Democracy My Arse!!
For those of you who haven’t been off on Mars holidaying, you might have noticed and even , dare I say it? Taken part in the Elections that were held on May 3rd in Wales, Scotland and England. The Differences between them was that England voted for their Local Councilors, whilst Wales and Scotland both voted on their respective Assemblies. As per usual their was the right old mess in both the collecting and counting of the votes which goes without saying. There were stories of people such as a nice man in Scotland who went into a local Poling Station and smashed up the Metal Box containing all the completed Ballot Papers, resulting in the adjudicators there having to pick them all up from the floor and try and put them in another available box.
My experience of the Welsh election was and is causing some dismay really. We were given 2 Ballot Papers to fill in. One was for the Local Assembly Candidate, who, in my case the winner was Jane Hutt the Labour Candidate who had been the previous AM but only by an 85 vote majority. She only got this after, wait for it……5 RECOUNTS!!! each of which had come up with a vastly different figure. Some were 100s in her favour and others were 100s in closest opponents favour. How can this be?? Just goes to prove how completely inaccurate the whole process is. The other Ballot Paper was for you to state very clearly which Political Party you wanted to lead the assembly. Labour won this vote again continuing on from the last 4 years but this time with a reduced majority of 26 seats out of a possible 60. This is where the lack of democracy comes in, in my opinion. The fact that the public had voted for 26 Labour Assembly Members with their nearest competitor Plaid Cymru getting just 15 and I suppose I shouldn’t leave the others out too, so, Conservative got 12 seats and the Lib Dems got 6. There was also 1 Independent elected too making up the 60. This says to me that the General Public wants Labour to have control over their affairs. In order to have overall control they officially need to have 34 seats so have had to set about trying to do a deal with one or more of the other parties to join forces or maybe even to go ahead without the overall control which is possible. The other more interesting outcome which is very much being talked up at the moment and each day seems to be the way things are going to go, is that the other parties, Tories, PC and Lib Dems join forces and take control of the Government!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So in effect the public may as well not have bothered voting, as what we want as usual, is going to be completely ignored as they are going to do exactly as they please. Democracy, MY ARSE!!!!! It will be interesting to see the outcome which has to be completed by 29th May I think it is. No wonder people are so disillusioned with politics in general as they just seem to go about in their own dream world doing just as they please, and that’s just John Thomas my lovely MP. It was nice to see him and all the other representatives who came to canvass for my vote NOT!!!! Not one of them came within a mile of here. Maybe they have read the blog and feel just a little scared, poor mites.
I haven’t even talked about the fiasco in Scotland which appeared to be 10 times more confusing than Wales, having to fill in reams and reams of Ballot Papers. It was a good result though for the people of Scotland in my opinion, the Nationalist winning control, something which has been steadily gaining mass support there for years, helped somewhat by Labours incompetence no doubt.
Ah, shopping later, my favorite occupation. Well that’s not completely accurate. I like food shopping because it’s the anticipation of getting it home and cooking it and of course there’s the chore of eating it too, especially the Bacon sarnies which I manage to force myself to eat.
See Ya!!
7 comments:
I understand your frustration with the elections. However, if, as you say, 26 went to Labour, then 34 went to anyone BUT Labour. So that shows that the majority of the Welsh population didn't want Labour. Still bloody frustrating set of affairs though so you have my sympathies in trying to work it out.
That is a very good point indeed, there is a general disalusion with all things political in general. My only negative to that actual point of view would be that as I had stated the votes were very much spread out amongst the other parties with Plaid being the closest on 15 seats followed closely by the Torries on 12, both somewhat short of the Labour vote and also that i'm sure if there was a section on the ballot paper to say something like would you as a, say, Plaid voter wish to join forces with The Conservatives most would tick no thanks as most of the people, (apparently 40% of the available) would have a particular party in mind before even turning up. I know my vote was for a particular party and would not have voted for any other alternative government at all but then i'm an awquard bugger!!
See Ya!!
Just a couple of notes.
Firstly Scotland were voting for their Parliament, not an Assembly.
Secondly a party needs 31 votes to gain a majority in Wales, not 34.
Thirdly, with only 32% of the vote and 26 seats the clear message was that the people of Wales DID NOT want a Labour government. However they also made it clkear they didn't want any of the other parties to rule alone either.
That's what coalitions is. The other partiers, respectful of Labours place as the largest, stood back and allowed Labour the chance to form a government. They failed due to many factors (other parties not wanting to be tarnished by helping a rejected government, Labour too arrogant to offer anything worthwile to potential partners, Labour AM's saying they'd slowly strangle any coalition partner). Now that Labour's failed, the other parties have a democratic duty (not just a right, a duty) to see if they can form a government. By all accounts it looks like they will.
That's what coalition democracy is all about. it's vbery new to us in Wales as were used to Westminster style first past the post where the winner takes it all. But this is how democracy is done in most European nations.
Very true. The majoritarian system of voting in the UK is generally seen as unfair to the electorate. The proportional systems in Europe are, like you said, likely to result in coalition governments. I guess you need to work out what which is the lesser of two 'evils': either keep the FPTP system we have now and have a stable government albeit not the majority choice of the electorate, or change to a proportional system and risk a possible unstable government with little chance of policy being passed if a coalition is not in general agreement. It is certainly a puzzle to most of us. The different forms of proportional systems would also need to be considered - there are numerous to choose from. As an aside...do you remember Blair promising a referendum on changing our UK election system when he came to power - nothing came of that once they were in office. Why change a good thing if it gets you elected 3 times in a row.
Guto. you make some very valid points. I will admit that probably due to my ignorance i may have got a feww details wrong as in needing 31 for a majority etc. I take it from your comments that like a largely growing number of people in this country you are not a Labour supporter. There has been a lot said by all parties before, during and after the election about who they would and would not talk to or work with and in my opinion they have all changed their minds so many times that not only is it difficult to keep up with nut just empathisis the fact that you can't believe or trust a word they say. which doesn't strike me as a good foundation for a stable government. how can it be good for the country having 3 hugely different party's with policies that are so far out of touch with each other attempting to run the place??
Is there a way out of this mess really that will be good for the people of wales?? I'm not sure there is, but the thought of control being given over to these 3 party's which now seems highly likely is quite frankly scary and also i think dangerous for the evolution of the Assembly in wales, but on the other hand another 4 years of Labour drivle is equally scary.
Oh God WHAT A MESS!!!!!
Just as an observation from just general conversation with people etc i have noticed that even with the influence the Assembly has on peoples lives and the huge ammount of publicity it gets here in wales a lot of people still don't take it very seriously and to be honest still see the Government in Westminster as being in complete control. There was a survey a while back funny enough to back up this point, i will have to try dig it out, but basically it asked something like, "Can you name your Local AM and also your MP" i think the results were something like 18% getting their AM right and around 58% guessing their MP, which is interesting.
There was a survey late last year asking Welsh people who they thought had most control over their daily lives found the Assembly way ahead of Parliament in people's minds.
The thing is with the claim that the 3 rainbows have "policies so far out of touch with each other" is that it just isn't true. The sad state of 21st century politics is that there is very little difference between parties. That is even more true when we talk about the Assembly's limited powers.
While Plaid and Tories totally disagree on whether we should cut funding to services, that is not an issue in the Assembly. The block grant remains the same, the government chooses where to distribute it, not how much to distribute.
From what I hear from the negotiations, the agreed policy will be mainly Plaid policy. The Lib Dems are nearly identical to Plaid anyway so they're happy, the Tories are happy with half of Plaid's policies and will agree to support most of the other half. I think there's a deadlock over the policy of stopping the sale of council houses though.
You're right, I've never been a Labour fan, i'm a nationaist first, second and third. And I never thought back in 1997 that Labour would do such a mess of things that I'd rather work with the Tories. Not onyl have they messed up last 8 years, they've messed up the negotiations. They could have made a deal with Plaid, but chose to patronise them and bet everything on the Libs.
I don't agree that people are now talking to people they previously ruled out. Labour and Tories ruled out working together, they still do. Plaid said they'd talk to everyone but would not serve under a Tory First Minister, that's all still true. The Libs said they'd talk to everyone, and they did.
Welsh people didn't vote for Labour on May 3rd. They didn't vote for Plaid either. Or the Tories, nor the Libs. But with 68% of people voting against the government, they clearly voted for change. And it seems that that's what we're going to get
Ah Well, it appears now that Bungle Zippy And George of the Coalition will not be hapenning too sfter talks broke down yet again. I recon another election is on the cards. After all this bickering etc over the last few weeks has just proved, to me anyhow, that there is no way that a coalition between any party's will provide a stable government in wales as they can't even agree on terms to set it up in the first place. Every time they come accross a contentious issue such as Tuition Fees or Hospital closures to name just a few it won't even make it to the Senydd as they will be to busy arguing amongst themselves.
I Just Repeat, What A Bloody Mess!!
Post a Comment