When Will It All Go Wrong For The Tories/ Johnson?

[kermit]

Now?

 

[nw1]

It's possible to look at the ''i'' and either forget, or not know in the first place, that it's owned by the ''Daily Mail''. You could say it's a rather cynical attempt to capture a liberal left of centre readership and persuade them that, when it comes to a General Election, better the cuddly Boris than the austere Sir Keir. The ''i'' can only continue because it reprints stuff from the F.T., the ''Spectator'' etc to give it the appearance of a complete newspaper still. Have to confess I still have a sub, which with the saving on an already low cover price (helped by not running to a Sunday edition) makes me too lazy to cancel it, though there are days when it just gets to line the parrot cage rather than being read.

I have to admit the Mail ownership was something I was unaware of.

If that is the case, then I agree, it's a bit sinister. A paper which many people think of as centrist/slightly left/liberal/internationalist being owned by the Mail could easily be used to swing people to the Tories.

I will look at the 'i' with the deepest of scepticism in the future.

 

[Typhoon]

Another potential banana skin:-

A Tory MP could become bankrupt for unpaid taxes, leaving open the possibility of another by-election if he is forced to resign.

Court documents show that HMRC has filed for bankruptcy against Adam Afriyie in a dispute over his ‘past business interests’.

The 56-year-old, who has represented Windsor since 2005, could step down from his seat because any MP declared bankrupt must stand aside under parliamentary rules.

No danger of it not staying blue but it would be another drip-drip.

Source: Bankruptcy for unpaid taxes could force MP to resign and spark by-election | Daily Mail Online

 

[nw1]

Another potential banana skin:-


No danger of it not staying blue but it would be another drip-drip.

Source: Bankruptcy for unpaid taxes could force MP to resign and spark by-election | Daily Mail Online

Then again, it's (I presume) in 'remain territory', see similarly-affluent neighbouring constituencies of Richmond Park and Amersham and Chesham; there must be a good chance people in that part of the world have had enough of Johnson. That said, supposedly-remain Wokingham in the same area can't seem to get enough of hard-right hardliner Redwood, who despite being the very antithesis of 'moderate' has somehow been an MP there since at least 1992 - so maybe not.

 

[brad465]

Another potential banana skin:-


No danger of it not staying blue but it would be another drip-drip.

Source: Bankruptcy for unpaid taxes could force MP to resign and spark by-election | Daily Mail Online

I've seen reports that the party is trying to bail him out to avoid bankruptcy for this reason, even though his debt is over £1m. If the press and/or Parliament give it the same sort of attention they gave Owen Paterson, trying to spare this MP won't succeed.

 

[Typhoon]

Then again, it's (I presume) in 'remain territory', see similarly-affluent neighbouring constituencies of Richmond Park and Amersham and Chesham; there must be a good chance people in that part of the world have had enough of Johnson. That said, supposedly-remain Wokingham in the same area can't seem to get enough of hard-right hardliner Redwood, who despite being the very antithesis of 'moderate' has somehow been an MP there since at least 1992 - so maybe not.

A low turn out and reduced majority might get it into some MPs heads that Johnson is not the answer.

Ah John Redwood, potentially Mr Spock's love-child! (There was an analysis about how many times Spock has been wrong in Star Trek, well, well over 50%, this has clearly been inherited.)

I've seen reports that the party is trying to bail him out to avoid bankruptcy for this reason, even though his debt is over £1m. If the press and/or Parliament give it the same sort of attention they gave Owen Paterson, trying to spare this MP won't succeed.

I would have thought that this was completely counter to the free market! (Or is that only when it suits them.) Maybe there will be another amendment, bankrupts don't have to resign, another three line whip.

I know nothing about Afriyie, but I would have thought he was much less 'one of us' than Paterson for all sorts of reasons*. It would need the press to put the boot in, rather than Parliament, though. MPs (particularly opposition members) are less likely to turn the heat on a colleague who has fallen on hard times than one who has had their snout in the trough.

* - besides the obvious ones, not a prominent brexiteer or a member of the ERG, not been a cabinet minister, doesn't appear to be close friends with cabinet ministers and other prominent Conservatives, wasn't at the same school and didn't go to Oxbridge.

 

[Busaholic]

Ah John Redwood, potentially Mr Spock's love-child! (There was an analysis about how many times Spock has been wrong in Star Trek, well, well over 50%, this has clearly been inherited.)

As so christened by Matthew Parris, who at the time had not so long quit as an MP to become an observer of the political scene and much more beside. Redwood is an interesting character in that he appears to be almost a loner in political life, not terribly interested in preferment (his brief spells as Minister didn't elicit much enthusiasm from anyone, particularly the Welsh!) and almost a throwback to a more austere era of Conservatism. Then he amazed everyone by ditching his marriage and announcing his new love was a much younger woman (maybe a Spock fan? ) He apparently has a measurablely fearsome intelligence, which I can believe,so it's a shame he can't direct it in a better direction. He'd have made an appalling leader of his party imo, though whether any more so than most that followed Major is a moot point. He loves cricket, so I cannot completely dislike him, and he does appear to speak the truth as he sees it which is an increasingly rare commodity both in his party and the wider political world.

 

[brad465]

Savanta ComRes have just given Labour a 6 point lead over the Tories, where the same company gave the Tories a 3 point lead a week earlier:

https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1459280342032994306

 

[yorksrob]

As John Major would no doubt tell us, once the "sleaze" genie is out of the bottle, it's difficult to put it back in.

 

[fourtytwo]

Johnson's time as a buffoon is well over IMOP, but then what do we get instead, with a party full of sleeze and an opposition full of communists there's not much choice!

 

[daodao]

Johnson's time as a buffoon is well over IMOP, but then what do we get instead, with a party full of sleeze and an opposition full of communists there's not much choice!

England will not vote for a party full of communists, particularly if it can be insinuated that it is in league with enemies of the state (SNP/SF) at the next GE. Remember the cartoons of Red Ed in Sturgeon's pocket at GE2015.

 

[Acfb]

England will not vote for a party full of communists, particularly if it can be insinuated that it is in league with enemies of the state (SNP/SF) at the next GE. Remember the cartoons of Red Ed in Sturgeon's pocket at GE2015.

Sturgeon is actually surprisingly popular among a chunk of centrist remainer/FPBE types and is less divisive than Salmond was in 2015 with a lot of middle class swing voters in the south of England. Although its true the SNP is more toxic with socially conservative leavers. Also depends when the next election is, if it is not until 2024 the penny might have dropped that a 2nd referendum is not actually likely to happen for a long time having not occurred in 2023 which Sturgeon 'promised'. Labour will also likely need the lib dems in addition to the SNP to form a gvt so I can't see what leverage the SNP would have in that scenario (at least regarding a potential 2nd referendum).

 

[daodao]

Sturgeon is actually surprisingly popular among a chunk of centrist remainer/FPBE types and is less divisive than Salmond was in 2015

The slippery Sturgeon was leader of the SNP in 2015; Salmond resigned after the failed IndyRef in September 2014. The treatment of Craig Murray that she instigated is disgraceful.

 

[nw1]

Johnson's time as a buffoon is well over IMOP, but then what do we get instead, with a party full of sleeze and an opposition full of communists there's not much choice!

Communists? The current Labour Party?

Except perhaps under Corbyn, Labour has not been close to left-wing for a long time. They're soft-left, not communists, and if the British electorate really think they are hard-left (which I doubt) the country has really moved a long, long way to the right in recent years.

England will not vote for a party full of communists, particularly if it can be insinuated that it is in league with enemies of the state (SNP/SF) at the next GE. Remember the cartoons of Red Ed in Sturgeon's pocket at GE2015.

Except that Labour are not a party of communists. If people really believe that BS the right-wing tabloid media are constantly spewing out, that is worrying. It shows how dangerous the right-wing tabloids have become. Worrying also that the hard-right former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is apparently Johnson's preferred choice for Ofcom. Time people finally realise how they are being manipulated by this nasty, sleazy, corrupt Tory-media cabal to seemingly keep the Tories in power for evermore.

Likewise 'Red Ed'?!? Hardly. Miliband was constantly attacked in preference to Pathetic Gutless Slimy Dave, who capitulated to the far-right in organising that hopelessly badly-designed ('Brexit must happen because 37% of adult UK citizens wanted it in 2016'), manipulative (all that BS from Cummings), and corrupt (denying EU citizens a vote when they were the most affected) referendum.

And as for the SNP: I don't have much time for them, they threw English and Welsh remainers under a bus in voting for the 2019 election, but they do at least serve one useful purpose in minimising the number of Tories in parliament.

 

[Acfb]

The slippery Sturgeon was leader of the SNP in 2015; Salmond resigned after the failed IndyRef in September 2014. The treatment of Craig Murray that she instigated is disgraceful.

Craig Murray has some interesting views on some things and his blog has covered some issues such as the behaviour of the right of the Labour Party during the Corbyn era better than the mainstream media. I don't even disagree with him that there were some weird aspects to the Skripal case even if I disagree with his conclusions.

The whole Sturgeon framed Salmond theory is mad though. Not accepting Salmond is at best a low level sex pest is such a strange hill to die on and thankfully doesn't have any traction in the real world.

 

[alex397]

Johnson's time as a buffoon is well over IMOP, but then what do we get instead, with a party full of sleeze and an opposition full of communists there's not much choice!

What exactly do you think makes them communists?

 

[nw1]

Savanta ComRes have just given Labour a 6 point lead over the Tories, where the same company gave the Tories a 3 point lead a week earlier:

https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1459280342032994306

View attachment 105537

A perfect illustration of why FPTP must be abolished, even with the previous poll which had the Tories in the lead but the combined total of non-right-wing parties far above them.

But you'll never get FPTP abolished by the Tories, as it's what keeps them in power. An interesting fact is that Lab+Lib+SDP got more votes than the Tories in 1983.

 

[DunsBus]

A perfect illustration of why FPTP must be abolished, even with the previous poll which had the Tories in the lead but the combined total of non-right-wing parties far above them.

But you'll never get FPTP abolished by the Tories, as it's what keeps them in power. An interesting fact is that Lab+Lib+SDP got more votes than the Tories in 1983.

I remember, in the 1990s, Labour pledging to get rid of FPTP if it came to power. Two successive Labour landslides of 179 (in 1997) and 167 (in 2001), both of which happened under FPTP, soon saw that pledge swept under the carpet.

 

[nw1]

I remember, in the 1990s, Labour pledging to get rid of FPTP if it came to power. Two successive Labour landslides of 179 (in 1997) and 167 (in 2001), both of which happened under FPTP, soon saw that pledge swept under the carpet.

The time to get it done would be a Labour government with a small majority, or even no majority at all (Lib/SNP coalition). Such an outcome is possible for the next election, especially given recent scandals - unless the country really has veered far to the right, I can't believe people will put up with 'Boris' and his cronies for much longer. If people still prefer them over the opposition despite Patersongate, Hancockgate, and numerous other scandals then honestly, God help us. The only hope is perhaps demographics.

(Though, like a previous poster somewhere, I do believe there is the possibility of a 2022 election which has much more of a risk of 'Boris' winning).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

(Though, like a previous poster somewhere, I do believe there is the possibility of a 2022 election which has much more of a risk of 'Boris' winning).

Thanks to the scandals of the last couple of weeks and their impact on the polls, I think the possibility of a 2022 election is now very much receding.

Communists? The current Labour Party?

Yes, I'd say you're right, the Labour Party is not full of communists. That's the kind of exaggeration that people on the right like to paint their opponents with. It always helps one's cause if you can paint your opponents as more extreme/terrible than they actually are.

But - oh the irony! You then immediately say....

If people really believe that BS the right-wing tabloid media are constantly spewing out, that is worrying. It shows how dangerous the right-wing tabloids have become. Worrying also that the hard-right former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is apparently Johnson's preferred choice for Ofcom. Time people finally realise how they are being manipulated by this nasty, sleazy, corrupt Tory-media cabal to seemingly keep the Tories in power for evermore.

So, having rightly defended Labour people when they are painted as more extreme than they actually are, you then immediately go on to paint right-wing people as more extreme/corrupt than they actually are!

IMO this is the problem with UK politics in general: So many people, whether on the left or the right, seem to think it's OK to demonize and make exaggerated claims about people (and organisations) on the other side. And then, because we all live to some extent in bubbles, people on the left believe the exaggerated claims the other people on the left make (and ditto for people on the right) so they end up completely unable to see how misleading/untrue/daft/exaggerated the stuff they say about the other side is! I would suggest your comments about people being manipulated by some corrupt media cabal fall into exactly that category. And describing Paul Dacre as 'hard right' is just as bad as describing an average Labour MP as something like 'hard left'.

 

[brad465]

Thanks to the scandals of the last couple of weeks and their impact on the polls, I think the possibility of a 2022 election is now very much receding.

So, having rightly defended Labour people when they are painted as more extreme than they actually are, you then immediately go on to paint right-wing people as more extreme/corrupt than they actually are!

IMO this is the problem with UK politics in general: So many people, whether on the left or the right, seem to think it's OK to demonize and make exaggerated claims about people (and organisations) on the other side. And then, because we all live to some extent in bubbles, people on the left believe the exaggerated claims the other people on the left make (and ditto for people on the right) so they end up completely unable to see how misleading/untrue/daft/exaggerated the stuff they say about the other side is! I would suggest your comments about people being manipulated by some corrupt media cabal fall into exactly that category. And describing Paul Dacre as 'hard right' is just as bad as describing an average Labour MP as something like 'hard left'.

Yes I think a 2022 election is less likely, unless a change of leader happens before and that leader calls an election to take advantage of a "new leader bounce".

On the Paul Dacre point, how far to the right he is is open to interpretation, but I think there's little doubt he's biased, and the fact an interview panel initially rejected him has led the Government to re-run the process with an alternative job advert is dodgy to say the least, they clearly like something about him to want him to be in charge of Ofcom. It's also worth remembering Ofcom does more than regulate the media, and Dacre has been described as been out of date with technology in places and inexperienced in overseeing the other sides to Ofcom.

 

[AM9]

As so christened by Matthew Parris, who at the time had not so long quit as an MP to become an observer of the political scene and much more beside. Redwood is an interesting character in that he appears to be almost a loner in political life, not terribly interested in preferment (his brief spells as Minister didn't elicit much enthusiasm from anyone, particularly the Welsh!) and almost a throwback to a more austere era of Conservatism. Then he amazed everyone by ditching his marriage and announcing his new love was a much younger woman (maybe a Spock fan? ) He apparently has a measurablely fearsome intelligence, which I can believe,so it's a shame he can't direct it in a better direction. He'd have made an appalling leader of his party imo, though whether any more so than most that followed Major is a moot point. He loves cricket, so I cannot completely dislike him, and he does appear to speak the truth as he sees it which is an increasingly rare commodity both in his party and the wider political world.

I was told by a friend who lived in his constituency that he is known locally as 'John Deadwood'. That was many years ago, (or should it be rings ago) - well before the referendum.

 

[nw1]

Thanks to the scandals of the last couple of weeks and their impact on the polls, I think the possibility of a 2022 election is now very much receding.



Yes, I'd say you're right, the Labour Party is not full of communists. That's the kind of exaggeration that people on the right like to paint their opponents with. It always helps one's cause if you can paint your opponents as more extreme/terrible than they actually are.

But - oh the irony! You then immediately say....



So, having rightly defended Labour people when they are painted as more extreme than they actually are, you then immediately go on to paint right-wing people as more extreme/corrupt than they actually are!

IMO this is the problem with UK politics in general: So many people, whether on the left or the right, seem to think it's OK to demonize and make exaggerated claims about people (and organisations) on the other side. And then, because we all live to some extent in bubbles, people on the left believe the exaggerated claims the other people on the left make (and ditto for people on the right) so they end up completely unable to see how misleading/untrue/daft/exaggerated the stuff they say about the other side is! I would suggest your comments about people being manipulated by some corrupt media cabal fall into exactly that category. And describing Paul Dacre as 'hard right' is just as bad as describing an average Labour MP as something like 'hard left'.

After seeing regular hard-right headlines of the Daily Mail under Dacre's leadership, I would argue that he is more extreme than an average Labour MP. I do not think the same about all Tories/right-of-centre people. I wouldn't class May, Cameron, Major, Hammond, Hague, or Hancock as at all 'hard right', for instance, even though I personally think some of them did an absolutely terrible job.

And is it not corrupt when Dacre, apparently ideologically aligned with Johnson, is recommended by Johnson to be the head of Ofcom?

And I find it disturbing just how much of the media is pushing a right-wing stance. In the run-up to an election, most of the papers are adopting a Tory stance, ranging from mild to militant. And the supposedly most popular papers are the most militant, bordering on nasty. Look at some of the headlines in the Mail and Express in recent years - is this not manipulation? Getting people to blame their ills on EU immigrants/Muslims/the Labour Party/whoever the currently fashionable target is? Add FPTP to that and my own conclusion, I am afraid, is that we are in a system which is heavily biased towards the Tories and right-wing populism, in which the media play a significant part, and that I find profoundly disturbing.

By contrast, labelling your average Labour MP as 'communist' is really stretching the truth a long, long way. Being vaguely concerned about employment rights 'communist'? Defending the right to strike if provoked 'communist'? I don't think so - as you rightly recognise.

There are hard-left militants, yes - I will agree that much. And I disagree with them. For instance, strident Corbynites who refuse to do any form of deal with the Lib Dems because at one time they did a deal with the Tories.

Owen Jones argued a number of years ago that the 'Overton Window' is sliding to the right, and I am afraid that this is something I tend to agree with. I will concede that a term like 'hard right' is subjective, and that one person's 'hard right' is not necessarily another's.

 

[317 forever]

Then again, it's (I presume) in 'remain territory', see similarly-affluent neighbouring constituencies of Richmond Park and Amersham and Chesham; there must be a good chance people in that part of the world have had enough of Johnson. That said, supposedly-remain Wokingham in the same area can't seem to get enough of hard-right hardliner Redwood, who despite being the very antithesis of 'moderate' has somehow been an MP there since at least 1992 - so maybe not.

Yes it is a Remain constituency and borough. It could therefore become the next Amersham - ie a LibDem of a "safe" Tory Remain seat - if there is a by-election there now, especially if the MP does have to stand down.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

And is it not corrupt when Dacre, apparently ideologically aligned with Johnson, is recommended by Johnson to be the head of Ofcom?

I'm not sure 'corrupt' is the right word, since there's nothing as far as I'm aware illegal about nominating him, and there's no illicit financial gain involved. It's certainly not something that I like the idea of - I'd prefer that kind of job to go to someone who doesn't have a history of strongly pushing certain political opinions and I'm not at all a fan of Paul Dacre. But I'm not sure it's really much different from what the Blair Government repeatedly did in terms of making sure that people with moderate-to-liberal social attitudes were appointed to similar public organisations. I think it's more that, Johnson was being a bit sillier, whereas Labour under Blair was a lot more astute in terms of picking people who were aligned with their agenda but were more qualified and not as controversial, and therefore less likely to attract attention (and therefore, in the end, get rejected).

And I find it disturbing just how much of the media is pushing a right-wing stance. In the run-up to an election, most of the papers are adopting a Tory stance, ranging from mild to militant. And the supposedly most popular papers are the most militant, bordering on nasty. Look at some of the headlines in the Mail and Express in recent years - is this not manipulation? Getting people to blame their ills on EU immigrants/Muslims/the Labour Party/whoever the currently fashionable target is? Add FPTP to that and my own conclusion, I am afraid, is that we are in a system which is heavily biased towards the Tories and right-wing populism, in which the media play a significant part, and that I find profoundly disturbing.

Yeah, I agree with you that some of the headlines are pretty bad, but I think you're missing that papers like the Guardian and the Mirror do pretty much exactly the same thing (albeit often with more moderate language) - the difference being that left-wing papers tend to try to get people to blame their ills on things like 'bankers' or 'the rich' or 'multinational corporations' or 'structural racism' or 'Brexit' - in all cases (on both left and right) ignoring that the causes of problems are invariably much more complex. It's the age-old thing about human nature where, if you already agree with who a paper is suggesting should be to blame, you'll take it as truth, but if you disagree with it, you'll probably think it's media bias. Go to somewhere where right-wing people hang out (like Conservative Home), and you'll find people completely genuinely expressing the same concerns you're making - except that they think it's left-wing/liberal-elite bias. The reality is, of course, almost certainly somewhere in between.

Owen Jones argued a number of years ago that the 'Overton Window' is sliding to the right, and I am afraid that this is something I tend to agree with. I will concede that a term like 'hard right' is subjective, and that one person's 'hard right' is not necessarily another's.

It's not that long ago that the 'Overton Window' included such things as open legal discrimination against gays and transsexuals, large scale privatisation, much more readiness to engage in conflicts abroad, was ambivalent to the idea of a regulated minimum wage or to any significant action on the environment/climate change, and very much excluded overt borrowing to fund public expenditure or any criticism of institutions like the monarchy. Not only that, but during the last 20-30 years the trend in Government has almost always been towards more regulation, and more money towards favoured left-wing areas such as health, and so on. On all those issues, the window seems to have shifted towards things that the left was arguing for and the right was arguing against. Obviously I'm looking at the long run, I haven't seen Owen Jones' article, and it's possible he may be arguing about a much shorter time scale, but I think that other than as a possible short-term fluctuation, you'd be hard put to argue that the Overton Window is moving long-term to the right. Rather the reverse - certainly on many social issues where things that the left was controversially arguing for 20 years ago are now very generally accepted. I rather suspect that the idea that it's sliding to the right really comes from a left-wing perspective - from which things that are actually in the political centre are viewed as right-wing.

 

[nw1]

.It's not that long ago that the 'Overton Window' included such things as open legal discrimination against gays and transsexuals, large scale privatisation, much more readiness to engage in conflicts abroad, was ambivalent to the idea of a regulated minimum wage or to any significant action on the environment/climate change, and very much excluded overt borrowing to fund public expenditure or any criticism of institutions like the monarchy. Not only that, but during the last 20-30 years the trend in Government has almost always been towards more regulation, and more money towards favoured left-wing areas such as health, and so on. On all those issues, the window seems to have shifted towards things that the left was arguing for and the right was arguing against. Obviously I'm looking at the long run, I haven't seen Owen Jones' article, and it's possible he may be arguing about a much shorter time scale, but I think that other than as a possible short-term fluctuation, you'd be hard put to argue that the Overton Window is moving long-term to the right. Rather the reverse - certainly on many social issues where things that the left was controversially arguing for 20 years ago are now very generally accepted. I rather suspect that the idea that it's sliding to the right really comes from a left-wing perspective - from which things that are actually in the political centre are viewed as right-wing.

The Overton Window discussion was in his book "The Establishment".

While I agree that things did shift in the direction of liberal/moderate from the early 60s to the millennium (with some blips during Thatcher, think monetarism and Section 28 for instance), since 2010 and more particularly since 2015 we seem to have been moving rightwards (at least in the UK) in my perception in terms of increased conservatism and anti immigration rhetoric.

 

[Luke McDonnell]

The time to get it done would be a Labour government with a small majority, or even no majority at all (Lib/SNP coalition). Such an outcome is possible for the next election, especially given recent scandals - unless the country really has veered far to the right, I can't believe people will put up with 'Boris' and his cronies for much longer. If people still prefer them over the opposition despite Patersongate, Hancockgate, and numerous other scandals then honestly, God help us. The only hope is perhaps demographics.

(Though, like a previous poster somewhere, I do believe there is the possibility of a 2022 election which has much more of a risk of 'Boris' winning).

Do you think that we will eventually get a change to some sort of PR and what sort of system would you prefer STV, AMS hybrid or list system? I think if we move to PR either STV or some form of AMS/MMP as I believe that list systems especially closed list give to much power to parties (I believe Spain used list PR in close lists with is not ideal) - and how do you think electoral reform will help the sleaze/corruption problem from what I have read do you think STV may act as more of a deterrent to corruption as it eliminates safe seats but list systems are not ideal from this point of view as parties can game the system and say, under an AMS system if you lost a seat under FPTP you could get back in under the list?

Do you think that Tories will lose the next election or loose the majority and we have a good chance of a Labour led government? You mention the influence of the right wing press but isn't print media declining in importance with social media and internet - there is no shortage on online media which is anti-Tory like Novara Media etc? I can understand older voters still into print mainstream media but surely these sites should influence the younger crowd?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Do you think that we will eventually get a change to some sort of PR and what sort of system would you prefer STV, AMS hybrid or list system? I think if we move to PR either STV or some form of AMS/MMP as I believe that list systems especially closed list give to much power to parties (I believe Spain used list PR in close lists with is not ideal) - and how do you think electoral reform will help the sleaze/corruption problem from what I have read do you think STV may act as more of a deterrent to corruption as it eliminates safe seats but list systems are not ideal from this point of view as parties can game the system and say, under an AMS system if you lost a seat under FPTP you could get back in under the list?

I think the electorates of Peterborough and Eastleigh might just have something to say about the argument that eliminating safe seats deters corruption...

And how many cases of corruption involve members of the House of Lords - who must surely hold the safest 'seats' in Parliament?

 

[brad465]

I think the electorates of Peterborough and Eastleigh might just have something to say about the argument that eliminating safe seats deters corruption...

And how many cases of corruption involve members of the House of Lords - who must surely hold the safest 'seats' in Parliament?

Not just involving those in the Lords, but recent revelations have exposed the corrupt process of buying one's way into the Lords (£3m per seat). I have seen plenty of support for abolition/reform of the Lords from left and right voters alike, but no mainstream party seems to be adopting it, suggesting they either have vested interests or just don't think it has broad support.

 

[317 forever]

Do you think that we will eventually get a change to some sort of PR and what sort of system would you prefer STV, AMS hybrid or list system? I think if we move to PR either STV or some form of AMS/MMP as I believe that list systems especially closed list give to much power to parties (I believe Spain used list PR in close lists with is not ideal) - and how do you think electoral reform will help the sleaze/corruption problem from what I have read do you think STV may act as more of a deterrent to corruption as it eliminates safe seats but list systems are not ideal from this point of view as parties can game the system and say, under an AMS system if you lost a seat under FPTP you could get back in under the list?

Do you think that Tories will lose the next election or loose the majority and we have a good chance of a Labour led government? You mention the influence of the right wing press but isn't print media declining in importance with social media and internet - there is no shortage on online media which is anti-Tory like Novara Media etc? I can understand older voters still into print mainstream media but surely these sites should influence the younger crowd?

Judging by how the majority Labour government of 1997-2010 never introduced PR, we almost need Labour to miss out on a majority in 2023/24 and be the largest party in a hung Parliament. Then with LibDem, SNP and potentially other minority support, they could introduce PR to Westminster. Admittedly the parties would need to agree what form of PR to introduce and constituency/regional boundaries.