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Tag Archives: electoral reform
Will Hutton at the Fringe…
John Curtis: His framing of a possible future Scottish independence referendum was not one I had previously heard: a choice between one union, in which Scotland is currently a very significant if somewhat discontented fraction, and another, in which Scotland would be a very small part. Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, Comment, Economics, Electoral Reform
Tagged "Labour Party", Economics, electoral reform, john-crace, john-curtis, keir-starmer, Politics, uk-politics, will-hutton
2 Comments
Open Letter to John Cooper, MP for Dumfries and Galloway Constituency
The Reform Party which Nigel Farage leads, spell out a number of proposed constitutional changes … they say, there should be a referendum on constitutional reform. I doubt very much their enthusiasm for this will last beyond the point at which they win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. Nigel Farage is very happy to ally himself with Donald Trump, the most duplicitous individual ever to emerge in the politics of the modern era and thus his commitment to genuine democratic reform lacks credibility. Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Electoral Reform
Tagged "Labour Party", electoral reform, nigel-farage, Politics, PR, SNP
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Sunlit uplands revisited
On the edition of BBC Radio’s Any Questions broadcast immediately following the UK election on July 4th, I was shocked to hear Charlie Falconer – Lord Falconer, who I have always thought of as something of a wise owl – … Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Electoral Reform, Podcasts etc.
Tagged democracy, elections, electoral reform, Fair elections, FPTP, Political accountability, Politics, PR, Ranked choice voting, uk-politics
1 Comment
Outgrow the System
A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT TRANSITIONING TO A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC SYSTEM With thanks to Reel to Real Cinema, the Stove Network and the Climate Kitchen Dumfries for providing the opportunity to view and discuss this film. There is no argument with the … Continue reading
Sunlit uplands: a vision for the renewal of electoral and party politics
The UK parliament: the journey to a universal adult right to vote; a critique of the electoral and party system; the first draft of a reform proposal. Main article, approx 4300 words. It is a relatively recent idea that the … Continue reading
Saving the union: A job for a superhero? Nah — there could be a fix, but is it really worth the bother?
Having “done Brexit”, the intervention of the pandemic has deflected Boris Johnston from what might be his second great project, securing the Union of the United Kingdom. The early signs are, that his political vision falls a long way short of … Continue reading
Posted in Other Constitutional discussion
Tagged "United Kingdom", electoral reform, FPTP, PR, Scottish Independence
1 Comment
How Many Political Parties do we Really Need?
“One of the few advantages of the First Past the Post [FPTP] electoral system is that it simplifies the choices set before the electorate by the rather brutal device of limiting the number of parties which have any meaningful chance of winning seats. A proportional system inevitably brings more marginal parties into contention for seats and so has the opposite tendency. ” Continue reading
Posted in Comment, Electoral Reform
Tagged "Political Parties", electoral reform, FPTP, PR
2 Comments
Reading the Entrails of the Election
Tony Blair has been prominent in the voices of those seeking to divine the meaning of the 2019 election, dismissing Labour’s current incarnation as “a brand of quasi-revolutionary socialism [that] never has appealed to traditional Labour voters….The takeover of the … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit
Tagged "Dominic Cummings", "Labour Party", "Tony Blair", electoral reform, SNP
4 Comments
Referendums and Electoral Reform
The result of the referendum on the Alternative Vote did not come as a complete surprise to this blogger. The discussion was dominated by the conservatism of the Tory/Labour political establishment whose arguments were rhetorical rather than rational. The self … Continue reading
Carruchan 
Unclubbable
Political Parties. Why we need more of them—But not too many! There was a time when, despite my coming of age journey in the 1960s through the First Newry cubs, boy scouts and senior scouts, I considered myself an unquenchable … Continue reading →