The good news in Poland versus the bad news elsewhere: why we should watch out for how the populist right is now defining “multiculturalism” Finally, some good news internationally. The Law and Justice party of Poland, a populist right organisation that has presided over a decline in the separation of powers, the sinking of state owned media into a cheerleader for the governing party, and a weakening of Poland’s position within the European Union, has been defeated by a coalition of parties who will form a new government, led by Donald Tusk. It is a triumph for common sense, the rule of law and democracy - and a defeat for Putin and the forces of darkness.
"Supporters of first past the post might chime in here to say that Law and Justice would have won under a FPTP election. They might have, but they very well might not have. People tend to vote very differently under different electoral systems, as those who support both FPTP and PR systems constantly tell us, at least until it doesn’t suit either of their immediate campaigning interests."
Actually, under a FPTP system PiS ( Law & Justice) would probably have won more considerably more seats than their 36% would have merited. This may have resulted in an overall majority. Blair achieved an overall majority of 40 seats on that % in 2005. While PR voting would probably change the number of parties on offer, it can also leave the overall picture remarkably stable. A good illustration of this would be NZ where they changed from FPTP to a PR system. Germany's national parties have been little changing for decades except for the rise into 20% support of one that can be traced back to the nazi's, the AFD. But the AFD like Wilders on 15% in Netherlands, will not find partner parties to work with.
PiS would have done better under FPTP because as the largest right wing party and the largest party, their votes will have been more broadly spread across more seats and FPTP is hundreds of little elections where you only have to beat all of your other disparate opponents with their split votes, by one more vote than any of the others. It suits Pis and the Tories, while progressive votes are piled up concentrated in the smaller number of urban areas, useless and wasted as the majorities are swelled higher. This is essentially why the Dems always beat the Gop in USA in vote share but the FPTP on steroids, the Electoral College makes Gop competitive on seats.
Democracy is the will of the people. It is not the will of little majorities in the highest number of constituencies with arbitrary boundaries, while ignoring the greater majority of actual voters.
FPTP voting combined with our uncodified constitution has enable two great Tory economic madcap failed experiments to be perpetuated on the British people which no broad coalition would have enabled. Monetarism in '81-2 and it's fallout, the ideology of Hayek and Milton Friedman killed thousands of firms and millions of jobs, while impoverishing much of the country.. Some towns and small cities never recovered. More recently Truss's 6 weeks as PM, avoided all studies and scrutiny and seeked to borrow unsustainably for tax cuts for the wealthy and Corporations, using the language of extreme markets, only to be punished by those actual markets, vastly increasing the cost of mortgages, plus consumer and business credit. The perpetuator behind the politicians in both sad cases, one Prof. Patrick Minford, now in his 80's.
No wonder the Tories love FPTP and our uncodified constitution. It enables someone like Johnson to come to power with an enormous majority based on 43% of the vote, to start to crush all checks and balances or opposition in his burning desire to become world king. Courts, the Electoral Commission, voting systems for mayors and Police Commissioners, Parliamentary scruntineers, donations, expenses, protocol, fascistic loyalty agreements and appointments. All a trashing or manipulation, much as what his mirror image Trump was doing as President. Then within one 5 year term, Truss attempted her terrible Minford experiment No.2, to wreck the economy.
I don't think you can say Truss used the "language of extreme markets" - as I'm not sure there is any language as such, (markets are non ideological). The markets didn't like Truss/Kwarteng at the start, and didn't like them at the end. They correctly and rationally identified an attempt at Brexit fuelled ideology (we promised growth and tax cuts, so that's what you're gonna get) - and it's likely consequence of a disastrous inflationary boom/bust. In other words. the markets were just rationally protecting their investments - which is what we all seek to do if we're honest.
Much more relevant is the crowbarring of an ideological hard Brexit on the country by a vociferous minority.
Mark, I think I should have said extreme marketisation, or hyper capitalism, with vulture capitalism along for the ride. They want extreme deregulation, low taxes on the rich, to abolish the welfare state, make unions illegal etc
Except I would call much of that market/capitalism legalised abuse - just as the 2009 crash was caused by egregious abuse of derivatives. (I also remember the 1987 crash as synonymous with all sorts of speculative spivery.) Proper capitalism depends on vigilant regulation - which is also an evolutionary process. An example of this is the now widespread acceptance of independent central banks as part of capitalist economic orthodoxy. Of course, this is one of the things the ideological Brexiteers are now railing against.
"Supporters of first past the post might chime in here to say that Law and Justice would have won under a FPTP election. They might have, but they very well might not have. People tend to vote very differently under different electoral systems, as those who support both FPTP and PR systems constantly tell us, at least until it doesn’t suit either of their immediate campaigning interests."
Actually, under a FPTP system PiS ( Law & Justice) would probably have won more considerably more seats than their 36% would have merited. This may have resulted in an overall majority. Blair achieved an overall majority of 40 seats on that % in 2005. While PR voting would probably change the number of parties on offer, it can also leave the overall picture remarkably stable. A good illustration of this would be NZ where they changed from FPTP to a PR system. Germany's national parties have been little changing for decades except for the rise into 20% support of one that can be traced back to the nazi's, the AFD. But the AFD like Wilders on 15% in Netherlands, will not find partner parties to work with.
PiS would have done better under FPTP because as the largest right wing party and the largest party, their votes will have been more broadly spread across more seats and FPTP is hundreds of little elections where you only have to beat all of your other disparate opponents with their split votes, by one more vote than any of the others. It suits Pis and the Tories, while progressive votes are piled up concentrated in the smaller number of urban areas, useless and wasted as the majorities are swelled higher. This is essentially why the Dems always beat the Gop in USA in vote share but the FPTP on steroids, the Electoral College makes Gop competitive on seats.
Democracy is the will of the people. It is not the will of little majorities in the highest number of constituencies with arbitrary boundaries, while ignoring the greater majority of actual voters.
FPTP voting combined with our uncodified constitution has enable two great Tory economic madcap failed experiments to be perpetuated on the British people which no broad coalition would have enabled. Monetarism in '81-2 and it's fallout, the ideology of Hayek and Milton Friedman killed thousands of firms and millions of jobs, while impoverishing much of the country.. Some towns and small cities never recovered. More recently Truss's 6 weeks as PM, avoided all studies and scrutiny and seeked to borrow unsustainably for tax cuts for the wealthy and Corporations, using the language of extreme markets, only to be punished by those actual markets, vastly increasing the cost of mortgages, plus consumer and business credit. The perpetuator behind the politicians in both sad cases, one Prof. Patrick Minford, now in his 80's.
No wonder the Tories love FPTP and our uncodified constitution. It enables someone like Johnson to come to power with an enormous majority based on 43% of the vote, to start to crush all checks and balances or opposition in his burning desire to become world king. Courts, the Electoral Commission, voting systems for mayors and Police Commissioners, Parliamentary scruntineers, donations, expenses, protocol, fascistic loyalty agreements and appointments. All a trashing or manipulation, much as what his mirror image Trump was doing as President. Then within one 5 year term, Truss attempted her terrible Minford experiment No.2, to wreck the economy.
I don't think you can say Truss used the "language of extreme markets" - as I'm not sure there is any language as such, (markets are non ideological). The markets didn't like Truss/Kwarteng at the start, and didn't like them at the end. They correctly and rationally identified an attempt at Brexit fuelled ideology (we promised growth and tax cuts, so that's what you're gonna get) - and it's likely consequence of a disastrous inflationary boom/bust. In other words. the markets were just rationally protecting their investments - which is what we all seek to do if we're honest.
Much more relevant is the crowbarring of an ideological hard Brexit on the country by a vociferous minority.
Mark, I think I should have said extreme marketisation, or hyper capitalism, with vulture capitalism along for the ride. They want extreme deregulation, low taxes on the rich, to abolish the welfare state, make unions illegal etc
Except I would call much of that market/capitalism legalised abuse - just as the 2009 crash was caused by egregious abuse of derivatives. (I also remember the 1987 crash as synonymous with all sorts of speculative spivery.) Proper capitalism depends on vigilant regulation - which is also an evolutionary process. An example of this is the now widespread acceptance of independent central banks as part of capitalist economic orthodoxy. Of course, this is one of the things the ideological Brexiteers are now railing against.
Yes, Britain was almost alone in having two deep recessions in the 80's. Abysmal governing standards, yet the Tories kept getting power.