I urge everyone in the UK to cull Tories

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That's either a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation of voter apathy. The issue for a lot of non-voters is that they don't feel that any of the established parties represent them. For them it isn't a question of Labour vs Conservative; they're two sides of the same coin. And the 'vote independent' argument is hardly a compelling one under the FPTP system.

Which makes your whole point about "they didn't vote for the Conservatives" moot as the same applies to the opposition. Just like you could say the same for any election. The turn out actually is quite high. The highest since 1997, and not especially low as elections go without compulsory voting.

Also you cannot make assumptions about voter apathy that is your interpretation, it is not fact. Just becuase some young people say there is "no point" when interviewed, doesn't mean you can read a lot into it then make wild projections based on that. In all probability this is a broad cross section of the community, with a whole range of reasons why they didn't do it. Including the couldn't be bothered, or they couldn't find the time.

I do think that eduction is lacking about our political system. People are not going to take an interest in political reform, if they don't understand how the current system actually works.

Ah...complaints about the establishment. Bravo, bravo.
But what solution?

The English and Welsh heavily punished the non traditional parties giving Tories those seats.
The Liberal Democrats were held accountable for what the Tories did by the voters, well the Tories did blame them for everything during their 5 coalition.
Thus the Liberal Democrats lost all but 3 seats (or was it 5) at the election.
The other non traditional parties were reduced to 1 or 2 seats if not thrown out all together.

Scotland will leave eventually, probably in the next decade with a unilateral declaration.
There is no way in hell Westminster is going to allow a Yes vote in Scotland, even by means of vote rigging and nullification.
(Which they did in the last referendum, but won't allow an investigation to be carried out)
They haven't forgotten and forgiven England for electing Thatcher to a majority and backing her plans.

Once Scotland leaves, it will ensure the Tories are the biggest party unless Tories go beyond what Thatcher did (England traditionally swings right).

I hope Scotland leaves soon, just to watch Tories tighten their grip on power.

You quoted me but just went off on a tangent. Was that your intention or were you going to suggest something better than what we have?

What point was that? My points were as follows:

1: Twice as many people did not vote as voted for the 'majority' party.
2: Those abstentions are more significant than the number of people who voted right of centre.

All this fluff about Conservative vs Labour has come entirely from yourself. You've chosen to address issues completely unrelated to my original post. It was also the least interesting aspect of the election.



The only 'assumption' I've made is that they would not vote for anyone. Which they didn't. Your argument was rather like saying we can't know what grades little Billy would have got three months after Billy got his exam results. Speculation is not necessary. They did not vote.



Which is why I, unlike yourself, take my lead from the extensive research that has gone into the matter. What wild projections are you suggesting I've made?



What do you base this on? Our political system is incredibly simple - that's often touted as a positive by opponents of reform. It doesn't require much education to understand that proportional representation would be 'fairer' than FPTP. Of course, 'fairer' doesn't necessarily mean 'better'.



The 'solution' is what it always has been. Become part of the establishment or create a new one.

How are Labour not traditional? Even liberals come from a traditional root too older then Labour. Heck modern Conservative, absorbed Liberal principles. It is just the Old Tory, is remnant.


Evidence please? Not even the SNP claimed as much.

You come across as partial. England didn't elect Thatcher it was a UK election, just like England didn't elect all those Labour governments prior. Do you not think there were peanty of English angry at both those outcomes? Just the usual anti-English diatribe.



You're are a charmer. What does someone from Detroit know about UK politics?

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 28 Jul 2015, 4:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My point was there is nothing new here, it is true of nearly every election in most countries except those with compulsory voting.

Given the high turn out, you have to accept the overall trend. You can't consider those that don't vote. You are talking about research as if all these people were more responsive to the research, that is doubtful. You can only do research about those that want to take part in the research, and this isn't the whole picture.

Where I may agree is the trend might have been a fickle one. As in they responded to fear mongering, and may vote entirely differently next time round.

That isn't true. The Lib Dems probably lost some seats because their vote fractured or went to Labour, but mostly we lost people who were on the Lib Dem/Tory fringe and were scared of Labour winning. Remember, Labour lost seats to the Tories as well as to the SNP.

(The Lib Dems have 8 seats btw)

This isn't right either.

The Greens and Plaid Cymru kept their numbers the same. UKIP gained a seat on 2010 (the one they lost was only gained less than a year earlier and was always going to return to the Conservatives). Respect lost their seat, but again, they were a flash in the pan. George Galloway is a joke.


Gotta agree with 0_equals_true, you don't understand this issue at all.

There is no indication that the vote was rigged, and there is currently no prospect of a unilateral declaration.

More likely to happen - the SNP will hold a referendum every 5 or 10 years until one goes their way. Unless something changes, I imagine we won't need more than two more for that to happen.


Again, this is inaccurate. Large parts of Scotland voted for Thatcher.
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discuss ... 1322932700

No it won't - every Labour majority in the UK has also been a majority in England and Wales.

Labour are Traditional, I was referring to the other smaller parties who's seats were given to Tories.

You missed all the calls for investigation into the alleged vote rigging for the No side during the Scottish referendum?
Even the BBC reported on it.
Westminster will not let Scotland go and let the UK be broken up, no matter what.

As for Parliament, here is the amount of seats each country holds as of 2010:
England = 533
Scotland = 59
Wales = 40
NI = 18
Total = 650
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_Westminster_MPs

England holds 82% of all the seats in Westminster and ~80% total population of the UK.

You need 326 seats to win a majority, which can easily be done by winning enough seats in England and losing in the rest of the UK.
Literally

The majority of the House of Lords are also English.

May 2015 elections results:
Conservatives/Tories - 319 from England, 11 from Wales.
NI and Scotland didn't vote for Tories.
http://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results

in May of 1979, Tories won the majority of English seats securing their majority government.
They did pick up a few seats in Wales and Scotland, though it just added to their majority government..
Thatcher didn't need Wales and Scotland seats for her government to hold a majority.
This embolden her to "break" Scotland, which was part of her pan because she wanted to teach them a lesson about supporting liberal parties.
She literally hated Scotland for being a left leaning country.
Though to be fair the English Conservatives/Tories have always hated Scotland for supporting their liberal oppositions.

UK Parliamentary system is heavily favors England literally allowing England to rule the UK as they see fit.
This also allows England to stick it to Scotland and enforce their ancient resentment towards Scotland.
It's a horribly imbalanced marriage.

Also I know plenty of people who are native UK citizens and I do watch BBC world and read their website.
I also know people who regularly work in London.

The allegations are paper thin, and the "evidence" of vote rigging was rubbish by the Yes campaign as it was unveiled. Do you really think "Westminster" would have wasted so much time and money promoting the "No" campaign if they were just going to rig the vote?


According to the 2011 census, England has a population of 53 million and the UK population is 61.18 million. England is just shy of 84% of the UK, and so 82% of the seats means England has less of the power than it should do.


And nor did Atlee or Wilson or Callaghan or Blair.
Again, this is conspiracy theory rubbish and revisionist history. The Conservative vote in Scotland only collapsed in 1997, and although many of Thatcher's policies weren't popular with many Scottish people, they were also unpopular with the English working classes.


Does the word "devolution" mean anything to you?

England can't do anything about huge swathes of Scottish law or policy, and don't even when they have the chance.

Scotland is also well-represented at Westminster... or it was, before the SNP debacle. Not so long ago, the Prime Minister and Chancellor were both Scottish; Gordon Brown was one of the two most powerful men in the country for over a decade. The Shadow Foreign secretary was Scottish, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the most successful leader of the Liberal Democrats, another Lib Dem leader and two deputies, the former Shadow Defence Secretary, and the former Deputy Chief Whip. These are important positions. Voting out all their best MPs will diminish Scottish power in Parliament but they will still hold the balance of power on many votes.

Westminster ignored the referendum until the final two weeks, when the polls shifted in favor of the Yes vote.
The BBC and others were blasting Westminster for not taking it seriously and expected a land slide victory in favor of No.

Westminster obviously saw they were going to lose and intervened to correct the polls.
Westminster forced Scotland into the union, they will force Scotland to remain in the union.
Westminster is supreme on all matters not enshrined in the Acts of Union to Scotland (which is very few).
If Scotland is still expecting the promised DEVO MAX from the Tories, then they are in for a very rude awakening.

Anyways Labour had to bend over backwards to get Scotland following Thatcher's iron fist, in order to win the majority.
In the end, Labour blamed Scotland for it's election loss and the Tory majority.

If Scotland and England were people, the state would have intervened forcible by now to break up the marriage, due to England's abusive nature.

Until England is willing to put a huge check on their power making the system fair, Scotland will continue to push for independence.

This is why the U.S. rectified this problem when they drafted the current constitution, they didn't want then New York who was then the most populous state by far to dominate the other states by forcing their will.
This is why each state has two votes in U.S. Senate, while passage of any bill out of the U.S. Senate by 60 votes (2/3rds - 66 votes for treaties and veto override), with the exception of budgetary items which require a simple majority in the Senate.


I wont even go into how England is purposely holding back the EU...

The Tories won 31 % seats in Scotland and 31% in Wales that is hardly a small number. They did better than Liberal and SNP in scotland.

Conservatives won less % seats in UK 1997 election.

As The_Walrus said there were plenty of Labour governments. You win some you lose some.

You realise that Westminster is not a political party or campaign right? Westminster refers informally tot he Uk Parliament.

This is besides quite a number of inaccuracies in your spiel.

Oh please, why stop now? Be my guest.

Btw Scotland wanted to be a a colonial power, it bankrupted itself in the process.

It is debatable whether they were forced to join certainly not by invasion. England wrote off a debt worth today around £80 million.

Given that England had a Scottish King and the UK has 7 Scottish Prime Ministers your assessment of the history is a slanted one sided at best.