Militant students at Warwick

[ahinton]

Should be added that, by my arithmetic, even Attlee's 1945 government only had 35% of the electorate which won them a clear majority of 146. If you're talking about 'democracy' the same arguments apply - the electoral system is rotten. But even if we had had proportional representation in 2010, the result might have been the same: no way of guessing how 2nd and 3rd preferences might have changed the result.

Fair enough, but the more that the balance between the major parties evens out as it appears to be doing, the less difference it will likely make whether FPTP or any other voting system is used; moreover, the less differences there are between the major parties, the less likelihood that anything truly "democratic" might emerge from a General Election.

[jean]

...the more that the balance between the major parties evens out as it appears to be doing, the less difference it will likely make whether FPTP or any other voting system is used...

Wrong way round. The hope is that getting rid of FPTP witll make it more worthwhile for all parties, whatever their size, to emphasise their differences rather than their similarities.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wrong way round. The hope is that getting rid of FPTP witll make it more worthwhile for all parties, whatever their size, to emphasise their differences rather than their similarities.

Yes.

[P. G. Tipps]

How many have you been on?

None, which at least has a somewhat searing logic about it considering my stated views on the matter ...

However, I've witnessed quite a few, so I can certainly speak with no little onlooking experience.

Do you also think it's necessary to be a Tory before one is qualified enough to even dare to criticise the actions of Tory politicians, for example ... ?

[Richard Barrett]

None

So that will mean that one of their purposes, at least in my experience, is completely lost on you - that is, to create and foster solidarity among the participants, the feeling that one is not alone and that there is something worth struggling for, which one can then take away from the event itself and apply in other parts of life. For example, taking part in the famous poll tax demonstration in London in March 1990 convinced me (and no doubt many others) that there was some point in political activism, which I had progressively abandoned since the disappointment of the 1983 general election. (Also that demonstration was an expression of a much more broad-based opposition to the tax up and down the country, which led to the Tories dumping Thatcher later that year, among other things.)

[Richard Barrett]

The hope is that getting rid of FPTP witll make it more worthwhile for all parties, whatever their size, to emphasise their differences rather than their similarities.

Whether that really works is questionable though. In Germany for example, where there are currently four parties represented in the Bundestag (counting the CDU/CSU as one), the two largest parties these days don't embody significantly more difference than Labour and the Tories in the UK, and on many important issues (the EU, for example) there's no difference between them to speak of. On the other hand, the Greens and the Linke, currently with 63 and 64 seats respectively, would hardly be represented at all under an FPTP system. Interestingly, the right-wing Eurosceptic AfD party, Germany's equivalent of UKIP (although to be precise they're anti-Euro rather than anti-EU), still hasn't passed the threshold for Bundestag representation.

[Serial_Apologist]

As for street-marches and demonstrations I still don't think these achieve very much apart from public disruption and damage to property and sometimes the person. Nothing that has been said here has really changed my mind on that

In the name of profit and shareholders capitalism has wrought more damage in terms of public disruption, damage to property, the person and the environment than any street marches or demonstrations that I can think of. But I suppose you think that's all right if it's multimillionaires exercising their rights to go about their business unhindered.

Actually, come to think of it, the business accruing to the plate glass manufacturers and salespersons brought in to replace broken shop windows, and to insurance companies, adds to the wealth creation process that delivers taxes to pay for law enforcement agencies to patrol demonstrations, and run the courts and prisons necessary in the running of a system that makes such institutions necessary.

[ahinton]

Wrong way round. The hope is that getting rid of FPTP witll make it more worthwhile for all parties, whatever their size, to emphasise their differences rather than their similarities.

But as there are far less such differences than once there were, I don't see much likelihood that replacing FPTP will make anything more worthwhile for anyone, which is why I wrote the latter part of my post which you didn't quote!

[ahinton]

In the name of profit and shareholders capitalism has wrought more damage in terms of public disruption, damage to property, the person and the environment than any street marches or demonstrations that I can think of. But I suppose you think that's all right if it's multimillionaires exercising their rights to go about their business unhindered.

Actually, come to think of it, the business accruing to the plate glass manufacturers and salespersons brought in to replace broken shop windows, and to insurance companies, adds to the wealth creation process that delivers taxes to pay for law enforcement agencies to patrol demonstrations, and run the courts and prisons necessary in the running of a system that makes such institutions necessary.

All good points indeed, except perhaps that those law enforcement agencies, courts and prisons will incresingly be run on behalf of government by private companies, as is already happening now just as it is in NHS.

[P. G. Tipps]

So that will mean that one of their purposes, at least in my experience, is completely lost on you - that is, to create and foster solidarity among the participants, the feeling that one is not alone and that there is something worth struggling for, which one can then take away from the event itself and apply in other parts of life. For example, taking part in the famous poll tax demonstration in London in March 1990 convinced me (and no doubt many others) that there was some point in political activism, which I had progressively abandoned since the disappointment of the 1983 general election. (Also that demonstration was an expression of a much more broad-based opposition to the tax up and down the country, which led to the Tories dumping Thatcher later that year, among other things.)

... and it was probably that very infamous 'demo' (more commonly known as the 1990 poll tax riots) which forged my view about street marches as well! Such things tend to get hijacked by anarchist thugs and hooligans intent on attacking the police and damaging private and public property and that's exactly what happened here.

I was opposed to the ridiculous poll-tax as well and you are right that it deservedly brought the downfall of Thatcher, but arguably the riots were a hindrance to that end and, in any case, had(have) no place in a mature, civilised democracy.

The only proper place is the polling booth where, to bring tax things up-to-date, people who, say, oppose the 'bedroom tax' can show their 'solidarity' by them all simply voting Labour at the forthcoming General Election!

Then there is no injury to police officers just doing their job (or their horses) or damage to the property of entirely unconnected third-parties.

That at least is not 'completely lost' on me ...

[Richard Barrett]

that very infamous 'demo' (more commonly known as the 1990 poll tax riots) which forged my view about street marches as well!

On your own admission you weren't there so pardon me if I regard your opinion of it as not worth considering.

[ahinton]

... and it was probably that very infamous 'demo' (more commonly known as the 1990 poll tax riots) which forged my view about street marches as well! Such things tend to get hijacked by anarchist thugs and hooligans intent on attacking the police and damaging private and public property and that's exactly what happened here.

I was opposed to the ridiculous poll-tax as well and you are right that it deservedly brought the downfall of Thatcher, but arguably the riots were a hindrance to that end and, in any case, had(have) no place in a mature, civilised democracy.

It's good that you were opposed to the Poll Tax and that you consider that it deservedly gave rise to Thatcher's downfall, but have you stopped to consider what might have happened had those riots not taken place? Do you believe that the Poll Tax was such an awful policy that it would have imploded (thus hastening Thatcher's political demise) of its own accord? Of course such riots should only be a last resort but, in certain cases, better that than no resort at all. Yes, such events can on occasion risk tending "to get hijacked by anarchist thugs and hooligans intent on attacking the police and damaging private and public property", but these people are usually in the minority among demonstrators who demostrate in genuine support of a cause that might otherwise become a lost one.

The only proper place is the polling booth where, to bring tax things up-to-date, people who, say, oppose the 'bedroom tax' can show their 'solidarity' by them all simply voting Labour at the forthcoming General Election!

So had the Poll Tax (to bring things back in time to your own example) been introduced in the early weeks of governmental office, would you consider it acceptable for all those who roundly opposed it to have to wait patiently and passively for almost five years to make their protest known at the ballot box by voting Labour? Apart from the obvious absurdity of that, such a notion would hardly have gone down well with all those Conservative voters who opposed it! But that's part of the point; your earlier implication that the majority of demonstrators are young students by no means always stands up to scrutiny and there can be no doubt that many hundreds of those who actively opposed the Poll Tax did not fit into that category.

Then there is no injury to police officers just doing their job (or their horses) or damage to the property of entirely unconnected third-parties.

That would depend at least in part upon the behaviour of people going to the polls after having waited for up to five years to do something about it and having put up with the policy/ies concerned throughout that time; their pent-up frustration must surely be obvious.

[ahinton]

On your own admission you weren't there so pardon me if I regard your opinion of it as not worth considering.

Well, apparently some people consider that they need only watch a certain amount of selective reportage of such events on the telly or even the events themselves at a relatively safe distance through their windows in order to become unchallengeable experts on demonstrations, riots, crowd control and all the rest; to my mind, they possess no more moral scruples than the music critic who writes up a concert without having attended it...

[Serial_Apologist]

From personal experience it's probably worth relating that anarchists who destroy proper tea during demonstrations, thus losing ordinary people jobs, have little recognition of the real culprits of power needing organised opposition, and are as often dealing more with the policemen "inside their heads" in the famous Cohen-Bendit (?) quote, as actual police thugs just waiting for a real-life opportunities for truncheon practice. And we shouldn't forget agents provocateurs. Some left groups used to deal with that by an agreed signal on which every other person in a line of linked hands would step back or forewards into the next rank, thereby exposing anyone not in the knowing as a probable police agent. In these respects we were maybe too "liberal" - at one point allowing a BOSS agent (from the S African apartheid secret service) to infiltrate us. He ruined one of the Miles Davis LPs I'd loaned him by leaning it against a radiator, before we uncovered him! But I remember Tariq Ali telling me in genuine sadness about a Maoist organisation whose analysis of the British state as already fascist lead them to attack the police at every opportunity, resulting in 99% of their membership being in prison at any point!

[P. G. Tipps]

On your own admission you weren't there so pardon me if I regard your opinion of it as not worth considering.

I'm not at all bothered what you regard or don't regard worth considering so absolutely no need to request a pardon from me of all people!

Interesting though that you have apparently nothing to say about the 1990 thuggish violence which we all saw on our TV screens though I'd be untruthful if I said I am hugely surprised. Maybe if you had owned a TV you might have seen the same as everyone else when you had arrived home?

On second thoughts, probably not ...