Let's Hear it for the Guardian!!

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most of the threads i've started involved a guardian link and an expression of pain/disgust/snarking.

not here!

hurrah for the guardian for this magnificent act of PWNJ:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1487093,00.html#article_continue

it kind of justifies the graun's writer-unfriendly attitude toward republication rights.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 19 May 2005 08:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Brilliant.

― Masked Gazza, Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:10 (twenty-one years ago)

haha awesome!

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:30 (twenty-one years ago)

*grin*

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Fucking fantastic.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:38 (twenty-one years ago)

For every article like that The Guardian (re-)runs, there's also dismal drivel like this, in which Jon Henley calls the French an "alien nation" living on "Planet France". And what, Jon, is the criteria for living in this cloud cuckoo land? Ah, believing "that economic liberalism (or a market economy) is the end of civilisation as we know it, despite the fact it is the sole economic system so far developed by mankind that has actually been shown to work".

― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Lots of folk on the Guardian don't seem to like Adonis, especially the Education writers and "socially aware" commentators, so it's all of a piece with generally having a go at him. That said, it's always nice to be able to point out to such people (ie Adonis) that they seem to have changed their ideas for base motives!

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:45 (twenty-one years ago)

xpots...Momus...Good article in yesterday's Guardian by a French Lady about the survey that was done across Europe and discovered that lots of people regard the French as arrogant, rude etc etc. Of course the French are all those things, was the gist of her article, but so what and anyway we're right to be. Personally, it's those "negative" traits that make France and the French so good, in my humble opinion.

Getting back to Adonis, it's a bit steep criticising him for being unelected yet an Education Minister, when most of the people Blair gets his ideas from (including Alistair Campbell and his wife Fiona Millar, in the past) are unelected.

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 09:51 (twenty-one years ago)

andy, isn't it more logical to think they're ALL on the graft there, rather than letting off 'Lord Adonis' (what a name) for being a bit less corrupt than campbell?

― N_Rq, Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:03 (twenty-one years ago)

ok so lords reform. im a political novice, but when theres talk of an elected second chamber, what does that entail. who elects them? the nation as a whole? is it a sort of referendum? if so, do you *really* think that the turnout would be meaningful? who would the candidates be for election? how would they be connected to political parties? what would make them independent of pressure from their political affiliations?

didnt adonis use to be blairs "secret" policy dude?

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Good point ... happy to accept that they are all slimeballs (or else they'd get a proper job that contributes something to society and the greater good of all wo/mankind .. like we all have ... or not)

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:18 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost ... Billy Bragg had the best idea I've seen for an elected second chamber, but I can't remember all the details just that it seemed sensible and simple (no chance for it then).

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:20 (twenty-one years ago)

ambrose -- yeah, he was basically educationmeister when estelle morris was nominally edutainment secretary, and she more or less quit because he was really running things. now he has been "legitimized". as for how to reform the lords, dunno, but elections would be better than having non-elected types determining the government's education policy. IMO.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:21 (twenty-one years ago)

again, i dont really know what im talking about (ed! come back!), but does the lords really deterine education policy? it seems to exist (in its most positive form) mainly as a sort of brake on crazy ideas coming through the commons. maybe with labours reduced majority this is less importnant. are people arguing for reform on grounds of principle or practicality?

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:32 (twenty-one years ago)

it's not his position in the house which gives him power, really -- he had it already -- but it gives him office and formal powers, i guess.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:33 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost ... Principle ... why should someone have a say in matters that effect my life just because a long time ago some distant relative did something for the then ruling monarch (usually involving violence, money or sex) OR because they happen to be a "chum" of the current ruling party.

Democracy may be a bit naff and throw up some pretty appalling people and some weird results, but it's better than any other form of government.

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Bragg's plan was simple - he wondered about the wisdom of holding separate elections, given tunrouts in local and euro elections.

His plan would have been to allow the Commons to be formed as now, based on simple plurality. The trick is to take the proportions of the popular vote to form a second chamber.

After 2005, labour would ahve 36% of seats in an upper house, tories would have 33% and so on. A party would have to work with others to get legislation through.

A big argument against PR systems has been that they break the geographical link; an argument for it is the proportionality. This way, you get both. Both have different mandates of equal value.

― Dave B (daveb), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Spot on, Dave ... I knew it seemed simple and sensible.

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:56 (twenty-one years ago)

so how would that be really elected? again, who would candidates be for the lords? if the lords has the same political makeup as the commons proportionally, whats its independance? how is the commons not being duplicated? i dont get it.

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Presumably the lords' members would be selected from party lists, in the same way that regional members of the Scottish parliament are.

The point is that the lords *wouldn't* have the same makeup as the commons proportionally. At the moment, for example, Labour makes up about 55% of commons members. Under this plan, with the current election results, it would only have about 36% of lords members.

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:17 (twenty-one years ago)

A big argument against PR systems has been that they break the geographical link;

I don't get this.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Andrew ... if something really gets on your tits you can go and speak to your member of parliament, and they more or less have an obligation to hear you and then do something. With a party list system (ie you vote for a party, or a list of candidates in a large area), there is no direct link between you and a member of parliament , because the MPs do not represent a distinct place but just their party or are one of a number of people representing a very large area.

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:23 (twenty-one years ago)

But PR doesn't necessarily mean party lists!

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

True, but the Bragg idea for an elected second chamber does.

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Incidentally, after the latest appointments to peerages, Labour is now the largest party in the Lords for the first time ever.

(They still don't have an overall majority there, though.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, what RickyT said. It is (or can be) like your current system, but you can vote for someone you actually like while registering that you would prefer one of the two scumbags that will probably get in over the other one.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

That Bragg plan in full

― Dave B (daveb), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:33 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks for the link dave, that looks really interesting. havent got time now to see how "It is a form of indirect election which distributes the seats in the second chamber in proportion to the votes cast in the general election." this works but it sounds promising!

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:43 (twenty-one years ago)

they more or less have an obligation to hear you and then do something

in theory, maybe - in practice there are lots of other factors aren't there:

constituency-ism as nimby-ism vs. big-picture/national/trans-national stuff (and the extent to which the UKIP line about >70% (or whatever) of future legislation coming on an EU-scale anyway is true is a relevant factor here, i think - it was a bit scary to hear on R4 a few weeks ago the extent to which certain issues (can't recall which ones haha - think maybe even housing/landuse policy was one though) really may not be under our own control either now or for much longer - i worry that this has been swept under the carpet by at least 2 of the main parties)

their jobsecurity & career advancement via whippery/partyline consistency

apart from them acting as some kind of noise-stick to wave at yr council, i'm not convinced - has the involvement of an mp ever been *instrumental* in forcing a miscarriage of justice to be revoked, or an action against a local authority to be speeded up? i always get the impression that legal procedures or other forms of the POWERS THAT BE (e.g trade & industry bodies, quangos, regulatory councils, local govt departments) are pretty impervious to them (as they are supposed to be in a distributed-power state, i guess)

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Thursday, 19 May 2005 11:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Snowy .. you're more cynical than me! but I do think that the intervention of an MP can help. One of the threads on ILE shortly before the elction actually had some examples of when an MP had helped constituents.

Sometimes I'm not worried about the European Union deciding things, if only because what they propose seems more liberal than what our own parliament proposes, but as ever it depends on the specific instances, and I often think they should keep their hands off. That said, I wouldn't vote for the European Constitution that the French are getting excited about.

― andyjack (andyjack), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

yes i think i feel largely the same way at the moment ref. the second point, but of course it's possible that the political complexion could change - and as a point of principle maybe i shouldn't go along with something that suits because it is still possible to characterise it as a shift away from more 'localised' democracy ?
(a necessary trade-off in the interests of 'efficiency' of scale?)
(we can worry about who defines 'efficiency', and along what parameters, of course - but sometimes it is depressingly couched in something akin to tooth-&-claw competitiveness with eg USA, Asia)
(haha welcome to the 'real world')

i didn't know there was such a thread ref. mp's usefulness - i will try to find it

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Thursday, 19 May 2005 13:05 (twenty-one years ago)

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