They're not voting because...
- The party system represents a conflict...
The party system represents a conflict of interest, My MP as my representative should reflect the opinions of myself and my fellow constituents over and above those of his/her party but the use of party whips ensures that in most cases this does not happen. Couple that with the onging drift towards middle of the road policy there is no longer a clear ideological difference between the parties. nowadyas elections have evolved into an american style presidential election ... who is the most popular party leader, for me independant candidates offer a much better option
written 19th Apr 2005
Responses
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james replies: I agree, so I'm trying to find out my local PPCs' personal opinions for
written 19th Apr 2005
http://gov.erdington.org -
Harry replies: Excellent, at last I am not alone.
written 19th Apr 2005
Party politics DESTROYS democracy, the parties are driven by the need for the party to be successful, and will publicly ridicule and pillory its own members should they fail to agree the party line.
Members are worried about their careers and the huge wage cuts they will get if they are demoted, and so will rarely vate against the party whip.
If it were individual, independently-minded MPs representing us, we should get a more rounded and valuable representation.
As things stand we are experiencing the politics of the cult of celebrity and the wannabe culture that goes with it. If we had a formal written constitution which outlined our rights, locally proportional representation and actual government and parliamentry accountability, we could consider ourselves a democracy.
From the OED "Democracy" noun (pl. democracies) 1 a form of government in which the people have a voice in the exercise of power, typically through elected representatives. 2 a state governed in such a way. 3 control of a group by the majority of its members.
Definition 1 fails with party politics, as the party chooses what is to become law, not the population at large, if definition 1 fails so does definition 2.
3 fails because the group of voters that is represented tends to minorities not majorities, so the definitions all fail with party politics.