Westminster Politics

The tory MPs will now be considering what is more important for them personally right now. EU membership or being wiped out and jobless?
Leaving the EU and keeping their jobs will probably be preferred to staying in the EU and losing their jobs, and watching Corbyn clean up.

I think it's highly likely that Boris will change and mobilise the cabinet, and install popular characters into his cabinet like Jacob Rees Mogg, and go on the offensive to win back confidence from the voters.

Again I'm not so sure. Those tactics would work with the Tory membership but absolutely wouldn't with a large portion of MPs.

I can imagine the "anyone but Boris" group will widen to "anyone but Boris or Raab". I believe that group will be triple figures.
 
Again I'm not so sure. Those tactics would work with the Tory membership but absolutely wouldn't with a large portion of MPs.

I can imagine the "anyone but Boris" group will widen to "anyone but Boris or Raab". I believe that group will be triple figures.

I think this would be true if the conservatives had a healthy opinion poll, but as I said, I think we'll see the party opt for drastic measures for a drastic situation in order to try and save themselves.
 
How about this for House of Lords reform and a simple proportional system?

Chop the House of Lords down to 192 Lords.

Each Lord, when elected, renounces all political party ties and is barred from re-joining any political party for life. - This means that each Lord can avoid the prevailing wind of political opinion, and vote against their old short term party interests in favour of the long term public good.

Each Lord is elected for a twenty year period. This means they don't have to worry about running for re-election every few years. The implication being that after serving your twenty-year stint, you should probably retire (if you haven't already).

The UK is divided into eleven regions. Like the EU Elections

Each year, two of the ten regions elect 5 Lords each (plus additional ones if any have retired or died before their time). This low number of regions and low number of candidates allows decent coverage and scrutiny to be applied to all of Lords being nominated.

Each constituent of the regions voting for the lord that year get's a single vote placed with an "X". The actual voting format is therefore identical to a General Election, no ranking necessary.. This low number of regions and low number of candidates allows decent coverage and scrutiny to be applied to all of Lords being nominated.

Once the votes have been counted, any candidate with over 20% of the vote is immediately elected as a Lord.

Any votes left over the 20% requirement are "spare votes". The newly Elected Lord can choose another candidate to donate those "spare votes" too - or can choose to discard them. Example: Boris Johnson is elected as a lord with 25% of the vote (a total of 500,000 votes). He, therefore, has 5% of his vote that he can donate to another candidate if he wants to (100,000 votes). There are three other (soon to be former) Conservatives running, trying to take the four Lords seats. The other front runner, Amber Rudd is on 18% of the vote. If Johnson chooses to donate his votes to Rudd, she will be elected as a Lord. However, he instead chooses to donate his additional 100,000 votes to a close ally, Gavin Williamson. That takes Gavin Williamson from 6% of the vote to 11%.

If no candidate has over 20% of the votes, then the candidate with the lowest votes remaining is eliminated. This candidate can then choose who to donate her votes to. Example: Siân Berry formerly of the Green party is running as a candidate in the London House of Lords elections. She has 3% of the vote which is the lowest score remaining. She is eliminated and can choose who to donate her votes to. Running neck and neck are Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) and Tony Baldry (Conservative) on 11% and 12% respectively. Sian Berry wants to push forward a candidate with principles similar to her own. She chooses to donate her 3% of the votes to Nick Clegg, to put him above Tony Baldry, as Nick Clegg has better Green credentials.

This is repeated until there are 4 elected Lords.

Longer Example

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Using the current generation of London politicians as an example, maybe we'd get something like this.

Initially, Sir Vince Cable and Boris Johnson immediately have over 20% of the vote, so they are elected and can choose who to give their remaining vote share to. Boris Johnson chooses to give his additional 3% vote to his brother Jo Johnson, rather than Ian Duncan Smith who is ahead of him. Vince Cable gives his remaining 1% to fellow Lib Dem Ed Davey.

No one else has 20% of the vote, so one by one the lowest scoring candidate that remains is eliminated. This continues much as you'd expect, with each party keeping their vote within their own ranks.

This continues until Kier Starmer, until 7% of the vote, is eliminated and passes his vote to Diane Abbott on 18%, giving her 25% of the vote.

Diane Abbot is elected, with 5% of the vote to spare.

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Diane Abbott is the last Labour candidate remaining. She has 5% of the vote left which she can donate.

The remaining candidates she can donate her 5% of the vote to, are:

Sian Berry - Green
Sir Ed Davey - Lib Dem
Jo Johnson - Conservative.

Or she can scrap the 5% of her vote.

She doesn't want Jo Johnson to be elected. If she scraps her vote, the "pass threshold" is lowered from 20% to approximately 18.8% and the candidate with the lowest remaining score is Sir Ed Davey.

Sir Ed Davey would be eliminated and would likely choose to elect Conservative Jo Johnson over Green Sian Berry - which is not what Diane Abbot wants.

So Diane Abbott decides to donate her 5% to get either Green Sian Berry or Lib Dem Sir Ed Davey elected

She feels her policies are more similar to Sir Ed Davey's so chooses to get him elected.


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So the result is

Lib Dem - 2
Labour - 1
Conservative - 1

Although they are serving as individual candidates from this point forward anyway
I like this - because it could add some real drama and gamesmanship to proceedings

Edit: realised I've a mistake and with 4 candidates the threshold should be 25% not 20%

You get the idea though
 
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So apparently current numbers of confirmed backers are:

Gove - 18
Raab - 16
Johnson - 14
Hunt - 13
Javid - 8
Hancock - 6
Mcvey - 5
Other - 7

I would love to see Gove get it.
Now that really would spell the end of the nasty party.
 
Boris getting sued for intentionally lying about numbers as a civil servant during the EU election.

Hopefully this one has legs. Could be a positive change for politics.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...mmonsed-court-face-misconduct-accusation.html

I hope it goes through and he's found guilty. Nothing against him personally, but there has got to be some kind of punishment brought in for politicians outright lying to the public the way they did with that 350m claim.
 
The only one I would vote for if I was a Conservative party member.

I don’t think he belongs in today’s politics really. He’s a throwback to another era, ironically the era that’s producing much of the imperial nostalgia which has helped fueled Brexit. Hard not to like the guy:

 
I don’t think he belongs in today’s politics really. He’s a throwback to another era, ironically the era that’s producing much of the imperial nostalgia which has helped fueled Brexit. Hard not to like the guy:



He's the sort of person people who are into politics quite like, with those same people then being baffled when it turns out no one else particularly likes him or think he's astonishingly weird. Almost like a Tory equivalent to Miliband, only with the caveat of being a Tory which pretty much automatically takes away any cuddliness he might have been able to project himself as having.

He's also completely out of place within his own party, and in that regard the people who like him stand out as being entirely oblivious to a lot of the problems we're facing at the moment.
 
The only Tory I have any sympathy for is Peter Mannion, and even then it is implied that his policy directly led to someone's suicide.
 
Raab just giving some obvious common sense answers there or am I missing something?
 
Raab just giving some obvious common sense answers there or am I missing something?
He's playing into standard transphobic talking points.

Making it easier for someone to change their gender might not have anything to do with surgery but more to do changing any legal forms or NHS funding. Yet Raab jumps straight into the child given gender reassignment after tell teacher he liked pink shoes shtick and trans people being a danger to women prisons which isn't true.
 
:lol::lol::lol::lol:



Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government.
 
He's the sort of person people who are into politics quite like, with those same people then being baffled when it turns out no one else particularly likes him or think he's astonishingly weird. Almost like a Tory equivalent to Miliband, only with the caveat of being a Tory which pretty much automatically takes away any cuddliness he might have been able to project himself as having.

He's also completely out of place within his own party, and in that regard the people who like him stand out as being entirely oblivious to a lot of the problems we're facing at the moment.
It does feel like he has good motives and wants to be a force for good, but yeah, there is something about him that is really weird and not just his manner too.
Can't decide if he's a master of self-publicity or journos just love him as he is a la mode, was a minor ex-minister who is straight-talking and will give a decent counterpoint quote to the hard Brexiters upon request.
 
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Not sure how it would translate into seats and I suspect a small bump for the conservatives when they finally get a new leader

But based in this I'm not sure either labour or conservatives would want a ge right now

And for sure a coalition looks inevitable
Brexit conservatives
Conservative libs
Libs labour (possibly SNP if they get indy ref2 as part of the deal)
 
Are they just announcing to make this leadership contest last longer? Getting ridiculous now.
 
:lol::lol::lol::lol:



Go back to your constituencies and prepare for government.


Crikey. Wonder how long its been since an opinion poll had neither Labour nor the Tories in the top 2? Not in my lifetime certainly.
 
Worth adding that the vote for both Libs and Brexit Party will be very soft. Expect both of them to lose votes back to Labour and the Tories very easily if those parties do the right thing. Question is, will they start doing the right thing or stumble on?
 
Farage as gone on record for privatising healthcare.

I did see a video of him bleating about it, would you go so far to call it a policy? Labour, Tories et al have at least been in the game long enough to have policies on pretty much everything. I just don't see how a 6 week old party could possibly be considered for election.
 
Crikey. Wonder how long its been since an opinion poll had neither Labour nor the Tories in the top 2? Not in my lifetime certainly.
Never since the start of polling in the 40s, apparently.

But yeah, wouldn't expect it to be replicated, just a case of many people being in a mood to protest vote at the moment mixed with YouGov being ultra sensitive to it.
 
Similar trend to the YouGov one