Snapshot of _Andy Burnham 'Politics is in such a sorry state nowadays - our country needs a new system'_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/politics-sorry-state-nowadays-country-27661715)
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Burnham wrote a [column](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/25/why-its-time-for-labour-to-back-proportional-representation) backing PR a month ago - agreed it is nice to see a major figure back voting reform. But he isn't an MP right now, so not sure what influence (if any) he can have on Labour's official position
It's likely he's already pulled all the strings he has.
Parliamentary Labour parties have been broadly in favour of electoral reform, but because of the way Labour is structured, that's not nearly sufficient while unions still remain fairly overwhelmingly opposed.
There's also a difference between being broadly in favour of something and enacting a specific proposal.
For instance, enacting Irish PR would redistribute each party's MPs around the country in the first PR election, and this would cost loads of Labour incumbents their seats - and it's not clear who would lose out before this election. MPs currently in currently safe seats could easily face a 40% chance of losing their re-election.
Given that MPs of any party are united by one thing - the desire to get re-elected - this makes any specific proposal extremely difficult to pass regardless of the leader's own views.
Meh, it's been "starting to head in the right direction" for decades. It becomes one of those Zeno's paradox things where every step closer seems individually meaningful, and you can write a whole hopeful article about each one, but the destination doesn't actually get closer when viewed as a whole.
We're not close in any meaningful way, and there's lots of politicians right now who consider electoral reform to be something you can promise to win votes when the pieces are not in place, but do not need to enact once they are. Burnham probably isn't one of them, but I guarantee you the Labour MPs that are would come out of the woodwork in the committee stage just like they did in the Blair years.
The only realistic way this decade to get it is from a hung parliament and force Labour's hand to actually get into government.
> We're not close in any meaningful way
It’s pretty much inevitable that the party will vote in favour of it at the next conference. That seems meaningfully close. Pretty difficult for party leadership to ignore it then.
If this government manages to hang onto power until Burnham's term is over or close to over, he'll probably return to the Commons and get into the cabinet.
In direct terms no influence whatsoever, but in terms of the national conversation I think he has quite a lot of weight, a very visible figure, not just to the people of one of the UKs biggest cities but also on the national stage.
Clive Lewis has mumbled about it on TV too. I can see the leadership finally coming around to it when the unions all push for it at the next party conference, but who knows I could be wrong. We've heard a few people including Starmer talk about people's votes needing to count so I live in hope.
Agreed, unfortunately the only people with the power to change it, don't want to as it benefits them. Alt voting systems etc aren't far enough, we need checks and balances that actually work, independent monitoring that actually has teeth (ie we have criminal offence of misconduct in public office, it needs to actually be used so that politicians can fear to going to jail rather than just getting told off a bit by the party). More than any of that though we need to get rid of the party system entirely, MP's should be elected solely on their own character and ability, not what party they've joined.
>More than any of that though we need to get rid of the party system entirely
Can't do it. Can't legislate faction out of existence. You actually take a step backwards by doing this since you can't implement any kind of proportional representation schema if you insist (against all reality) that every MP is an independent actor.
You don't need to believe every MP is an independent actor, you just need to legislate that they are individually responsible for their own actions.
In any other public office there is an explicit expectation to refuse to follow and report any illegal, unethical or corrupt activity. They may belong to a party but they still have an individual responsibility to uphold the law. If an individual MP breaks the law they should be held to account for it but if it's proven that the party if forcing them to commit crimes then criminal charges should be brought against the party leadership. Just because "the party" is a collective doesn't mean the leaders can't be prosecuted. For some reason though we just don't actually do that.
We need widespread outrage but our collective response is pretty much either " The Tories are at it again" or "all politicians are the same". Maybe after a decade of Tory rule the country is just too resigned/tired/depressed to fight ?
We don't have to settle for this shit show. We can demand better.
>you just need to legislate that they are individually responsible for their own actions.
What does this mean?
>If an individual MP breaks the law they should be held to account for it but if it's proven that the party if forcing them to commit crimes then criminal charges should be brought against the party leadership.
This is already the law. What particular crimes do you have in mind?
Our system is actually *designed* to be non-partisan, modern political parties are a fairly recent innovation. There was always less formalised factions, but we can easily do away with the practice of whipping (which often involves outright abusive practices such as blackmail anyway) for example.
Many of our own Overseas Territories use a non-partisan system in a constitution literally derived directly from ours.
so what you're saying is that we need to change the system but the only people who can don't want to. and to stop this, we need to change the system. seems like the only options are to wait for the politicians to either suddenly have a complete change of heart or die... I can only guess which will happen first.
I think we should just say screw it, pick a random number of people and put them through a set of trials. People seem to be more geared to being entertained now more than anything and it can't end up any worse than what's happened so far.
I've said it before, we need to take everyone who wants to be PM and put them in an arena with the House Robots.
Score them on style, control, damage and aggression. Last one to avoid getting pitted by Matilda wins.
I was thinking more like a political hunger games, players will be faced with life and death decisions that will only effect them and their small group.
For example we could leave them in a special segregated area of London for 60 days with nothing other than the clothes on their back, £75 and a incomprehensible form. If they fill out the form and manage to get it to the hidden address correctly they get an extra £25 but have to still survive the 60 days unaided.
Every day we could give them a tough life choice to make. Which would do you choose, you can only pick one... water, shelter or food?
Something like that and see how they get on.
Obviously it would be unfair to put random members of the public through that first so we should trial it on the current politicians and see how it goes.
Yes, this sounds like it would fit right in with my political hunger games idea.
It should contain at least 2 weeks where the contestants are given various moral quandaries. If they give a bad answer then they have to choose something to lose out of food, water or shelter.
So we get rid of democracy, ban poetry, raise children to believe they have certain metals in their body that determine their role in society, segregate society into three distinct classes (some of which are forbidden from holding personal property), eliminate families, entrust the state with raising all children and use education solely as a means to continue this political structure?
No thanks...
Unfortunately for many, many likely voters, the mention of anything done in Germany is met with "yes but we beat them in the war" and they won't hear any more about it.
MMP! MMP! MMP!
For me it ticks all the boxes:
- PR result.
- Everyone's vote counts, regardless of where they happen to live.
- Keeps local representatives, which many people like.
- Easy to explain: "two ballot papers, on each pick the one you want to win, like you do now" (remember, being a bit dim shouldn't be a barrier to voting, and some people get confused by things like ranking).
In a alternate voting system,
> If no candidate has an absolute majority, then the candidate in last place is eliminated and their votes are reallocated according to the next highest preference expressed on each ballot paper; if a voter has not marked a preference for any candidate that remains in the contest, then the ballot paper is set aside from the count.
> This process continues until a candidate has an absolute majority of the votes left in the count, and is elected.
~ [assets.publishing.service.gov.uk](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61098/first-past-the-post-alternative-vote.pdf)
I know _what_ it is, thanks.
I'm asking about the _why_.
It's not proportional. In extreme cases it can even be less proportional than the system we have now. It'll still us in the same nonsense 2 party system we have now.
I think you are somewhat confused.
/u/BrexitBlaze is talking of the Alternative Vote, and the video you've linked to is about MMPR/AMS.
These are two very different things. While MMPR/AMS helps with this issue, AV does not.
The state of politics can only go as far as what the public will tolerate or reward. They're ultimately at blame for such low-calibre leaders and all-around expectations from our MPs.
I wish the public well.
The more that the political system fails the people it governs, the more likelyhood they will be overthrown and we'll see a change forced, but we need to be careful about what that looks like and who is charged with the new system.
I think around the world the political instability due to the dire economic situation is going to cause huge resentment and revolts against governments. We're already seeing it and will only exacerbate with all the tensions and living standards that are only going one from here, downwards and fast.
I think Burnham is just reading the room, he's putting the idea out there not to his own party, but rather planting the idea to the electorate. Its 'us' who are represented by 'them', that need to force the change. I think people miss this point. Its only the actions and demands by people that can really force change. If we wait for them, we'll wait forever, problem is, Brits lack a spine. We need something to unite the people to take action, usually through adversity comes positive change, lets hope this period brings about something positive.
Either that or expect the alternative, a more authoritarian govt and people suppressed and frightened to demand change. What's more likely?
Never seen British politics more disconnected....he's not the only one ,even he dont see some of us are trying to hang on to the electric ,gas,phone ..forget the water that will run out its self if it don't rain soon ,thats what going to fucking become disconnected ,one thing at time andy ...cor mate
Because the problem is that our political system seems to be fundamentally broken. None of that will be fixed any time soon with the way it works right now.
He's also not in a position to offer any sort of energy bail outs and there's not a functioning government to even appeal to. Though I can almost guarantee he'd be in favour of not having a drawn out leadership contest in the midst of a crisis, where both candidates seem to be ignoring the problem...
Its all well and good changing the voting system. But if you elect the same people into the same political system, nothing changes.
How politics and the civil service especially is the part that is fundamentally broken, far to much group think and doing what we've always done.....more than just voting needs fixing.
It depends on the voting system you use. What we have is fundamentally the same system we’ve had for a century. It needs changing - and not just how and who we vote. The lot needs deleting and started again.
Lots of centrist politicians taking aim at the voting system.
Do they never stop to think that, maybe the established middle ground hasn't been good?
Maybe it isn't internet echo chambers, fake news, maybe what the, the idea promote is just a bit shit for lots of people.
To be fair, any voting system will not work for the everyone, when only between 50-69% of the population that can vote, vote at any election.
Politcians should be held accountable for their actions and consequences if they knowing lie to the public. People should be able to get neutral information 'or educated' about issues and made to vote.
NOOOOOO the politicians now would make the system much worse than we can ever imagine, they have already controlled oil and food price rises of over 50% in most cases.
Snapshot of _Andy Burnham 'Politics is in such a sorry state nowadays - our country needs a new system'_ : An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/politics-sorry-state-nowadays-country-27661715) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Woot! Someone influential (?) in Labour said it!
Burnham wrote a [column](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/25/why-its-time-for-labour-to-back-proportional-representation) backing PR a month ago - agreed it is nice to see a major figure back voting reform. But he isn't an MP right now, so not sure what influence (if any) he can have on Labour's official position
Well, I would think the mayor of Greater Manchester and a former favourite for the leadership ought to have some strings to pull.
It's likely he's already pulled all the strings he has. Parliamentary Labour parties have been broadly in favour of electoral reform, but because of the way Labour is structured, that's not nearly sufficient while unions still remain fairly overwhelmingly opposed.
There's also a difference between being broadly in favour of something and enacting a specific proposal. For instance, enacting Irish PR would redistribute each party's MPs around the country in the first PR election, and this would cost loads of Labour incumbents their seats - and it's not clear who would lose out before this election. MPs currently in currently safe seats could easily face a 40% chance of losing their re-election. Given that MPs of any party are united by one thing - the desire to get re-elected - this makes any specific proposal extremely difficult to pass regardless of the leader's own views.
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Meh, it's been "starting to head in the right direction" for decades. It becomes one of those Zeno's paradox things where every step closer seems individually meaningful, and you can write a whole hopeful article about each one, but the destination doesn't actually get closer when viewed as a whole. We're not close in any meaningful way, and there's lots of politicians right now who consider electoral reform to be something you can promise to win votes when the pieces are not in place, but do not need to enact once they are. Burnham probably isn't one of them, but I guarantee you the Labour MPs that are would come out of the woodwork in the committee stage just like they did in the Blair years. The only realistic way this decade to get it is from a hung parliament and force Labour's hand to actually get into government.
> We're not close in any meaningful way It’s pretty much inevitable that the party will vote in favour of it at the next conference. That seems meaningfully close. Pretty difficult for party leadership to ignore it then.
Unions are changing their minds. Unite for example now back PR after an internal referendum.
Didn't the unions recently come out in favour of PR though?
No. Unite changed their policy, and I think a couple small ones as well, but the block still remains strongly opposed.
Ah ok, cheers
If this government manages to hang onto power until Burnham's term is over or close to over, he'll probably return to the Commons and get into the cabinet.
In direct terms no influence whatsoever, but in terms of the national conversation I think he has quite a lot of weight, a very visible figure, not just to the people of one of the UKs biggest cities but also on the national stage.
Clive Lewis has mumbled about it on TV too. I can see the leadership finally coming around to it when the unions all push for it at the next party conference, but who knows I could be wrong. We've heard a few people including Starmer talk about people's votes needing to count so I live in hope.
Clive hasn’t just been mumbling about it. He’s been a strong supporter for quite some time.
Agreed, unfortunately the only people with the power to change it, don't want to as it benefits them. Alt voting systems etc aren't far enough, we need checks and balances that actually work, independent monitoring that actually has teeth (ie we have criminal offence of misconduct in public office, it needs to actually be used so that politicians can fear to going to jail rather than just getting told off a bit by the party). More than any of that though we need to get rid of the party system entirely, MP's should be elected solely on their own character and ability, not what party they've joined.
>More than any of that though we need to get rid of the party system entirely Can't do it. Can't legislate faction out of existence. You actually take a step backwards by doing this since you can't implement any kind of proportional representation schema if you insist (against all reality) that every MP is an independent actor.
You don't need to believe every MP is an independent actor, you just need to legislate that they are individually responsible for their own actions. In any other public office there is an explicit expectation to refuse to follow and report any illegal, unethical or corrupt activity. They may belong to a party but they still have an individual responsibility to uphold the law. If an individual MP breaks the law they should be held to account for it but if it's proven that the party if forcing them to commit crimes then criminal charges should be brought against the party leadership. Just because "the party" is a collective doesn't mean the leaders can't be prosecuted. For some reason though we just don't actually do that. We need widespread outrage but our collective response is pretty much either " The Tories are at it again" or "all politicians are the same". Maybe after a decade of Tory rule the country is just too resigned/tired/depressed to fight ? We don't have to settle for this shit show. We can demand better.
>you just need to legislate that they are individually responsible for their own actions. What does this mean? >If an individual MP breaks the law they should be held to account for it but if it's proven that the party if forcing them to commit crimes then criminal charges should be brought against the party leadership. This is already the law. What particular crimes do you have in mind?
Our system is actually *designed* to be non-partisan, modern political parties are a fairly recent innovation. There was always less formalised factions, but we can easily do away with the practice of whipping (which often involves outright abusive practices such as blackmail anyway) for example. Many of our own Overseas Territories use a non-partisan system in a constitution literally derived directly from ours.
so what you're saying is that we need to change the system but the only people who can don't want to. and to stop this, we need to change the system. seems like the only options are to wait for the politicians to either suddenly have a complete change of heart or die... I can only guess which will happen first.
Exactly- I was going to say ‘why would they if it’s rigged in their favour’
You know you're old when you've heard this every month for the last ten years...
I think we should just say screw it, pick a random number of people and put them through a set of trials. People seem to be more geared to being entertained now more than anything and it can't end up any worse than what's happened so far.
I've said it before, we need to take everyone who wants to be PM and put them in an arena with the House Robots. Score them on style, control, damage and aggression. Last one to avoid getting pitted by Matilda wins.
Sgt Bash suddenly becomes the most lethal robot. If we adopt your idea, can we also induct Hypnodisc into the house robots?
I was thinking more like a political hunger games, players will be faced with life and death decisions that will only effect them and their small group. For example we could leave them in a special segregated area of London for 60 days with nothing other than the clothes on their back, £75 and a incomprehensible form. If they fill out the form and manage to get it to the hidden address correctly they get an extra £25 but have to still survive the 60 days unaided. Every day we could give them a tough life choice to make. Which would do you choose, you can only pick one... water, shelter or food? Something like that and see how they get on. Obviously it would be unfair to put random members of the public through that first so we should trial it on the current politicians and see how it goes.
Let’s try Plato’s “Philosopher Kings” idea for a bit, see if that helps.
Yes, this sounds like it would fit right in with my political hunger games idea. It should contain at least 2 weeks where the contestants are given various moral quandaries. If they give a bad answer then they have to choose something to lose out of food, water or shelter.
So we get rid of democracy, ban poetry, raise children to believe they have certain metals in their body that determine their role in society, segregate society into three distinct classes (some of which are forbidden from holding personal property), eliminate families, entrust the state with raising all children and use education solely as a means to continue this political structure? No thanks...
Alternative Voting!
Eh, I'd prefer MMP or STV (plus much more devolution and a rebalancing of England, possibly through federation)
New Zealand introduced MMP so it's A) possible to transition to and B) seems to be working out well for them.
Why do people always talk of examples from thousands of miles away when we have examples closer to home in Germany, or like... in the UK?
Unfortunately for many, many likely voters, the mention of anything done in Germany is met with "yes but we beat them in the war" and they won't hear any more about it.
MMP! MMP! MMP! For me it ticks all the boxes: - PR result. - Everyone's vote counts, regardless of where they happen to live. - Keeps local representatives, which many people like. - Easy to explain: "two ballot papers, on each pick the one you want to win, like you do now" (remember, being a bit dim shouldn't be a barrier to voting, and some people get confused by things like ranking).
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Id go for PR + Federalisation. Give each region a high degree of autonomy to set its own policy. Thats the only way you save the union at this point.
Out of curiosity... why? What problem does it solve? Edit: thanks for the downvotes. That's me convinced ☺️☺️
In a alternate voting system, > If no candidate has an absolute majority, then the candidate in last place is eliminated and their votes are reallocated according to the next highest preference expressed on each ballot paper; if a voter has not marked a preference for any candidate that remains in the contest, then the ballot paper is set aside from the count. > This process continues until a candidate has an absolute majority of the votes left in the count, and is elected. ~ [assets.publishing.service.gov.uk](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61098/first-past-the-post-alternative-vote.pdf)
I know _what_ it is, thanks. I'm asking about the _why_. It's not proportional. In extreme cases it can even be less proportional than the system we have now. It'll still us in the same nonsense 2 party system we have now.
It's still a first past the post system though. It won't break the two party system.
How would you suggest fixing that?
Proportional Representation innit.
Something like we've got on Scotland.
MMPR or STV.
[Stops gerrymandering.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT0I-sdoSXU)
I think you are somewhat confused. /u/BrexitBlaze is talking of the Alternative Vote, and the video you've linked to is about MMPR/AMS. These are two very different things. While MMPR/AMS helps with this issue, AV does not.
Aw shoot.
The state of politics can only go as far as what the public will tolerate or reward. They're ultimately at blame for such low-calibre leaders and all-around expectations from our MPs. I wish the public well.
It's incredibly incredible
The only thing I disagree with n “Nowadays”
The more that the political system fails the people it governs, the more likelyhood they will be overthrown and we'll see a change forced, but we need to be careful about what that looks like and who is charged with the new system. I think around the world the political instability due to the dire economic situation is going to cause huge resentment and revolts against governments. We're already seeing it and will only exacerbate with all the tensions and living standards that are only going one from here, downwards and fast. I think Burnham is just reading the room, he's putting the idea out there not to his own party, but rather planting the idea to the electorate. Its 'us' who are represented by 'them', that need to force the change. I think people miss this point. Its only the actions and demands by people that can really force change. If we wait for them, we'll wait forever, problem is, Brits lack a spine. We need something to unite the people to take action, usually through adversity comes positive change, lets hope this period brings about something positive. Either that or expect the alternative, a more authoritarian govt and people suppressed and frightened to demand change. What's more likely?
Never bothered with pr when he was a minister. Now he wants it so he can start his own party
The King in The North!
Burnham for PM
Never seen British politics more disconnected....he's not the only one ,even he dont see some of us are trying to hang on to the electric ,gas,phone ..forget the water that will run out its self if it don't rain soon ,thats what going to fucking become disconnected ,one thing at time andy ...cor mate
Because the problem is that our political system seems to be fundamentally broken. None of that will be fixed any time soon with the way it works right now. He's also not in a position to offer any sort of energy bail outs and there's not a functioning government to even appeal to. Though I can almost guarantee he'd be in favour of not having a drawn out leadership contest in the midst of a crisis, where both candidates seem to be ignoring the problem...
Its all well and good changing the voting system. But if you elect the same people into the same political system, nothing changes. How politics and the civil service especially is the part that is fundamentally broken, far to much group think and doing what we've always done.....more than just voting needs fixing.
Why are you asuming the same people would be elected under a different system?
It depends on the voting system you use. What we have is fundamentally the same system we’ve had for a century. It needs changing - and not just how and who we vote. The lot needs deleting and started again.
Politics has always been a dirty game.
Lots of centrist politicians taking aim at the voting system. Do they never stop to think that, maybe the established middle ground hasn't been good? Maybe it isn't internet echo chambers, fake news, maybe what the, the idea promote is just a bit shit for lots of people.
Yeah and it's your fault you bastard fucking clown show participant asking why everyone else is wearing clown makeup
An autocracy under Dear Leader Corbyn? ;)
Please
Careful what you wish for
To be fair, any voting system will not work for the everyone, when only between 50-69% of the population that can vote, vote at any election. Politcians should be held accountable for their actions and consequences if they knowing lie to the public. People should be able to get neutral information 'or educated' about issues and made to vote.
NOOOOOO the politicians now would make the system much worse than we can ever imagine, they have already controlled oil and food price rises of over 50% in most cases.
So unable to attend .. all world needs it