Another unelected labour PM

Agree with every word that John Reid said also.

LibLab pact will not be a good thing for the labour party, and every candidate for the Labour leadership should out themselves on where they stand on coalition governments. John Reid seemed to have no appetite to work with the SNP, and as a Scot I think he knows far more about them than most non-Scots.

On BBC now they are saying that Labour have offered the Lib Dems AV without a referendum, with a referendum on a 'more radical' method of PR.

So they will just change the voting system with no reference to the electorate, without it having been in their manifesto?

Arrrgggghhhhh.

Although, Labour promised a referendum on Lisbon and we never got that so who can believe a bloody word they say.

Christ I am so angry. How can they just all change what they stand for after the election is over??

They did appoint a commission;The Jenkins commission,which came up with AV plus (incidently no country in the world uses this so it is untested).....it was buried by the Labour Party!

1997? 1997? And that's supposed to be a mandate for them to go ahead and change the system in parliament? Different party leader, different opposition, bloody massive majority and they didn't do it, on what basis do they think they have the mandate to do it now??

minthumbug made such a good point on another thread i thought I'd post it on this one too -

Everyone who voted LibDem was supporting PR because that's a big part of who the LibDems are.

If we have PR Nick Clegg (or whoever the LibDem leader is) will have to do deals with the left and the right in future to get laws passed. That's how a coalition after a PR election works

So you are cross that you voted LibDem and then Clegg sells you out to the Tories or Labour - why did you want the LibDem manifesto which introduces PR which would mean ALWAYS doing deals with other parties that you might not like??

good point, no?

Excellent link amicissima, thanks.

I heard John Reid as well I thought he was very good,are we really going to make this issue the fasctor on which we decide our Government for the next five years when there are much more pressing problems like how to get us out of the ecenomic mess we are in, and the fact that we have troops dying in Afghanistan and he raised the whole question of security and the Olympics .

This really is a true example of false vanity by the liberals none of whom have had real power in living political history and who despite having lost seats are now drunk on the possibilty of power;how can they really think that this is the most pressing problem facing the nation at this point....answer they don't but they do know that it is the most pressing problem facing the liberals and thats all they can see.

Perhaps unworkable is a bad choice of words.

Unfair.

LOL at people voting for a hung parliament. DH said it has been great entertainment, and can we do it again next month.

The fact that there are three parties in UK make FPTP system unworkable.

Unworkable? It's worked for a good while, and had hung parliaments before.

How dare they?? How dare the Labour party offer to change our entire voting system in their cosy little club in parliament without so much as a query to their supposed masters of the electorate. Am raging. Do they still not get it? The Lib Dems were the ONLY party campaigning on any kind of electoral reform platform and they got 24% of the vote. Fewer than 1 in 4 people. How dare they then proceed to offer it as a bill as if it's something we've given a mandate for.

Just listened to John Reid on news24, hurrah for some sensible labour people still - let's hope the rest of the party listen to him. . Never been so tempted to f&blind online...

do you think, possibly, people sid they wanted a hung parliament in a frivolous 'won't it be a fun change' sort of way?

after all, no-one could know how it would actually pan out.

WetAugust
I am not oversensitive, and pretty much ignored your rude post. I posted about staying away from this thread on the Lefties thread - as a joke - because of the reference to Thatcher being a good egg. In the meantime I have put the DC to bed, chatted to my DH and made tea.

A discussion about politics is bound to get heated at the moment but we can still be polite to each other.

Policy
Good post, and food for thought.

Must read up on the AV thing.

The only thing that I can add at the moment is that IF we get PR at some point in the future, the electorate will have to get used to hung parliaments. It is not a bad thing. It has worked for almost 60 years in Germany, they have had stable governments for most of that time.

The fact that there are three parties in UK make FPTP system unworkable. It is always going to be unfair for the smaller parties.

Say we do get a referendum on AV

Naturally there will be no time to organise it within the first year, because the economy needs putting straight

The second year will be pretty busy too

Then there will be lots of arguments over the form of PR in various committees. That'll take a decade or so

Then eventually we'll have a referendum

And then it will not go through the commons on the turkeys for christmas basis

So another couple of parliaments will slip by and eventually it gets through the commons

Then it gets bogged down in ctee. But after another decade or so it gets to the Lords

Goes back to the commons. Twice

Eventually, my unborn great-grandchildren will get PR

And anyone trusting the Tories on this issue would need certifying

Sometimes when you get an outcome you want (e.g. a hung parliament) you're lucky. You were not able to do anything to influence it. The fact that you wanted it doesn't mean you had any control over whether you got it.

Voters may have wanted a hung parliament but they could only vote for which party was represented in their constituency. It would take a hell of a lot of organisation to actively vote for a hung parliament.

They shouldn't have wanted a hung parliament anyway! Look what a fine mess the voters have gotten us in to (or would have, if they had had any control over it )

Anyway re the OP, obviously we don't vote for the PM. But our opinion of the party and our decision about whether to vote for them or not may well be based on the performance of its leader. Luckily I think Gordon was pants so I didn't vote for him or therefore his party anyway!

I think this is a good time to recommend my policy of taking the lot of these parasites out in the street and offing them like dogs.

Because ordinary people can and one day will run the country better than these murderers and self serving sociopaths.*

Aren't they all really scummy awful people.

*try saying self serving sociopaths after a couple of G&Ts...

So does anyone know - if there were to be a referendum on AV, and it was in favour of AV, but there was then an election called before it got through the lords, could the referendum result then be ignored?

Thanks bourbon.

Prime Ministers aren't elected mp's are. The leader of that party by default becomes the pm.

IsVeryTiredOfThisLineTiggaxx

Humbug,yes I was respo nding to policywonks comment about Labour being able to get a majority for PR.

Policywonk any legislation resulting from the result of a referendum will of course have to go through the Hof C but if the country has voted for it in a referndum it would be difficult for the Hof C to vote against.the legislation to get a referendum will of course have to go through the Hof C as well,and don't forget the house of Lords but as Tory plus Lib will have a majority this is realistically deliverable,but will of course cost money,I have heard estimates of £80 million just to run the referndum

yes - lik the Venn diagram..

actually i think the Mumsnetters in general seem to be very liberal (small L) in sympathy , and more so than the general public. Therfore it isn't suprising that Labour MNers think Libdems have more in common with them, whilst Conservative MNers don't see it (viewing their own parties more liberal aspects..)

In a way its all cloud cuckooland - the Major government had a better majority than such a coalition...

This looks a lot like an attempt to gain more leverage in the negotiations with the Conservatives....but lets see.

In a way I win either way - either i get labour tempered by Liberals (so, they can stick their ID cards where they belong)
or conservative tempered by liberals (so, I am guaranteed my civil rights wish list, and possibly the end oftuition fees with it?)

Labour seem to have ssuddenly noticed they have a defecit to addess one wonders how it can have escaped GB's notice all this time...

I must admit i really couldn't care less about electoral reform. I expect a reasonable portion of the population feels the same - otherwise they'd have voted LibDem!

Lol, PW!
I remember the cone head peeing in the urinal next to Maggie!