Gordon Brown.....

[77dave]

why does it matter if Labour have a new leader and he becomes PM

In an election you arent voting for a leader of a party or of the country.

John Major wasnt voted for as a PM i dont remember the Conv making a big deal about it then

I dont care who goes with who, its all apples and oranges

[boldie]

lol @ new election needed now that Brown resigned.

This is not America FFS.

There can't be a Lib/Lab coalition(with all the fringe parties), it would be a nightmare for the country to have such an unstable government.

It is also not what the electorate voted for; Labour have lost seats, even the Lib Dems lost seats and together they don't have a clear majority. To have a Lib/Lab coalition now would be ridic.

Lib/Tory is really the only way and if they can't work something out that's a fairly persuasive argument against Proportional Representation IMO.


This all being said even though I am for PR and, generally, not for the Tories.

[Dingdell]

why does it matter if Labour have a new leader and he becomes PM

In an election you arent voting for a leader of a party or of the country.

John Major wasnt voted for as a PM i dont remember the Conv making a big deal about it then

I dont care who goes with who, its all apples and oranges

A lot of people make their voting descion based on who is going to lead the party - look at Obama. Had he been white would he have got as much of the black vote?

Politics is also about who leads the party, I would have been more likely to vote for labour had they had a different leader.

Lol at apples and oranges.

[boldie]

why does it matter if Labour have a new leader and he becomes PM

In an election you arent voting for a leader of a party or of the country.

John Major wasnt voted for as a PM i dont remember the Conv making a big deal about it then

I dont care who goes with who, its all apples and oranges

A lot of people make their voting descion based on who is going to lead the party - look at Obama. Had he been white would he have got as much of the black vote?

No, but Americans vote for a president and you don't in this country.

Politics is also about who leads the party, I would have been more likely to vote for labour had they had a different leader.

How you couldn't see it coming that, if Labour lost the election, Brown would resign is beyond me.

[Jon MW]

...

How you couldn't see it coming that, if Labour lost the election, Brown would resign is beyond me.

This confuses me as well actually.

There's all this talk about him resigning and most of the media and analysts seems to be treating it like a huge surprise.

But how many sitting PM's have lost an election and then stayed on as party leader?

I don't think it can be many, but having said that apparently Brown did need persuading to do it so maybe the surprise was genuine and based on knowledge of his personality.

[Woodsey]

why does it matter if Labour have a new leader and he becomes PM

In an election you arent voting for a leader of a party or of the country.

John Major wasnt voted for as a PM i dont remember the Conv making a big deal about it then

I dont care who goes with who, its all apples and oranges

I don't give a monkeys about what we are technically voting for. In my eyes the person leading the party is one of the main reasons you vote for them, so to me it does matter............

[TightEnd]

there is a difference re the unelected leaders point.

Home, Major, Brown etc all took over mid parliament and it is correct to say that we are electing a parliament not a presidential leader, so this is perfectly acceptable

What I find less acceptable is the current situation where a Prime Minister loses an election, then resigns and gets replaced by another leader who then ( if the LibLab deal happens ) becomes a Prime Minister representing a defeated party too. Surely this is unprecedented?

[lazaroonie]

lol @ new election needed now that Brown resigned.

This is not America FFS.

There can't be a Lib/Lab coalition(with all the fringe parties), it would be a nightmare for the country to have such an unstable government.

what do you make of the fact that there has been multi party co-alitions in the Netherlands for as far back as I can remember, which dont seem to result in instability ?

[Jon MW]

lol @ new election needed now that Brown resigned.

This is not America FFS.

There can't be a Lib/Lab coalition(with all the fringe parties), it would be a nightmare for the country to have such an unstable government.

what do you make of the fact that there has been multi party co-alitions in the Netherlands for as far back as I can remember, which dont seem to result in instability ?

The dutch political system is built on consensus anyway, you don't get hardcore activists in the same way you do here (not with same influence anyway).

But mainly, as with a lot of other PR based parliaments, they're a lot lot smaller. It's a lot easier to gain a consensus when you only need a majority of 120 - 150 MP's.

Even if the Lib Dems measures were introduced in full you'd still have 500 MP's (probably covering about 100 constituencies), it's not hard to see why that would make things so much more difficult.

[77dave]

Whoever the next Pm is no party won the election so either way we will have a PM not voted in by the people

[TightEnd]

Whoever the next Pm is no party won the election so either way we will have a PM not voted in by the people

but one who was up for election and took part in the leaders debates (which presidentialised the election, like it or not) has more legitimacy than one who didn't surely?

I accept constitutionally there is no problem, merely a question of public acceptance/legitimacy

[boldie]

lol @ new election needed now that Brown resigned.

This is not America FFS.

There can't be a Lib/Lab coalition(with all the fringe parties), it would be a nightmare for the country to have such an unstable government.

what do you make of the fact that there has been multi party co-alitions in the Netherlands for as far back as I can remember, which dont seem to result in instability ?

the issue in this current situation though is that;

Labour and the Lib Dems don't have a majority, they would need the help from several of the other parties (nationalists) to get to a majority. These parties would be holding more power here than "fringe" parties do in the Netherlands. This is a bad situation to be in. the SNP, Welsh Nationalists etc would be able to demand certain concessions they otherwise would never get. And if one of them has a fit the government would collapse.

it is not uncommon for the government to fall in Holland (certainly happens more than it does here) but, generally, it is not unstable because;

A; We're more used to compromise than the parties over here are.
B; the same 3 or 4 parties just about always find a common ground (whether it'd be PVDA (Our version of Labour) the VVD (our version of the Tories), the CDA (Christian party but more based on the German CDU than the Christian party you have here) and D66 (the Lib Dems). These are our 4 big parties and they're not miles apart in the same way that say the Tories and Labour are.

To have fringe parties like the SNP and Plaid Cymru be an important part of any coalition government brings you much closer to the Israeli system (albeit it with less extreme parties) and that's not really a good idea and, proportionally, the smaller parties hold much more power in that system,.

[Dingdell]

Tighty - what will you do once this is all over? Do we need to put you on suicide watch? Will your world be over. I love the fact that you love this so much and know so much!

[TightEnd]

Tighty - what will you do once this is all over? Do we need to put you on suicide watch? Will your world be over. I love the fact that you love this so much and know so much!

If the LibLab coalition happens I will be outside Parliament with a placard and a crowd, I can assure you of that. Scandalous times. 

[The-Crow]

Sir Malcolm Rifkind lets Rip

Sky news reporter Dermot Murnaghan interviewed Sir Malcolm as he left westminster this morning at 10.30am,

The conversation went out live and Sir Malcolm was furious that Clegg had dared to have a secret meeting with labour last night when he was in the middle of negotiations with the conservatives.

The even went so far as to say Clegg was behaving like the Robert Mugabe government ,

thats well out of order Sir Malcolm