Tories close gap on Labour to 1 point

GazC_MFC said:
You did lie or at best you deliberately misinterpreted the lords vote or as others have said you were being disingenuous
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No I didn't. I said:
"Last night the Lords voted on providing free school meals to pupils in all households receiving universal credit. Once again Labour were whipped to abstain."
This is factually true. That is exactly what happened.

Then you said:
GazC_MFC said:
Might want to get the mirror out about lying claiming Labour stopped free dinners
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Labour have not stopped free dinners and nowhere on this thread did I claim that they did. You misrepresented my statement and accused me of being a liar.
It is you who are lying but I see you are prepared to run with it.
Chris_Boro said:
If you so wish you can view every debated amendment to every single bill and their recorded votes and who voted for what, it's all public record.

Unfortunately, it would take a long time as there's many debates for every day they sit and it's not very user friendly, but here's the "SpyCops" bill in its entirety.

The Lords is just one big very expensive talking shop that goes through every bill with a fine tooth comb with amendments fired back and forth until either the government pulls it or forces it through. This process can take over a year.

There are 769 members, the Conservatives have the most with 258, then crossbenchers with 186, then Labour 167. Every single member can add an ammendment with most being voted on by a fraction of the total members, for example around 180 voted on the free school meals ammendment, if Labour did whip for it, the Tories would respond in kind, same result but less options for Labour. The best that can be hoped for is that popular opinion forces a "rethink".

But ultimately, they have no powers over what the sitting government want to do, especially one with a large majority. Abstaining is very common as it allows for more ammendments and debates but again this can be ultimately futile if the government will just push it through Royal Assent anyway, which is why opposition parties often opt to abstain as to not be drawn into potential pointless mud slinging by taking a definitive line.

I totally disagree with the HOL, I think it should be abolished, but it does play an important role in our legislative process, but peoples understanding of that process is very limited and is often misinterpreted.
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Chris, I am aware of how this works and I know full well that the Lords is overpopulated and stuffed with Tories but you used the defence that sometimes it's good to abstain so that better amendments can be inserted later. Now Starmer's Labour Party have abstained on many occasions and it is upon you to demonstrate which greater amendments were won at a later date. I'm not saying there aren't any, but I would like to know what they are. There are political analysts, journalists and commentators whose job it is to go through all of these votes and when they do, the major ones tend to make the news.

However, if as you say proposing amendments is ultimately futile then at least the opposition party can use the vote in a way that signals to the electorate what they actually stand for. And this is is my problem with Starmer. Great politicians, especially those who aspire to run the country, should have a core set of values and beliefs which define them as people and political figures, and they should be prepared to put their cards on the table; to take the discussion to the people and win the argument. Starmer doesn't do this and nobody really knows what he stands for.

Except of course when it comes to Israel where the party is busy suspending or kicking out anyone who shows sympathy for Palestine. This includes left wing Jews who have the temerity to defy Labour Friends of Israel and voice support Palestine. These - the wrong type of Jew - are labeled as anti-Semitic or self haters. The party in its current form, stinks.
 
BoroFur said:
I agree but we had a referendum and the voters weren't interested.
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That wasn't true PR though.

It was also a shambolic campaign that was ruthlessly and effectively undermined by the Tories.

Obviously given the most influential media outlets would be against it (as they are against democracy) it wouldn't be easy to get it through, but definitely possible.

Would need to be simple and easily explained though, too many of the electorate have shorter attention spans than Liz Truss.
 
BoroFur said:
I agree but we had a referendum and the voters weren't interested.
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festa5 said:
That wasn't true PR though.
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AV isn't PR at all. It's another version of FPTP. Instead of "the post" being a plurality of votes in a constituency, under PR it would be 50% of votes in that constituency.

If a party achieved even as much as 40% of votes and second preferences in every single constituency in the country, they wouldn't win a single seat under AV. Hypothetically it could even lead to less proportional parliaments than now!
 
Capybara said:
That's where losing Scotland gets you.
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Not sure they specifically lost Scotland, Scotland moved to SNP due to a large scale desire for independence. Scotland largely aligns with labour policies other than the independence issue.
 
festa5 said:
Good point.

I don't recall a referendum on the Tories changing constituency borders to make the who thing even less democratic.

A referendum to make it more democratic surely isn't required?
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If Labour have something like 'electoral reform' in their manifesto they do not need a referendum. If their manifesto doesn't have a reference to electoral reform they will need a referendum.
 
Laughing said:
If Labour have something like 'electoral reform' in their manifesto they do not need a referendum. If their manifesto doesn't have a reference to electoral reform they will need a referendum.
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Well I was being facetious.

But technically it wouldn't need to be in their manifesto. Of course something like that should be if they were going to do it without a referendum.

But I don't think there's anything that would legally prevent them if they wanted to take a leaf out of Johnson's book and just do whatever the hell they liked (provided they had the numbers in parliament).
 
festa5 said:
Well I was being facetious.

But technically it wouldn't need to be in their manifesto. Of course something like that should be if they were going to do it without a referendum.

But I don't think there's anything that would legally prevent them if they wanted to take a leaf out of Johnson's book and just do whatever the hell they liked (provided they had the numbers in parliament).
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I am not sure they can festa. It has to be referenced in their manifesto. It is a convention rather than a legality. The house of Lords will always let a bill pass if its referenced in the manifesto but I think they have far more power if it isn't referenced in the manifesto. It can be referenced very obliquely.

I'll look for the wording later today to see if I am right.
 
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