2015 UK General Election |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 13626 |
Posted: May 03 2015 at 12:55 | |||
absolutely spot on, except for the very last bit. Cameron & Clegg made us wait fir five years as a result of the Fixed Term Parliament Act. We could also, of course, make reference to the fact that there are about five different Commie Parties extant in the UK, plus various ragtag Trot groups. The comrades never could just get on with each other....
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 03 2015 at 13:06 | |||
^ oops - mea culpa. Four years was wishful thinking.
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The Dark Elf
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: February 01 2011 Location: Michigan Status: Offline Points: 13049 |
Posted: May 03 2015 at 16:42 | |||
Given the repressive nature of every communist regime in history, I wonder why such a state is even considered any more. Eventually, one gets totalitarianism and violent suppression of freedoms, and, as with all political structures, a ruling elite that eats bon-bons while the proletariat lives in concrete bunkers.
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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Svetonio
Forum Senior Member Joined: September 20 2010 Location: Serbia Status: Offline Points: 10213 |
Posted: May 03 2015 at 21:11 | |||
Edited by Svetonio - May 03 2015 at 21:21 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 04 2015 at 03:08 | |||
What does this have to do with UK General Election 2015? Communism isn't evil - it just doesn't work in practice. Power is evil. Greed is evil. Genocide is evil. Racism is evil. Hate is evil. War is evil. All these evils corrupt no matter what politics, philosophy or ideology is involved. Edited by Dean - May 04 2015 at 04:13 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 04 2015 at 06:27 | |||
Yesterday I did one of those FB quiz things that purport to tell me my voting affiliations based upon key-issues and policies. On every other subject such online quizzes either confirm what we already knew or get it so horribly wrong we wonder why we bothered wasting 10 minutes of our lives doing them and this was no different. Aside from their obvious entertainment/distraction value all these quizzes provide is as an excuse to update your FB status with whatever result they produce without having to justify what is being said.
This one claimed I sided 99% with Labour, 92% with The Greens and 87% with the Lib/Dems, needless to say all right and right of centre parties scored low (it also scored me high with the regional parties of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland because they are essentially democratic socialist parties and low with English nationalists because they ain't) ... and that did little more than confirm what I already knew: I am a socialist, or to be more precise, a liberal socialist. One line in the summary stated this: "You agree with most United Kingdom voters on almost all issues, especially Environmental and Social issues. This is rare, you should consider running for office!" ... and that got me thinking. The history of the British parliamentary system as been an erratic process of devolving power away from ruling elites in fits and starts as universal suffrage gave the vote to larger and larger portions of the population. Traditionally this was split along Whig (Liberal, Roundhead) and Tory (Conservative, Cavalier) lines of the land-owning elite until the reforms of 1918 and 1928 permitted the working classes to not only vote in elections but also form, and thus vote for, socialist political parties. Because the electoral system does not give prizes for coming second this polarised voting to the extremes of left and right, have and have-nots, rural and urban, middle and working class, employer and employee, head and heart, social and economic, private/privatised and public/nationalised, north and south, east and west, regional and national, catholic and protestant, monarchist and republican, etc., that fractures the political party system from a two-party system (Tory and Whig or conservative and socialist) into the plethora of opposing parties that we have today. What we are being asked to do is chose a single party whose policies, promises, philosophy and ideology will govern our country for the next five years in every aspect of what a government does - (economics, environment, social care/welfare, education, healthcare, defence, foreign and domestic policy, business, employment, transportation, taxation, regulation, etc., etc.,). Since no single party can fit that requirement to a degree that pleases the whole population then whoever wins will not have the support of the majority of the population even if they win an overall majority of seats in the parliament (which is still looking unlikely). This seems "kinda nutty" to me. At present there seems to be two solutions to this (both of which have sorta been rejected on public referendum) - change the electoral system or devolve government into regional government. Even though I was a supporter of changing the electoral system I actually do not see that as a viable solution (especially in any of the proportional representation systems that have either been proposed or are in use in other countries) as this results in government of compromise, ransom/shady deals and big-boy bullying - it just seems to me to be more honest and fair than the current system that's all. Regional devolution merely shifts a single macro-problem down to lots of self-serving micro-problems without actually solving any of them (my forum location of "Albion" is not entirely a jokey response even though it has poetic/romantic Arthurian connotations) - there are some issues that are best served on a regional basis and there are many more issues that are not. I have often remarked that living in the affluent South of England my socialist vote is a wasted vote, in a devolved South of England (the logical conclusion of devolution) or "Wessex" as it would probably be called, the concept of socialism would become even more ineffectual to the point of being non-existent. Voting now would not be by ballot but by feet (or more accurately: removal van) - to get public healthcare or education (which I fully support) I would have to move to a region that favoured and implemented those policies. This may seem fanciful but essentially we are already doing this for employment - I am not a Wessex national, I moved here for the work, not because I wanted to live in a Conservative stronghold or because I supported the political persuasions of Michael Mates or Damian Hinds. Similarly my father moved from Essex to Bedfordshire for work, just as his father moved from Yorkshire to Suffolk to Essex for work. It seems to me that we are voting for the wrong people to do the wrong job. Few of them are qualified to do the job we are electing them to do (not that we get to chose who is in charge of healthcare, defence, trade and industry or the economy). In the "private sector" this would be unheard of - you don't employ a doctor to fix your plumbing, or a bus driver to run a multinational corporation. So why would we put a conservative politician in charge of the environment, or a socialist politician in charge of trade and industry? If we must have party politics (which I have little doubt that we do if we want to remain a democracy), then rather than spilt-up the country on constituency lines to vote for our "local" representative for one of these government roles why not split-up the government into job-function and vote for the best-fit party for each of those roles? If Labour has the better social policies to your way of thinking then vote for them in social roles, if the Green's have better environmental policies in your opinion then vote for them to manage the environment, if you think that the Conservatives have better Foreign policies then vote for them to manage that and so on. Of course this idea cannot work in the state I have just described it, it has taken 800 years of ideas and reforms to get what we currently have so a radical re-think of government of the people by the people is going to take more than the 20 minutes I spent thinking about this while sitting in the café of a garden centre yesterday afternoon. erm... Vote for Me. Edited by Dean - May 04 2015 at 06:29 |
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Matthew _Gill
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 07 2012 Location: Wakefield Status: Offline Points: 347 |
Posted: May 04 2015 at 07:16 | |||
Looks like this shocking event has killed Labour's chances off:
Edited by Matthew _Gill - May 04 2015 at 07:18 |
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The Dark Elf
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: February 01 2011 Location: Michigan Status: Offline Points: 13049 |
Posted: May 04 2015 at 09:54 | |||
Like mostly everyone who blindly follows a political system (or religion, for that matter), your continued deflection and pointing of fingers to imagined external foes is pathetic. I made a statement that communism is a failure worldwide in nearly every application, but I was also speaking in context to the British elections (ie., why would anyone vote for such an historically failed system?). You, however, again decide to go off on tangents that have literally nothing to do with the discussion, let alone to Britain in particular. Here's an idea, stick to what you do best, spam the New Bands and Artists forum with an interminable amount of marginal Moldavian zither-playing bands that have about as much to do with prog as Dolly Parton.
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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lazland
Prog Reviewer Joined: October 28 2008 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 13626 |
Posted: May 04 2015 at 10:36 | |||
The readership of the Spectator is about 10,000. it will not make a blind bit of difference.
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Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org
Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
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PROGMAN
Forum Senior Member VIP Member Joined: February 03 2004 Location: Wales Status: Offline Points: 2664 |
Posted: May 06 2015 at 19:39 | |||
Plaid - and Johnathon Edwards is an MP in my area .
Labour and Plaid, have been sending duplicates of leaflets lately through the mail box lol and my mother ripped up the Tories leaflet, most people around where I live feel that way about them too. |
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CYMRU AM BYTH
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Blacksword
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 22 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 16130 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 06:46 | |||
I've read the manifeto's I don't need endless bloody leaflets form any of these parties. They go straight in the re-cycling..
UKIP must be desperate in my area (Tory stronghold) I've had six leaflets from them. Two from each of the others apart from the Greens from whom I've had just one, which had about six bullet points on it paiting a socialist uotopia with no explantion of how it was going to be paid for. That's fairly standard fair I guess. All of these t***s promise to part the ocean for you, hoping that you'll just vote for them without asking how. I actually think Ed Miliband has been reasonably honest in his campaigning, which is possibly why he's not going to win today... |
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Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!
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chopper
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: July 13 2005 Location: Essex, UK Status: Offline Points: 20029 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 06:59 | |||
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 07:04 | |||
^^ Aye. All I've decided so far is who not to vote for... it's really a question of who gets my ineffectual protest vote: Labour, Lib/Dems or Greens (there are no independent candidates in my constituency).
Edited by Dean - May 07 2015 at 07:04 |
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Jared
Forum Senior Member Joined: May 06 2005 Location: Hereford, UK Status: Offline Points: 19212 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 07:52 | |||
I'm off down the polling booth after work to vote for some of this Socialist utopia that Andy's been promised...
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Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson
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Blacksword
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 22 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 16130 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 08:18 | |||
Enjoy your voting experience Jared.. I'm going to vote after work too. I think this time round I'm going to draw a cartoon of the prophet or a caricature of Putin instead of casting a vote. I'm all for this "Oh you must vote" malarkey, I just can't make up my mind if I'd rather be pissed on or shat on. |
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Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 08:23 | |||
the former every time.
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Padraic
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 08:32 | |||
So, in the spirit of Dean, we shall see if it's Cameroon or Milibland.
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Dean
Special Collaborator Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 08:35 | |||
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Blacksword
Prog Reviewer Joined: June 22 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 16130 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 08:56 | |||
Absolutely... |
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Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy!
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NutterAlert
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 07 2005 Location: In transition Status: Offline Points: 2808 |
Posted: May 07 2015 at 09:15 | |||
wonder if anyone will get their swingometer out?
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