Besides, many countries don’t recognize inalienable rights. It doesn’t mean they are correct or proper in doing so.
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And they only ever do John Cage covers … well, only one John Cage number, really.
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Do you live in Maidenhead? If not, you never voted for May.
When you vote for President on a US ballot, you are offered a choice of candidates, and you vote for one of them. Because of the electoral college the way your vote gets counted is indirect, certainly, but by any but the most tortured definition of “vote” you are voting for the candidate. This is also the case in, say, France, where citizens vote for the President but not for the PM. The fact that France dropped their electoral college 50 years ago doesn’t mean that voters only started voting for the President at that time.
Strictly speaking, you don’t even vote for your PM indirectly. As in France, he or she is appointed by your head of state. Unlike France, your head of state is not elected by anyone.
In the US, you vote for the people who have pledged, if elected, to put your preferred choice for President in office.
In the UK, we vote for the people who have pledged, if elected, to support in Parliament a government formed by our preferred choice for PM, such support being both necessary and sufficient for our unelected head of state to invite said choice to form a government.
In both countries, the executive is ultimately chosen by popular vote, regardless of the historical trappings attached to the process.
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No, this is just not right. We vote for a candidate. A mechanism then translates that vote into (some fraction of) a proxy for that candidate. The candidate’s name appears on the ballot. That’s what “vote” means. It is not a synonym for “elect”.
OK, let’s try this. Suppose you are a Labour supporter in Barking. When you voted in 2017, did you vote for Margaret Hodge, or for Jeremy Corbyn? I’m pretty sure Hodge’s name was the one on the ballot, not Corbyn’s, and I’m pretty sure many of her supporters would be indignant at being told that they had voted for Corbyn.
Are UK politicians as good at voter suppression as US pols?
Fortunately, due to the magic of the internet, all you have to do is have someone publish the leak in another country first. At leas until Britain finishes her great firewall, that is. At that point you’ve gone full-on Ingsoc, and your best bet is to leave, or start shooting government collaborators.
Much as some of them would like to be, in a word, no.
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You know what, you’re right. When we vote in a Parliamentary election, we only concern ourselves with the personal qualities of our local candidates, not the parties that sponsor them, still less the leaders of those parties. Political parties don’t tie themselves in knots fretting whether a particular potential leader will help or hinder their electoral results nationally; no floating voter ever decided to give Labour a chance because that nice Tony Blair was so much less scary than that old leftie Kinnock, at least not outside Sedgefield. And when the press describe Corbyn as unelectable, they obviously mean in his constituency of Islington North (which is odd, because he’s won nine elections there in a row, but that’s modern journalism for you).
And it’s a good job too, because the Queen just appoints whoever she feels like as PM anyway.
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Though they gave it a damned good shot with EU citizens in the last European elections.
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Well, Neil Basu, let’s clear something up. Is it or isn’t it a criminal matter?
Because that silly phrase just seems designed to put the willies up people.
Please, O World, can we have a functioning non-fucked around with democracy SOMEWHERE??
“But you know, I’ll tell you what: It really shows the people are smart. The people get it. They’ll go through all of whatever it is they’re fed and in the end they pull the right lever. It’s a very, very dangerous situation, so I think I agree something has to be looked at very closely.”
Trump on negative press of him - last week.
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Article 10 of the European Convention for Human Rights (qv The Observer and The Guardian v United Kingdom is a great example of the ECHR ruling against over-use of the OSA.
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And the reasons for this are embedded in a number of the other differences between the UK and the US:
In the nations currently of the UK, registering for elections is controlled by non political local registration boards, who have to check and update the registry on an annual basis.
Also, you are encouraged to update your registration every time you move house, as not being registered to vote will impair your ability to get credit.
Also, gerrymandering is less possible in the UK, because electoral districts are drawn by nonpartisan civil servants with a process for the public to challenge any changes they make to the map.
So as awful as both the US and the UK can be, they both get different things right as well. Now, if only they would copy each other’s successes instead of blindly following in each other’s failures, that would be great.
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Which is of course why the UK is a Parliamentary democracy and not a Presidential democracy. Parliament keeps the PM in check hence the reason Theresa May has got to go. It’s highly unlikely the next PM will not fare better independently of his name.
Good luck to both Johnson and Hunt, good chance they will become famous as the PMs who at once faced most opposition by Westminster i.e. UK Parliament and the one who oversaw the destruction of the Union.
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Let’s play that game in Vauxhall and see who would vote for that lovely, well balanced woman Kate Hoey if she was NOT a Labour candidate.
There is a mathematical conundrum for statisticians. Corbyn won nine elections in Islington North, although most likely any Labour Candidate would have. And Islington North was one of the strongest remain constituencies in the country with 78%.
So praise tell, how are the good people of Islington North going to vote.
According to the article Kinnock was cleared of any wrong doing in the case sited by Private Eye. It would seem reasonable that if you have been cleared of wrong doing in a court of law you can insist that people don’t go around telling falsehoods about you. I am pretty sure it is how the law works in the US as well @d_r.
Kind of irrelevant given that the PM doesn’t have any comparable power to a US President. She is merely head of the government, which in turn is representative of the majority in Parliament. Remember the Iron Lady leaving in tears.
The PM is a big pile of nothing without Parliament, while in the US, Congress is a big pile of nothing without the President. All this we learn by following current politics.
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I’m bemused by this whole thing.
A policeman reminded journalists that they shouldn’t break the law. Which is what policemen should do, no?
He probably could also have reminded them that if they could persuade a court they were doing so in the public interest they’d not suffer any penalty,
And if, however, they couldn’t they would suffer fines or imprisonment…
In this case it seems pretty clear that these were confidential documents covered by the OSA whose release damaged the national interest.
All this stuff about free speech is nonsense.
What the whole affair did make clear, however, is the monumental unsuitability of Johnson for any role whatsoever. He took the opportunity to kiss Trump’s arse over British interests then retracted as soon as there was flak of any kind. Pretty much traitor and coward 101.
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Well, it’s more like the leaker has breached the OSA and can be nicked for it. The paper is just reporting stuff they’d found out. Much as I’d like the Daily Mail prosecuted for simply existing, that’s a non starter, for a variety of very valid reasons.
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That is much to be desired. If only the government would listen to the Daily Fail’s enthusiasm for the death penalty then justice (and irony) could be properly served.
Yes, of course. I can’t speak for @anon62577920’s intentions, I never meant to imply that the US system was in any way better, but it is certainly different, and one of those differences is that we vote for the head of government, while that is not the case in a parliamentary system. The set of checks and balances is different.
Let’s play that game in Vauxhall and see who would vote for that lovely, well balanced woman Kate Hoey if she was NOT a Labour candidate.
I was living in Beverley in '87, and the local Tory MP was an empty shell who ran and won on a platform that he would do anything Maggie told him to. Still, he’s the guy my idiot neighbours voted for, not Maggie. Voting for a party candidate in order to give power to their party leader is pretty common in all systems of representative democracy.
It would seem reasonable that if you have been cleared of wrong doing in a court of law you can insist that people don’t go around telling falsehoods about you. I am pretty sure it is how the law works in the US as well @d_r.
Libel law is pretty restricted in the US because of the 1st amendment; liability for defamation without both criminal intent and malice is unconstitutional. This has been affirmed under several Supreme Court decisions, eg Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. The Kinnock case could not have been won in the US.
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