Once more the madness of not having a proportional representation based voting system is clear in UK politics (and since the first past the post system is also the US’s preferred system – also an American problem). Under the present system if all the main political party’s got 30% of the vote it would mean in seats with Parliament – Labour – 315 Conservative – 206 Liberal Democrat – 100 That’s bad enough but if the Tories got 33% LibDems 30% and Labour only 27%, labour even though it lost would be in fact the largest party in Parliament Labour – 262 seats Conservative – 257 Liberal Democrat – 102 * Anyway this time around because of the what most people are calling the – US style TV Presidential debates – that were not like any of the Presidential debates I’ve seen but were on the television, we are having a bit of a shake up. The UK (or rather England) has traditionally been a two party state, Labour and Conservative historically of the left and right - but in resent years we have had New Labour which has been basically right wing lite, with the policies being pursued in many ways mirroring those of the Conservatives. In a two party race this worked fine for New Labour – left wingers had to vote for the least worst option while many moderate right wingers felt they could vote the New Labour. But because of the performance of Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats on those TV talent shows (think a political version of Britain’s Got Talent) many of the more progressive voters (on left and right) have had one of those Damascian revelations that there is a possible third choice. Suddenly the LibDems have surged in the polls and Britain’s right wing press (which is virtually all of Britain’s press) have gone wild accusing Nick Clegg of everything from stealing ice-cream from babies to trying to father a child with Beelzebub, it has been truly funny to watch. But we have to see if what the polls say will actually pop out of the ballet box.
So considering the fact the Liberal Democrats have often be ahead of Labour in polls since the first debate, on a scale of 1-10 how bad is Gordon's PR mess today. Also, I liked Nick Clegg's response on the 2nd debate to the immigration question since it's a big topic here right now, "How you going to deport 900,000 people Gordon? YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE"
After all the hype the LD actually wound up losing seats, god damnit, a 90 seat LD would've been hella interesting. Conservatives fall short of a majority. In fact, looking right now, assuming Sinn Fein will still refuse to take their 5 seats, that's 645 seats, which means a majority could in theory be found in: 258 (Lab) 57 (LD) 6 (SNP) + 3 (PC) ---- 324 Correct? On top of this it seems the SDLP in Ireland, which to my knowledge basically is nationalist Labour, and the new single MP for the green party are more likely to go there than into a Tory government, boosting the majority by 4 seats. In fact is there any other party aside from the DUP that would support the Tories off the bat? Even with them they'd still be 12 seats short., in fact the Labour/LD would have one more MP than Tory/DUP Oh, speaking of Sinn Fein, the Fermanagh & South Tyrone seat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/constituency/707.stm Held by Sinn Fein by 4 votes, where are all the assholes who won't vote because they say it doesn't make a difference. 324 And East Belfast, the 25% swing out of nowhere for Alliance, Alliance gets its first seat in Northern Ireland while at the same time taking down the chairman of the DUP with it Also, green party now officially has it's first MP. But I think the most beautiful thing of the night, in Barking the BNP still didn't manage to get 2nd place, but most importantly, in the council elections it seems the tories and LD are losing seats while labour holds/gains, but guess who lost seats, in fact all their seats at Barking: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/council/html/3892.stm Beautiful.
