Mark Steyn, on the decline of democracy in the UK:
So much for those Yank-style televised leaders’ debates only a couple weeks back. Instead, Britain will end up with a leader who didn’t participate in the leaders’ debates, presiding over a coalition that wasn’t on the ballot, implementing a platform no party ran on, yet committed to transformative electoral reform for which there is no mandate.
But other than that, it’s a great plan, and system.
[Update a few minutes later]
Five reasons a Labour/Liberal government will collapse.
[Update a few minutes later]
Looks like the deal has already fallen apart, and Cameron will be the next PM.
I thought the latest headlines are indicating the Labour/Liberal talks have already collapsed. Looks like it may be a Tory/Liberal government after all. However, who really knows until the fat lady sings.
The fact that there is even a question of which party will run things is proof that democracy in England is at the fail point. It looks more and more like the elites that screwed up are doing everything in their power to avoid the consequences of that failure.
Chris L. – a little dramatic, aren’t we? This kind of “who’s on first” jostling is pretty typical for a parliamentary system. And after all, if the people were clear on who they wanted to run things, it wouldn’t be necessary.
A lot of the experts I’m reading suggest that, whoever gets the Call From The Queen to form a government shouldn’t get too comfortable at Number 10. With this party mix, losing a no-confidence vote is a real probability.
I agree on the don’t get too comfortable part. Slim majorities do not bode well for any government.
As to the dramatic part, Browne was trying to get a deal where his party (the guy;s who came in second) would remain pretty much in power, even though another party had come in first. It would be like George Bush (the first) making a deal with Ross Perot after the 1992 election to deny Bill Clinton the Presidency.
Cameron is our new PM. In my opinion, we need someone much stronger, but we go to war with the army we have 😉
In the last few days we’ve also seen how a proportional-representation (PR) government would work (lots of deals done in smoky rooms), with little accountability or adherence to the manifestos that were bandied around in the election.
Clegg (the Liberal-Democrat leader) has lost a massive amount of credibility – he said that the Conservatives, being the party that had the most votes and the most seats (although not the amount needed for an overall majority) should form the next government. He then had secret talks with Labour (whilst the Conservatives thought they had a deal almost ready to go). Many many people were livid over this.
I don’t see this government lasting too long – the LibDems have never been in office, and are likely to want PR enacted very quickly to cement their ‘success’.
I expect the next election to result in a large Conservative majority and both Labour and LibDems to get stuffed in the polls.
The calls for an English parliament are also getting louder – Scotland and Wales are virtual deserts for the Tories (1 MP in Scotland, Lab=41 and 8 in Wales, Lab=26), both Scotland and Wales have their own assemblies, and the English are effectively subsiding both countries.
It’s going to be a fun couple of months, but thankfully we’ve got rid of ZaNuLab…
People do not directly “vote” for a President in the US either. The people of the US elect representatives to the electoral college. These representatives then select and vote a President into office. This is what the rules say.
In practice prospective Presidential candidates present themselves to the public during the election. People implicitly expect one of these candidates will be selected as President. But this may not necessarily be so. Also since the UK does not have a Vice-President equivalent often a former minister is selected as a replacement, in case the acting head of the executive must step down for any reason. This was the case for Gordon Brown. I am sure you probably remember a number of US Vice-Presidents who stepped into office in a similar situation with similarly nauseating results.
I do agree it weakens the leadership. Plus these sorts of party bureaucrats are often quite tedious and lackluster executive personnel. Imagine replacing a company’s CEO with the CFO… Or worse than tedious, they maybe be too radical. In a case like this there are usually checks and balances. I suppose the Queen of England can dissolve the parliament if it came to that.
Reminds me of the 60’s and 70’s when very slim majorities were the norm. Took Maggie to change that. Party Leaders used to come and go with monotonous regularity it seemed. As noted, it should be interesting in the next few months. How long this coalition will last is anybody’s guess. I’m not sure I will give it a year, more like six months to the first vote of no confidence.
Godzilla, that is technically true, but in practice the electoral votes are automatically allocated to the winner of a state. It would be interesting if one of the electors tried to change his vote. 🙂
Tony (UK), the proportional system reminds me of Israel, and the Weimar Republic. Nothing but massive coalitions which rarely accomplish much, because they have to keep all parties happy.
I guess I’ll trip on over to Samizdata to see what they have to say…
Casey, I think there are at least a couple states that award electoral college votes based on proportional voting (IIRC, Maine and Nebraska). There was an out of state group trying to get that enacted in Colorado a couple years ago. They wanted us to change our system but they weren’t willing to change their all or nothing allocation. IIRC, they were from California. Voters saw through the ruse and rejected the measure.
In the last few days we’ve also seen how a proportional-representation (PR) government would work (lots of deals done in smoky rooms), with little accountability or adherence to the manifestos that were bandied around in the election.
Yes, but the alternative with the UK system is effectively a parliamentary tyranny by a minority of the population. You can’t make blythe comments about “ZaNuLabour” without accepting that they, and the Tories before them, were kept in power with about 40% of the popular vote and had 100% total authority to do all sorts of stuff including the massive restrictions on civil liberties, huge, unfunded spending and so forth.
If back room deals means governments with less authority to make massive and unchallenged changes to the country then I’m for them, regardless of what colour they end up.
I don’t see this lasting too long, but I’m genuinely surprised at the scope of the coalition that has been put together and there’s some strong Lib-Dem candidates in the cabinet like Vince Cable.
And yes, I suspect this will probably lead to the end of the Union. If you’re a Scot and you’ve now got government in *another* country led by a party that about 10% of your population voted for then there’s a serious problem.
Dave,
Here is the counter-argument, I think:
http://forargyll.com/2010/05/scotland-and-the-new-uk-coalition-government/
The article begins “The full coalition government between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, born from the 2010 general election, is arguably the best possible result for Scotland.”
Daveon; if you’re English and you have a government that England didn’t vote for, led by someone that nobody except those in his weigh-the-Labour-votes constituency voted for and with most of the Cabinet offices (including Chancellor and PM) held by Scots who are 5% of the UK – then you also have a problem. Sound familiar?
Nobody, except to their great credit the SNP, has yet addressed the West Lothian question. For those unfamiliar with it, this is the question of why the heck Scottish and Welsh MPs should have a say in matters of public policy that in Scotland or Wales are decided by their respective parliaments but in England are decided by the UK parliament. An example would be student tuition fees.
Answer? A devolved English parliament. And IMHO not in London – which would lead to its total irrelevance. In addition, London is totally dominated in business by the financial “industry”. I would nominate Birmingham – England’s second city and much closer to the geographic centre. And no, I don’t live there.
Fletcher: I seem to recall that Scotland has produced more than it’s share of PMs over the years – I blame the weather myself.
My concern for moving to an English parliament/assembly is that England itself is pretty fragmented too. My father would happily have detached the SE from the North and had done with it. Naturally my father was born in Limerick…
The challenge is population distribution, 60% of the English population live within a 90 commute of London, bringing in Birmingham and Bristol but leaving out the great cities of the North. The voters of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Newcastle will soon get tired of their affairs being managed by Tory UKIP voters in Woking and Surbiton.
The challenge is population distribution, 60% of the English population live within a 90 commute of London, bringing in Birmingham and Bristol but leaving out the great cities of the North. The voters of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Hull and Newcastle will soon get tired of their affairs being managed by Tory UKIP voters in Woking and Surbiton.
Just as a lot of Californians are tired of being managed by leftist loons voted in from LA and the Bay Area.