The United Kingdom

At least in your system the winners don't take the losers out and shoot them.
From a distance it appears that the opposing sides are just a little different (as happens here).
Labour is more oriented to being kind to the disadvantaged, while the Torys are more into being kind to industry (on the theory that a rising tide lifts all boats & eventually a strong economy will benefit all).

I tend to favour Labour but the outcome is little different. I do disagree with the conservative propaganda that Labour are always the worse economic managers. Independent assessments here indicate that Labor has actually achieved better financial results than the Torys.

Michael Riddell wrote:Oh well, that's England and Scotland giving each other the finger, then.

Must be a bit of a bad taste in the mouth for the SNP, though. They sweep the board in Scotland, but still end up with a Tory majority government.

I hope a lesson has been learned by people in Scotland. No matter what we do, England has more constituencies than Scotland. England can therefore do as it wishes and there is bugger-all Scotland can do about it.

'Nuff said!

Mike.

The really big issue is that England and Wales went majority Conservative, whilst the SNP blew apart both Labour and the Liberal Democrats in Scotland. Out of 650 UK constituencies, Scotland has 59 (8% percent population, 8% seats - only fair). 56 of them now belong to the SNP whilst the Tories, Labour and Lib-Dems have been reduced to one each.

Politically, England and Scotland are further apart than ever, although social attitude surveys actually show very little real difference.

Anyway, here's a list of these new SNP MP's:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32579722

A very interesting mix, including the UK's youngest MP in 200 years, an female Asian MP who was originally a Conservative Party member, an ex-BBC reporter, a legal Advocate and a former member of the band Runrig! A lot of the rest are local Councillors, including my new one.

Daryl wrote:At least in your system the winners don't take the losers out and shoot them.
From a distance it appears that the opposing sides are just a little different (as happens here).
Labour is more oriented to being kind to the disadvantaged, while the Torys are more into being kind to industry (on the theory that a rising tide lifts all boats & eventually a strong economy will benefit all).

I tend to favour Labour but the outcome is little different. I do disagree with the conservative propaganda that Labour are always the worse economic managers. Independent assessments here indicate that Labor has actually achieved better financial results than the Torys.

Michael Riddell wrote:The really big issue is...

Europe now.

With a Conservative majority, it's virtually certain that a referendum will be held on the United Kingdom's membership of Europe, unless there's a rebellion involving enough Europhile Tories.

Michael Riddell wrote:I hope a lesson has been learned by people in Scotland. No matter what we do, England has more constituencies than Scotland. England can therefore do as it wishes and there is bugger-all Scotland can do about it.

Not quite...
I forsee another Independence Referendum straight after the promised EU In/Out referendum. If the UK chooses to leave the EU, Scotland may in turn decide to leave the UK to (re)join the EU.
With the team of Salmond and Sturgeon in charge of Scotland, things will get interesting!

Michael Everett wrote:Not quite...
I forsee another Independence Referendum straight after the promised EU In/Out referendum. If the UK chooses to leave the EU, Scotland may in turn decide to leave the UK to (re)join the EU.
With the team of Salmond and Sturgeon in charge of Scotland, things will get interesting!

Interesting indeed, but I do think the SNP have a made a rod for their own back. They pretty much have to include the possibility of another Independence Referendum in their 2016 Holyrood manifesto otherwise their new found support will be very disappointed with them. It also runs the risk of alienating those people who voted SNP in order to strengthen (as they saw) Scotland's voice at Westminster, but do not want independence.

Anyway, they also have the slight problem that matters pertaining to the constitution are reserved to Westminster. The Edinburgh Agreement* is a precedent, but all a UK Government (of any colour) would have to do is say "NO" and deny the request. Assuming they wanted to, of course.

Lastly, it will be very interesting to see how the 2016 Holyrood election plays out. This time, Scotland has decided to send a large contingent of Nationalist MP's to represent them at Westminster (defacto Federal Level), but how big a majority will the SNP get and who will be the largest opposition party in Scotland's own Parliament (defacto State Level)?

One to ponder.

Mike.

*For non-UK readers, the Edinburgh Agreement was the temporary handing of constitutional powers to Holyrood allowing the 2014 Independence Referendum to be held.

So, it looks like the Conservative government is going to try and do away with the Human Rights Act and replace it with a "British Bill of Rights".

The HRA covers all the rights enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights and is explictly a British piece of legislation designed to allow citizens to take their cases to a British court instead of all the way to the Strasbourg court. It also requires that all public bodies(e.g. police, NHS, councils), not merely the central government, abide by those rights.

There is little to no information on what is intended to be contained within the Bill of Rights.

There is also a semi-diplomatic, semi-political roadblock in the Conservatives' way - parts of the ECHR has been enshrined in the devolution settlements with Wales, Scotland and in Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement. Unpicking this complex nest of legislation would be extremely difficult even if they had full support and cooperation from the devolved legislatures. That this cooperation is unlikely to be forthcoming is putting it quite mildly, bringing up the risk of them attempting to use Westminister parliamentary sovereignty to force any such changes through.

The problem with the HRA is that it is just so damned easy to abuse and pervert in ways that the original drafters never considered.
The HRA is fundamentally flawed, not in what it intended to do, but in how it failed to protect against those who would distort and warp it until it achieved the opposite of that which was intended.
The sooner it is replaced by something that is constructed in a way to minimize abuse, the better.

Michael Everett wrote:The problem with the HRA is that it is just so damned easy to abuse and pervert in ways that the original drafters never considered.
The HRA is fundamentally flawed, not in what it intended to do, but in how it failed to protect against those who would distort and warp it until it achieved the opposite of that which was intended.
The sooner it is replaced by something that is constructed in a way to minimize abuse, the better.

You might want to check this out: https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk ... -act-myths

Nothing is perfect, but suggesting that it's easy to abuse and pervert is ridiculous. Yes, a few handfuls of horrible criminals do attempt it - but they fail to succeed, something the media ignores so they can print sensationalist headlines.

Several examples are contained here also: http://www.advicenow.org.uk/is-that-dis ... 48,FP.html

Edit: If you can find a real case of successful abuse of the HRA, I would like to see it. I haven't come across anything that hasn't been misrepresented in some way.

Something for Cameron to consider is what happened to a previous conservative government in Australia.
The then PM controlled the parliament but had (over several terms) to negotiate with a mixed bag in the senate to get legislation passed. He made many promises to placate his hard right fringe, knowing that he wouldn't have to implement them as they would be blocked. Then he won control of both houses so had to implement his promises. Next election he lost both the government and his personal seat.

Daryl wrote:Something for Cameron to consider is what happened to a previous conservative government in Australia.
The then PM controlled the parliament but had (over several terms) to negotiate with a mixed bag in the senate to get legislation passed. He made many promises to placate his hard right fringe, knowing that he wouldn't have to implement them as they would be blocked. Then he won control of both houses so had to implement his promises. Next election he lost both the government and his personal seat.

The House of Lords is not that strong an upper chamber. Its powers have been whittled down in favour of Commons supremacy and can be overridden if the Commons vote three times successively to pass a bill. This has only occurred seven times sine 1911, when the Lords passed this change after being threatened with the creating of hundreds of new peers on the understanding they would approve the Parliament Act of the same year.

Additionally, the make-up of the Lords now changes in a gradualist manner, as since the big reform in 1999, fewer and fewer new peers have been created each year. It is already the second largest legislative chamber on Earth after the PRC's unicameral chamber, which adds great weight against appointing new peers. The most recent reforms have been about allowing peers to resign/retire and be removed in the event of being convicted and imprisoned for more than a year!

All that said, the Lords can and still do torpedo Government bills when the Government doesn't have the will(or suffers from rebel MPs in the Commons) to keep pushing. The ability to delay shouldn't be discounted either - a Government generally sees its majority whittled down over the course of a term due to scandals, deaths and other "personal reasons" triggering by-elections and offering voters the opportunity to lodge a protest vote.

So the Lords are similar to the horse thief in that parable Benjamin Mayhew shared with Admiral Matthews in a legislatory sense.