| Starmer's bill and two party system 09:50 - Jul 1 with 2724 views | nrb1985 |
I'm by no means a Politico so I don't know what the answer is but I'm following the newsflow on the Starmer bill today and it seems there's pretty much open revolt on his back benches from the left wing of his party. The tail wagging the dog so to speak.
It was the same under the Tories with the lunatic fringe pulling them ever further from the centre towards Farage, which wasn't particularly helpful to put it mildly. Indeed every week there seemed some ever more ridiculous pop up group of "neo con" or whatever nonsense Truss and Rees-Mogg were spouting that particular week.
Both parties describe themselves as a "broad church" but in practice what that looks like to me is that you have multiple conflicting views all the time and end up with Frankenstein legislation and policies that don't really satisfy or appease anyone.
Like I say, not a Politico and certainly don't follow UK politics as closely as some on here but rather seems to me the two party system doesn't really work for many people, least of all the MPs themselves.
You certainly couldn't run a company like this anyhow. [Post edited 1 Jul 15:27]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 09:56 - Jul 1 with 1379 views | DanTheMan |
This is precisely why I support proportional representation, so you can have finer-grained parties and better representation.
I imagine this might be something that is forced next election with Reform. |  |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 09:56 - Jul 1 with 1376 views | thebooks |
The objections are coming from all wings of the party — before the climbdown, they were probably at around 160 votes against from backbenchers. Equating this bloc to the “lunatic right” is incorrect.
Are you basically saying votes are a waste of time because you might lose some of them?
But yeah, a FPTP system doesn’t work. |  | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 09:57 - Jul 1 with 1367 views | jayessess |
I think if you had Proportional Representation you would have a parliament that was much more representative of the range of political opinions in the country. You'd probably have a bit more support for the political system and people would get to feel a bit more invested in their political choices. You'd also force all the political parties to try and mobilise all possible voters, rather than just the sliver of voters deemed important to win particular constituencies.
The old arguments for the First Past the Post system - that it kept out extremists and created stable governments - are no longer really true.
Would require an election producing a hung parliament to change it though - because why would the party in power change something that gives them 2/3rds of the seats from 1/3 of the vote? [Post edited 1 Jul 10:00]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:30 - Jul 1 with 1255 views | nrb1985 |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 09:56 - Jul 1 by thebooks |
The objections are coming from all wings of the party — before the climbdown, they were probably at around 160 votes against from backbenchers. Equating this bloc to the “lunatic right” is incorrect.
Are you basically saying votes are a waste of time because you might lose some of them?
But yeah, a FPTP system doesn’t work. |
"Are you basically saying votes are a waste of time because you might lose some of them?"
No I'm saying from the outside looking in it seems like both parties have separate factions that are miles apart on lots of issues and they'd probably be better off splitting in 2 or even 3.
I don't see how you can run a single organisation efficiently and effectively when people under the same roof have such diametrically opposed views. Or at least not a political party where you can effectively have tails wagging dogs.
To your other point, I didn't mean to equate the two - in fact I would never equate anybody with the right wing of the Tories unless I genuinely disliked them... | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:32 - Jul 1 with 1233 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
Though his cuts to disability and heating allowance for vulnerable pensioners weren’t popular with the general public. I think he’s driven by popular opinion as much as any of his party, his stance on Israel and asylum seekers is very much at odds with many in the party.
They’ve had the issue for years of trying to appeal to their traditional working class, socially conservative core in the North of England, with more liberal wealthier voters in London and other cities. That’s the problem with an effectively two party system trying to please such a wide range of views. | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:37 - Jul 1 with 1221 views | WeWereZombies |
If you want to look at the current welfare funding decision an terms of 'tail wagging the dog' then consider how the grass roots of the Labour Party have gone along with a media friendly leadership option in the form of Keir Starmer for the sake of some peace within the party and a victory at the polls. Now they find that a Daily Mail driven style of populism is being foistered upon them. So the substantial doggy body of Labour is being guided by a small coterie at the head, no wait a minute - the tail - which would mean the dog is walking backwards...and means that the backbench revolt is the dog wagging the tail that was trying to wag the dog has delivered something of what the party is about.
Hope that makes things clearer. |  |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:41 - Jul 1 with 1208 views | thebooks |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:30 - Jul 1 by nrb1985 |
"Are you basically saying votes are a waste of time because you might lose some of them?"
No I'm saying from the outside looking in it seems like both parties have separate factions that are miles apart on lots of issues and they'd probably be better off splitting in 2 or even 3.
I don't see how you can run a single organisation efficiently and effectively when people under the same roof have such diametrically opposed views. Or at least not a political party where you can effectively have tails wagging dogs.
To your other point, I didn't mean to equate the two - in fact I would never equate anybody with the right wing of the Tories unless I genuinely disliked them... |
Parties have always had factions, and Lab especially has historically been a “broad church”.
That’s probably healthy — Starmer may not have got in such a mess if he’d not excised pretty much all dissent from Labour.
The Tories’s problem is that it’s become its right wing — I don’t get a sense it’s the tail wagging the dog. Labour’s heading that way.
But yeah, PR and splitting it into smaller, more representative parties makes sense to me. | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:43 - Jul 1 with 1197 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
Speaking as a Labour voter, I would say that Reeves and Starmer have moved a long way from the consensus Labour position of the last 80 years with this Bill, and the backbenchers are trying to hold to the Party's core values.
Which is very different from what the likes of Bill Cash and Mark Francois did during the Cameron administration, which was elected on a promise of being the "stability" alternative to "chaos under Ed Milliband".
Edit: typo [Post edited 1 Jul 10:46]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:49 - Jul 1 with 1140 views | Guthrum |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 09:56 - Jul 1 by DanTheMan |
This is precisely why I support proportional representation, so you can have finer-grained parties and better representation.
I imagine this might be something that is forced next election with Reform. |
Or at least some kind of electoral reform.
Problem being that no party which wins under the present system is keen to change, as they believe it to be thir best chance of winning again.
Plus it would perhaps result in a dilution of the leadership's power, a reorganisation of internal alliances on a cross-party basis or even fragmentation of the organisation as a whole. |  |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:52 - Jul 1 with 1125 views | jayessess |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:49 - Jul 1 by Guthrum |
Or at least some kind of electoral reform.
Problem being that no party which wins under the present system is keen to change, as they believe it to be thir best chance of winning again.
Plus it would perhaps result in a dilution of the leadership's power, a reorganisation of internal alliances on a cross-party basis or even fragmentation of the organisation as a whole. |
Didn't help that the Lib Dems massively stuffed up their one opportunity to get electoral reform in 2011. [Post edited 1 Jul 10:52]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:03 - Jul 1 with 1099 views | Guthrum |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:52 - Jul 1 by jayessess |
Didn't help that the Lib Dems massively stuffed up their one opportunity to get electoral reform in 2011. [Post edited 1 Jul 10:52]
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That was largely stuffed up for them. Railroaded into presenting one of the more cumbersome alternatives, then to have their own governmental partners deride and campaign against it.
Plus events since then have considerably moved the needle of public opinion on electoral reform. | |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:07 - Jul 1 with 1076 views | WeWereZombies |
Also noted this when starting to read through the BBC website article on the upcoming vote ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czjkkmdv33mo )
'Incidentally, Prof Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London notes that the biggest backbench rebellion Sir Keir Starmer has suffered so far is 16.
The largest rebellion in Tony Blair's first year in Downing Street was 47 and also on the welfare state - over lone parent benefit.
The largest backbench rebellion for any governing party in 200 years was in 2003, over the Iraq war.'
In my opinion the scale of the revolt is being hyped a bit and the issues glossed over, but I do wonder if Starmer is going to face a similar revolt to the one Blair experienced on the invasion of Iraq if he cannot rein in the United States over an almost unconditional support of the current Israeli administration's policy in Gaza and the West Bank. [Post edited 1 Jul 11:08]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:07 - Jul 1 with 1073 views | chicoazul |
Keep asking people to tell me what right wing things Farage believes or does. |  |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:09 - Jul 1 with 1066 views | jayessess |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:03 - Jul 1 by Guthrum |
That was largely stuffed up for them. Railroaded into presenting one of the more cumbersome alternatives, then to have their own governmental partners deride and campaign against it.
Plus events since then have considerably moved the needle of public opinion on electoral reform. |
Allowing themselves to be railroaded into bad things, when they had quite a lot of leverage over the Conservatives, was mainly what I meant by "stuffing up".
Plus, the Clegg-era Lib Dems were quite keen on Alternative Vote as a system (as they perceived themselves as the main likely beneficiaries) | |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:12 - Jul 1 with 1050 views | Libero |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:07 - Jul 1 by chicoazul |
Keep asking people to tell me what right wing things Farage believes or does. |
He made his name as a nationalist and more recently has adopted more left wing ideas, I remember reading an article in the Independent last month which pretty perfectly summed up his current stance.
Left or Right - the guy is a nasty, hypocritical, self serving racist who would destroy support for the most vulnerable in our society if he was to become prime minister.
EDIT: just done a quick google and found the article. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-reform-child-benefit-cap-l [Post edited 1 Jul 11:12]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:17 - Jul 1 with 1016 views | chicoazul |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:12 - Jul 1 by Libero |
He made his name as a nationalist and more recently has adopted more left wing ideas, I remember reading an article in the Independent last month which pretty perfectly summed up his current stance.
Left or Right - the guy is a nasty, hypocritical, self serving racist who would destroy support for the most vulnerable in our society if he was to become prime minister.
EDIT: just done a quick google and found the article. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-reform-child-benefit-cap-l [Post edited 1 Jul 11:12]
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Welcome back not seen you around for a while
Thanks for the article
It’s very interesting to me that people keep calling him right wing, this is a man who wants to legalise cannabis for eg
He doesn’t seem very right wing to me at all and I am fascinated by the shift in political dialogue in the last ten years in this country and the moving feast of terminology and labels | |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:18 - Jul 1 with 995 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:07 - Jul 1 by chicoazul |
Keep asking people to tell me what right wing things Farage believes or does. |
Economically he’s all over the place like Trump - true populist. Right wing policies such as tax cuts for higher earners, reducing the state, but also taking things proposed by the left such as stop paying interest to private banks in BoE deposits, raising the tax free threshold for low earners, and backing protectionism.
Socially, Farage/Reform is fairly obviously right wing… | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:22 - Jul 1 with 992 views | Libero |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:17 - Jul 1 by chicoazul |
Welcome back not seen you around for a while
Thanks for the article
It’s very interesting to me that people keep calling him right wing, this is a man who wants to legalise cannabis for eg
He doesn’t seem very right wing to me at all and I am fascinated by the shift in political dialogue in the last ten years in this country and the moving feast of terminology and labels |
It's because he's a fascist and people rightly or wrongly associate fascism with the right wing.
That being said, he's only recently moved his policies and public projections from very clear defined extreme right wing ideology and rhetoric to what are technicaly considered left wing ideas. | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:53 - Jul 1 with 933 views | jayessess |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:22 - Jul 1 by Libero |
It's because he's a fascist and people rightly or wrongly associate fascism with the right wing.
That being said, he's only recently moved his policies and public projections from very clear defined extreme right wing ideology and rhetoric to what are technicaly considered left wing ideas. |
Historically the far right has always opportunistically adopted some ideas and rhetoric from the left, whilst largely building up support from ex-Conservatives.
In part it's just a function of being utterly unprincipled. Tell one group of people you think taxes are too high, too many scroungers on welfare, the NHS is unsustainable, tell another group you'll increase social spending (for "our people"), help the (right sort of) needy, invest in the NHS. Who cares if it all makes sense, so long as you get into power.
In part it's because the social base of the far right is cross-class, the poor and rich alike can be attracted to ideas of national superiority, so one minute you're sucking in money from wealthy backers, the next you're telling steelworkers you'll be the one to save good British jobs. You inevitably end up with internal contradictions. [Post edited 1 Jul 11:54]
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 12:02 - Jul 1 with 912 views | nrb1985 |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 10:41 - Jul 1 by thebooks |
Parties have always had factions, and Lab especially has historically been a “broad church”.
That’s probably healthy — Starmer may not have got in such a mess if he’d not excised pretty much all dissent from Labour.
The Tories’s problem is that it’s become its right wing — I don’t get a sense it’s the tail wagging the dog. Labour’s heading that way.
But yeah, PR and splitting it into smaller, more representative parties makes sense to me. |
Broadly I agree with most of this but would argue I don't think it's healthy.
E.g. you wouldn't stay with a partner who held polar opposite views on things like parenting.
Different views and a diversity of opinion is important but as I think we agree, a better outlet for those views would be a separate entity. | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 12:42 - Jul 1 with 825 views | Guthrum |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 11:53 - Jul 1 by jayessess |
Historically the far right has always opportunistically adopted some ideas and rhetoric from the left, whilst largely building up support from ex-Conservatives.
In part it's just a function of being utterly unprincipled. Tell one group of people you think taxes are too high, too many scroungers on welfare, the NHS is unsustainable, tell another group you'll increase social spending (for "our people"), help the (right sort of) needy, invest in the NHS. Who cares if it all makes sense, so long as you get into power.
In part it's because the social base of the far right is cross-class, the poor and rich alike can be attracted to ideas of national superiority, so one minute you're sucking in money from wealthy backers, the next you're telling steelworkers you'll be the one to save good British jobs. You inevitably end up with internal contradictions. [Post edited 1 Jul 11:54]
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There is a long track record of populist, nominally working-class movements who cosy up to big business to get into power. | |
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| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:11 - Jul 1 with 766 views | OldFart71 |
Everything with Labour is a fudge. Starmer has been sitting on the fence so often he's had to get some cream for a sore backside.
It is obvious that the bill for things like PIP's need to be cut. But instead of going after ungenuine claimants they backtrack and then make the cuts for new claimants, many of whom will be genuine whilst some who are getting the higher amount won't be. | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:18 - Jul 1 with 721 views | Libero |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:11 - Jul 1 by OldFart71 |
Everything with Labour is a fudge. Starmer has been sitting on the fence so often he's had to get some cream for a sore backside.
It is obvious that the bill for things like PIP's need to be cut. But instead of going after ungenuine claimants they backtrack and then make the cuts for new claimants, many of whom will be genuine whilst some who are getting the higher amount won't be. |
…PIP has a fraud rate of less than 1% and is essential for many disabled people to enable them to access the workplace, it’s notoriously hard to claim even with medical documentation, it absolutely does not need to be cut. | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:21 - Jul 1 with 702 views | thebooks |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:11 - Jul 1 by OldFart71 |
Everything with Labour is a fudge. Starmer has been sitting on the fence so often he's had to get some cream for a sore backside.
It is obvious that the bill for things like PIP's need to be cut. But instead of going after ungenuine claimants they backtrack and then make the cuts for new claimants, many of whom will be genuine whilst some who are getting the higher amount won't be. |
Why is it “obvious”?
I guess it is if you accept 3 things:
1) Outgoing Conservative government deficit targets and timescales
2) Alternative sources of income just aren’t possible
3) The household budget analogy | | | |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:43 - Jul 1 with 661 views | Guthrum |
| Starmer's bill and two party system on 13:11 - Jul 1 by OldFart71 |
Everything with Labour is a fudge. Starmer has been sitting on the fence so often he's had to get some cream for a sore backside.
It is obvious that the bill for things like PIP's need to be cut. But instead of going after ungenuine claimants they backtrack and then make the cuts for new claimants, many of whom will be genuine whilst some who are getting the higher amount won't be. |
The most obvious welfare bill to cut (in terms of quantity) is the one nobody even dares to name. Indeed, it is triple-locked.
Not as if that would be any better, or cause less hardship. But if politicians insist on not maximising income and maintaining spending restrictions, while at the same time increasing defence and other expenses, then what is to be done? | |
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