Lib Dems
I'm thinking of writing an essay about the Liberal Democrats. I'm not sure if it is compatible with the question, but if it is I would like to write about the difficulty of the third (or any other) party to break the hegemony of the big two.
I'm thinking I'll focus on bias in the media as well as the systematic bias of the voting system in the UK and whatever else I can think of. What I'm really after though (apart from a good debate) is if there are any books that discuss issues such as these in any kind of detail? I've got the answer and the vague outline of some ideas, but now I need some substance. |
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well you might want to consider the change from liberal/tory to tory/labour before you get too carried away arguing an impenetrable polarised system ...
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Hey, just call me an optimist. :cool: |
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Clearly there are numerous other factors involed, but aside from some huge social upheval I can't see what is going to cause a rise in mass politics to such an extent that a more 'radical' (i.e. one that differs in any significant way from the other two) party would prosper.
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which is a bit dull, in my opinion |
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Additional information is necessary for us foreigners to follow this discussion, should it take off.
Are the two leading parties Labour and Conservative? Are Tories the same as Conservatives? Liberal Democrats, are they a current party but not one of the two leading parties? Were the Liberal Democrats a big two party at one time? Teach me. I want to learn but am too lazy to look things up. |
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besides you seem to be on the right track |
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Oh, and media bias is only a very tangenital factor here. Most of the media were highly favourable (either openly or otherwise) to the Alliance/David Owen in the 1980's and that didn't really do much good for the Liberals/SDP. In fact, the Alliance did a lot worse than the Lib Dems of today - who so often bitch about 'lack of exposure' - generally do.
The only real thing which holds the two party system together is the voting system. If it wasn't for the current voting system then Labour would undoubtedly have died as a party of government in the eighties and quite possibly the Tories as well. (at least in their current form.) |
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I vote you take MM's advice. It's quite a worn track, though. You should try the Al-Fayed stratagem and blame an international conspiracy involving the top ten or so people in power. I'd read that.
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Is Scotland trying to leave or are you trying to push them out?
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They're trying to leave.
They've got half-way out. The SNP (Scottish National Party) is trying to convince the Scottish people that they should go the rest of the way, mainly through economic arguments; although I'm not up-to-date on how far they've got with that. One of the arguments revolves around whether or not Scotland depends economically on the rest of the UK. This was certainly true in previous years from the data I've seen, but not so now; some stats even claim they're richer. The most important question, from a politically realist perspective, would revolve around who would own the North Sea oil on independence. Unless I'm mistaken (i.e. there's some statement in the devolution legislation that guarantees a referendum on independence at some point) the UK parliament would have to grant Scotland a referendum on independence. The Conservatives were previously extremely reluctant to grant Scotland a referendum on devolution - Labour promptly initiated it when they came to power in 1997. So if the Conservatives are in power when and if the SNP demand a referendum on independence it may be a little tricky. If Labour are in power it's far more likely that they'd allow it as they've always been pro-devolution and presumably pro-independence, or at least more so than the Conservatives. With this you need to realise that it's highly unlikely that the Conservatives will ever receive many MPs in Scotland anymore and Labour are losing votes to the SNP and other parties (Labour were in power in the Scottish parliament at the start, but now the SNP along with the Greens, I think, are in power). |
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Scotland keeps pretending they want to leave because they think it makes them look hard.
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As an aside to scottish independence and north sea oil, are the liberal democrats somewhere between labour and conservative on the political spectrum*?
Giving all the whinging on these boards, i was under the impression that a major criticism of the two major parties was that they're too similar (a concern also raised in Australia with "me too"ism). Assuming that this is the case, how can a party that is between the two major parties differentiate themselves from the others if there is so little room to move? Or is that why they never win any elections? *i am aware that its not really a line |
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So, because they've not been in government for the last 200 years, they can claim the moral high ground in any issue regarding competance as they've no past record that they feel obligated to defend?
So... Will they ever actually win an election? |
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"all the parties are the same" is an utterly fatuous remark. It is made by people too lazy to look for differences.
What exactly would you prefer in a democracy? "ooo I'm not going to vote for the XXX party because of that silly 'we will eat every baby we see lightly roasted with garlic and sesame' policy but at least they are different!" Such idiocy invariably leads to supporting single issue parties or utter freaks. |
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The Alliance got many more votes than the Lib Dems do today if I remember correctly, but they were royally screwed by the electoral system. It's hard to consider the UK a proper democracy when our current Prime Minister derives his mandate from the votes of 21% of the electorate (who of course voted for a party led by someone else entirely).
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I merely suggested it was silly. |
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The Liberal Democrats are a bit like a mule with a spinning wheel.
A really tired joke that got old before it had even started. |
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PS I find it rather bizzare how the UK doesn't use PR. Christ knows if Ireland used FPP we'd have some sort of fascist Fianna Fail tyranny in place by now. |
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Also, it's more democratic, which makes their opinion less significant. |
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For those mooting a Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, I really don't see it happening. The Liberal tradition in the Lib Dems is, to my eyes, long dead - certainly as far as their policies go. It's just the SDP with a new name. If we were to change to a proportional system then STV is probably the way to go - larger multi-member constituences seem pretty cool to me. I abhor List systems since they entrench political parties into the electoral system. Quote:
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The Lib Dems advocate PR but that's because it would double their number of MPs. Labour used to advocate PR during the Thatcher/Major years....look what happened when they got into power. The issue was quietly dropped by the time of the 2001 election. |
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they'd only bring back hanging after all. |
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The UK has the perfect system because now we all believe we're going to get screwed in all possible holes no matter who's in government we're quite happy to get screwed in all possible holes no matter who's in government. I've given up arguing for pipe-dreams like PR. Instead, I'm going to sit around and wait until scotland gains full independence, unites with norway, and then attacks the united kingdom to usher in anarchic libertarianism. I guess it'll be a little like the open source movement but with hot norwegian babes.
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Question: if the GD became the bastion of revolution in the UK, which member would shoot which member first? I reckon nodrog would have dante shot pretty quickly.
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We (Britain) do not have one system of education and labelling it so serves no purpose. We do not, thank any and every god, have one source of media. Our places of work differ greatly and those outside the public sector have so much free choice that it fuels an industry. The industry I work in. Despair is a choice like any delusion. You have the luxury to indulge in delusions. Be aware that some of us do not. |
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Alas, Paul O'Grady got there first and cornered the market in camp. |
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Further, denying any change on the grounds that "it wont make society perfect, ergo let not do it" is folly. Whilst your society might never actually reach a utopic ideal, a society that adopts progress and adapts new ideas to improve their current standing is almost certainly going to be a better place to live than a stagnant society that you, T&F, seem to prefer instead. At the end of the day, a society that is relatively better place to live is ultimately superior to those that arent, whether it is "absolutely perfect" or not. I believe, with Hebdomad it seems, that FPTP is a very long way from an ideal electoral system due to its many flaws. If you had argued, T&F, that PR would be a bad idea because it would have led to vast political instability such as Italy (which can only seem to manage to have a government once a year), then I reckon that would have been a very valid argument. Although there are obviously ways to avoid the instability associated with PR, as Australia has managed for over 50 years. |
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Furthermore, to focus on reform of existing institutions is inadequate as you can tinker with the system all you like but it is not possible to remove the injustice and exploitation which is inherent in it. |
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You wont know what benefits (and costs too, i suppose) you can have until you adopt PR. In Australia, the lower house (House of Reps) uses what we call a Preferential system (i think its technically an Instant Runoff or something like that), such a system yields a strong two-party kind of result. However, in the Senate, proportional representation is used, the result being that minor parties such as the Greens, (formally) the Australian Democrats, and One Nation/Family First (examples of extreme left, centre and extreme right parties respectively) manage to get representation within the upper house. The result is that the upper house is (usually) not a rubber stamp for prevailing government policy, rather one (or more) of the minor parties hold the "balance of power" in the senate. When the GST was introduced to Australia, the influence of the Democrats (for better or worse) was that basic food items were not taxed. When the Liberal Party (ie, Conservative) won a massive majority in the 2005 election and gained control of the senate, legislation such as WorkChoices (which essentially denied any rights of Workers to compensation for leave/sick/unfair dismissal/long service and others from a "small business" employer, which the ABS defines as 100 employees or less, heh). Thus, in Britain, you would have got the crap (Workchoices), without the potential benefit of third/other party scrutiny (GST), that the PR system helped facilitate indirectly in Australia. So, the impact of PR might not be so clear cut. |
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A Turkey as the Irish entry in Eurovision? ffs. Come back Eoin O'Duffy, all is forgiven. |
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There's an enormous amount of institutional and cultural momentum built up in western governments to the point where even if the eventual goal is the abolition of the system in any form it would be recognisable you're not going to be able to accomplish this in a constructive fashion without first amending the system, and more importantly society at large, to be more accepting to large scale changes of the kind you envisage. Sure PR isn't a magical button that fixes the problems of liberal democracies the world over but nothing is really.
I wouldn't say we should be afraid of our leaders so much as we should be afraid of their complete lack of anything even vaguely resembling competence. The greedy idiot is a lot more common than the conniving megalomaniac. Admittedly this is all a bit trite but that's mostly what politics seems to consist of. PS Taking the opportunity to quote a great character in that "people should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people". |
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Whereas you'd be advocating what exactly?
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Let's say there is a change in the social fabric of the UK. Even then we'll still have divergent opinions and ideas which will need a fair form of representation, one based on proportional representation. From what I can tell we both support the PR system and both wish for social change, but it seems to me you would like to achieve social change in different manner. I would prefer change gradually through proportional representation. Perhaps you wish that the current system fail which would enable us to start again? |
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