New Labour Leader.

[tut]

For the three voters on the Forum, it must be depressing that it looks as if it is going to be Jeremy Corbyn, aka Michael Foot, that is going to lead you into the next Election.

The Government needs a strong opposition to keep some sort of balance but this would just be farcical. Dig into the coffers and make George Clooney an offer that he can not refuse.

tut

[j2 lot]

Strange times in politics.
Labour moved right to get Tory voters, SNP moved left and occupied the Labour space. Labour decided the population wants left wing but in Scotland SNP has their space and is doing it better than they did despite not having any policies apart from slagging the Tories ,which goes down well in a Scotland because the Tories aren't popular. That means that Labour who need Scottish voters collapses and English voters ask if they can have SNP as they're a better opposition to the Tories than UKIP. Labour seem to be struggling to get a popular leader in the UK or Scotland and look to be falling apart....

[robin]

I think Labour thinks it needs a complete "reboot" - Corbyn will do that for them - if he wins then inevitably they are out in the wilderness for a couple of elections and the people will continue to get what they voted for, which is a Tory government.

If Boris becomes the next Conservative party leader then that will really polarise things into a [city of] London (Tory) vs rest of UK [except farmers ].

I think Labour in its current form has been trading beyond its sell by date - it no longer represents the "workers" - partly because the workers it used to represent don't really exist in the same quantities since the decline in the big industries and partly because modern industry is different - we still have workers - but they are often middle classed or robots (really) or disenfranchised (migrant workers of one type or another) and it seems it also doesn't represent the "social justice" middle classes either, or if it does, there aren't enough of them to make a difference.

Quite what should replace it, I don't know, but I suspect it will some sort of "social justice" party - i.e. represent the views of people who think we should look after each other and that is more important than making big money; whatever it is it will need to campaign on a devolution-with-unity basis I think as that's the only way it can mop up enough voters across the whole UK. Maybe that will come out of bits of Labour, the Lib Dems and parts of the SNP and other nationalists (except UKIP - too right wing to mix with the rest).

Who knows, but given Labour's dismal performance over the last 20 years, this move to the left might be a good thing for British politics, even if it doesn't turn out all that well for the Labour party itself What odds will you get today for Boris as prime minister at the next general election? Might not be a bad bet for the gamblers.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

Second favourite at 7/2, Osborne 5/2.

Vote for Boris, should be good for a laugh, but good for the Country?

tut

ps:- At least we do not have to contend with Trump as a candidate.

[robin]

LOL - he's great - America's first priority is to build a wall with Mexico - there is literally nothing more important than that - sigh ...

[tut]

If he became President he would probably threaten to nuke Aberdeen City Council if they did not rescind their decision to allow a Wind Farm to be built that would spoil poor "The Donald" view from his golf course.

tut

[Rosssco]

It will be a major mistake if the party is steered down the Corbyn direction, pandering to the left ideologues who've always occupied the same leftish fantasy world (just like the one furnished to many of the YESNP supporters). At least New Labour (for all its faults) was a genuinely progressive left-ish approach that ceded to a more center ground approach as they knew that what would win them votes, therefore put them in power, and make at least some of the changes it wanted. As has been said, who ever becomes leader of the Labour party can be as left as they like, but if they can't win an election they just become a continuously irrelevant protest party.. Parties should adapt to the demographic of the people they are supposed to represent, not a minority that have nothing imaginative to say, therefore retreat back to old out-moded values..

In Scotland, the YESNP can continue to play this card as it works well for them as fundamentally a protest party within the UK. However, you can bet this stance would be significantly "softened" in the event that they did actually get real power, as in full fiscal control or independance, as the reality would quickly become apparent that these left-wing policies don't really work in today's world globalised society (it is however, a means to an end for the SNP).

Its a pity, as we do really need a left-wing party, but we need one with its head screwed on.

[BiggestNizzy]

Politics in the UK is out of date. We have a situation where 36% of the vote gets you 100% of the power. We have the house of lords were people with dementia get a say on the running of the country. No matter what labour do I doubt they will get in next time so it doesn't really matter who gets the job as long as they keep those in power in check. Right now we have zero opposition.

[pete]

Politics in the UK is out of date. We have a situation where 36% of the vote gets you 100% of the power. We have the house of lords were people with dementia get a say on the running of the country. No matter what labour do I doubt they will get in next time so it doesn't really matter who gets the job as long as they keep those in power in check. Right now we have zero opposition.

What he said.

Plus we have *most* politicians campaigning in favour of the current system. Just nuts. Even the right wingers and fools who voted UKIP are in favour of an electoral system which doesn't get them any seats despite them getting votes.

In return we get a non-representative House and the sort of nonsense we are seeing with Labour where you have one candidate who is (probably) honourable but has beliefs that are unelectable, and the other candidates with policies that are ONLY electable. ie they have no policies beyond parroting what ever the pollsters tell them to.

[BigD]

Same in Scotland where 50% of the 71% turnout gets nearly 100% of the seats. It doesn't make sense, I'm more in favour of proportional representation but not sure how that could work in local constituencies as you'd have a constituency which was say a labour majority but because you have to give more seats to another party to 'proportionately represent' them in parliament it could end up being SNP run for example.

Can you imagine a seat that was an SNP majority having to give that seat to the Tories because they had 15% of the vote and should be represented with 15% of the seats?

Does anyone know how it would work in practice?

[robin]

Likely a hybrid where seats are contested using some form of "transferable vote" and then a secondary list; list "seats" are not local to any particular constituency - they are just for the country as a whole. The transferable vote means that people get to choose candidates in order of preference - it means you can vote for the greens and then the liberals and then the SNP, say, if you have no desire to see labour/tories in your seat. That encourages people to vote for the issues they care about, even though in the short term it has no impact on the outcome.

The list element would be there to provide the PR balance; obviously a limit to how much PR rebalancing you can do unless you make the list 50% of the overall seats.

Cheers,
Robin

P.S. There are people who study this and have very detailed views and proposals and having much more insight into it than I do -- so if you really care, google is your friend!