On 30 July, 12:29, wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:18:19 +0100

David Cantrell wrote:
Boris esssentially had two choices ... we know what kind of man he is now.

He's that rare politician, one who doesn't break all his promises when
he gets elected!

OTOH carrying on with a policy regardless of all the evidence for it being a
bad idea and with cost cutting going on already in public transport which
really didn't need the cost of a new fleet of buses imposed on top smacks
of bloody mindedness at best. It seems Boris isn't a big enough man to admit
when he's wrong, so I suppose in that sense he's not at all rare in political
circles.
It seems Boris is a big enough man to carry out one of the major
headline grabbing manifesto commitments that got him elected by the
majority of the voting electorate. If you don't like that, remember
you're in the minority.

On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:

On 31 July, 19:51, "Recliner" wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message



On 29 July, 15:09, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:
On 28 July, 17:16, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, James Farrar wrote:

The concept of a Mayor is undemocratic and intended to allow
unelected political party officials to override the views of
elected council members (and those they represent) while hiding
behind the figurehead of the Mayor.

When you say 'the concept of a mayor', do you mean 'the
implementation of a mayor as it is in London?'. If so, would you
agree that the implementation could be improved, and if not, could
you explain why you think a mayor is different to a president?

Well, I'm not particularly bothered about what it's called, which is
why I used a capital M to refer to the specific implementation.

I just generally object to representative democracy (which ain't
perfect) being cynically overruled by setting up a system where a
single elected person who can also claim a mandate and hand total
control to his/her own party.

It would be better if there were a council a bit like the GLA but with
real decision-making powers ... you could call it the GLC.

Would that prevent the sort of palace coup that allowed an ambitious
young politician to mount a successful coup against an elected GLC
leader like Andrew Macintosh?-

Wot, by getting elected and winning votes?

What, like how Gordon Brown became Prime Minister?

Both the Westminster and Washington systems of choosing a leader have
their strengths and weaknesses, but it's simply nonsense to say that an
elected mayoralty is an antidemocratic.

tom

--
In my view, this is no different than a parent introducing his child to
Shakespeare (except that the iambic pentameter is replaced by a framework
of profanity, misogyny, substance abuse, violence, retaliation, crime
and infidelity). -- Dad Gone Mad, on rap

On 1 Aug, 20:20, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:
On 31 July, 19:51, "Recliner" wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message



On 29 July, 15:09, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:
On 28 July, 17:16, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, James Farrar wrote:

The concept of a Mayor is undemocratic and intended to allow
unelected political party officials to override the views of
elected council members (and those they represent) while hiding
behind the figurehead of the Mayor.

When you say 'the concept of a mayor', do you mean 'the
implementation of a mayor as it is in London?'. If so, would you
agree that the implementation could be improved, and if not, could
you explain why you think a mayor is different to a president?

Well, I'm not particularly bothered about what it's called, which is
why I used a capital M to refer to the specific implementation.

I just generally object to representative democracy (which ain't
perfect) being cynically overruled by setting up a system where a
single elected person who can also claim a mandate and hand total
control to his/her own party.

It would be better if there were a council a bit like the GLA but with
real decision-making powers ... you could call it the GLC.

Would that prevent the sort of palace coup that allowed an ambitious
young politician to mount a successful coup against an elected GLC
leader like Andrew Macintosh?-

Wot, by getting elected and winning votes?

What, like how Gordon Brown became Prime Minister?

Both the Westminster and Washington systems of choosing a leader have
their strengths and weaknesses, but it's simply nonsense to say that an
elected mayoralty is an antidemocratic.

The imposition of such systems on local authorities has the intention
of imposing central rule via a single figurehead, disregarding the
wide range of views represented by many tens of councillors (or GLA
members). The chances of effective democracy are slim regardless.

A directly-elected president who did not have to refer to Parliament
would not be a Good Thing. Within their respective scopes, I don't
think that the the US President has as much power as the London Mayor.

On Aug 1, 4:39*pm, nospam_lonelytraveller_nospam
wrote:
OTOH carrying on with a policy regardless of all the evidence for it being a
bad idea and with cost cutting going on already in public transport which
really didn't need the cost of a new fleet of buses imposed on top smacks
of bloody mindedness at best. It seems Boris isn't a big enough man to admit
when he's wrong, so I suppose in that sense he's not at all rare in political
circles.

It seems Boris is a big enough man to carry out one of the major
headline grabbing manifesto commitments that got him elected by the
majority of the voting electorate. If you don't like that, remember
you're in the minority.

Presumably you were also well in favour of the[*] US state
legislature that passed a law deeming the value of pi to be 4? After
all, the people who believed it to be 3.14159... were in the minority.

(repeat for any other situation where popular belief and fact fail to
match up)
[*] http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...ng-pi-equals-3

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On Sat, 1 Aug 2009 17:20:50 -0700 (PDT), MIG
wrote:

The imposition of such systems on local authorities has the intention
of imposing central rule via a single figurehead, disregarding the
wide range of views represented by many tens of councillors (or GLA
members). The chances of effective democracy are slim regardless.


But effective democracy is just as efficiently destroyed by a majority
of representatives, such as MPs or councillors.

As we saw in 2005, it is possible to have a government elected with a
strong parliamentary majority by only a quarter of the electorate, or
36% of those who voted. So, despite 64% of the voters casting their
votes for other parties, this government has managed to impose all its
grossly incompetent policies on an unwilling nation, with the notable
exception of 42 days' detention without trial for suspected
terrorists, thanks to a Labour backbench rebellion.

Therefore, you don't need an elected President to grant near-absolute
power to one individual. Tony Blair had it from May 1997 to June
2007, and Gordon Brown has exercised it since then, with the exception
of his failure to convince his own party on the 42 days.

In London, Ken Livingstone also demonstrated near-absolute power as
leader of the Greater London Council from 1981-1986. He didn't need
to be elected Mayor; his party's majority on the GLC gave him all the
executive power that he needed.

On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:28:11 +0100, Bruce
wrote:

As we saw in 2005, it is possible to have a government elected with a
strong parliamentary majority by only a quarter of the electorate, or
36% of those who voted.

Not the first time. I believe the last Tory government polled fewer
votes than Labour. The system is wrong, it nearly always delivers
absolute power to a minority and sometimes not even to the largest
minority, and then we act surprised when they prove incapable of
co-operating with anybody else or acknowledging any policy but their
own as having any merit.

I find it sad and ironic that people seem to think that the way to
"fix" a government which has become arrogant and corrupt is to vote
instead for the party they kicked out a dozen years earlier for being
arrogant and corrupt. Have the Tories ever apologised for trying to
send innocent men to prison in order to cover up for a minister lying
to parliament? I don't recall hearing such an apology.

In theory our MPs represent us. A transferrable vote system would
deliver the MP who most closely represented the opinions of their
constituency. That would be a good start, it would hopefully do away
with safe seats and the allegiance to party before constituency.

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

In article
,
(MIG) wrote:

On 1 Aug, 20:20, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:
On 31 July, 19:51, "Recliner" wrote:
"MIG" wrote in message



On 29 July, 15:09, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:
On 28 July, 17:16, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, James Farrar wrote:

The concept of a Mayor is undemocratic and intended to allow
unelected political party officials to override the views of
elected council members (and those they represent) while hiding
behind the figurehead of the Mayor.

When you say 'the concept of a mayor', do you mean 'the
implementation of a mayor as it is in London?'. If so, would you
agree that the implementation could be improved, and if not,
could you explain why you think a mayor is different to a
president?

Well, I'm not particularly bothered about what it's called, which
is why I used a capital M to refer to the specific implementation.

I just generally object to representative democracy (which ain't
perfect) being cynically overruled by setting up a system where a
single elected person who can also claim a mandate and hand total
control to his/her own party.

It would be better if there were a council a bit like the GLA but
with real decision-making powers ... you could call it the GLC.

Would that prevent the sort of palace coup that allowed an
ambitious young politician to mount a successful coup against an
elected GLC leader like Andrew Macintosh?-

Wot, by getting elected and winning votes?

What, like how Gordon Brown became Prime Minister?

Both the Westminster and Washington systems of choosing a leader have
their strengths and weaknesses, but it's simply nonsense to say that
an elected mayoralty is an antidemocratic.

The imposition of such systems on local authorities has the intention
of imposing central rule via a single figurehead, disregarding the
wide range of views represented by many tens of councillors (or GLA
members). The chances of effective democracy are slim regardless.

A directly-elected president who did not have to refer to Parliament
would not be a Good Thing. Within their respective scopes, I don't
think that the the US President has as much power as the London Mayor.

The single strongest bit of evidence against UK mayors being properly
democratic is that their major policies and budgets are adopted *unless*
two-thirds of the Council or London Assembly vote against them. So just
over one third of the body supporting the Mayor is all he needs to rule as
they wish.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:11:10 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:
On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:28:11 +0100, Bruce
wrote:

As we saw in 2005, it is possible to have a government elected with a
strong parliamentary majority by only a quarter of the electorate, or
36% of those who voted.

Not the first time. I believe the last Tory government polled fewer
votes than Labour. The system is wrong, it nearly always delivers
absolute power to a minority and sometimes not even to the largest
minority, and then we act surprised when they prove incapable of
co-operating with anybody else or acknowledging any policy but their
own as having any merit.

I find it sad and ironic that people seem to think that the way to
"fix" a government which has become arrogant and corrupt is to vote
instead for the party they kicked out a dozen years earlier for being
arrogant and corrupt.


Agreed. But it is the only option available under the current system.

Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

Not the first time. I believe the last Tory government polled fewer
votes than Labour.

No, the Conservatives in 1992 polled 14,093,007 votes (the largest number
ever cast for a single party) and Labour polled 11,560,484.

The last time the largest party didn't have the most votes was in February
1974 when the Conservatives got 11,872,810 votes and 297 seats whilst Labour
got 11,645,616 votes and 301 seats. There was a hung parliament and another
election in October. Before that you have to go to 1951 when the
Conservatives (including joint "National Liberal and Conservative"
candidates) won a majority with 13,724,418 votes whilst Labour got
13,948,385 votes. This one is complicated because there were several
uncontested seats, mainly ones in Northern Ireland with huge electorates
that would have voted heavily for the Conservatives and wouldn't have had
any Labour candidate at all so the final figure could have been much closer.

In theory our MPs represent us. A transferrable vote system would
deliver the MP who most closely represented the opinions of their
constituency. That would be a good start, it would hopefully do away
with safe seats and the allegiance to party before constituency.

Do you mean the single or multi member version? Both are in use around the
world in countries which have safe seats and very strong party systems
(Malta's two party system is easily by far the strongest in the democratic
world).

On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:40:48 +0100, Bruce
wrote:

I find it sad and ironic that people seem to think that the way to
"fix" a government which has become arrogant and corrupt is to vote
instead for the party they kicked out a dozen years earlier for being
arrogant and corrupt.

Agreed. But it is the only option available under the current system.

Only the two parties standing in your constituency, then?

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk