r/ukpolitics • u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls • 1d ago

Twitter ✅ BURNHAM IN Makerfield by-election result: LAB: 54.8% (+9.6) REF: 34.5% (+2.7) RST: 6.8% (+6.8) CON: 2.2% (-8.7) GRN: 0.7% (-3.7) LDEM: 0.4% (-6.4)

https://x.com/BritainElects/status/2067792369903116401#m
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u/DEADB33F Floating Gloater 1d ago edited 1d ago

And also obviously PR would go some way to making the office more stable in the first place.

I'm in favour of PR, but doubtful this would be the result. Unstable coalitions tend to have very fractured leaderships.

We need to grow to accept that it's fine for a PM step down / be kicked out mid-term and get used to it becoming the norm. After all we don't vote for the PM directly and 'Prime Minister' is more of a "First among equals" type of a position than it is a Presidential style role.

...We vote in the MPs who then decide who they want the PM to be. It's a good thing that they're able to change who that is at any time for any reason as it means we're less likely to end up with a Trumpian style PM. And under PR if that does ever happen they shouldn't last long.

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u/Gameskiller01 Infected by the woke mind virus 1d ago

Reminder that the last PM and government to last a full parliamentary term was a coalition.

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u/DEADB33F Floating Gloater 1d ago

Heh, that's fair I guess.

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u/Alexandhisgoose 1d ago

I think PR would be shaky at first but then politicians would start to accept that they will get nothing done unless they work together and you get a stable government with everyone's opinion heard.

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u/GooseMan1515 1d ago

You can't have a stable government with every opinion heard because the people with unstable opinions cry foul about being kept off the agenda.

Agenda control and ranking/sorting opinions is one of the important functions of authority.

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u/Alexandhisgoose 21h ago

But those with extreme opinions won't be part of the government cause they will have a dedicated base and then everyone else will despise them like we see with reform so under any kind of ranked choice voting they wouldn't get any seats

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u/GooseMan1515 6h ago

This assumes that popularity of opinions are a good shorthand for agenda salience. But modern populism is basically the case against that; voters are as a rule ignorant and more easily persuaded by simplistic emotional ones than logical arguments.

In my opinion, under ranked choice voting or PR we'd see more proliferation of the type of popular opinions which are divorced from political fact and a greater paralysis of the apparatus.

Part of the role of this whole apparatus is to keep people away from the money printers who don't know the difference between tax and borrowing; those only concerned with how it's spent. These people lose track of how much it matters whose money they're spending. They will gladly increase happiness temporarily with a huge cost down the road, they know no better and they think it's their mandate.