Interesting choice of names, neighbour. Agree with you, though. Mediocrity and mendacity in the UK since Maggie. Pretty much the same before her, until Churchill in WW2.

"Nu" Labour have changed their party from the 80s (Kinnock and Foot) to resemble something closer to Conservative Party ideals, to make them far more electable....but more criminally-inclined, and still can't do basic math.

The Gods help us all when they get re-elected next. :\

The Emperors of Ancient Rome brought a great number of civilized and uncivilized nations under their rule and incorporated them in the Roman Empire, transforming their culture greatly.
The Arabian Caliphs did the same likewise only with proper morals and religion.

The deeds of the Caliphs and Emperors are still influencing our modern society in very significant ways. Will the deeds of your prime ministers, presidents, chancellors and agriculture ministers resound as deeply in the future?

It didn't get public approval for many reasons. I personally voted no, and my reasoning was similar to what has already been mentioned in the thread, I saw it not as a way to fix the defects in our current system, but a way to further exploit it by allowing more complex tactical voting to occur. I was torn though in my decision, and I don't think my reasoning is necessarily why the referendum failed overall.

This is all personal opinion/speculation, but most of the people I've talked to on this before and after the actual vote, clearly have little to no idea what AV actually was. That's how poorly it was campaigned, while the information was out there for those inclined to research, the truth is the majority of the public won't look far away from their mainstream sources, and when those sources are patronising them and telling them to vote for something without a clear explanation of what it is, they'll look to alternate reasoning for voting (or not bother.) Couple this with the fact that the heads of the 'yes' campaign were made up of the leader of the untrusted labour party, and probably the most hated man in Britain, and it's little wonder why the 'no' vote was so attractive for so many people.

My major issue is one which has been obvious from the start when this system was borne as a compromise for true PR when the current coalition was formed - a 'no' vote for this will be used as justification to keep the exact same, flawed system which we already have. I don't like the current system we already have, but I don't see AV as being a better alternative. This doesn't mean that better alternatives don't exist of course, but this is the spin I expect will be put on it by those that benefit from us staying the way we are.

This is an excellent quote. The reason being that one of the amusing takes that someone (Marcus Brigstock) took on the AV referendum was to paraphrase what they were saying as "obviously I understand AV and what it means, but you couldn't possibly understand it, it's far too complicated".

Obviously the intelligent people understand how to run and elect a government, but you couldn't possibly understand it. It's far too compilcated.

Sometimes the best solution is not to go with the "wise men".

And $14 trillion in debt.

That's the problem with any form of government though, they are all human-based and thus inherently flawed. Centralized power is not any better because those in power are flawed as well, and then we have no way to stop them.

Can't find perfection in a land of flaws, all you can do is the best you can.
Oh you're certainly right... they don't represent common sense a lot of the time because they are flawed people, open to corruption, stupidity and whatever else. I'm just saying I know of no better alternative.

All we can do is be aggressive in monitoring them and hope the general population catches the big stuff.

Oh really? Name a better form of government then. Maybe I haven't been paying attention but I haven't seen you declare a better alternative. It seems you are hinting as some kind of dictatorship, but a dictator can be just as much of an idiot as anyone else, only with unchecked power.

The US will soon experience a severe USD hyperinflation and the Euro will be broken as well it's only a matter of time. Our regimes only buy some time. Well the Pound is worthless anyway since the UK produces absolutely nothing the people in England just have not realized it yet....
Same is true for the US. Put simply the industrial produktion is gone (the core of every developed country) and now it's a huge bureaucracy. US is not a capitalist state as they proclaim in contrast it is a communist country the Americans just have not realized it....
All propaganda in the US as far as the eye can see on TV seems like they have taken it from Stalin directly....

The US produces as much as it ever has actually, it's just so automated now that the jobs aren't there.

I thought Parliamentary systems worked on proportionality. But apparently Canada and the UK don't. I was watching the election in Canada, and even though the Conservatives got 40% of the vote, they got more than half of the seats.

I think the right way to do it is that the conservatives get 40% of the seats. And each district shouldn't get a representative per say. Voters should vote for a party, then that party assigns people to fill the seats who will vote according to their party platform.

That's exactly the idea of democracy and I am happy as long as I can live in such a system. The UK instead has a weird system, one that allows to be ruled by a minority. Voting is the core of every democracy. If this isn't done right, what can you expect from the rest? So all in all, I think the UK voting system would make me less probable to want to live there and I don't regard it as a true democracy, not a monarchy either, but something in between.

Welcome brainwashed US citizen. If this is true then there would be a huge industry production but it isn't there. You can check the data for yourself. Only 10% of US GDP is industrial production in other words it is close to a third world country. And most of this industrial production is weapons which no one can afford in the world. Drive around your country and see it for yourself. The infrastructure is broken as well. Most of it is from the 60's (the better days of the US). Just cut off the import from China and all other countries of the world and the standard of living in US drops to a third world country. When the hyperinflation on the USD kicks in you will see it soon enough. Brainwashed till the end just like in the USSR

So you're way to avoid dumb people being in charge is to pick who is in charge at random? Okay then.

What has more benefit would be subjective, and when you bring in direct votes in issues you bring in the same problems mentioned above in my other comments: mob rule and an oppressed minority.

Which is impossible, and that's the root of the whole issue. Human greed, selfishness, fallibility, ignorance, lust, gullibility... all of that is a fact of life, it will never change. No form of government run by humans will ever be "fair" to everyone, or uncorrupted. It is impossible.

What democracy does well is checks and balances. We elect the best people for the job and if they fuck up we elect someone else. Communism, dictatorships... no checks and balances, so human corruption reigns supreme. The lottery you proposed is a nice idea, but then we might end up with some complete idiot in charge the day the bombs start falling. It's not responsive or responsible enough to the serious weight of the issues involved.

The root of your entire problem is that the people elected do not make decisions you agree with. That would not really change in any other form of government though. If we were majority rule we still would have invaded Iraq and Afghanistan... shit, we might have nuked them. We still would not have socialized medicine if the polls I have see are accurate. Communism, dictatorships, people put in charge by random lottery... they still would not always agree with you, and in the first two examples they would have unchecked power.

The perfect government that does everything the way YOU want it to does not exist, and can never exist. Democracy gives you a chance to influence voters and representatives and change minds, which can then be seen at the ballot the next time around. That's the best we can ask for really.

I certainly wouldn't mind the evaluations you talked about being applied to representatives though, on some kind of limited basis so as not to cause chaos.

The so known exports of the US are a joke. Even the once so known high tech production already moved to asia. As i said brainwashed till the end. Budget deficit hits almost 2 trillion USD. No one finances that, it's only the printing press or it's electronic equivalent that keeps you alive. When the dollar crashes then this will end as well and the true depression comes....
In Europe it's not much difference we suffer under the same problems. High bureaucracy and deindustrialization. It happened in the US not overnight or since 2008 but back since 1970....
The Americans will awake in a true hyperinflationary nightmare. I can only laugh about the US government propaganda which is obvious lies even for the complete morons...

I read the article... I responded to what I read. If you don't agree with it that's fine, but you're not really showing me anything I have not heard or read before and your response is flippant.

In any case, I repeat: your entire issue is that the people Americans choose by free will to elect do not run the country the way YOU want.