Deal between Labour and Lib Dems?

[littlebabyjesus]

Nope, you're wrong about stv, lopsided.

You put the candidate you like first, the one you like second best second, third best third, etc. It means a complete end to ever needing to vote tactically.

 

[FreddyB]

started any illegal wars lately?
how about locking up any asylum seekers children for long periods to appease the daily mail, or moving the country just that little bit further towards a police state, or been complicit in international kidnapping and torture of supposed terror suspects.

fucking lovely principles new labour have aren't they, but at least they aren't sitting on the fence eh...

And yet you hope your party does a deal with them. Fence walking scum fuck liberals

 

[free spirit]

Because he's about to support a Tory government. You might as well have not bothered.

even if that ends up being the case, 1 more lib dem mp instead of one more tory mp can only be a good thing in terms of moderating the worst of the tory policies - ie making the best of a shit situation.

unless you're also an advocate of butch's give them enough rope to hang themselves position I guess.

 

[little_legs]

Odd how one's perspective can change. Before the election, I was genuinely indifferent to whether cunt brown or cunt cameron was in charge. Now, faced with the reality of a tory govt, my position has changed.

did you vote? if yes, may i ask who for?

No.

in that case, if the election is announced in the next 18 months, hopefully voter turnout will be higher.

 

[Sgt Howie]

even if that ends up being the case, 1 more lib dem mp instead of one more tory mp can only be a good thing in terms of moderating the worst of the tory policies - ie making the best of a shit situation.

unless you're also an advocate of butch's give them enough rope to hang themselves position I guess.

He's effectively a Tory MP now.

 

[free spirit]

And yet you hope your party does a deal with them. Fence walking scum fuck liberals

doing a deal that prevents them from doing the same thing again, and repeals some of their worst anticivil liberties crap, while keeping the tories out and safeguarding some of new labours genuine achievements (minimum wage etc) is somewhat different to doing a deal that would allow NL to carry on as before wouldn't you say?

actually, I think I can guess your answer. Luckily I don't actually give a fuck what you think.

 

[FreddyB]

doing a deal that gets us power even if someone has to suck cock regardless of anything they've done in the past or plan to do in the future as long as there's some power for us and maybe pr or not pr or something like cock sucking is great.

Is what you really meant isn't it?

 

[butchersapron]

Propping up a tory govt to protect us from a tory govt - fantastic. Any advance on this? Surely someone can go lower than this?

 

[lopsidedbunny]

Nope, you're wrong about stv, lopsided.

You put the candidate you like first, the one you like second best second, third best third, etc. It means a complete end to ever needing to vote tactically.

Then what would be the point? You are in affect voting for three political parties ensuring that those three would contain a Tories and a Labour and maybe a Lib Dem in every vote this ensuring that the Labour party and Tories party will always have a majority.

My view is that we need to nail this idea on the head with one vote and base the number of seats on the final percentage of the U.K. vote. What I favour is seats = base on the percentage of the final votes of the U.K. disregarding whoever the parties are. It is then up to the electorate members of parliament to address these issues. Using my rusty maths I haven't done is fifteen odd years base of the percentage shown on the BBC website. Tories would get 129 seats, labour 104 seats, Lib Dem 82 seats, for simplicity others get 42 odd seats. To allocate would be base on regions for example the South West, South East of where the most votes came from. This avoids having a Northern Ireland seat sitting in Scotland. This process at least regionalised the votes. And an end to Tory rule

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Do you think the Lib Dems actually can do such a deal though? I don't see where they get the leverage. It seems much more likely to me that we'll get a Tory government doing the things that Tories do only with Lib Dem support ...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

in that case, if the election is announced in the next 18 months, hopefully voter turnout will be higher.

I couldn't bring myself to vote Labour. There was no socialist candidate. I considered going and spoiling the ballot paper but in the end could not be bothered.

I used to be of the opinion that one should never vote in this system. One is simply stating a preference for which shoe one wishes to be kicked with, and I would refuse to participate in such a process on principle, as one would refuse to tell someone who was beating you up which leg to hit first. Acquiescing to the question is implying that you recognise the legitimacy of those asking it.

I have softened on that stance over the years, for pragmatic reasons in that those asking the question don't care if you don't answer, in fact they often rather like it. It also does make some difference who is in power, even if they are, in the end, largely doing what they are told by those that control capital. I would now vote, but with no sense of joy or feeling that the process I was participating in was in any way meaningfully democratic.

 

[ymu]

Nope, you're wrong about stv, lopsided.

You put the candidate you like first, the one you like second best second, third best third, etc. It means a complete end to ever needing to vote tactically.

No it doesn't. It's usually done in multi-seat constituences - if there's only one it's the same as an instant run-off election. In multi-seat constituencies, a candidate is elected as soon as they achieve the minimum number of votes for a seat (eg 25% if there are 4 seats up for grabs). Their excess votes are then redistributed according to the second preferences. If this doesn't put anyone else over the winning-line, the last placed candidate is eliminated and their second preferences distributed, and so on, until all the seats are won.

You still have a lot of tactical voting here because the result is not proportional to the number of votes cast - especially in single-seat constituencies (where smaller parties have little hope of winning anything at all). You have to have a strictly proportional list system to eliminate the need for tactical voting.

Unless the constituencies have a very large number of seats, STV is very good for large third parties and pretty shite for smaller ones. It will stitch up the status quo, with the liberals deciding whether they're still Tories or not every time we have an election.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You still have a lot of tactical voting here because the result is not proportional to the number of votes cast - especially in single-seat constituencies (where smaller parties have little hope of winning anything at all). You have to have a strictly proportional list system to eliminate the need for tactical voting.

You vote for your favourite first under all circumstances. You're right that after that, there can be tactics involved though, yes. I wasn't quite right about that.

 

[free spirit]

Thing is, fs, the libs have done some very shitty things at local govt level.

Not defending New labour, btw, of course everything you say about them is true, and with balls on. I would add ending free higher education to the list.

at local government level though they've had to deal with shit left for them by the previous council, and basically walk to the tune played by central government who control the vast majority of their budget, dictate the way they have to tender for outside contracts etc. etc.

eg. in Leeds with the bin strike, which at least in part was brought about by the previous labour council doing fuck all about the equal pay lregulations that the national government had put in place, meaning that the lib dem / tory council had to try to sort it out in a couple of years, rather than over the 10 or so years that the council had had to work towards a solution.

I agree that they handled it badly, but there were in coalition with the tories who were intent on some union busting, while letting the lib dems take the shit for it, while labour stirred things up in the background.

I reckon there's also a lot of naivety in there, with inexperienced councillors ending up getting railroaded into making decisions without really being aware of what the consequences were, and no way am I going to start defending all lib dem councils records, as I'm well aware of how generally well meaning but ultimately crap some of them have been on various issues.

same goes with labour mind, and most of their councillors knew exactly what they were doing when they were pulling their shit.

 

[free spirit]

He's effectively a Tory MP now.

not unless a deal's been done that you're aware of but I'm not.

 

[little_legs]

I couldn't bring myself to vote Labour. There was no socialist candidate. I considered going and spoiling the ballot paper but in the end could not be bothered.

interesting. i know someone who lives in the safe tory seat in orpington. he said: i did not want to vote at all and i am not hugely impressed by labour, but when i looked at that ballot, i could not bring myself to vote for any other candidate, so i voted labour.

 

[free spirit]

Is what you really meant isn't it?

no

 

[littlebabyjesus]

interesting. i know someone who lives in the safe tory seat in orpington. he said: i did not want to vote at all and i am not hugely impressed by labour, but when i looked at that ballot, i could not bring myself to vote for any other candidate, so i voted labour.

My local Labour mp, who lost to the Tories this time, was a spineless new labour weasel. The cunt voted for Iraq, tuition fees, id cards, detention without charge, the lot. I felt genuinely disenfranchised when I saw the list. I do not regret abstaining this time. Next time, we'll see.

What disgusts me about this type of MP is that you know full well that they don't actually agree with most of it. They have lost their humanity.

 

[free spirit]

Do you think the Lib Dems actually can do such a deal though? I don't see where they get the leverage. It seems much more likely to me that we'll get a Tory government doing the things that Tories do only with Lib Dem support ...

the lib dems would have much more influence in a labour / lib dem coalition than in a tory / lib dem coalition because the tories could pretty much form a minority government without them anyway, whereas labour wouldn't have a hope in hell of doing that and they know it.

re the civil liberties stuff, there's a lot of labour mp's who aren't comfortable with this stuff anyway, and the leadership isn't really in the position to dictate terms to them, and they know it, so I reckon it should be doable.

 

[little_legs]

My local Labour mp, who lost to the Tories this time, was a spineless new labour weasel. The cunt voted for Iraq, tuition fees, id cards, detention without charge, the lot. I felt genuinely disenfranchised when I saw the list. I do not regret abstaining this time. Next time, we'll see.

What disgusts me about this type of MP is that you know full well that they don't actually agree with most of it. They have lost their humanity.

maybe kick their ass? dotcommunist writes angry letters to the tory bastard in his constituency.

 

[free spirit]

No it doesn't. It's usually done in multi-seat constituences - if there's only one it's the same as an instant run-off election. In multi-seat constituencies, a candidate is elected as soon as they achieve the minimum number of votes for a seat (eg 25% if there are 4 seats up for grabs). Their excess votes are then redistributed according to the second preferences. If this doesn't put anyone else over the winning-line, the last placed candidate is eliminated and their second preferences distributed, and so on, until all the seats are won.

You still have a lot of tactical voting here because the result is not proportional to the number of votes cast - especially in single-seat constituencies (where smaller parties have little hope of winning anything at all). You have to have a strictly proportional list system to eliminate the need for tactical voting.

Unless the constituencies have a very large number of seats, STV is very good for large third parties and pretty shite for smaller ones. It will stitch up the status quo, with the liberals deciding whether they're still Tories or not every time we have an election.

do you think?

I'd think that lots of smaller parties will benefit, eg in strong labour constituencies, labour will get in, then there extra votes will go to second preference, which could well be someone like tusc who could easily end up with several thousand second preference votes.

or in strong lib dem areas, it'd probably be the greens benefitting most.

then the votes for smaller parties would gradually get illiminated and realocated, so if there were several socialist type parties standing, their combined votes plus second pref votes from labour supporters could easily result in them getting elected.

Obviously it should also be good for the lib dems, but I don't agree that it won't also help the smaller parties.

 

[ymu]

do you think?

I'd think that lots of smaller parties will benefit, eg in strong labour constituencies, labour will get in, then there extra votes will go to second preference, which could well be someone like tusc who could easily end up with several thousand second preference votes.

or in strong lib dem areas, it'd probably be the greens benefitting most.

then the votes for smaller parties would gradually get illiminated and realocated, so if there were several socialist type parties standing, their combined votes plus second pref votes from labour supporters could easily result in them getting elected.

Obviously it should also be good for the lib dems, but I don't agree that it won't also help the smaller parties.

With 20 seat constituencies, it might help the smaller parties. With single seat constituencies, it cannot.

Remember that if Labour put up candidates in a 10 seat constituency, say, they will put up 10 (or more) candidates, most of whom will get a 1-10 ranking from Labour supporters.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

With 20 seat constituencies, it might help the smaller parties. With single seat constituencies, it cannot.
.

It does allow an effective 'not that bastard' vote, though. As I said before, Thatcher would not have won a majority with STV. Over half the population hated the Tories. On that basis alone, I see it as a huge improvement.

 

[free spirit]

With 20 seat constituencies, it might help the smaller parties. With single seat constituencies, it cannot.

Remember that if Labour put up candidates in a 10 seat constituency, say, they will put up 10 (or more) candidates, most of whom will get a 1-10 ranking from Labour supporters.

yeah, but their votes only count once, so after 1 or maybe 2 candidates get elected the others would likely be illiminated because their share of first, 2nd and 3rd pref votes left would be lower than some of the smaller parties, and their votes would then be redistributed to other parties.

if labour did put up 10 candidates it would almost certainly backfire on them by spreading their votes out too much anyway.

 

[danny la rouge]

I think clegg fucked up badly by saying anything at all before the election, and reckon that alone cost the lib dems a lot of seats.

I honestly don't think that too much should be read into the exact wording of what he said tough, as he clearly tried to back pedal from it afterwards, and needs to take 75% of the party with him anyway, which I doubt he'd be able to do if there was a reasonable offer on the table from labour.

I acknowledge that I could well be wrong here, and would be much happier if we had a different leader doing the talking, but I hope I'm not.

They're not going to get PR from the Tories. Now, personally, I'm ambivalent about PR, but the LibDems are supposed to be keen on it. Why sell your souls to the Tories and not get PR?

If you don't want to go in with Labour (because it's "immoral"), why not sit back and allow a short-lived minority Tory government? In Holyrood, opposition parties have been able to force through legislation the minority SNP government didn't want. I know Westminster works in a more arcane way than Holyrood, and there is the Lords to contend with, but if there is what the SNP is calling a "progressive alliance" (their words, not mine), why not push through "progressive" stuff from the opposition benches?

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

haven't read the whole thread, and i know this will already have been debated, but a lib/lab coalition still doesn't have a majority, they'd have to make a dodgy deal with SNP, Plaid too, and if things fucked up that would be the tories in for a generation...

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

haven't read the whole thread, and i know this will already have been debated, but a lib/lab coalition still doesn't have a majority, they'd have to make a dodgy deal with SNP, Plaid too,

That has been mentioned yes. And possibly the DUP.

and if things fucked up that would be the tories in for a generation...

Yes.

 

[danny la rouge]

And possibly the DUP.

Wrong party. The SDLP take the Labour whip. They're to all intents and purposes Labour MPs. Not the DUP.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Best for labour might well be for the tories to try a to govern from a minority position. This would mean another election within the year and give labour time to replace brown and re-organise. Meanwhile the tories - with or without lib dem support - would likely loose popularity as they embark on their cuts agenda - and seeing they only got 36% of the vote they haven't got much of a popular mandate to start with.

Unless the tories somehow got more popular another hung parliament would be likey - but this time with a good chance of a renbewed labour party having the biggest number of mps and a lib/lab coaltion would be far more liekyl to work.

Right now a cobbled together deal with lid dems and nats would have a major problem with credibility and probably wouldn't last very long.

let the tories - with or without their yellow tory fellow travellers - take the hit from the electrote.

Wierdly - despite tehm only getting 29% of the vote - the election may prove to be a good result for labour.

 

[magneze]

If the deal in the OP becomes public and the LibDems go with the Tories then that's the end of them. They need to take the Labour deal or walk away from everything.