Interesting. Personally I've always found who my local MP does make a difference - eg When my mum wanted to visit the House of Commons, she asked our MP and he arranged it. When her friend in a different contituancy did the same, her MP refused unless she did a favour for him first (distributed leaflets, I believe). I can't imagine that was party policy, or any factor other than the individual choice of the MP in question
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Ok, but did the MP get in based upon him saying he'd do this? Did his party affect what he did? if not, what was the point of the party? Its how he got elected after all, I bet no-one voted him, but instead picked the party name to tick next to.
I'm assuming you meant the latter MP - Tommy McAvoy certainly didn't get elected on the strength of saying he'd take my mum round the houses of parliament
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That's true and I respect that more than party voting, however by whatever means you pick the "individual" if they are part of a party you are just helping the party system continue.
I can understand a rejection of the party system but I don't believe that ballot-spoiling alone will motivate change as it means that those who do vote within the party system will continue to win and set policy (which probably won't be to massively change the system that helped them win). What else can you propose alongside ballot-spoiling to make me think its worth doing?
Curiously, despite my above position, electoral reform appears to be taken shape as one of the election issues with Brown making various promises (possibly to woo Lib Dems). This will be interesting to see how (and if) it happens. I also find fundessie's recent post interesting too
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I think you are thinking too linearly, you are assuming abolishment of parties and then everything being the same. There would need to be a radical overhaul of how electioneering works, current party donation rules scrapped and a blank slate used.
I cannot, nor would not want to, go onto the minute detail of this. Scrap the parties, the rest will follow.
I must fundamentally disagree with your last comment, vote spoiling is at least doing something. If your opinion is that it's not much, or not enough then I'm happy to agree to disagree, but comparing it to not voting at all is just insulting.
However, I had a similar discussion with Russ Phillips in Oct'08,. Whilst I utterly respect the intent behind ballot spoiling as it means engaging with the political system rather than washing hands, I do not believe that it by itself will actively change anything. It is negative criticism of the system, but its unconstructive. At best it becomes a statistic. In that respect, I believe ballot spoiling has exactly the same practical effect as not voting.
Now if you know any campaign groups worth joining alongside ballot-spoiling, I'll happily hear about them. They at least can collectively represent the ballot-spoilers in campaigning for electoral reform. You say "scrap the parties, the rest will follow" which strikes me as optimistic but I do not think ballot spoiling alone will achieve that.
I do agree, things won't change by themselves, but these things take time. The movement needs to start and campaign groups will be formed. This won't happen though without a popularist movement.
Reminds me of Gathering '95. Me and my mate Dave were sparring, just doing some weapons practice and whatnot.
Some blokes then come over and ask if they can join in. Now there's 4 of us. A few more passers by wander by and now there's 30 of us.
Now, as it happened we were near the Dragon's gate. The gate guard get nervous about the amount of armed people fighting nearby and gather re-enforcements. They then form a shield wall. By then there's 40 or 50 of us, and we see a shield wall!
Next thing we're charging said shield wall and invading the Dragon's camp.
Awesome fun, but makes a similar point.
Personally, I don't see myself as a leader, I've found that through experience I'm a much better 2nd man. This was my idea back when I first voted aged 18, but other people before and after I'm sure had the same idea. If I could find that leader I would follow, maybe then the movement would happen?
I don't think we need to plan the minutiae, I just think we need a good idea and enough people to believe in it.
I think you might well approve of this chap's way of doing things: http://getavote.org/pages/main/who It doesn't really matter who your MP is, from a policy point of view, then, except for the sort of things that plucky_lass mentions.
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Curiously, despite my above position, electoral reform appears to be taken shape as one of the election issues with Brown making various promises (possibly to woo Lib Dems). This will be interesting to see how (and if) it happens. I also find fundessie's recent post interesting too ( ... )
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I cannot, nor would not want to, go onto the minute detail of this. Scrap the parties, the rest will follow.
I must fundamentally disagree with your last comment, vote spoiling is at least doing something. If your opinion is that it's not much, or not enough then I'm happy to agree to disagree, but comparing it to not voting at all is just insulting.
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However, I had a similar discussion with Russ Phillips in Oct'08,. Whilst I utterly respect the intent behind ballot spoiling as it means engaging with the political system rather than washing hands, I do not believe that it by itself will actively change anything. It is negative criticism of the system, but its unconstructive. At best it becomes a statistic. In that respect, I believe ballot spoiling has exactly the same practical effect as not voting.
Now if you know any campaign groups worth joining alongside ballot-spoiling, I'll happily hear about them. They at least can collectively represent the ballot-spoilers in campaigning for electoral reform. You say "scrap the parties, the rest will follow" which strikes me as optimistic but I do not think ballot spoiling alone will achieve that.
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http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html
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Reminds me of Gathering '95. Me and my mate Dave were sparring, just doing some weapons practice and whatnot.
Some blokes then come over and ask if they can join in. Now there's 4 of us. A few more passers by wander by and now there's 30 of us.
Now, as it happened we were near the Dragon's gate. The gate guard get nervous about the amount of armed people fighting nearby and gather re-enforcements. They then form a shield wall. By then there's 40 or 50 of us, and we see a shield wall!
Next thing we're charging said shield wall and invading the Dragon's camp.
Awesome fun, but makes a similar point.
Personally, I don't see myself as a leader, I've found that through experience I'm a much better 2nd man. This was my idea back when I first voted aged 18, but other people before and after I'm sure had the same idea. If I could find that leader I would follow, maybe then the movement would happen?
I don't think we need to plan the minutiae, I just think we need a good idea and enough people to believe in it.
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http://getavote.org/pages/main/who
It doesn't really matter who your MP is, from a policy point of view, then, except for the sort of things that plucky_lass mentions.
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If he ran here, I'd vote for him.
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Local guy for here and he is actually talking sense.
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