Coogan and Vorderman back Liberal Democrats' electoral reform pledge
Coogan and Vorderman back Liberal Democrats' electoral reform pledge
Actor Steve Coogan and presenter Carol Vorderman have backed Liberal Democrat pledges to reform how the UK's general elections are run.
I didn't think I'd love long enough to see the UK leave the EU but it happened..... I'll be long dead before the king maker here (Labour) supports PR. They're the issue here, Tories were never going to agree Labour might have had a chance to push it through with support from Greens and LD but they choose to support the Tory policy instead. 🥹
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Actor Steve Coogan and presenter Carol Vorderman have backed Liberal Democrat pledges to reform how the UK's general elections are run.
The Lib Dems have long called for first past the post (FPTP) to be replaced with proportional representation (PR).
By contrast, PR is the idea that parties' seats in parliament should be allocated so that they are in proportion to the number of votes cast.
Versions of proportional representation are already used to elect representatives in the regional legislatures of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Coogan, who in the past has supported Labour and appeared in the party's election material, said he plans to vote for Lib Dem candidate in Lewes, James MacCleary in a bid to oust Conservative MP Maria Caulfield.
And when they finally decide to call time on so many years of shambles and sleaze, the Liberal Democrats will be ready," he said.
The original article contains 403 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I don't think there's many millennials that would vote LD now
I would. I live in the south west, where the Lib Dems have traditionally been strong and Labour typically won't even acknowledge that we exist. There's a perception here that Labour only care about the cities and the Red Wall. The Lib Dems, for all their faults, have an active presence and a much deeper awareness of the issues that affect the south west, and are therefore a much more viable option to vote for if we want to oust a Tory.
Same here, although I grew up in Cheshire & now live in London... Even within the cities, Labours local policies seem very copy paste when what people want in (eg.) Westminster is going to be different to what they want in Hounslow, which will be different to what people want in Dagenham.
Lib Dems seem to have a far better understanding of their constituencies/local areas than either of the major two parties (there are some good Labour MPs and slightly fewer good Tory MPs, but as a percentage they're way lower), eg what Tim Farron is up to now in parliament, every speech is standing up for his constituency rather than hiding away in a large party letting the frontbenchers do the talking.
Why not? Labour are the party that introduced tuition fees in the first place.
Jfc, the fact that anyone still believes we can vote our problems away is beyond depressing...
Voting for the third and smaller of the puppets is still voting for a puppet. They all still serve capitalism, not people, they all still want to maintain the status quo, not bring actual change. The illusion of choice is just another distraction by those in power to keep themselves there.
Continuing to play within the rules written by and in defence of the system will only ever result in us staying under the boot that is said system, that's a fact that is never going to change, the sooner people realise this, the sooner we can move towards actual change (where society is designed by and for all of its members, not by and for the rich).
You do realise that PR works and produce a much wider parliament in other countries? Look at Scandinavian countries? Would you call them capitalist hell-holes with their free healthcare, free schooling, generous pensions and social care?
So - what exactly are you proposing? Don't be shy
Yeah I know but I'm still going to vote for them. Greens stand no chance and Starmer is a prick whose Labour stance is barely even diet Tory any more he's sucked so much conservative dick. At least the LibDems aren't transphobic and want to rejoin the EU.
And yes, I am a millenial who was sorely disappointed by voting for them back in the day, but I've been far, far more disappointed by Labour in recent years since they fucked over Corbyn.
I don't expect anything to change by voting, the world is still irreparably fucked and climate collapse is imminent, but it's nice to have the illusion of choice.
Labour are the ones to convince. LD doesn't have the power to bring it to fruition.
Didn't they play this game when Nick Clegg ran the party? After which they gave up on it as soon as they entered into a coalition with the Tories?
LD have been asking for PR voting at least since the 70's. They have never took it away from their manifesto AFAIK.
They could not get Cameron to accept it. There is a huge difference between negotiation and removal.@theinspectorst@feddit.uk answered this properly https://feddit.uk/comment/2961968Labour and Conservative are happy with FPTP because it is easy to bribe the small amount of people in the swing vote areas. The rest of the country gets ignored. Smaller parties cannot compete in the funds to do this.
No, they actually got a vote through for a referendum for the UK to adopt the AV+ alternative vote system system. It's flawed, but I thought it was an improvement on first past the post and voted for it. Not enough other people agreed
The Coalition agreed on a referendum on AV as a compromise. The Lib Dems' (and most electoral reform campaigners') preferred voting system is Single Transferrable Vote, which is effectively AV but with multi-member constituencies instead of single-member. STV is used in the Republic of Ireland and delivers proportional results whilst maintaining the existence of geographic constituency links - generally considered two desirable features of a voting system (along with preferentialism, a feature AV and STV both have).
If we could have made the switch to AV then it would have been only a short step from there to STV a few years later. But the Tories campaigned heavily against it, and Labour were highly divided on electoral reform so were officially neutral but in practice a majority of Labour MPs backed the 'no' campaign. So the referendum failed.
You must be young.
The tactics that were played out with Brexit, all the false adverts and claims were first played out with the Voting Reform.
There were things like
And
They were literally claiming that if you voted for AV, then you are killing babies and our military.
@jonne @Syldon
They had no option, as the Junior Party in the coalition. They didn't win the election. The Tories did effectively. Reality is a bitch, ain't it.
There's a solid chance Labour won't get a majority and will rely on either confidence and supply, or a full coalition. There are very few precedents for a party going from as low as 202 seats at one election to a majority government at the next (it happened in 1945, but only because the last election in that case was 1935 and rather a lot had happened in between).
Labour have been very clear where they stand on electoral reform. If we're going to get a change to the voting system, it will only be because Labour were forced into it by the Lib Dems in a hung parliament.
Labour is not going to fall into hung territory at the next GE. Sunak keeps making things worse on each week he is around. It keeps looking more and more like those double digit tory fears will come to fruition. I could easily see the Tory party collapse after the GE, which in turn could push LD to being the second main party in the UK. That would be interesting to watch the donors bail on the Tories. Cummings attempt to make a new party could exacerbate the Tory demise even more.
Fixed that for you.
Labour have a massive lead and are on track for a crushing landslide victory just by keeping their mouths shut. It's a pity but such a win means they have no incentive to change the system. It'll likely be a couple of elections down the road until the numbers get tight.