Election Time

[Cindy]

Maybe Tony is discreetly going for the Gay vote!

Oh yea Tony and Gay I think he is BTW, why flash the budgies otherwise?

Wasn't he saying all women should be virgins before they marry And his daughters didn't complain?

Cindy

[justmeinoz]

I will have to see if I can find a picture for all the non-aussies on here!

[Cindy]

Hi Hun

Definitively .  There was the one in the Australian which was terrible.

We may change Australian politics at Susan's 

Cindy

[Pippa]

Will the last person out of Britain please shut the door!   God we are in a mess, if the Tories and the Lib Dems cannot agree, we will be left with an unelected Prime Minister, leading a rainbow coalition of minor parties, trying to get some of the most unpopular spending cuts for forty years through the commons.  I can see Britain going the same wasy as Greece.

[rejennyrated]

Personally I find it amusing how many people seem to think that being "governed" is a good thing.

Wherever possible I want to be left to decide for myself what is legal decent honest and truthful and not have some personable halfwit, that all the sheep have chosen to elect in return for some silly bribe like a benefit increase or a spending cut doing it for me. My starting point is that 9 times out of 10 I reckon I could make a lot better choices than they do, and even when I couldn't they would be my own mistakes and not someone elses.

In my ideal world governments would be very much more resticted in what they could interfere in than is usually the case at present. The idea of a "strong" government is the very thing which truly fills me with horror and makes me start checking where I've left my passport. It's often (but admittedly not always) advocated by people who are horribly repressed themselves, like for example Ann Widicombe, and who therefore think they have a right to foist their own shortcomings and lack of emotional freedom on everyone around them. I have great symapthy, but absolutely no respect for people like that I fear.

[spacial]

These are interesting times indeed.

Cameron, aka, Hague and a bunch of financiers with their ambition to take Britain out of Europe and run it as a banking haven.

Brown +++ Harperson, determined to find yet more minorities to isolate, protect and further divide Britain.

Clegg, with his one issue party, so scared of any other policies they sacked the only leader that made any difference.

Oh to be in England, now that election horse tradeing is here.

[justmeinoz]

As I said in an earlier post, with our Preferential voting system, all the deals are done up-front before the election, so that you know what the Party you vote for will do in the evennt there is no clear winner.

I regard myself as a true Conservative, which means that people should be left to do their own thing as long as it doesn't infringe on any one else's life. 

Along with that people should behave with good manners and common decency, morals should be left up to the individual, and people should be expected to be held responsible for their actions.

In one of his books historian Simon Schama pointed out the historical difference between the Scottish and English attitude to the law. The English approach was to say what couldn't be done and left large areas for the Common law to make a ruling, whereas the Scottish opinion was that the law should specifically set out  everything that was allowed. 

I prefer the traditional English approach. Pity that Britain's( and the rest of the world's ) Govt. disagrees.

[FairyGirl]

But Tony Abbot in speedos is still something I need to get over

aw c'mon he's not that bad... but that little swim cap has got to go lol

[Pica Pica]

Will the last person out of Britain please shut the door!   God we are in a mess, if the Tories and the Lib Dems cannot agree, we will be left with an unelected Prime Minister, leading a rainbow coalition of minor parties, trying to get some of the most unpopular spending cuts for forty years through the commons.  I can see Britain going the same wasy as Greece.

Technically, Britain has always had an unelected PM. There is an example in Britain of a very successful all party coalition led by a PM who hadn't even been the leader of his party - Winston Churchill. There are also examples of Lords being PM, and no-one even votes for lords.

[justmeinoz]

Maybe Cindy meant to type  "get a leg over"!!

[spacial]

justmeinoz

I regard myself as a true Conservative, which means that people should be left to do their own thing as long as it doesn't infringe on any one else's life. 

Along with that people should behave with good manners and common decency, morals should be left up to the individual, and people should be expected to be held responsible for their actions.

I'm with you absolutly on that one.

The problem with the Torys is they are too bound up in the bribary of voters and scared to cross the powerful in society.

Thatcher is a good case in point.

Advocate of the free market and so on. Then when it came to deregulation of airports, a measuer desperately needed at the time, she refused to deregulate the airports in Scotland. The only airport permitted to have regular internation flights remained Prestwick.

Reason? Her old chum, Sir George Younger had his constituiency there and was afraid of losing his seat.

[justmeinoz]

I had a lot of time for Maggie, before she went mad as Jeremy Clarkson put it.  By the way has anyone suggested dragooning him into number 10?  That would liven things up!

[Pica Pica]

aw c'mon he's not that bad... but that little swim cap has got to go lol

looks like pinnoccio
Post Merge: May 08, 2010, 11:47:20 AM
This was one of the more impressive looking photos of the election

[tekla]

Far from not having an ironic/laconic humour - which BTW is spelled humor, what? don't you speak English?  So here is real irony, an American telling someone from across the pond how to speak English, but the real irony of course is that when most people in the world speak English, what they speak is American, not British. 

How's do you like that ironic stuff now?

Here's more irony.  Though it wasn't as big (but how could it ever be?) nor as totally crass and vulgar on a gutter crack-ho level (we're also going to be hard to beat in that department), or as mind-blowingly stupid (you'll get there, don't worry), I would like to congratulate you on holding your first American Style Election™(patent pending)! 

You just spent more time, and more money then you ever have before on an election, and got a whole lot less out of it then you ever had before.  More time spend campaigning and running (and covering - that coverage deal is a big part of this - people campaigning and running) and all most no time spend on discussing any real substantial and serious issues that your nation is facing. 

And we, well some of us anyway, the true Sons of Jefferson and Paine, are getting part two of the real American revolutionary dream accomplished.  You see in 1776 we took this country from you, the world's most powerful empire - and if you look at it, pretty much without a fight - but not only did the American revolutionary leaders want this country, they really, really, hated the British Government.  They did not hate (as kids are taught today sadly) that it was that particular bunch of people (Townsend, George3, et.all), they hated the entire British system pretty much to the roots.  It wasn't just Lord North they were hating on.  They disdained the very notion of Lord Anybody.  That's what was so damn revolutionary about it in the first place.  It was their sincere hope that the fallout from the 1776 colonial uprising (and their model of what would replace the Ancien Régime), would destroy the British government, king, Parliament and the whole bailiwick.  France would have such a revolution, but England never succumbed.  Until now.

I could not help but to watch the coverage of this election, and feel that same sense of American Pride, almost like it was the Olympics and we were getting to chant USA! at the former Soviet Union.  (And their was a huge amount of coverage this time around, I bet this election got more coverage in the American media then ALL the British elections in up to this point combined.  Really.)  Viva la Jefferson, Baby.  Worst mistake that England ever made was pissing that guy off.

And there is more than a wee bit of irony in that entire equation.

[Rock_chick]

which BTW is spelled humor

You find it ironic that an American would correct an British persons spelling/grammar, yet I'm sensing a fair bit of irony in the fact that your correction is in fact incorrect...for this side of the pond. Or were you being deliberately ironic  in making the correction in full realisation of the spelling variations of certain words on either side of the pond? I think all this irony is making my brain hurt.

On a political note, I'm starting my own country and cede from UK juridstriction.

[LordKAT]

On a political note, I'm starting my own country and cede from UK juridstriction.

Me too. oh we already did that, Ok I'll start my own nation.

[spacial]

The English approach was to say what couldn't be done and left large areas for the Common law to make a ruling, whereas the Scottish opinion was that the law should specifically set out  everything that was allowed. 

I prefer the traditional English approach. Pity that Britain's( and the rest of the world's ) Govt. disagrees.

Typical Sharma stuff.

Looking at the point the other way, Scottish law sets out rights, while English law sets out prohibitions.

Sharma is an interesting TV historian. But his populist tendencies show through repeatedly.

History should be about annalysis. Sharma continues with the old habit of looking to justify established opinion.

They did not hate (as kids are taught today sadly) that it was that particular bunch of people (Townsend, George3, et.all), they hated the entire British system pretty much to the roots.  It wasn't just Lord North they were hating on.  They disdained the very notion of Lord Anybody. 

While we must all appreciate the teaching of the US version in US schools, the realities are somewhat different.

During the 18th century, England went through a number of reforms that were unprecidented in history.

The power of the monarchy was devolved to Parliment.

The economy was released from central control, money making ventures and innovations were largely allowed to develop as they will.

But this brought enormous social problems. The countryside economy collapsed as people moved into cities looking for better opportunities. What most found was grinding poverty which led to social breakdown.

The American revolutionary leaders, realising the enormous contribution their efforts were making to the wealth of England, sought self government under the slogan, No Taxation without Representation.

Had the UK Parliment given the American colonists representation, it is highly unlikely they would have backed down. What they really wanted was to control what they knew was a potentially enormous empire of wealth.

The government of the newly independant nation was based upon the government of pre-Cromwell England.

An autonomous head of state. Two parliments, one representating territory, the other people. All the main agencies, the military, national law enforcement, the economy, would be answerable to the head of state.

They then threw democracy into the mix. Making each level of government, from the head of state, down to those to administer the law, elected.

The claim of absense of an aristocricy is, of course, a nonsense. The American aristocricy doesn't tend to carry silly titles, but it exists and exercises its authority regularly.

[LordKAT]

autonomous head of state? not quite

[spacial]

autonomous head of state? not quite

Your head of state is not answerable to anyone except at predetermined elections.

Such consultations he must make to your parliments are no more than were customary in pre-Cromwell England.

It was Charles I's attempt to ignore and circumvent these that lost him his head.

He holds and uses a power of veto over laws passed by your parliments.

He has the power to present proposed laws to your parliments.

He directly leads and appoints the executive.

Numerous armed agencies with the power of detention are directly answerable to him or his appointees.
Post Merge: May 08, 2010, 08:23:56 PM
I'm not trying to criticise the US system of government. I'm silply attempting to point out that every government has its positives and its flaws. But almost anythign can be portrayed in ways to demonstrate one point of another.

Sharma, (an English TV historian, known for his populism), is a good example of this. The American accademic institutions are also in the habit of doing the same.

Nothing can be understood without annalysis. We need to examine issues from many different perspectives. We also need to be aware of emotivness. Your references to ancient aristocratic titles is a case in point.

It is one thing to rid government of these ancient titles, but another to leave in place the very institutions those titles represented.

[LordKAT]

His veto can be over rode. He can be fired.