Bloody hell, its been 48 hours and no one..

[Guy Incognito]

has said fuck all about UK election. how bad is that? I am pretty meh about politics but its been an interesting week and has shown how shit our system is. I voted labour but its pretty rubbish that the party with most votes isnt yet in power and has to work with another party. we shall see what happens but something has to change. look at this for unfair:

Conservative - 305 seats (10.5 million votes)
Labour - 252 Seats (8.5 million votes)
Lib Dem - 59 seats (6.5 million votes)

how the hell can you get 23% of the vote and get just a fifth of the seats of the next party, what a load of bollocks. they do hold the balance of power now and its all in their hands but its shit and theres probly gonna be another election in less than 12 months.

[Adam]

yeah, they'll be another election. I am hoping for a single transferable vote proportional representation system. Its seems most fair but I don't think Lib Dems can force that with tory - plus I dunno which system they prefer even.

I voted green but I don't want any of the three current leaders as prime minister. Ed Miliband out of the top government guys is the only person I'd be happy about in the top job. But if that happened with a lib/lab/oth colab we'd have another unelected prime minister, how long would the electorate continue with that deal, like we have with Brown? Not long - so it all points to another election with a different system. Another election with the same system and I think you'll end up with some angry protests.

Rest of the world don't care much for the UK. We'll always be americas bitch and the EU just see it as that eccentric country that will vote against france and germany for the sake of it - but there is bigger players than the UK that can make us almost insignificant. And we haven't been forgiven for Iraq yet - that'll be 10 years from the end of the war at least.

On the plus side - a tory government might just organise the left to get their shit together and deal with hate filled, big business loving government that we'll end up with.

edit: another reason I didn't make a election thread in this sections is because I was banned by Rob when I commented in a healthcare thread. And this is the first time I've come back (via new posts)! haha, I'm like a ninja, try and stop me, I'll always find a way in!

[RobMoney$]

has said fuck all about UK election. how bad is that?


Why do people make threads about the lack of activity on this forum, or the lack of discussion of a certain topic that you think is important?

It would seem to make a lot more sense if you just started a thread of discussion about the topic yourself. (Not specifically you Guy Inc., I mean the collective of people who do this).

You'd be solving both problems in one shot.
You'd be contributing activity to the forum, and you'd be starting conversation of the topic you're interested in.

This is the second day in a row someone has mentioned the silence around here.

[b i o n i c]

this thread has nothing to do with that, he has a topic and made a thread about it and is talking(y)

[Bob]

we gotta tighten up around here, get this place in compliance with rob's posting standards

[RobMoney$]

this thread has nothing to do with that, he has a topic and made a thread about it and is talking(y)


I guess.
Just seems to be an emerging trend.

At least Bob's on board.

Carry on with the UK election discussion.

[Adam]

we gotta tighten up around here, get this place in compliance with rob's posting standards

that really tickled me (y)

Anyway, just turned over to BBC News and they had breaking news: Hung Parliament :confused:

[Documad]

I listened to way too much UK election coverage. I was streaming it until the link went dead.

[Bob]

i learned today that in the UK, candidates aren't allowed to advertise on television. i wish we had that.

[yeahwho]

So they have TV in England. I learned that just a few minutes ago, wonder if it's color?

[Adam]

i learned today that in the UK, candidates aren't allowed to advertise on television. i wish we had that.

They have party political broadcasts which each party get at certain prime time slots on popular channels. We also had the leaders debates for the first time ever but smaller parties weren't allowed to join in - just the top three. Also the campaigning only last 4 weeks offcially and for that to happen you have to ask the queen. You're not allowed to campaign on the last day either.

So they have TV in England. I learned that just a few minutes ago, wonder if it's color?

Nope, not yet. This elastic trickery people keep talking about that make magic moving pictures seems a little far fetched for me.

[Planetary]

It's all become very Americanised with these TV debates. I suppose it's a good thing to hear their views/plans/arguments but still... i'd rather read it in a manifesto or in the paper or hear a speech or something...

[Guy Incognito]

Rob, i meant more that the uk dudes on here, me included, dont really give a shit about politics. but i thought someone would have said something. i guess we are just bored of seeing it all on the media and dont really want to talk about it on here.
The last us election, there were loads of threads on here with links, articles, bullshit, arguments etc. UK - nish.
i mean our pm called someone a bigot for example and if that had been obama, there would have been a multitude of stuff on here.

[Adam]

But where all these Eastern Europeans coming from?

Africa?
Australia?
Scotland?

No one knows - we really need a answer!

The debates turned a lot of anti-government votes back on pro-government. I became a green party member partly for the ideology, anti-government pro-science & technology votes, although they have certain policies that seem just dumb to me in relation to above but I still support them. Anyway, all lib dem voters I've spoken to can't really name a policy by them. Not even quoting scrapping trident as one issue vote - which in my opinion is a good one issue vote. So they voted for a personality, like they do in the states. Yet local issues are most people concerns yet they didn't figure in their vote. So the debates had good and bad points but I do wish they included fringe parties to somehow. It'll be interesting anyway to see how they develop because they will say as I think they have been mainly a success.

[HAL 9000]

I think that, unlike in the US, there is no real ideological divide between the parties, which kind of makes people apathetic to the outcome. No party has really managed to communicate any significant policy differences to the others - the whole election comes down to which pm to you think is less of a dick and who do you trust to sort out the economy (over which the elected government has limited control since Gordon Brown rightly gave most marcoeconomic levers to the Bank of England in 1997).

The one thing that made this election system interesting is that it highlighted that the UK electoral system is fundamentally broken. I would like to see a party seek to properly reform the whole governance structure of the country - I would like a secular constitution with a fully elected government (no monarch or peers). I want to vote for the countries leader (so I guess I want a president), as well as my local representative. Basically I think the US structure is much much better than ours and we should copy it if we cant come up with anything better.

Just tinkering with the voting system is not enough, we have unelected priests and lords serving in the House of Lord - with real power and influence, we have faith based schools funded by tax payers which my child is not allowed to attend and we have an electoral system which does not allow the make up of the government to reflect the voting of the people. The system is rotten right to the core, we need to start again but it will never happen.

[RobMoney$]

Rob, i meant more that the uk dudes on here, me included, dont really give a shit about politics. but i thought someone would have said something. i guess we are just bored of seeing it all on the media and dont really want to talk about it on here.
The last us election, there were loads of threads on here with links, articles, bullshit, arguments etc. UK - nish.
i mean our pm called someone a bigot for example and if that had been obama, there would have been a multitude of stuff on here.


I've always found it interesting that despite the range of international members of this board that US politics has always dominated this forum.
The international members also seem to be a lot more knowledgeable about American political races than Americans are about international political races.
It's always been like that.

[HAL 9000]

^ It seems to me that the outcome of the US election has more of a direct influence on my life (as a British resident) than UK ones.

The US elections shape international attitudes to key issues eg foreign policy, environment and macroeconomics. The UK political parties have no clear policy on these issues other than to follow- if the US says we are going to war, then we are going to war, if the US economy fails, our economy fails etc etc.

Often, the greatest quality a UK prime minister can have is the ability to influence US policy (Thatcher and Blair both quite good at this it seems)

[Adam]

If America gets a cold, the world sneezes