UK by-elections 2023

I used to be timid and shy… always hiding in a corner… anything rather than stand up and be counted …
(current day friends would find that hard to believe) :rofl: :rofl:

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Assuming you mean PR I’ve no idea why you think the size of an electorate would be of any consequence?

In it’s current form, absolutely. However, a revising chamber is a good thing to have, but it should be elected, or at least appointed in line with the proportions in government.

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There’s nothing ‘hidden’ in that aspect of the examples I cited - it’s there for anyone to see and is usually included in news reports.

Whether a UK constituency is won by one vote or by a ten thousand majority it remains a single seat in parliament. The US Electoral College system is a tad more complicated, and perhaps less democratic as the smallest states have a disproportionately hig number of Electors (each state has a minimum of three)

Aaahh! That’s it. Examined with a tooth comb and 20/20 hindsight judgement, just about everything can be spun into a travesty.

In these days of social media everyone airs opinions without edit and overshares photos that will exist in the ether to haunt the future.

It used to be so much easier avoiding an old school classmate or colleague in the street. There’s no hiding anything any more.

Perhaps if we thought for a minute that everything we say and do will be recorded for posterity and critiqued by future strangers, it may give us propitious pause.

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You could improve the electoral college system at a stroke by requiring college votes in proportion to the popular vote - which is only the case in a couple of states at present (Maine and Nebraska).

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Strangely, of late the House of Lords has been behaving more democratically than the Commons.

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I am reading Sebastian Faulks ‘Paris Echo’ and came across this passage which struck a chord with me, especially with regard to Brexit.
'The human drive to ignorance, as Professor Putnam had once told her seminar group, is a force as powerful as its opposite , as strong as curiosity itself. ’

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No they don’t, the party that wins the most constituencies wins and all of those do not have equal numbers of electors.

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My sister in law… thinks Brexit is wonderful and BJ is misunderstood…
I love her dearly and will not rebuke/or challenge her for her comments, I just smile vaguely and start discussing something else (like food) :wink: :wink:

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Is she unaware of the economic damage that has been done to the country by that liar and his cronies?

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More to the point - if the party who wins the most seats does so by one vote in each constituency but the opposition party wins its (fewer) seats with large margins it is quite easy for the side with most votes to have fewest seats.

She is convinced in her thoughts… and that is that… 'nuff said.

Stella, I don’t think that Brexit is wonderful even though some on here may think that I do, it has it points, unfortunately these are dwindling due to the government not having the spine to carry out what the folks were told and voted for, however I also don’t think that the EU is wonderful, the way the EU is going if they succeed then it will be like a modern day Russia. Yes the EU has its good points like FoM and the Euro but other than that!!. I have lived in Germany for over 30 years and saw much of the points that are whined about on here with all the visa’s etc. We had all that when it was just the EEA, which in my view it should have stayed like that. BloJo is a comedian, a showman nothing else. He should have stayed as the London Mayor in place of the idiot there now. I have just renewed my residence and work authority for Germany. I handed in my old one from 1979 and it was replaced without question.

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Whatever the subject…
We all see, consider/judge, from our own viewpoint and with our own experiences…

That’s the human condition … :wink:

My brother and sister in law were exactly the same up until about 18 months ago. They however have changed their minds completely. They have come to the realisation that they were lied to repeatedly over brexit and that Johnson only promoted brexit for his own political ends and didn’t actually believe in it himself. They didn’t really need any persuading to come to this conclusion,
Edit: Just to clarify they both voted for Brexit and voted CON since then including for boris in 2019. They say they will never vote conservative again.

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Reality strikes home.

But what they voted for affected you and millions of their fellow countrymen living in Europe and is, to my mind, unforgivable.

Unforgiveable is the kind of phrase usually reserved for paedophiles and mass-murderers. Granted you feel strongly about this, but to carry a grudge against your family because they voted - arguably in ignorance - in a way you don’t agree with is possibly more than a little extreme, don’t you think?

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I don’t know, the greatest act of self harm in a generation is something that’s difficult to forgive and forget.

Edited to add: I accept that it’s done, don’t get me wrong but the damage that’s being done was predicted and I think the vote really exposed the dark underbelly of British society (not an anti-Brit comment for clarity) that resulted in my wife being told to go back to where you came from, for example. Even my own parents were minded to vote for it due to those bloody immigrants. I had to point to their daughter-in-law before they got the point.
So, yes, I’m bitter and it will take some time before I’m not.

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I am so sorry you and your family had this experience.

As I see it, Brexit was actually the culmination of years of that wretch Farage having given licence to voice hatred and racist nonsense. It’s no good Brexiters now all wailing they were misled by the press and Brexit campaign. There is a deeper truth in that long latent and widespread phobias and prejudices in UK society were directly reawoken by UKIP. Some of the same are now picketing the coast in Dorset against migrant asylum seekers.

Drumming up fear and hatred towards other human beings is not only revealing the underbelly, it is making it dominant.

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