DOING YOUR DUTY

[aussiedave]

...and I seriously fucking mean it. This is your duty. Yes, you, reading this now. I'm not going to mince words or be diplomatic.

Not doing the below officially negates your right to complain. About, like, anything. Even movies you don't like and stuff like that.

The UK General Election is coming up. I expect these three things of you:

1. Be

Comments

[span1el]

What about if that Tory candidate you mention doesn't tow the party line on the issues you disagree with? How would you even know this is the case?

The problem is that you are voting for an individual to represent you but that almost all the information you have on them (unless they were voted in last term) is based on what the party represents, which is in turn mostly going to be the middle ground due to the bell curve of most societal distribution.

Was talking to Pat about this and after much debate we can't help but think that the best solution is in fact to do away with general elections all together. Instead, each local constituency has their own election every 4 years or when the previous individual loses the position for whatever reason.

You'd have to put some measures in place to prevent people moving around the country to vote more often but that shouldn't be too hard to do. On the upside you'd have your MP actually voting on the things they care about (why you voted them in) rather than having to tow the party line for fear of losing their jobs (see the recent Digital Economy Bill for an example of that).

[aussiedave]

I know the policies where Wilson toes the party line (the vast majority of them; he's a pretty lazy dude, politically), and the policies where he rejects the party line. I know what he's voted for and what he opposes. That's the beauty of TheyWorkForYou.com. And he, personally, has voted in a way I dislike (against equal gay rights, for example).

And while I get your general idea, the party-politics system empowers a more or less united parliament, which therefore has real legislative power, where the more divisive a house, the less effective they can be. What we need at the moment (in my opinion, of course) is a more divided house, which will therefore be more tied to public and opinion and more internally-reviewed, and I think a hung parliament and a coalition government will achieve that; but I certainly wouldn't want it for more than a term or two.

It's probably worth noting that the system you're talking about existed in 1300. When Parliament gained real legislative power, around the sixteenth century, the party system evolved out of a need for an effective, united parliament. Essentially, we started at what you described and had to develop into what we have now, because the system you described didn't work.

In any case, discussing what should be our system of government doesn't achieve anything whatsoever. This is the system you have now. By all means, get a couple of thousand armed revolutionaries organised and try and take on Her Majesty's Armed Forces and the police, but I doubt you'll have much success. You could stump up your £500 and stand yourself, but you'll be one voice among six hundred odd, and they're organized. You could try and form a new political party and get a bunch of people stumping up theur £500, which might give you a chance at establishing the system you want, but you would be doing so by buying into the system that currently exists.

In the end, the most effective tool you have for change is your vote, and your voice to persuade other people to vote your way. If you want legislative or parliamentary reform, look at the party whose policies most head that way.