What happened to democracy?

It all depends on definitions of democracy.
In the UK you have a fairly limited type of democracy, and will do for a while I would imagine.

Your voting system pretty much ensures a bipartite system, where smaller parties have almost no chance. If you were to move to a proportional representation system or full representation, like in Ireland and Scandinavia, you could give your first vote to whomever you like, and then your second etc. Your votes will carry through, down the line until they are used on some candidate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proport...representation

You cannot do this in the UK. You may want to vote for X, but know full well X has not really got a chance in hell so you would be wasting your vote, so you vote for the least noxious of the people who are actually in the running.

Its a narrow limited type of democracy, but, its a democracy.

Whether different governments make a big difference is another question. I would think that they do. Look at Thatcher. It takes someone very special to get things that wrong.

Sorry demoncracy died the moment we joined the EEC. Any law passed by our represenatives in Parliment can now be overturned by a bunch of unelected judges in Brussells. We've given away our right to govern ourselves, Blair being one of the worst offenders on this front.

Originally Posted by Jester666

Quote:
Originally Posted by timwilky
voted No. Blair and his cronies killed it

Agreed


Quote:
Originally Posted by SV225
No, democracy only exists for the people who agree with the goverment

As above

And seeing as the majority people voted for this government that means democracy exists. Just because some people are in a minority, doesn't mean that democracy doesn't exist! What a selfish outlook...

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Warthog

And seeing as the majority people voted for this government that means democracy exists. Just because some people are in a minority, doesn't mean that democracy doesn't exist! What a selfish outlook...

The majority of people did NOT vote for the current government. They just managed to get most seats. Hence my belief that there is no democracy in this country.

Originally Posted by Luckypants

The majority of people did NOT vote for the current government. They just managed to get most seats. Hence my belief that there is no democracy in this country.

Yes the government DID get a majority SHARE of the vote. The fact that people excercised their democratic right NOT to vote changes nothing. Anyway, as everyone seems to think that it doesnt matter whos in power as they're all the same, why do people complain about the exact details of how government gets voted in anyway?

Everyone has a vote, women, the poor, ethnic minorities, when once they didn't. The government listens to publics fears on many issues and panders to their whims more than they should.

The government reflects the population now more than it ever has, so how on earth can you claim our government isn't democracit or representative, I really don't understand.

Jordan, I think I know what Luckypants is getting at. Take the recent Welsh elections etc, plucking numbers out of the nearest turkey that happens to fly past...

Assume Labour get 40% of the total vote. That means that most of the people that did vote, didn't vote for Labour.

However, Labour get the most seats, so they're the ones with all the power, as the remaining 60% of the vote was split between multiple parties.

Originally Posted by Baph

Jordan, I think I know what Luckypants is getting at. Take the recent Welsh elections etc, plucking numbers out of the nearest turkey that happens to fly past...

Assume Labour get 40% of the total vote. That means that most of the people that did vote, didn't vote for Labour.

However, Labour get the most seats, so they're the ones with all the power, as the remaining 60% of the vote was split between multiple parties.

not quite, the other parties could all gang up against labour if they wanted becasue labour don't have a majority. labour are now having to be nice to plaid to make some sort of coalition deal which could give plaid a disproprtionate amount of say as to what goes on.

It's a fair point, and I'm certainly in favour of more proportional representation, but this is the same first past the post system we've always had. I don't think there's been an election in the last 100 years where more than 50% of the voting public voted for a particular party. So if using the argument that a first past the post system isn't democracy then the question shouldn't be "do we still have a democracy" - we've never had one.

EDIT: Tell a lie, the last, and only election where an absolute majority (more than 50%) of votes were cast for one party was in 1931

"all the power" Who are the ones that get to choose who the coalition is formed with? Who are the ones that get to make most demands out of the other party? Is it Plaid? Can they say "We demand x,y,z or we won't join you guys in power"??

Nope, didn't think so.

Flip side...

If one party did get an outright majority of votes and seats (possibly even greater % of seats) then I'd suggest you are no nearer a democracy.

A goverment in that situation has even less reason to listen to the people.

The opposition is supposed to play a role in moderating the goverment, preventing it doing things against the interest of the country etc. So I would suggest you actually want it to be strong.

I think a big part of the problem we face is that politicians are in it too much for themselves. I hate listening to "Today in Parliment" and hearing MPs bickering and arguing and scoring points, rather than debating the actual issue. Parties are a necessary evil and equally evil as necessary. Without them you'd have lot of chefs and the result would be as people joke about the effectiveness of a committee. However once you have them people start going things "for the party" not necessarily for the common good.

I know a very little about my MP, but that little is far more negative that I like. My last vote was purely against him, not about the parties involved. I fear for what I can actually say as I can't prove anything but I'll leave it to your imaginations and I'd guess you'll not be far wrong.