Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

You mean the polls that consistently over-stated support for Labour and its leader? Yes, I suppose they are ...

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I will rephrase the question m'lud: "if they were losing more MP's than Labour".

The democracy bit refers to the increasing lack of balance in the 2 party system we have. Without the numeric ability of the opposition to effectively challenge the Government in power, we get bad government. If the opposition are reduced by a number by twice the amount of the government's this just adds to the imbalance.

Hugh, you may even agree with me on this? ;)

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

waaah

It's been unequal for years, this is simple balancing, it would have been done in the last Govt but Cleggy threw a wobbler.

This is a good thing.

1. Equal sized constituencies
2. Less politicians, which in turn equals less costs to us regardless of the political party.

TL/DR

Now the Country is split into equal sized chunks - good for real democracy.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Perhaps the imbalance could be resolved by the main opposition party having policies that people would vote for, rather than needing less votes per constituency? ;)

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

The problem with Corbyn is that he is rubbish at his job. That isn't the media's fault. There are some papers that will against him no matter what (Sun, Mail, Telegraph) but he doesn't get favorable press from those who would be sympathetic towards him such as The Guardian.

This is his own fault. He is awful at dealing with the media. For example it's bad enough that he equivocates on the issue of the Falklands but any half-decent politician would bat any questions about it away easily. He suggests a possible 'deal' with Argentina.

He is rubbish at dealing with his party. He puts nonsense people in serious posts. He announces policy decisions without even consulting the shadow minister responsible for that policy area. He or his allies get the Momentum mob to do hatchet jobs on MPs who are viewed as unsupportive before backing away.

They're awful at general politics as well. Corbyn is far too slow at PMQs. Cameron makes mistakes in answers which Corbyn never seems to spot and instead moves away to a different question. There have been times where Cameron is clearly struggling with a topic and Corbyn could go for it but then he suddenly changes tact and lets him off. The day of the Doctors strike he asked about housing, when the Tories are infighting about Europe he asks about Doctors and I assume if there was a massive scandal about housing Corbyn would ask about trade union reforms.

Instead what happens if Labour's press office issues condemnations or criticisms of what Cameron has said in PMQs after the fact because their leader was too slow to do it in person. It gets even worse if they think Cameron was mean because they love that more than anything. The next few days are then dominated by Labour complaining that Cameron wasn't very nice to them.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Absolutely right but the fact remains: this change is seen as politically rather than democratically motivated.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Well of course it is. That's because the party in opposition stands to lose out. However the reason they stand to lose out is because they allowed the situation to develop to their advantage over many years while they were in power, by failing to address the extreme lag in the boundary revision process. It would have been dealt with shortly after the 2010 election, except that Nick Clegg cut off his nose to spite his face in a petulant act of revenge after the Tories threw out Lords reform.

Having constituencies of equal size is an absolute no-brainier. Yet political reality is that the only time this sort of reform is ever going to happen is when the party that is disadvantaged by the status quo gets into power. Labour can squeal all it likes, but it's just hypocrisy.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Chris said it all very accurately.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I don't care too hoots abour Labour. I do care about having a healthly opposition in this 2 party system we have. I am concerned that a Government voted into power by a minority of the electorate will have no real oppostion to what ever policies it want to put into power for years to come.

These changes will ensure that a vote in the commons will be a lesser risk and they are putting plans together to gag the Lords ...

---------- Post added at 10:39 ---------- Previous post was at 10:38 ----------

Grow up

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

:tu:

Labour and hypocrisy? Who'd have thought...

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Did you have those concerns in 1997, when Labour were elected in with 43.2% of those who voted, or in 2001 when Labour were elected with 40.7% of those who voted, or in 2005 when Labour were elected with 35.2% of those who voted?

btw, I agree with you about the dangers of not having an effective opposition, but I don't think we should gerrymander the constituencies to protect the Labour vote.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Not only do I agree with Chris, but Hugh too

No hoots needed (two btw not too)

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I take your point on the Labour majorities. The same is also true for one of Thatchers victories from memory. My concern is this change, whether you think it merited by natural justice or just a political smash & grab, is a step towards an effective 1 party state :( I say this because of the pathetic state of the Labour party, the unrepresented UKIP voters and the swing to SNP from Labour in Scotland. All these, combined, leave us in a very different place to when Labour won in 1997 etc.

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

Agreed - we need to reform the voting system, but the two parties that could do that, won't...

Re: Corbyn's kerfuffle
 

I don't bother with pmq's anymore, I used to like it but simply got bored of the pantomime it's turned into and I'll think you'll find it is the media's fault when they make stuff up, it's been relentless from day 1 and hasn't missed a beat since

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...tright-6470638