Interview of the year

[MintTrav]

It made the very fair point that he is the only "feel good" politician we have in any party

Is he? I'd have thought that, whatever their political views, a lot of people feel favourably disposed towards Ming Campbell, Vince Cable, David Laws, David Steel, Ken Clarke, Francis Maude, Oliver Leftwing, William Hague, Hilary Benn, Alan Johnson, David Miliband, Andy Burnham...............

[rfgqqabc]

It doesn't matter who votes for what anyway, we just rotate leadership every 8-12 years anyway. Flawed system in Britain in my opinion. It barely matters anyway as everyone's policies are merged down the centre but I guess that's always going to happen when you design a political system that encourages this, due to the vast majority of people being in the middle.

Boris is an interesting character. I like that he is different but not really sure that's what I want in a politician

[redarmi]

It doesn't matter who votes for what anyway, we just rotate leadership every 8-12 years anyway. Flawed system in Britain in my opinion. It barely matters anyway as everyone's policies are merged down the centre but I guess that's always going to happen when you design a political system that encourages this, due to the vast majority of people being in the middle.

Isnt that system democracy?  You have a better idea?

[mulhuzz]

It doesn't matter who votes for what anyway, we just rotate leadership every 8-12 years anyway. Flawed system in Britain in my opinion. It barely matters anyway as everyone's policies are merged down the centre but I guess that's always going to happen when you design a political system that encourages this, due to the vast majority of people being in the middle.

Isnt that system democracy?  You have a better idea?

there are lots of other alternatives that one might still call democratic.

In any event, in a truely democratic system, you'd have no MPs at all -- everyone would vote on every issue and the majority rules -- that's democracy 'pur' and I'm not sure I like that any more than I like the current system.

Would be interesting if we banned newspapers from reporting on immigration, poltics in general though -- I do rather think it'd lead to a more well informed electorate.

[Jon MW]

It doesn't matter who votes for what anyway, we just rotate leadership every 8-12 years anyway. Flawed system in Britain in my opinion. It barely matters anyway as everyone's policies are merged down the centre but I guess that's always going to happen when you design a political system that encourages this, due to the vast majority of people being in the middle.

Isnt that system democracy?  You have a better idea?

I was talking politics with my boss the other day and we both agreed that second question is the difficult part.

When people look at various aspects of any political system it's easy to find what's wrong with it, what doesn't make sense and peculiarities it throws up - it's even easy to find alternatives which 'fix' those problems - the difficult part is that the alternatives then just throw up their own set of problems and peculiarities.

It's easy to fix what we have - but then you'd have to fix what we replace it with.

[Jon MW]

...
In any event, in a truely democratic system, you'd have no MPs at all -- everyone would vote on every issue and the majority rules -- that's democracy 'pur' and I'm not sure I like that any more than I like the current system.
...

like the Athenians had

They democratically voted to go to war every other year as well democratically voting to enslave an entire country they'd conquered once.

I'm really not confident that mankind has progressed any further since then so I'd expect the same or worse problems if any country managed to recreate their system.

[redarmi]

It doesn't matter who votes for what anyway, we just rotate leadership every 8-12 years anyway. Flawed system in Britain in my opinion. It barely matters anyway as everyone's policies are merged down the centre but I guess that's always going to happen when you design a political system that encourages this, due to the vast majority of people being in the middle.

Isnt that system democracy?  You have a better idea?

I was talking politics with my boss the other day and we both agreed that second question is the difficult part.

When people look at various aspects of any political system it's easy to find what's wrong with it, what doesn't make sense and peculiarities it throws up - it's even easy to find alternatives which 'fix' those problems - the difficult part is that the alternatives then just throw up their own set of problems and peculiarities.

It's easy to fix what we have - but then you'd have to fix what we replace it with.

Spot on.  I don't particularly like democracy as a system but it is possibly the best of a bad bunch in that it is possible to reach a very broad consensus through it.  As much as I don't like our political system with the exception of a handful of relatively minor changes I have never been able to come up with a better idea.

[bobAlike]

With the current system we vote for the MP's who we think will do the best for us. We vote them into government but as a country we hardly do anything about them if we don't like what they are doing other than not vote for them at the next election.

One thing that always puzzled me was how Tony Blair stayed as PM after the 2003 march against war in Iraq? I was in London that weekend staying at County Hall and there was easily 1million people about and yet he survived.

[Jon MW]

With the current system we vote for the MP's who we think will do the best for us. We vote them into government but as a country we hardly do anything about them if we don't like what they are doing other than not vote for them at the next election.

One thing that always puzzled me was how Tony Blair stayed as PM after the 2003 march against war in Iraq? I was in London that weekend staying at County Hall and there was easily 1million people about and yet he survived.

so about 99% of the population didn't march against the war in Iraq then?

[bobAlike]

With the current system we vote for the MP's who we think will do the best for us. We vote them into government but as a country we hardly do anything about them if we don't like what they are doing other than not vote for them at the next election.

One thing that always puzzled me was how Tony Blair stayed as PM after the 2003 march against war in Iraq? I was in London that weekend staying at County Hall and there was easily 1million people about and yet he survived.

so about 99% of the population didn't march against the war in Iraq then?

The point I'm trying to make is in this country we do not stand up for what we want very often and never to try and oust a shitty government.

[bobAlike]

...and besides, I'm willing to hazard a guess that the majority of people in this country didn't see the point of th e UK going to war in Iraq.

[kinboshi]

With the current system we vote for the MP's who we think will do the best for us. We vote them into government but as a country we hardly do anything about them if we don't like what they are doing other than not vote for them at the next election.

One thing that always puzzled me was how Tony Blair stayed as PM after the 2003 march against war in Iraq? I was in London that weekend staying at County Hall and there was easily 1million people about and yet he survived.

so about 99% of the population didn't march against the war in Iraq then?

The point I'm trying to make is in this country we do not stand up for what we want very often and never to try and oust a shitty government.

It's not that though is it.  100% of people in one constituency can vote one way, but that only gives that party one seat in parliament.  It's like Man City winning every match left in this season 10-0, it won't win them the league.

That's definitely an 'issue' with the present system - a lot of votes don't 'count'.

[bobAlike]

With the current system we vote for the MP's who we think will do the best for us. We vote them into government but as a country we hardly do anything about them if we don't like what they are doing other than not vote for them at the next election.

One thing that always puzzled me was how Tony Blair stayed as PM after the 2003 march against war in Iraq? I was in London that weekend staying at County Hall and there was easily 1million people about and yet he survived.

so about 99% of the population didn't march against the war in Iraq then?

The point I'm trying to make is in this country we do not stand up for what we want very often and never to try and oust a shitty government.

It's not that though is it.  100% of people in one constituency can vote one way, but that only gives that party one seat in parliament.  It's like Man City winning every match left in this season 10-0, it won't win them the league.

That's definitely an 'issue' with the present system - a lot of votes don't 'count'.

When was the last time you heard of a constituency kicking out their MP?

I understand what you mean but it's such a big discussion and I can't type that well.

[DungBeetle]

Yep.  My consitituency is a Tory stronghold.  I've voted Tory in the past, but my point is that is it utterly pointless me showing up to vote even if I voted differently (as I did last time out).

But then the power given to minority parties under PR feels unfair to me also.  No idea what the answer is.

[Jon MW]

...

But then the power given to minority parties under PR feels unfair to me also.  No idea what the answer is.

exactly just like I suggested, any one particular aspect can be dissected and solutions can be found.

But the solutions will just have their own problems, and they won't be any better or worse - they'll just be different.