UK General Election

The Real Wizard wrote:

Great discussion.

But before we get too ahead of ourselves, this is all moot until the Queen gives the green light.

She just may say no.

While that is not technically impossible, it has been a practical understanding since Edward VII (1901-1910) that the King/Queen cannot make such calls.

In fact, I believe that the 1839 "Bedchamber Crisis" was the last time something like that (almost) happened, and heaven and earth were moved to keep the young Queen (who seems to have had quite a crush on then-PM Lord Melbourne and was determined not to have him depart) from making such a catastrophic move.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Holly2003 wrote:

"a majority of its support comes from fundamentalist protestants "

Not quite true. Protestants certainly but in Northern Ireland people tend to vote tactically to stop the "other side" gaining power so many perfectly ordinary people hold their noses and vote DUP to ensure the likes of Sinn Fein don't attain a majority. In this election Brexit complicates things a bit but not that much. SF like to position themselves as socially liberal so on the surface this looks like a vote for (religious) conservative against liberals but in actuality it is exactly like every other vote in Northern Ireland -- unionists voting for unionists and nationalists voting for nationalists. As much as I despise both the Tories and DUP, they have every right to form an agreement and unionists from Northern Ireland have every right to be represented in a national UK government -- just as Scottish or Welsh nationalists would possibly have been if Labour had gained enough MPs.

It may have come to that in these most recent elections, but from what I know, less/not fundamentalist-religiously inclined Unionists tended to vote UUP rather than DUP. This may have changed with the death of Ian Paisley, who was pretty toxic to anyone who wasn't an adherent of his branch of Presbyterianism. The UUP certainly did get wiped out in these past elections, and the DUPs growth is pretty much exactly the the UUPs shrinkage, so that backs up your story.

Still, I would argue that, until recently, the DUP was a bullwark of religiously extremist Unionists, while the UUP was the party of more moderately conservative Unionists. I may be wrong, but that is the impression of the Unionist side of Northern Irish politics I always had.

The UUP were the bigger party and more moderate but their traditional supporters are now voting DUP because the DUPes appear stronger on the national question, which remains far and away the main issue in Northern Irish politics. Those former UUP supporters didn't suddenly become fundamentalist protestants, they simply voted tactically for the party best able to represent them on the national question and best able to keep nationalists from winning in their constituencies. Hence not all, probably not even a majority, of DUP supporters are *fundamentalist* protestants nowadays. Certainly their social manifesto is out of touch with the modern era but unless you understand how important the national question is, it's best not to make generalisations about that. Such is the nature of NI Assembly politics, nothing can be done without consensus, so DUP social policies are almost irrelevant to most people, including their own supporters. As long as they fly a Union flag high enough, most unionists will hold their noses and vote for them. Same thing applies for the other side: as long as Sinn Fein fly the Irish tricolour and moan about '800 years' of British oppression, the rest of their policies could support badger rape and irradiated toothpaste and hardly anyone would notice. Such is the depressing, backward nature of Northern Irish politics...

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

The Real Wizard wrote:

Great discussion.

But before we get too ahead of ourselves, this is all moot until the Queen gives the green light.

She just may say no.

While that is not technically impossible, it has been a practical understanding since Edward VII (1901-1910) that the King/Queen cannot make such calls.

Well, there have been a few times since then that the winning party did not form government.

https://skwawkbox.org/2017/06/12/in-law-if-may-cant-pass-queensspeech-corbyn-automatically-becomes-pm

So we shall see.

Here in India we have the Electronic Voting Machines. You press the button next to the symbol and that registers the vote.Eliminates vandalism and makes counting super fast.

Alongwith all the party/candidate symbols, we also have the NOTA option - None Of The Above.

ParisNair wrote:

Along with all the party/candidate symbols, we also have the NOTA option - None Of The Above.

We really should have that, tbh. It saves having to deliberately spoil papers, and drawing cocks.

Thistleboy1980 wrote:

That makes sense Barbara. We should make it that way too. I know I'll probably take a panning here for saying it, but I also think there should be a basic test to see if people are actually fit to vote - there are so many who don't have a clue about what they're voting for or why, and many think they're voting correctly but somehow spoil the paper: how difficult is it to read the fecking instructions? I was just at a local council count, and it was the STV system - mark each candidate in order of preference (for instance 1-6) or simply just number the candidate(s) you wish to vote for. So many still put X next to all candidates....which, of course, meant we couldn't determine the order of preference.

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/single-transferable-vote/

I couldn't agree more, on both counts!

Alternatively the voting age should also be increased back up to 21 and where I live it's pretty true to say that you could paint a pig red and Labour voters would vote for it!

brians wig wrote:

Thistleboy1980 wrote:

That makes sense Barbara. We should make it that way too. I know I'll probably take a panning here for saying it, but I also think there should be a basic test to see if people are actually fit to vote - there are so many who don't have a clue about what they're voting for or why, and many think they're voting correctly but somehow spoil the paper: how difficult is it to read the fecking instructions? I was just at a local council count, and it was the STV system - mark each candidate in order of preference (for instance 1-6) or simply just number the candidate(s) you wish to vote for. So many still put X next to all candidates....which, of course, meant we couldn't determine the order of preference.

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/single-transferable-vote/

I couldn't agree more, on both counts!

Alternatively the voting age should also be increased back up to 21 and where I live it's pretty true to say that you could paint a pig red and Labour voters would vote for it!

You could make exactly the same remark about conservative candidates and voters. It's a simple fact that a majority of voters in a two-party system will vote for either the one or the other party regardless of any other circumstances: that's why there are safe Labour seats and safe Conservative seats despite the fact that there have not been 'rotten boroughs' for a long time. Raising the voting age will not change any of that. In fact, very young voters are more likely not to have a fixed party allegiance than older voters.

God help all of us if the self-loathing bigots of the loony left ever get back in. I voted tory purely to keep the facists of Labour OUT. Corbyn won the student vote because he promised to scrap tuition fees. HAHAHAHAHA! Unbelievable how our universities seem to be full of students who are brainwashed liberals with questionable ethics and no life experience who only want you to be allowed an opinion if it agrees with THEIRS.

I'm against tory cutbacks but the problems of this country go back 20 years to Blair's lot. We will never recover unfortunately but that won't be Theresa May's fault.

Like i said, God help us all.