As much as I dislike UKIP, they did deserve more seats/representation in 2015. Given how much of the vote that they got.
#sundaypolitics
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Whereās Carol factoring into this?
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Sheās going to be the new Education Secretary after the election?
Iām sure she could work it out or something given her maths skills
If the Tories can make an ex prime minister a foreign secretary, she is as qualified as most education secretaries.
There are always exceptions (Ben Wallace) but generally itās a bad idea to have a minister or Secretary of State with enough subject knowledge to think they know better than their advisors. It isnāt their job to be the SME but to listen to their advisors, represent their department in cabinet and the Commons, obtain funding from the Treasury, etc. Sir Humphrey explains it best and Iāll see if I can find the clip ā¦
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Donāt forget that people are voting the way they are because of the current system. It isnāt fair to carry results over. How many people are constantly told a vote for Labour or the conservatives is the only truly viable option?
And thatās correct if everyone buys into it.
Itās perverse that a vote for your favourite party can often make a party you like least more likely to winā¦ The system has to change so that people can vote for the nuance of what they really want.
Itās positively excellent for democracy.
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Yeh but you should.
Unless weāre advocating politicians be driven by ideology with absolutely no regard for how things actually arā¦. Oh.
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It simply isnāt a ministerās job to run the department (I canāt find the right Yes, Minister clip for love nor money, but it was from an early episode when Hacker gets called out for trying to run the department): thatās what the Civil Service are there for, where the expertise rests, and the advice comes from.
In the MOD you have the service chiefs offering advice as well and Ben Wallace seemed to be able to accept that he was a captain a long time ago and so they knew best: someone with a bigger ego (whoād perhaps made it to colonel rank or similar) might have had trouble with that.
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I find it similar to my role as a project manager.
I usually know very little about what Iām actually delivering. Iāll do some scoping, understand whatās needed to be successful and design a plan to get there. All of that has input from SMEs across the organisation, and then I coordinate the SMEs to ensure that everything stays on track.
Iām currently leading a development of a repository system. I have absolutely no idea about data hierarchy, data hygeine and enterprise systems, but I get the job done by coordinating my SMEs with that relevant experience by providing a parachute view and control actions.
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We had a referendum on change recently, it was pretty conclusive.
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Are you talking about our 48/52 winner take all referendum that turned into a dumpster fire, or the one that the coalition government put to a vote that obviously would never win in a vote where the majority who just got their people in think the current system actually works for their own interests?
You canāt seriously complain about the AV Referendum. The LibDems had been calling for it for years, we had recently had a FPTP election that loads of people were bitter about and 67% of the people who voted in the referendum voted against.
Now I donāt know which was Carol Vorderman voted but if she was in the vast majority of voters she was against a change away from FPTP.
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A referendum for a change in voting system, offered by one of two main parties as a concession to a third, was obviously not going to easily gain traction.
Lots of thing do and donāt happen,l and thatās not the same as whether something should happen.
You could also argue that itās not the best of the possible systems we could have.
Thatās why, if we care about democracy and improving representation, we should start a formal process of reviewing our electoral system in a way that doesnāt focus on who will be more likely to win, but on the system that allows for better representation of the people.
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anyone seen a
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The referendum could have been done better, with a vote to select which alternative system to offer then a second referendum on whether to change (as they did for the New Zealand flag proposals).
Alternatively, the Yes campaign could and should have campaigned better and explained to those people who didnāt think AV was enough of a change that a No vote would kill off electoral reform for a generation.
The NZ electoral system is a pretty good one overall, all things considered (I lived out there through one).
Unicarmal chamber = no excessive expenses.
A proportion of MPs (canāt remember the percentage) are elected via FPTP (IIRC) to represent their local constituency.
The remainder of the chamber is elected via a list system, using direct Proportional Representation, to ensure the parliament overall reflects accurately the proportional votes.
This means everyone has a local MP that they elected, whilst ensuring that the parliament overall is representative of what the whole country wants.
It means you can local vote National (their Conservative) for your MP, but Party Vote Labour for the government overall.
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I mentioned her in my comment 
The issue I have with such systems (Scotland is similar) is twofold: party lists put even more power in the hands of the parties and whips rather than individual members and such systems create two classes of MP ā those with an individual mandate from their constituents, and those without.
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PR did give Neil Hamilton as an Assembly Member for UKIP under the Additional Member System for the Welsh Parliament.