive in-party discussion (debate, forum, council -whatever) and decided the desired direction, shape and style politically, and image publically, of the party's future/next incarnation? so that regardless of who leads, the party stands for something valuable and unbreakable.
since John Smith died it has become a party of lost souls raggedly following the Personality (or lack of) at it's head with no semblance of cohesion or enduring beliefs. surely if they believe themselves capable of running the country they must be capable of running themselves.

[Durly]

Re: the next Labour leader - Dan Jarvis has disappointingly (but understandably) said he won't be running as he doesn't want to spend time away from his family at the moment - his wife died a while ago and he has children he wants to be there for.
Andy Burnham seems to be the bookies favourite, Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt will be in the running, Yvette Cooper is also said to be interested, as is Liz Kendall.

Yeah, just saw that Jarvis had ruled himself out (a great shame, but totally respect his reasons for doing so).

Stella Creasey is another possible contender.

She is. I wouldn't be surprised to see Rachel Reeves throw her hat in at some point as well. Although, the only person who has actually, officially said they will be running thus far is Liz Kendall. I've met her socially on 3 or 4 occasions (completely unrelated to work or politics) and she is a very nice woman. Not sure whether she's ready to lead a major political party though......

[Phil]

The result nobody wanted or expected.

But everybody voted for.

I didn't vote for it.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

And off to a good start....

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ne ... ge-5685012

IZ.

[markfiend]

The result nobody wanted or expected.

But everybody voted for.

I didn't vote for it.

sixty-odd percent of people who voted didn't either

[Being645]

And off to a good start....

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ne ... ge-5685012

IZ.

Yeah, and added by this here, things can only get better for the UK ...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ne ... ed-5685570

[nowayjose]

In a FPTP system, you get rule by minority, in a proportional system, you get 'grand coalitions'. As the voter, you're f**ked either way. I'm not saying that both systems are useless, but I don't think there's a system that's inherently better or more 'democratic' than the other. Still better to be undemocratic like that than to be democratic as in the Democratic People's Republic of Elbonia.