UK Politics VII - Going down on Downing Street

[Lummel]

What about Miliband the Younger?

David agrees to stand down in favour of the more 'youthful and charismatic' Miliband on the condition that David succeeds to the Premiership, and history goes round again.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as comedy?

[Datepalm]

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as comedy?

Then as the third classic genre - the sex tape.

[Night Watchman]

3 Pages in, and this is already the most sexually charged politics thread I've even seen

:smileysex:

[Lummel]

Young Lady! And I thought you knew your Marx!

[MinDonner]

Young Lady! And I thought you knew your Marx!

It is truly a tragedy that Marx died before he could add sex tapes and slash to his manifesto. :crying:

[mormont]

[Datepalm]

A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Clegeron. All the Powers of Old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to gawk upon this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German Police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not misunderstood their love? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of naked political opportunism, or possibly in frilly underwear, against the salacious innuendo and bed rattling sexcapades as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

[Lummel]

Funny, and I'd always thought that it was the man of that house who was the bigot.

Well at least with the Tories back in office we should see plenty of sex scandals but this time with lashings of Lib Dem sauce thanks to the restless spirits of Jeremy Thorpe and David Lloyd George.

[Usotsuki]

Well at least with the Tories back in office we should see plenty of sex scandals but this time with lashings of Lib Dem sauce thanks to the restless spirits of Jeremy Thorpe and David Lloyd George.

How unkind - I'm thoroughly reformed and never, ever shared my little black book with Mark Oaten.

[Hereward]

I'm really quite glad I changed my name.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Well at least with the Tories back in office we should see plenty of sex scandals but this time with lashings of Lib Dem sauce thanks to the restless spirits of Jeremy Thorpe and David Lloyd George.

:love:

This is going to be Wonderful.

[DJDonegal]

I hope they vote down that 55% bullcrap.

Also, I don't like the idea of fixed parliaments.

[mormont]

I don't mind the idea of fixed-term parliaments (though I'm wholly against the 55% rule, as blatant a bit of gerrymandering as you'll ever see - no coincidence that it's suggested by a party with 47% of the seats), but I do wonder why five years. The devolved parliaments all have fixed terms of four years. Quite apart from the inconsistency, this means the elections will be out of synch: once every 20 years they'll coincide, then the gap will be one year, then two, and so on. It's kind of stupid, and telling as well - the attitude is clearly that devolved elections aren't important enough to affect the scheduling of Westminster elections.

[slim da reaper]

I think it's five because David Cameron recently learnt humans have five fingers on each hand, at learning this he began counting got to five on the first hand (couldn't count any higher) grinned widely as he counted the last finger, then gave a thumb up and thought do I count this too?

What is bugging me are these pundits who keep saying no-one voted for a coalition, again thinking they know what others thoughts are, it's an attempt to claim expert opinion by them, the less informed the stronger the claim will be.

Question time there was this older labour woman on there and she was really really irritating, her world view has been undermined.

So if the Tories and the liberals can keep the channels of communication open, but this needs laughter that the world is so often just absurb, and we can never take ourselves too seriously. But this is politics I think it's untenable.

[Slick Mongoose]

I don't mind the idea of fixed-term parliaments (though I'm wholly against the 55% rule, as blatant a bit of gerrymandering as you'll ever see

But if we have fixed-term parliaments, shouldn't the threashold for dissolving parliament be much higher? Say, 75%? Then parliament actually would have a fixed term.

If you have fixed-term parliaments but keep the 50%+1 threashold, then you don't have fixed-term parliaments, surely?

I'm curious as to what, under the 55% rule, would happen if a government lost a confidence vote (which is still at 50%+1)?

[Zoë Sumra]

I'm curious as to what, under the 55% rule, would happen if a government lost a confidence vote (which is still at 50%+1)?

As am I. I'd originally conflated the two issues and am wondering how on earth it works, given that a confidence vote is primarily a vote to dissolve parliament.

[The Iceman of the North]

I'm curious as to what, under the 55% rule, would happen if a government lost a confidence vote (which is still at 50%+1)?

Presumably, someone else would have to form a government?

We have fixed terms on Norway, without any thresholds. If a government receives a vote of no confidence, the opposition have to try to form a government. Due to this there are few successful votes of no-confidence. In Norway there was one in 1928 and two in 1963. (There have been instances of coalition government stepping down voluntarily though.)

[mormont]

I'm curious as to what, under the 55% rule, would happen if a government lost a confidence vote (which is still at 50%+1)?

The theory seems to be that there might be an attempt to form an alternative government from the same parliament (for example, in the present parliament a vote of no confidence in the ConDem coalition might result in a Con minority government or a Labour-led coalition).

[Slick Mongoose]

The theory seems to be that there might be an attempt to form an alternative government from the same parliament (for example, in the present parliament a vote of no confidence in the ConDem coalition might result in a Con minority government or a Labour-led coalition).

So what happens if the new attempted governments lose confidence votes as well?

[mormont]

So what happens if the new attempted governments lose confidence votes as well?

I'd assume that in this case, getting a motion to dissolve parliament passed wouldn't be a problem.