michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Jan 19, 2020 0:11:53 GMT
Germany is 7th by GDP per capita. On that measure the UK isn't even in the top ten and explains our comparative standard of living given the strength of our economy on the global stage. I'm not sure any of us would describe Luxemberg as the richest county in Europe.On the standard GDP measure Germany is the top dog in Europe followed by the UK with France very close behind. Surely if the people in a country are generally wealthy, one could consider that country to be rich? I wouldn't say for example, that most people living in India enjoy a high standard of living and yet its overall output is very high (7th in the world) largely because there are so many people. GDP per capita there is ranked 120th in the world which is quite some difference. I suppose what I'm trying to say is surely the number of people in a country doesn't really contribute to its "richness". Maybe this is a mini debate about our mutual understanding (or lack of in my case!) of language or economic terminology. I'm not sure.
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Jan 19, 2020 10:03:15 GMT
Interesting look at the evidence here: www.fairvote.ca/a-look-at-the-evidence/So, returning to the bernythedolt suggestion of a link between PR and poorer economic performance, and using the definition of GDP per capita as suggested: "In fact, 9/10 of the top economic performers in the OECD with the highest GDP per capita use proportional representation." Lots of other interesting figures in this report: e.g. "when Knutsen (2011) looked at a much longer historical period involving 3,710 country-years of data covering 107 countries from 1820 to 2002, he found that proportional and semi-proportional systems produced an “astonishingly robust” and “quite substantial” increase in economic growth – a one percentage point increase – compared to winner-take-all systems. Knutsen suggests that this may be because PR tends to promote broad-interest policies rather than special interest policies; and because PR systems produce more stable and thus more credible economic policies. He concludes that PR and semi-PR systems generate more prosperity than winner-take-all systems."
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Jan 19, 2020 10:11:28 GMT
Point taken about Germany. Luckily, I didn't submit the thesis... Back to our own parliament though, we seem to have bred the most argumentative and confrontational politicians. Quoting adrianc , " nobody wanted to even consider any kind of negotiated consensus. The voices shouting all belonged to extremists who refused to consider any kind of compromise." The problem for PR here in the UK is negotiated consensus and compromise are pretty much the fundamental bedrock of PR, so could we ever make it work here? Perhaps there's something peculiar to the British psyche which rules it out for us! A separate consideration: once PR is in place, it is very difficult to throw it out and go back to the two predominant party FPTP. Has that ever been achieved anywhere in the world? Germany once tried and failed. The minority parties would never vote to give up their power. I may have misunderstood, but I believe Italy's PR parliament has pretty much ground to a halt, mirroring what we saw here pre-election, yet there's no way to escape the logjam PR has landed them in. I refer you to 2010-15 - even with the current psyche it worked then. And we should be trying to change the psyche that led to the more recent inability to seek consensus. We are about to see the havoc that the failure to seek a Brexit consensus can cause.
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Jan 19, 2020 10:28:29 GMT
Point taken about Germany. Luckily, I didn't submit the thesis... Back to our own parliament though, we seem to have bred the most argumentative and confrontational politicians. Quoting adrianc , " nobody wanted to even consider any kind of negotiated consensus. The voices shouting all belonged to extremists who refused to consider any kind of compromise." The problem for PR here in the UK is negotiated consensus and compromise are pretty much the fundamental bedrock of PR, so could we ever make it work here? Perhaps there's something peculiar to the British psyche which rules it out for us! A separate consideration: once PR is in place, it is very difficult to throw it out and go back to the two predominant party FPTP. Has that ever been achieved anywhere in the world? Germany once tried and failed. The minority parties would never vote to give up their power. I may have misunderstood, but I believe Italy's PR parliament has pretty much ground to a halt, mirroring what we saw here pre-election, yet there's no way to escape the logjam PR has landed them in. The Italians went from a pure party list system to a 75% FPTP in the 90s - but maintained the proportional top up. The fact that countries don't generally return to FPTP having left it might also be telling us that the change was a success. If FPTP is the superior system, why didn't we use it when we designed the new Scottish, Welsh, Irish and London government electoral systems? I would suggest it is because the argument is basically won and that it is merely a matter of time before we reform the Westminster FPTP system - most likely when the Tories next lose an election (so could be a long time, especially if/when Scotland and perhaps N Ireland leave the UK).
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 19, 2020 14:15:50 GMT
Interesting look at the evidence here: www.fairvote.ca/a-look-at-the-evidence/So, returning to the bernythedolt suggestion of a link between PR and poorer economic performance, and using the definition of GDP per capita as suggested: "In fact, 9/10 of the top economic performers in the OECD with the highest GDP per capita use proportional representation." Lots of other interesting figures in this report: e.g. "when Knutsen (2011) looked at a much longer historical period involving 3,710 country-years of data covering 107 countries from 1820 to 2002, he found that proportional and semi-proportional systems produced an “astonishingly robust” and “quite substantial” increase in economic growth – a one percentage point increase – compared to winner-take-all systems. Knutsen suggests that this may be because PR tends to promote broad-interest policies rather than special interest policies; and because PR systems produce more stable and thus more credible economic policies. He concludes that PR and semi-PR systems generate more prosperity than winner-take-all systems." Interesting stuff, but evidence from a group campaigning for PR in Canada is hardly independent evidence, so should be taken with a pinch of salt. I also note their use of 'GDP per capita' which, as dan1 points out above, is not a particularly realistic metric. Knutsen looks compelling though, at face value.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jan 19, 2020 14:18:18 GMT
Point taken about Germany. Luckily, I didn't submit the thesis... Back to our own parliament though, we seem to have bred the most argumentative and confrontational politicians. Quoting adrianc , " nobody wanted to even consider any kind of negotiated consensus. The voices shouting all belonged to extremists who refused to consider any kind of compromise." The problem for PR here in the UK is negotiated consensus and compromise are pretty much the fundamental bedrock of PR, so could we ever make it work here? Perhaps there's something peculiar to the British psyche which rules it out for us! A separate consideration: once PR is in place, it is very difficult to throw it out and go back to the two predominant party FPTP. Has that ever been achieved anywhere in the world? Germany once tried and failed. The minority parties would never vote to give up their power. I may have misunderstood, but I believe Italy's PR parliament has pretty much ground to a halt, mirroring what we saw here pre-election, yet there's no way to escape the logjam PR has landed them in. The Italians went from a pure party list system to a 75% FPTP in the 90s - but maintained the proportional top up. The fact that countries don't generally return to FPTP having left it might also be telling us that the change was a success. If FPTP is the superior system, why didn't we use it when we designed the new Scottish, Welsh, Irish and London government electoral systems? I would suggest it is because the argument is basically won and that it is merely a matter of time before we reform the Westminster FPTP system - most likely when the Tories next lose an election (so could be a long time, especially if/when Scotland and perhaps N Ireland leave the UK). No reversion from PR may imply success. Equally it may be too difficult to achieve, as Germany found when they tried. Holding up Welsh and Scots as exemplars does not support the PR cause - they now have a worse record on health and education than England, for instance. Scotland used to be stronger, prior. Also the Welsh, Scots and London assemblies are not PR systems, they are hybrid, with the majority of seats chosen by FPTP and a smaller number by PR. I can't help observing that with the exception of Germany (hybrid), none of the strongest, wealthiest and most influential nations on Earth like USA, China, UK, France, Canada, Japan, Russia, S.Korea use PR, whereas the weaker countries in South America & Europe for example are mostly PR. To my mind, the empirical evidence doesn't seem to support PR that strongly. Having said all that, and contrary to appearances 😉, I don't actually have a really STRONG preference for FPTP or PR either way, because each has its merits, and I will endeavour to keep an open mind.
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cb25
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Post by cb25 on Apr 4, 2020 9:56:56 GMT
I find trying to remember the point of having a Labour party harder than remembering life before Coronavirus. Anyway, the new leader is Sir Keir Starmer, with Angela Rayner as deputy leader ( BBC)
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Apr 4, 2020 10:13:02 GMT
I find trying to remember the point of having a Labour party harder than remembering life before Coronavirus. Anyway, the new leader is Sir Keir Starmer, with Angela Rayner as deputy leader ( BBC) Starmer (56%), Long-Bailey (27%) Lisa Nandy (16%) - does this mean the Labour party is only a quarter lunatic now then?
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Apr 4, 2020 11:01:50 GMT
I find trying to remember the point of having a Labour party harder than remembering life before Coronavirus. Anyway, the new leader is Sir Keir Starmer, with Angela Rayner as deputy leader ( BBC) Well, hope springs eternal, but I hope we slowly remember the point. I was awake for 3+ hours last night (I'm sleeping really poorly at the moment), idly reflecting mostly on how our political leaders have done so far in this crisis and where this leaves us. At the outset, I felt a sense of putting aside petty squabbles for the sake of a real national crisis. The UK's approach was divergent from most (but not all) of the rest of the World, and people had their doubts, but ultimately there was belief that they were being led by science, and they were to some extent. As the days rolled by, and death counts rose and rose, I think those doubts started to be voiced. Then voiced more loudly. What makes the UK different? What makes us exceptional in still having bars and restaurants open? This was perhaps especially acute for me already being under quarantine in Spain. Clamours grew to see the science/models supporting this approach, until on about 9th March, they said what they were, and it was as if the moment they were exposed to light they melted away, immediately shown as having the somewhat major flaw of involving the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in a short space of time. I remember feeling really disappointed by this. Unfortunately, with hindsight, it now seems we wasted valuable days (it probably only was a few days, but that counts) in trying to make an 'easy' option work, as if the inevitable downside consequences could be wished away, perhaps wishing it were too because it would be so much more economically expedient to do so too. Now I feel we're in a second phase of this. It feels a bit like a political crisis in extreme fast forward. Testing numbers are vaguely promised to be ramped up, and aren't. Again and again. Once again I've made the journey from assuming the best really is being done in a genuine crisis and been disappointed. Yet should we be surprised? Through the nightmare of recent political history, we've ended up with a journalist gadabout PM and a cabinet with many and varied issues. In hindsight, the approach to this crisis so far unfortunately fits this all too well. Options have been chosen because they look the easiest and most popular to do, not because they're the right ones. Now, easy soundbites have been given rather than the actual hard work of leading being done. Each phase so far seems to have required popular national opinion to drag our leaders kicking and screaming to do the necessary work. This isn't intended as a party political rant - I certainly wouldn't have fancied Corbyn in charge of this. I would have preferred any UK PM + team of recent history though - Cameron, Blair, Major. Anyway, perhaps if the opposition can rebuild themselves, they can help hold the Government to account more quickly and perhaps in a time like this more constructively. In fact, there's immediate evidence that this will be the case, as apparently Bojo has immediately invited the leaders of the opposition to a national emergency meeting. We remain in crisis now of course, so aside from occasional light relief, there's still no thirst for blood (from me anyway) just a desire to do this as well as possible from hereonin. I hope for 2 related things from them - firstly that the UK Government gets their act together on this after having been shaken up by recent events, and secondly that when this eventually fades and 'normal' life resumes, that the Government approaches its work in a distinctly less hubristic and casual manner. That when consequences are laid out on paper, that those actually are seen as consequences and not a fun debating society jape. I think this situation probably has/will changed things. For one, I can't see the public putting up with any political caper for which stockpiling is, yet again, a recommended course of action. I've no illusions that Brexit won't still be going ahead as planned btw (albeit delayed), but I do hope their thirst for drama and rhetoric over content will be rebalanced somewhat. If Keir + co can help that process, so much more the better - the very best of luck to him!
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