How to fix UK broken political system

So one policy the Hungarian or polish governments you agree are hard right that is not a tory policy?

Tories are xenophobic at best and outright racist generally and scapegoat immigrants.   Thats hard right.

They create ” the enemy within”   straight out of tbe hard right playbook

They deliberatly impoverish the poor, the sick and the disabled.  Guess what?

For 32 years of my voting life i have lived in Sunaks constituency, my vote for Labour has been meaningless. I would have to move to make a difference. In practical terms democracy is a myth for many people.

Same for many people, even those tories in Labour strongholds I imagine.  Any vote I make that is not Tory is meaningless and has been since I moved here in 2001.

Brexit was caused due to a fair and open vote, it was democratic and if i remember, both the hard left and hard right wanted it, with the unions in favour of exiting the EU as well.

I’ve said it before, but in reality we see very little change between parties taking over government, folk live off paper headlines, when the reality is just completely different, the likes of immigration is up, even after Brexit, most of what the tories have done this term is just waste money to try and look like they’re doing stuff, our political system has protected us against some of the daftest stuff that could have damaged us more, it’s not perfect, but it does a job until there is a better system in place.

“I’ve said it before, but in reality we see very little change between parties taking over government”

That’s actually not true for anyone with a brain and some memory. Which may exclude many voters, of course.

That’s actually not true for anyone with a brain and some memory. Which may exclude many voters, of course.

The 14 years of the tories have been dominated by Brexit and Covid, and then of course international matters, when they’ve tried to get controversial votes through, the Lords, or courts have managed to stop them most of the time, the country is pretty much the same as it was in 2010 to most people, with the same issues affecting them.

I think a lot of people forget that behind 300-350 MPs for a party, there are hundreds of permanents secretaries, thousands of civil servant staffers, and tens of thousands of departmental civil servants all working away at managing the government, add in the two houses, the courts, etc and it’s not an easy thing to get wide changing policy through all the hoops, if it was i dare say the NHS would have PLC at the end of it now!

I have always lived in safe constituencies. My vote has been irrelevant.

Hate to break this to you, but even under PR your vote is one in tens of millions. Your voice is largely irrelevant in any voting system for a country of this scale. If relevance is what you and others crave, then get involved in politics at the lowest level and make a difference to your local community. I live in an ultra marginal and I can assure you it brings little comfort. I still feel complete isolation and separation from govt and the decisions that are made on my* behalf even though my vote is much more influential than yours.

*as if!. Hardly anything govts of any colour do is in the interests of working people like myself.

Thats hard right.

The current Tories may be ‘hard’ right by comparison to the norm in the UK (although I’d say that’s debateable). But you can compare and contrast the regimes by using Freedom House which gives everyone a score based on how free the country is.

Hungry score is 43/100

United Kingdom score is 91/100

Turkey score is 33/100

So you can keep on insisting that the Tories are more or less the same thing as these semi-autocratic regimes, but the folks who’s job it is to literally judge these things, disagrees with you.

Freedom House have nicked the Conservatives’ old logo.

Your voice is largely irrelevant in any voting system for a country of this scale.

Of course voting is a collective thing. The point is for everyone’s vote to be worth the same, and for representation to match votes cast. We are so far from that in UK wide elections.

The point is for everyone’s vote to be worth the same, and for representation to match votes cast.

Why are we obsessing about the relative influence of individual votes when what we should be worrying about is the influence and power of the wealthy which is exercised outside the voting system? Compared to the influence a corporate lobbyist or billionaire exercises over ministers, MPs and senior civil servants, your vote is completely irrelevant. You think billionaires worry about whether their vote is useful?

Im not sure it can ever be fixed. It’s all based on corruption.

I long predicted that our system of government would be eventually be run by millionaires and billionaires for their own benefit and those who support them. It’s probably over 20 years since i first came to this conclusion.

And thats where we are now.

“the country is pretty much the same as it was in 2010 to most people, with the same issues affecting them.”

Nonsense. Last I looked about 20% of the population is on an NHS waiting list. Housing has been problematic for a long time of course, but if you don’t think it’s markedly worse for many more people than it was back then, you have a short memory indeed. I could go on. This is pretty much the first time in history that children are going to be worse off than their parents, and it’s not due to external events, it’s deliberate policy choices to impoverish the future.

Brexit was caused due to a fair and open vote, it was democratic

Well aside from the fact that as a non binding referendum it was run under different rules from what it magically morphed into. As such spending restrictions were limited and also the ability to promise all things to all people was available to the brexiteers. Something which wouldnt have been available under a binding referendum where we would have known what we are getting.

with the unions in favour of exiting the EU as well.

Some unions were but a minority.

the likes of immigration is up, even after Brexit,

Not “even” after brexit but at least for illegal migration due to it since previous agreements vanished.
For legal migration we get into the different promises to different people. The “save our curry houses” and similar campaigns from the brexiteers did claim by reducing EU migration it would enable more migration from India/Pakistan etc. Unusually for the brexiteers its sort of been kept to but is of course something very different from what was being promised to other groups.

So you can keep on insisting that the Tories are more or less the same thing as these semi-autocratic regimes, but the folks who’s job it is to literally judge these things, disagrees with you.

They arent.
You are confusing a party being “hard right” with a country being “free”.
A ruling party can be hard right but not succeed in undermining democracy sufficiently to damage the latter. For example in the UK several attempts to damage our levels of freedom have been defeated in court.

Hard to figure out what the question really is- the OP asks the question of how to bring the policies of the two main parties closer together, the second post says if we rid ourselves of the Cons then things will be right, the third advocates a flavour of MMP as the solution…

NZ has had MMP since 1996 to force better representation of voting percentages in Parliament. In that time there has only been one single party majority- Ardern’s 2020 government, which was pretty unsuccessful, and resulted in a record swing to the right in last years elections. There’s now a centre right (Tory) majority part with two right wing (economically libertarian, socially conservative, populist) ‘kingmaker ‘ parties. This coalition (which took 90 odd days to form a government) spent its first 100 days dismantling many of the flagship policies of the previous government.

So, yeah, representation matches votes cast, but it’s still the same old shit show. Proportional representation is not necessarily better than  FPTP, and may even exaggerate the influence of extremist parties.

“For example in the UK several attempts to damage our levels of freedom have been defeated in court.”

And yet our freedom to protest and strike have been substantially curtailed. Our freedom to go and make a better life for ourselves outside the country has been taken away. It hasn’t happened yet but there’s a large faction within the tories who wish to take away our human rights.

Why are we obsessing about the relative influence of individual votes when what we should be worrying about is the influence and power of the wealthy which is exercised outside the voting system?

If you don’t see how a two party swinging system helps the wealthy to maintain a hold on parliament, and government, then I can’t help you there.

As it happens though, I was talking about how our voting system and our demographics means that older people have such a strong grip on our democracy. Your answer was to deny people the vote. My suggestions were to widen the pool of voters and, more importantly, to make the votes of younger voters genuinely count, rather than so many being worthless because of where they happen to choose (or have no choice) to live. My suggestion is to strengthen democracy, yours is to further degrade it. A watered down example of the democracy versus authoritarian argument I suppose.

This is pretty much the first time in history that children are going to be worse off than their parents.

That’s an interesting claim.  I wonder if its *really* true.  Worse off is a very broad term.  Certainly my son is the age I was when I left uni, and he will be better off than I was.   I have wealthier friends who’s children will be even better off as Mummy and Daddy funded university for them and the flat they bought will be sold to create a deposit (the same was true of wealthier friends when I went to uni in the 90s).   Undoubtedly there are poorer people who are served less well, but it was the same in the 90s too.  And that is measuring wealth on a purely financial scale.  Our children today have better bikes, computers, phones, etc which mean that even if they believe they have less cash, their quality of life *may* not be worse.   Now, don’t get me wrong, I am pretty sure social mobility is no better and possibly worse than it was – which for politicians claiming to be the party of aspiration is a catastrophic failure… …unless of course social mobility amongst your own voters has improved!

I wonder if its *really* true.

Housing, that’s all one needs to consider for a positive answer. The size of income for affordability is beyond most minimum wage earners.

Final salary pensions.

Both you and I appear to be at the upper end of the income scale, my children are towards the other end. Without my/our help my two will not be able to afford a house close to their workplace and their pensions are going to be rubbish compared to mine.

Scrap postal voting, it’s wide open to abuse.

It’s a godsend for people working shifts, or with more than one job. Also used by young people who have to keep moving their rented accommodation in different areas of the country because of the intermittent and casual work that’s become so normal for new entrants to the workplace… they can keep voting in the constituency the grew up in while they’re having to live the nomadic life.

“The current Tories may be ‘hard’ right ”

Seems to be a complete reality distortion field. The Tory vote has collapsed because the party that currently calls itself Conservative is anything but. High tax, incompetent with public finances, country visibly going down the tube, increasingly Draconian thought crime legislation. To call the party that has set record immigration levels to three times that of the Blair/Brown regime xenophobic is a little bit unbalanced. The Cons will lose because con voters have had enough of the lies, broken manifesto promises, imposed joke PM Sunak and monumental incompetence.

You are confusing a party being “hard right” with a country being “free”.

Yeah you’re right, but it’s a good enough proxy IMO.

@grimep – absolutely spot on there.

Scrap postal voting, it’s wide open to abuse.

And turning up at a polling station is not?  There seems to be little evidence of actual voter fraud that if you are trying to fix the system – you are looking in the wrong place.

Im not sure it can ever be fixed. It’s all based on corruption.

I long predicted that our system of government would be eventually be run by millionaires and billionaires for their own benefit and those who support them. It’s probably over 20 years since i first came to this conclusion.

And thats where we are now.

I think it has been like that for a very long time and all that has changed is 24hr news and social media makes it harder to hide coupled with it being done in a much less discrete way.

And yet our freedom to protest

Has it really? What evidence to support this is there? I would agree its harder to strike than it used to be

Housing, that’s all one needs to consider for a positive answer. The size of income for affordability is beyond most minimum wage earners.

– It depends to some extent on their aspirations for where they live.
– Houses like the one I grew up in sell for £110-120K; the one my children grew up in is about 3x that.
– The first house I (we) bought was on a similar mortgage:income ratio to two new graduates buying the house I grew up in would be today.
– My kids probably won’t be earning minimum wage when they first buy a property, just as I wasn’t.  When I was on crap earnings I was sharing flats and scraping by, just as my parents had done before me!  My parents were not in any financial position to help me out, but we potentially might be in a position to help our kids out.  So whilst the gov might not be responsible for that redistribution they would still end up “better off” than we were.

Final salary pensions.

– I don’t have a FS pension
– My parents don’t have a FS pension
– I didn’t have a pension at all until I was in my 30’s, my kids will have something as soon as earning (it will be a shite pension but starting early is important even with a shite pension)
– My kids can probably expect to inherit something before they reach retirement age (as indeed might I).  Your legitimate observation about house prices also means that inheritances are growing significantly – albeit life expectancy* growing means they may not happen so soon.

Both you and I appear to be at the upper end of the income scale, my children are towards the other end.

– I’ll buy into the “upper end” of the scale description.  I don’t expect my children to be on minimum wage when they leave education.  Did you earn as much as your parents when you started working?

Without my/our help my two will not be able to afford a house close to their workplace and their pensions are going to be rubbish compared to mine.

– The starting assumption seems to be that people should own a house.  Even when I was growing up that was not the default position – its a legacy of thatcher.  So saying first generation to be less well off than their parents might be ignoring all those pre-thatcher generations?   Of course right to buy has left a legacy of problems for generations to come… but it seems odd that the generations that benefitted are now grumbling that they might have to give the next generation a leg up.
– I don’t know where mine will end up living/working.  Certainly, if you want to live somewhere really nice this could be an issue – but I think those are aspirations that WE impart on our kids.  When you look at the geography of where people live in the UK (and probably elsewhere) employers either move to areas where there is cheap labour or need to solve the access to housing (mines, mills etc did this by building – modern day by paying more).
– There’s always been a balance between where you want to live / how much it costs / what you earn.
– I’m not sure the pension imbalance is as simple as a generational one.

tjagainFull Member
So one policy the Hungarian or polish governments you agree are hard right that is not a tory policy?

One tinsy wafer thin policy?  Just one?

“Certainly my son is the age I was when I left uni, and he will be better off than I was.”

Of course there will be some families where this is the case. However broadly speaking it will not be. Generous final salary pensions are dead, as is stable career progression and affordable housing for the most part.

We’re just going through father-in-law’s affairs, as he has dementia and is in a care home. He was a mid-ranking professional, nothing particularly important, and his parents weren’t rich so he never had any leg up at the start, was the first in his family to go to uni. Retired early in his 50s, his single salary supported a stay-at-home wife with 2 kids who went through uni. And he’s worth over a million quid. Tell a teacher or uni lecturer or similar in their 30s that they are going to have saved up a million quid by the time they pop their clogs and they’d think you were off your tits on meth. He didn’t even get particularly lucky on the housing bubble, it’s mostly savings not property!

My flat was 2.5 times my earnings when bought.  Now worth ten times the  salary for the same job.  Rental was 30% of salary now would be 60 %.

Two new graduates could not affird the house poly mentions if they are in public service

Proportional representation

Get rid of the HoL

Get rid of the royal family

Close all private schools and remove all religious schooling

Universal basic income and reform of taxes

@edhornby add ban donations to political parties, ban fund raising for political parties
Introduce public funding for all parties and I think you have a winner

Two new graduates could not affird the house poly mentions if they are in public service

TJ are you saying 2 new graduates couldn’t afford a 120K house?  Let’s say they have a 10% deposit – so a 110K mortgage.

Nurses / Teachers straight out of uni – £25K ish? .  So a couple would be on £50k.  I believe that for good credit risks lenders will offer 4.5x join income – so they’d have no issue getting a mortgage.

Of course there will be some families where this is the case. However broadly speaking it will not be. Generous final salary pensions are dead, as is stable career progression and affordable housing for the most part.

ok, well if those are your definitions I’m also less well off than my forebears having no final salary pension, and timing for housing market that was not ideal, etc.  I think every 1980s miner would also like a chat about the stable career progression they had… don’t get me wrong a lot of boomers have done a great job of being fat and lucky and screwing the world for those that follow, and they’ll probably shaft us again – but I’m not convinced todays children are automatically worse off than their parents and this is a new thing; even if we assume that I am some sort of outlier.   That is in no way an attempt to say the government have done a good job on these issues.

Edhornby and Gordinmor – I could get behind most of those!  I’d not actually abolish HOL – I think it has shown itself to be sensible steadying force when HOC goes off the rails.  Personally I’d have a much smaller house, perhaps 2-300 people.  I wouldn’t bother electing them – the public are just going to appoint the same sort of nutters on poorly argued manifestos and the colour of their tie.  I think you could “earn” a seat in the HOL by having been an MP and perhaps even some jobs like Judge or senior civil servants – people who are used to scrutinising law and policy.  Points for various roles (pm would score more than a minister, minister more than a back bencher, etc) and time in office – so the Ken Clarke, Tony Benn, etc would still have potential to end up there.  You’d end up with a council of wisdom – ideally with eligibility requiring people to leave their party behind, but certainly no whipping.

For the hard of understanding – when I talk about children being worse off than their parents, I meant on a generational, statistical basis and not that every child will be worse off than their own parents.

Older generations yes, current generation no, i.e. a 25 year old who has kids will not be better off that their children as both in same boat whereas a 60 year old with a 30 year old is not.

And blaming older generations is not really on as a LOT of us did not vote for Thatcher and we had no say in what housing was doing, what happened to pensions and so on.  We were just born at the right time, buying somewhere to live and getting whatever pension was the norm.

And blaming older generations is not really on

Hmmm, sorry but Boomers (as a generation) still have much to answer for, they came to Political power when ? Early 90’s- ish?  just two things; climate change denial (the facts were known, even Thatcher recognised the danger) and the fantasy of “trickle down” economics have done more harm then pretty much anything else you care to look at, and both of those things are on their watch. It’s hard not to see them as a group of folks who’re ‘generally’ anti-science and economically illiterate. They’re going to leave the place much worse then they were handed it. It’ll be left the Gen X and millennials to recover from that and that’s going to be 50-60 years of graft – if we last that long.

The kids are having to clear up the mess left by their parent’s party.

Older generations yes, current generation no, i.e. a 25 year old who has kids will not be better off that their children as both in same boat whereas a 60 year old with a 30 year old is not.

A notable number of (anecdotal stuff incoming) of my generation and social grouping are effectively ****ed in terms of being better off than their parents, or even in terms of avoiding retiring into poverty. As would I if I had children, which growing up is not a choice I thought I’d end up making.

Their mortgages are taking them to retirement age and pensions can only be the absolute minimum whilst they are paying the costs of raising families.

Someone mentioned stable career progression up thread, was this ever really a thing? I’ve never been in a workplace where pay structures were not a pyramid, which by default limits progression. You cant have everyone at the base of that pyramid moved up, and by default the pay I’ve seen in organisations is ‘banded’ so long service and ability in role only returns so much.

Where do two graduates that are 40k in debt suddenly find 11k for a house deposit and the desire to live in an area that has 100k houses?

@poly I agree about the need for a second house but it’s population needs to come from A much wider base than the one you describe so yes to educationalists poverty campaigners artists trade unionists and many more