lefties 7:compare the tory.com

[HerHonesty]

sorry couldnt think of anything else. gideon in charge of the economy..

OK pitta's out (careful hot!) and I am feeling quite optimistic.

I have polled my family to find that we actually have 3 valid votes on the LaborLeadership election and have shocked my family that I've only just re-joined. Anyway once they let me back in the house and start talking to me again we plan to use this block vote wisely.

Are we having Greek snacks in preparation for 'becoming the next Greece'? Oh no wait that was under the last lot - everything different now, economy has been hauled back from teetering on the brink of the abyss because the meerkats have been appeased.

Agree with you Lenin, a thread like that sounds great.

I'll be making Borcht for lunch then?

Great thread title IMO.

As it happens I really am having borscht later on - tis beetroot season here and the kids will only eat them in soup.

Spooky.

Right off to do some work, catch you all later.

I think it would be a good idea to acknowledge that we are all individuals with varying levels of agreement with the party that we voted for, and that generalizations are not helpful [guilty].

At the same time, to acknowledge, but not worry too much about, the fact that there might be some hard feelings about the process by which the Conservatives got into power.

I will certainly watch my brusqueness - in my defence this has been a hideously busy week for me and some of my general brusqueness was just rushed-ness.

Love beets! Was reading in an Indian cookbook I got for Christmas that it's typical in Indian cooking to have raw beets, so have been grating it raw in salads and in a raitha with yoghurt and curry leaves. Yum!

I respect other views. In fact I used to live in a Tory constituency and thought the Tory MP was an absolute hoot! Would see him frequently in London and suppose that a lot of people would be surprised to hear that there is quite a bit of cross bench friendship.

There has been quite a bit of blurring in recent years of the division between right and left and it isn't a black and white map anymore.

I seem to remember an old (think Des Wilson, when he used to advise them, old!) Lib Dem manifesto included legislation such as a Freedom of Information Act, a British Written Constitution, independence for the Bank of England, and of course electoral reform. Much of it has been accomplished by the previous government.

I like the sound of Lenin's thread.

I'll have an olive though , and have brought some fairtrade vegan spring rolls

shite. I actually Agreed With Melanie last night- when she said that a five year fixed term was undemocratic, and that that means if this coalition loses the confidence of the electorate, we're still going to be stuck with it. Now, I'm sure you must have discussed this upthread, but I'm buggered if I can find it...

I found the constant repetition of this five year thing by Simon Hughes and Hezza quite alarming. Can anyone more intelligent than me (form orderly queue) explain in two lines why a fixed term is A Good Thing?

(I'm inclined to think that, with a majority government, a fixed term is fair enough. It's just under these particular circumstances I'm uncomfortable with it)

Fox Hunting

Rolling list of things I'm worried about/don't know enough about:
Like Jack, a fixed term for a coalition or minority govt - didn't have time to read the bit where Pol explained what was what and now I can't find it for some reason
Child benefit
Surestart
What public sector cuts will really mean.

Part of me believes that some public sector workers don't know their born, another part knows that some parts of it are mammothly over-stretched to the point of dysfunction. Some of the first feeling is motivated by the politics of envy (freelance, no benefits, very insecure, lots of extra unseen/unpaid hours)

they're

WRT the fixed term thing, I though herbeatitude explained it well on the Question Time thread (last post on thread but one).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=politics&threadid=965061-Anyone-else-watching-Question-Time&pagingOff=1 #19708339

bloody hell.

hello

Fixed term parls in general: long-term plank of electoral reform. Major problem with Westminster system is that almost all the power resides with the executive (the government payroll, particularly the PM's office) and so little with the legislature (ordinary MPs of all parties). In other countries, the executive and the leg are formally divided (think presidential systems - president and legislature are two distinct arms of government, and checks and balances are written in to the constitution so that each has the power to block the other except in tightly-defined circumstances. There are few checks and balances in the British system - one of the consequences of our constitution having grown organically.)

So in general, a fixed-term parl removes an important part of the executive's power: the power to call a snap election at the time that is most convenient for the executive.

In this specific situation, a few things to note:

1. Has become clear over the past few days that votes of no confidence (51% of MPs voting against the government on a VONC) will still cause the government to fall. In these circs there would be a scramble, either for the PM to try to form a minority gov (in which it would be vulnerable to constant HoC defeats), or for the opposition parties to attempt to form a new government.
2. The 55% thing refers to dissolution votes - ie it will take 55% of MPs to vote fora dissolution and a snap election. The assumption is that the 55% figure was arrived at because it is too high for Tory MPs alone to force a dissolution, meaning that the Tories wouldn't be able to pull the rug out from under the coalition without support from at least some LD/Lab/nats etc. HOWEVER important to note that the dissolution threshhold in the Scots and Welsh assemblies/parls is higher than this - 66% in Scotland. So IMO the 55% figure in itself is not evidence of gerrymandering.

There are a couple of good discussions about this on CiF - will try to find link.

Apols if any of this is patronising - realise many of you know most of this already!

Thanks Beach, meant to add.

Must say I disagree strongly with Beatitude's analysis there. IMO this change gives more power to Parliament - it is a redistribution in the right direction.

Oh bugger it seems to have imploded.

I have loved these threads. Really has been great to come on here and ramble on.

It is true that threads which carry on get a reputation as a clique. For isnatnce the shiney thread has a terrible reputation for being bitchy on the wider board, when I think that it is emphatically not the case.

Oh well I will keep on posting here.

I think it has got to be xpected that any thread like this will show signs of tribalism. One sophables thread there were many posts saying that tribal politics and the behaviour related to that is olf fashioned and damaging to 'grown up' politics. Well, perhaps my labour support is tribal. I did feel very hurt and angry during the election campaign, and upset at its denoument.

'Yes, I do find it astonishing that sometimes if you say something there is an automatic assumption that you also believe a whole host of tenuously-connected things.'
indeed lenin (though I wonder if I make the same assumptions about tories)
there were plenty of things the labour government did I that I didn't agree with from ending free higher education to the war, and all the anti civil liberties stuff that was trotted out in the name of the so-called war on terrorism

But I still voted labour gawd help me and I still believe broadly that they have more people's interests at heart. Can't help it!