December 13, 2019

Horse 2637 - The General Election Is Broken By Design So That The Tories Will Win

As Britain went to the polls today, over an issue which exists purely to appease racists and xenophobes, the Tories are safe in the knowledge that the measures that they took to kill off the Alternative Vote in that referendum, are now paying handsome dividends.
The Liberal Democrats proposed the Alternative Vote back in 2010 following a hung parliament and the then Cameron Government by proxy ran a propaganda campaign which lied about AV and openly insulted the British public. It was killed off under the justification that it would be too hard to understand, when in actual it has been used in Australia since 1921 and both the Tories and Labour use it internally for their own corporate election processes.
By deliberately leaving the voting process broken for another generation, the Tories will benefit from there being parties on the other side of the divide, who will steal votes off each other.

In the election for the seat of Little Dribbling South with the following votes under the current First Past The Post (most votes wins):
24 - Kitties
24 - Puppies
23 - Bunnies
8 - Mice
21 - BURN ALL THE ANIMALS
Then the winner of the seat with more than three quarters of the electorate voting against them, is for a party which openly hates most of the electorate. Multiply this by 650 and you have the House of Commons. Win 326 seats in the House of Commons and you win government. Simples.

The idiotic thing is that this absurd system (which is perfectly fine for two candidates and no more) is that it results in tactical voting where instead of people voting for who they like, they vote against who they hate and then have to hope that everyone else has voted the same way. That is the reason why despite terrible austerity being imposed downwards (which was horribly embodied with the Grenfell Tower fire) and the city exerting sufficient pressure to get tax cuts for them, the Tories were returned in 2017 and why they will probably be returned  today.
Owing to the fact that the Parliament of the United Kingdom is effectively unicameral for matters of budget¹, then both the power of the cheque book and the spiked mace of racism can be wielded by a government with virtually no legislative restraint.
Those are the underlying reasons why this election was called and the only reason why PMs David Cameron, Teresa May, and Boris Johnson haven't been able to 'get Brexit done'², is because all the people who live in a house of robbers are robbers³.

I do not think that either this election or in fact the entire of Brexit necessarily has anything to do with the practical relationship of Britain with the EU. Brexit in the first place was suggested by UKIP which is nothing more than a veiled racist party and they managed to pull just enough of the Tories to the authoritarian north, to threaten the centre of the party. In response to this and also because of a hung parliament in 2015, the Tories shifted to the authoritarian north and further to the economic right; in full knowledge that they have the permanent blessings of The Times, The Sun, Sky, The Spectator and 'the city'. Also due to the nature of the voting public who very much act like football fans who will support their club regardless of how deliberately scumbaggy they are, what would have been a sensible centre can be reliably ignored or jettisoned, in the same way that American politics has been deliberately operating since 1977.

The 2016 Brexit referendum happened because of the racist right of the Tory Party. The 2017 General Election happened because the Tory Party fractured into factions to compete to see who could be the most racist. The 2019 General Election happened because the various factions who were competing to see who could be the most racist, ended up facing the inherent problem that First Past The Post produces, in that if you can not get a majority then you do not have consensus.
For their part on the other side of the chamber, the Labour Party and parties like the SNP, sat in opposition (as the Opposition) and have been derided in the press for five years, when all they have had to do is say "Not my monkeys and therefore not my circus."

The result which is almost guaranteed to return a Johnson Tory Government with an increased majority, is not because of the competence or good governance of the Tory Party, but rather thanks to the groundwork of previous Tory governments and a helpful media, who benefit from having a Tory Government. The process of the election therefore, remains broken by design.

¹Thanks to the Parliament Act 1911 which forbids the House of Lords to turn down money bills.
²Three word slogans are effective but ugly.
³The word 'Tory' is an Irish word which means 'robbers' and was meant as a perjorative.

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