- This topic has 46 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 1 year, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
The problem is not so much the lack of links to the sexual abuse report, but the complete capitulation of our subservient MSM who have become obsessed to the point of fetishism with what happens in Westminster and Downing Street on a minute by minute basis.
The events are given saturation news coverage 24/7, as if nothing else matters.
Can’t afford to heat your home? Never mind that because Rishi Sunak has just become the bookies’ favourite to make you even poorer.
The reason why we are in this mess is because of the dysfunctional electoral fptp system. It has created a ‘landslide for a party that was voted for by about a third of those eligible to vote. Such a situation creates a feeling of entitlement, and is one of the main reasons why the Tories now feel they have the right to govern despite making such a mess. Moreover the shameless Johnson would like to come back despite his being kicked out for dubious morality, law breaking and for lying. Nowhere in the world would this be vaguely acceptable but it just seems that the Tories will be able to get away with it, barring a miracle.
Amongst Johnson’s achievements are listed , getting us over covid, too late with one of the highest death rates;vaccine rollout; really an achievement of the scientists who made the vaccine. Otherwise billions were squandered on out of date and wrong PPE and money given to cronies for ineffective test and trace. His other achievement is supposed to be getting behind Ukraine and spending taxpayers money on arming Ukraine. In effect he was a key player in preventing a negotiated peace settlement to spare life and avoid destruction. The resulting mess and enthusiastic support for sanctions that backfired is not mentioned.
The economic crisis, cost of living and fuel crises have been made worse by the war in Ukraine it this and a possible peace to avert worldwide economic recession is not being publicly debated. The population have to be asked, are you willing to sacrifice your health services , your social support and your general standard of living, in order to support Ukraine and sanctions ruddy? The question has not been asked and is unlikely to be asked.– “The reason why we are in this mess is because of the dysfunctional electoral fptp system”
I agree with your criticisms of the current “winner takes all” electoral system, but no system of democracy can work when most of its electorate are ill-informed, disempowered, and too busy making ends meet to get involved.
The UK had a referendum on a minor electoral improvement in 2011 and voted two to one against it. When offered a tiny bit more influence, the people turned it down; maybe people don’t want responsibility, maybe they’d rather have someone to blame?
Politics in England has become a spectator sport; the small cast of distant, manicured characters of national politics are encountered only through the nation-scale media, which presents its favoured establishment stalwarts as almost godlike in their power and authority.
But note that this same media occasionally destroys one of these figures with sudden, intense media attention to their private lives. It also deploys such personal attention against those few activists to whom it grants any coverage at all; “is your own home insulated?”, “but weren’t your clothes made using fossil fuel?”, “how did you travel to the protest?”, “what if it was your mother in the ambulance stuck in the traffic you blocked?”.
The media serves as the boundary between people and politics; which side is more comfortable to stand?
I’m not sure the public turned down an alternative voting system simply because they didn’t want any responsibility.
Remember the ‘Project Fear’-style campaign which was launched by the FPTP supporters, which centred on references to “dodgy stitch-ups in smoke filled rooms” as a kind of harking back to the so-called dark days of socialist politicians and union leaders coming to decisions with beer and sandwiches, in secret meetings.
The idea that small and unpredictable extremist parties might hold the balance of power, in a hung parliament or a coalition government, was shouted from the rooftops by the right wing MSM, and probably had the desired effect on the electorate – to stick with the devil they knew, rather than take a leap into the unknown.
The referendum was not about proportional representation but about AV, a different FPTP variant. There was a lot of scaremongering campaign in order to keep the current system in operation, by the two main parties and a low turnout. One of the scaremongering techniques was to say that it will lead to more coalitions and less stable governments. And what is wrong with coalitions if they moderate the extremes of politics and represent a broader view? As we can now see the evils of FPTP system with a government that has no opposition and without parliamentary representation of any leftist views veering to the extreme right.
Fat John and SA, I agree with both your points, but they confirm my second point, that even the simplest of democratic choices – “do you, the electorate, require that each representative has the support of an absolute majority?” – is critically vulnerable to how the nation-scale media present it. Two to one against!
My overall point was more subtle; psychological and personal yet broad and somewhat rhetorical. Is politics something the majority would rather not have to do for themselves, and does the media further put people off?
Now here’s a surreal thought, but see it through for its thought-experiment value. Say the media were obsessed with refuse collection rather than national politics. The top handful of refuse collection bosses were constantly reported on, could pick and choose to whom they granted interviews, and had entire PR departments dedicated to preparing their public statements and manicuring their images. “News” and “current affairs” carried endless coverage debating the virtues of wheelie bins versus plastic bags, which and how many categories of recycling there should be, and the ethical choice between responsibly separating one’s rubbish versus individualistic freedom.
Unthinkable? But where does our idea that politics (and specifically national politics) is supremely important really come from? Purely from the relentless coverage in the national-scale media, I’d say. Politicians come and go, governments come and go, but in the important matters, such as secrecy, inequality, militarism, and that industrialisation is causing a mass extinction, nothing ever changes much. It’s as if nations and their governments didn’t really make much difference, and we may as well be getting all worked up about rivalries in the refuse collection industry.
“If voting changed anything it’d be illegal”.
