To think that democracy isn't necessarily the best form of government?

[Thebestwaytoscareatory]

For example, I'm interested in politics and governance and have spent time learning about the topic, yet my vote counts exactly as much as someone who thinks all brown people are rapists or that all women are nothing more than broodmares.

This doesn't sit right with me. Surely we should acknowledge that some opinions are not as valid as others and take steps to ensure that the lowest common denominator isn't represented equally at elections?

This 💯⬆️👏

This is why integrity of public officials is so important. We need honesty at all stages of public life from the top down. We need a public sector that can robustly provide checks and balances. It’s why we need public sector broadcasters that have some independence from government. It’s why we need free speech and critical thinking. It’s why we need good information sources, access to those sources for all and the ability to discriminate. The increasing corruption or outright lack of all these in Britain is not an argument in favour of the various forms of dictatorship or imperialism. It just demonstrates how much we need equality, accessibility, fairness and justice to back democracy up. The easy destruction of all the lessons learned and put into practice during and after the inter-war years makes me despair of all humans.

It’s not that I do not see your point , but what would you have a place instead ?

In an ideal world a country would be full of intelligent people with an interest in politics and who have enough critical thinking to realise a bloke holding a pint doesn't make him a top bloke.

But the idea of drawing lines on who is and isn't eligible to vote is a troubling idea. Most people will have at least one political view that someone else would argue should disqualify them. It's a sliding scale to authoritarianism.

Remember it wasn't that long ago that members of our own government were complaining that international human rights were a problem for them implementing their agenda. Would you really want them deciding who counts to vote?

I've heard it said the best form of government would be a beneficent dictatorship.
Obviously, not possible.

I do think we need voting reform in the UK though. Our 'first past the post' system (or as I prefer to call in 'winner takes all') means millions of peoples votes count for nothing.

I would also ban donations to political parties above £20. People/companies who give big donations to political parties, well, the public are very, very naive if they think these donors aren't getting value for their money.

I think getting less done is sometimes a good thing and can lead to stability. Different policies being introduced quickly and lurching from one idea to the next without those ideas being questioned is disastrous at times.

If you think people have the wrong opinion then your job is to seek to understand how they have come to that opinion and then to convince them otherwise by well-reasoned arguments.

Actually Brexit is proof that it does work. The media, the political elite, The "we know best", the "polite society" all said that those who might vote for it were all XXXXX. But the people chose. And the turnout was high. Whether they got all or some or none of what they voted for, or whether they still might, is a different thing. (And I don't comment on whether it was the "right" decision" or not)

In the end government has to be by consent - and politics is only a part of it. We can see through the way people spend their money and their time and how they treat others how our society works. Politics is only a fairly small part of it.

I think the exact opposite of you. I think we should bring in compulsory voting. Does that make me unfit to vote?

Genius 😆

How do you feel about you personally being disenfranchised?

I think one of the main issues is the media. They characterise everything so that a large part of the electorate think the know what a vote for a party / person means without bothering to really find out. Ditto with the main issues - lots of people probably don't read past the screaming headlines.

As an example - a few years ago I watched a video of an older chap being stopped in the street with survey type questions ('do you agree with / think x..' etc). He was then told that all the policies he'd agreed with were actually Jeremy Corbyn's - his face was a picture! He'd clearly got his views of Corbyn straight from the Mail.

I've always thought voting should be done by anonymous questionnaire. I.e you answer a set of questions on various policies and your answers then translate to a particular party, without you knowing which beforehand. This would mean people were truly informed and voting for what the party stands for, rather than what they think it does.

When did Reeves say Labour would “use the barge’? All she’s actually said is that the Labour economic model is predicated on growth, it’s nothing like Johnson’s policies and it’s completely disingenuous to say it is.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy".

That would put many people off voting. We already have too few. One issue is first past the post. Some people are permanently disenfranchised. They live in constituencies that never change party.

It’s clear we have a large number of people who don’t understand the economics of the country or lack capacity to understand complex issues. This is borne out by the difficulties of explaining why we don’t have a bottomless purse for public sector pay and the outcomes of Brexit.

Three word slogans rule. Get Brexit Done and many others. It’s lazy politics. However Cummings discovered how to get messages across to the population who don’t want to think too deeply. It’s not going away and education won’t help. We have all ages of people who don’t make much effort to get informed. Our older people are more likely to vote so policies are skewed to them. That doesn’t make it right and they definitely voted for Brexit. Younger people didn’t turn out. If anything, that’s what we need to change.

Our older people are more likely to vote so policies are skewed to them. That doesn’t make it right and they definitely voted for Brexit. Younger people didn’t turn out. If anything, that’s what we need to change.

I have mentioned in another thread about meeting some recent graduates. Now I thought I was cross. They are - in every mumsnet sense of the word - fuming.

It's looking like irony strikes again, and we are moving towards a society so politically disparate it will simply break the two party hegemony that has been allowed to ossify around us. We are already seeing that in the increasingly ludicrous series of reverse ferrets from the Tories and Labour as they react to the latest polling. If you didn't live here it would be funny.

Democracy isn’t the problem, a massively unequal society is. societies with a thousand different priorities aren’t cohesive or able to envisage a bigger picture. Part of Blair’s success was being able to draw people to a larger vision for the country whilst encompassing a lot of individual goals. Basically giving people hope that there was something in it for them.

Frankly until we, as a globe, accept that economic growth can’t be infinite the foundations for any such societal movement now is unlikely.

It’s clear we have a large number of people who don’t understand the economics of the country or lack capacity to understand complex issues

I don’t think many people lack capacity in terms of their intellectual abilities but I agree that many people lack the capacity to see beyond their own personal and immediate issues because those are often entangled with the their ability to function within society. They have very little left to lose and want to protect what they do have.

@SerendipityJane

Brilliant quote by Alexander Fraser Tytler

In fact we have seen and can start to see this occurring across the world.

Greece for example after its economic collapse was bailed out by the EU but with economic control ceded to the EU. At the time this was decried by many Greeks as authoritarian and un democratic.

In the UK we currently have the highest taxation in 70 years, the highest debt to GDP since WW2, low economic growth, low productivity Government spending at its highest yet public services that are falling apart. A change of Government will do nothing to fundamentally change this.

I'm interested in politics and governance and have spent time learning about the topic

Yeah, but that's no different to what people who believe in conspiracy theories say. Some people believe that watching TikTok and YouTube qualifies them as having learned about a topic, even if the videos are made by some complete random who has no actual idea what they are talking about

Besides your idea very much smacks of 'all animals are equal but some are more equal than others'. How long until 'the chosen voters' vote for things that only benefit themselves? It's human nature, very few people will take a purely altruistic stance and vote against their own best interests

Absolutely terrible idea OP, but then one look at your username shows us your agenda here

Yes, this a thousand times.

So what you really want is to exclude people who don’t think like you? Who says your views are the right ones?

@Blossomtoes

"When did Reeves say Labour would “use the barge’? All she’s actually said is that the Labour economic model is predicated on growth, it’s nothing like Johnson’s policies and it’s completely disingenuous to say it is."

+++

Again this is lazy sound bite politics that appeals to all those that don't want to think it through.

Of course every politician says they want the economy to grow as a policy - what they fail to do is to detail how exactly they are going to do this without further increasing Government debt.

Any politician could make everyone feel better off simply by borrowing money and the handing it back out but this is not sustainable economic growth.

"Shazza" from Clacton, is far less dangerous than Theodore from Hampstead. Sounds just like a thinly veiled attack on the working classes. The really dangerous people are the upper and middle classes who like to think they know what is best for everyone else and want to impose it with force. As we can see from the past 20+ years when the country has been run by a conveyor belt of "elite" Oxbridge PPE graduates (representing all the main parties), they are far more dangerous than benign Shazza, but since she and her cohort have no real power, it's easy to make her the bogeymen/women.