Tories slammed for anti-democratic election changes after shock London Mayor poll
3 years ago by Syldon to c/uk_politics
If you ever needed proof that the FPTP system is abused then this is it.
Redfield and Wilton’s poll – published today – suggests that if Jeremy Corbyn were to run as an independent, 15% of voters would back him. According to the survey, he would peel enough voters away from incumbent mayor Sadiq Khan so that the Tory candidate Susan Hall would emerge victorious with 30% of the vote to Khan’s 25%.
I hate FPTP, but this is a big if.
That would be absolutely hilarious if that happened. Also depressing. So very depressing to have another Tory in power hand delivered by Corbyn.
At that point, you'd have to start asking how much the Tories are paying Corbyn. I can just about accept that him gifting the Tories the 2019 election was done out of incompetence and stupidity, but if he gifted them the London mayoralty too then it starts to look deliberate.
I fully expect that if Corbyn stood, his campaign would be well funded and we'd discover afterwards that he benefited from Tory donors wanting to create a path for Susan Hall.
What nonsense.
I think there’s more chance SIR Keir is on the payroll of the Establishment.
I guess you’re one of those that keeps on saying that Corbyn is a racist and anti-semite.
The if is JC running?
Yes. I think it's unlikely.
There's also the fact that some people answer differently in hypothetical polls to what they do when they're in the polling station.
By what measure are FPTP countries "Democratic"?
The power to change the ruling class doesn't belong to the people.
At this point does it really matter whether the next government (or mayor) is Labour or Tory?
I can't tell them apart on any major policy. They have "stylistic" differences but there's now nothing of substance that differs.
What's left is politics of personality. And more austerity.
I think this piece by John Rentoul is worth considering: https://www.independent.co.uk/...
If from someone's vantage point they can't tell the difference between Labour and the Tories, I'd question their vantage point. If one stands far enough off to the left, then boring centrist moderates and radical right-wing extremists may both be quite far away from where you're standing and perhaps end up looking almost close to one another - that's an optical illusion caused by perspective though, rather than a statement of reality. (For completeness: I'm neither a Labour nor Tory voter but I can still pretty clearly tell the difference!)
Also this is about the mayoral election, and Sadiq Khan has charted a course in office that's quite distinct from Labour nationally - for my money, he's by far the best senior Labour politician active at the moment.
Your analogy is only an analogy. Certainly, on issues I consider important Tories and Labour hold the same positions at the moment. For instance, many people are in utter poverty in this country. We have friends who both work and have to make decisions about whether they pay their extortionate rent or feed their kids. No one in the UK should have to put up with that.
And what do we hear from Labour? Nothing about rent comtrols, nothing about free school meals, nothing about raising the minimum wage to a genuinely living wage, nothing about taxing the excessively wealthy (or anything about redistributing wealth in fact). All we hear from Labour is that they will - like the Tories - “Grow the economy”. I’m sure you heard Rachel Reeves caught out on LBC recently by having her former words about the need to tax the wealthy.
Labour - with SIR Keir - are part of the Establishment and exist to make sure that the excessively wealthy and those with inherited wealth maintain their power and economic position.
That’s not an “optical illusion”, that’s looking at things very clearly in broad daylight. Perhaps your “moderate” postion where you can accept a country where half a million children live in destitution/extreme poverty is the vantage point that needs to be examined.
Labour - with SIR Keir - are part of the Establishment
Fully agree that Labour under Starmer have shifted to become a moderate establishment party. That is good, because the Tories post-2016 - and especially in the Johnson/Truss/Sunak years - have become an aggressive radical anti-establishment party. At various points in the last few years, the Tories have gone to war with most of the pillars of the establishment: the legal profession, the BBC, the Bank of England, business, the civil service, parliamentary democracy, and of course most prominently our long-standing relationship with our closest neighbours, friends and trading partners.
I will be very glad to have a moderate establishment PM in office to clean up the mess that the last several years of radical anti-establishment PMs have left behind.
Ho ho ho! Next you’ll be telling me Trump is the anti-Establishment candidate in the US.
I use the traditional definition of Establishmemt: all the structures and processes that are used to maintain the political power of inherited wealth in this country. John Gibbs, the cultural writer, describes it as the “Norman Continuity Empire” where 1200 aristocratic familes close to William the Conqueror. The aims of the Tories is to best represent that Establishment and the aims of Labour is to help prevent the redistribution of that wealth.
I can tell that you like to see yourself as a moderate but knowing that half-a-million children live in extreme poverty (a Westminster calculation) and NOT sorting it out is a crime against those children. Starmer, for example, says that he will maintain the 2-child cap on child benefit at the same time as promising the excessively wealthy that he wont tax them. Both parties and all leaders (with possible exception of Greens) agree on that. And it’s not a moderate position.
Edited: added the word NOT
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The Bedford mayoral election which happened after they changed these rules, resulted in the first Tory mayor there by only a handful of votes. They would never have won under STV.
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