MP's who get RIGHT on your nips

[Pob255]

Lying is less common than you may think, semantic games on the other hand . . .
I'd say that at least 50% of what is said is meaningless but said in a way that make you think something has been said.

Edit: I got a email saying it's dispatched on 21st Feb, no tracking number, raised a query as to what's going on, going to give them another poke.

[Saracen]

Can anyone name an MP they like? Out of the 650, there's got to be a decent one somewhere

Yup, I can, it's ...... oh bother, no, not him. Erm .....
.
.
... hang on, almost got it .....
.
.
.... damn, not her either. How about .... nah, that's daft. .
.
.
.
.... ooooh, how about ..... nope, he left.
.
.
.
. Ummmm ..... how long have you got?

Now, Google, list of MPs ....
.
.
.
. hold on, nearly there....
.
.
.
.
.... damn, this is harder than I thought.
.
.
.
.
..... what about wotsname, thingy .... no blast, retired. 30 years ago.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay. I give up. You got me.

Generally, I have them in three categories ....

1) First up against the wall come the revolution.

2) Can I please kick him in the cods. Several times.

3) Just about bearable. In small doses. On TV .... with the sound muted.

Most of them leave me in a mood where I feel like strangling a Grizzly bear, with my bare hands. The rest make me want to emigrate .... to a different galaxy.

[Tumble]

Also regarding Gove,literally every teacher I bumped into hated him.

My bro is a teacher - he has a copy permanently stationed in his downstairs loo. It's good for a chuckle when you're otherwise occupied...... With the upshot that if you run out of bog roll, you can wipe your behind with it!

[peterb]

Can anyone name an MP they like? Out of the 650, there's got to be a decent one somewhere

I don’t think Members of the public stand for election because they want to be liked. I suspect most stand because they want to represent their community, and the majority of back bench MPs work hard doing that. It doesn’t make mainstream news coverage, but occasionally a stor breaks where an MP has intervened on behalf of a constituent to right an injustice or give a voice to someone who might otherwise be voiceless.

The select committees have been effective in holding individuals and corporations to account.

There are some MPs who are ambitious and may seek power for its own sake, and its true that power can corrupt.

The difficulty for MPs is where there loyalties are split between the interests of an individual and those of their constituency or society as a whole, and that is true at all levels of politics.

But being an MP is not a job I would want to do.

[peterb]

Yup, I can, it's ...... oh bother, no, not him. Erm .....
.
.
... hang on, almost got it .....
.
.
.... damn, not her either. How about .... nah, that's daft. .
.
.
.
.... ooooh, how about ..... nope, he left.
.
.
.
. Ummmm ..... how long have you got?

Now, Google, list of MPs ....
.
.
.
. hold on, nearly there....
.
.
.
.
.... damn, this is harder than I thought.
.
.
.
.
..... what about wotsname, thingy .... no blast, retired. 30 years ago.
.
.
.
.
.
Okay. I give up. You got me.

Generally, I have them in three categories ....

1) First up against the wall come the revolution.

2) Can I please kick him in the cods. Several times.

3) Just about bearable. In small doses. On TV .... with the sound muted.

Most of them leave me in a mood where I feel like strangling a Grizzly bear, with my bare hands. The rest make me want to emigrate .... to a different galaxy.

Joe Cox? Former labour MP murdered while doing her job as an MP.

And the much reviled Amber Rudd gave a very reasoned and open (as far as she could) response to the attempted murder of a Russian and his daughter in Salisbury.

[Saracen]

I don’t think Members of the public stand for election because they want to be liked. I suspect most stand because they want to represent their community, and the majority of back bench MPs work hard doing that. It doesn’t make mainstream news coverage, but occasionally a stor breaks where an MP has intervened on behalf of a constituent to right an injustice or give a voice to someone who might otherwise be voiceless.

The select committees have been effective in holding individuals and corporations to account.

There are some MPs who are ambitious and may seek power for its own sake, and its true that power can corrupt.

The difficulty for MPs is where there loyalties are split between the interests of an individual and those of their constituency or society as a whole, and that is true at all levels of politics.

But being an MP is not a job I would want to do.

Not a job I'd want, either.

But my biggest probkem is that the whole setup is a conjuring trick.

We're told we must vote, or we have no right to complain about what Parliament and/or government does, yet we're presented with a loaded deck, just like a magician saying "Pick a card, any card ....".,

The ONLY people with any real chance are those selected by "party". And to get ti be the party candidate you have to jump through hoops to please local party selection committees. Yet, the candidate is portrayed as represenging constituents, when what he/she really represents is a dozen or two on his/her local committee.

For an idea of the degree of distortion, look at how many voted for UKIP in 2015 and how many MPs they got, and compare to the size of the SNP and their vote. Or compare UKIP 2015 vote size to the 2010 LibDem vote size that actually put them in coalition government. Or compare LibDem votes, and seats, to Labour votes and seats in 1997.

Getting an MP into Parliament is a trick in itself, and once there, MPs then proudly parrot the notion that they've been elected to think for us, not to be a delegate. The notion is that we're too thick or ignorant to understand issues so we elect someone to "reoresent" us, i.e. do our thinking for us.

So, :-

a) we don't vote, we're told we have no right to object, because we should have voted, or

b) we do vote, we get a manipulated candidate who usually won't even represent what we want even if it's made abunduntly clear what it is, but pompously tells us he's a represenrative not a delegate, and was elected to decide for us.

And exactly when, Mr or Mrs Pompous MP, did we ever agree to elect delegates not represenratives? When, eh? That's right, we didn't. You asshats came up with a conjyring trick system, call it democracy and pretend we're all right behind it. Some of you even want to make voting mandatory, and then you have the gross hutzpah even to make "None of the Above" illegal. Yes, that's right, it's a illegal name for elections.

So, conjuring trick candidates, who won't do what we want unless it happens to be what they want, and we're dismissed as irrelevant unless we take part in their loaded, rigged version of a so-called democracy.

And to top it off, when we do finally get a referendum, large numbers of these idiots, and yes I mean idiots like you, Ken Clarke, want to ignore it, and then actually say referenda are the worst part and shouldn't be used. Heaven Forbid that we, the actual people, should ever embarrass our wannabe Lords and Masters by having the temerity to not vote the way they, our Glorious Leaders, have been doing things for seversl decades and getting away with pretending it's what we all wanted because, until Mr Cameron painted himself into a corner, they'd steadfastly refused to give us a chance to tell then they're getting it wrong.

And even now there's a good number of "MPs" that want nothing more than to reverse a referendum result, or failing that, that what we said wasn't what's best for us because we, and I quote "didn't understand" what it meant.

What they mean is we didn't understand what they wanted. My message to this idiots is that they're misunderstanding the relationship between monkey and orfsn-grinder .... we're the organ-grinder, they're the monkey, not the other way round.

For evidence of that, look at the extent of "populist" movements both left and right around the world, from Trump to Germany's AFD to Italy's Five Star and La Liga. About the one thing many of these have in common is distrust of the established elites. And I'm not surprised.

History has a lesson for us. If governing elites ignore the people for long enough, it gets messy. For examples, the French revolution, the Russian revolution over-throwing Czars, or the Iranian revolution to get rid of the Shah.

MP's I "like"? Few and very far between.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Didn't we have the chance to change our voting system a few years ago and hardly anyone could be bothered to vote in that??

[Lanky123]

Didn't we have the chance to change our voting system a few years ago and hardly anyone could be bothered to vote in that??

Even the vote on that was a bit of a rigged deck...

'Here are the two options we've deemed to be suitable. Our selection of your choices was entirely independent and party political self-interest was absolutely not a consideration. By the way, one of the options would let the BNP in and would be an absolute disaster and end the world as we know it. Good luck.'

[spacein_vader]

Even the vote on that was a bit of a rigged deck...

'Here are the two options we've deemed to be suitable. Our selection of your choices was entirely independent and party political self-interest was absolutely not a consideration. By the way, one of the options would let the BNP in and would be an absolute disaster and end the world as we know it. Good luck.'

This basically. The Tories wouldn't allow PR to be on the ballot (I imagine Labour wouldn't be either for similar reasons,) so it was either stay as we are or have a very convoluted transferable vote system that would make it much harder for the big two parties to lose power.

[Saracen]

Didn't we have the chance to change our voting system a few years ago and hardly anyone could be bothered to vote in that??

We did.

Turnout wasn't great, and it was an issue I suspect a lot of people didn't care about .... or oerhaps understand, not least because it was kinda presented as being about PR when the choice on offer was status quo, versus AV, which was described, IIRC, by one of the main proponents (LibDems) as (something like) "miserable little compromise).

I don't know how many others did, but I did quite a lot of reading, some of it refresher, and even I voted against. I might have done something to address the 'seats per million votes' issue, but had other major flaws.

My reading of it was the LibDems wanted full PR (as they're one of the hardest done by the FPTP constituency system, but AV was the most the Tories would offer in their 2010 backroom coalition talks. The LDs git stitched up. Then returned the favour over boundaries.

Wonderful 'democracy', innit when these people are stitching up cosy little private backroom deals. Anyone else been at it? Oh yeah, Merkel's been in power for years as a result of this kind of private deal, Italy is about to spend months trying to do one. And, oh yeah, Tory-DUP deal, anyone?

[Saracen]

Even the vote on that was a bit of a rigged deck...

'Here are the two options we've deemed to be suitable. Our selection of your choices was entirely independent and party political self-interest was absolutely not a consideration. By the way, one of the options would let the BNP in and would be an absolute disaster and end the world as we know it. Good luck.'

Agreed ... except about letting the BNP in. I'm not so sure it'd b@e the disaster you think. For a starting, "letting thrm in" gives them a seat or two, and beggar-all actual power.

Secondly, well, one of the best killers of germs is pure, unadulterated sunlight. Look what happened when wotsisname took the "oppirtunity" of publicity by going on BBC Questiontime. He got shredded. And the BNP have been eviscerated, at least as a political party, ever since.

[Lanky123]

Agreed ... except about letting the BNP in. I'm not so sure it'd b@e the disaster you think. For a starting, "letting thrm in" gives them a seat or two, and beggar-all actual power.

Secondly, well, one of the best killers of germs is pure, unadulterated sunlight. Look what happened when wotsisname took the "oppirtunity" of publicity by going on BBC Questiontime. He got shredded. And the BNP have been eviscerated, at least as a political party, ever since.

Oh I agree on that, but I recall the 'giving extremist parties a voice' argument was promoted very heavily at the time by Tories/Labour to push anyone who could be bothered to vote towards the status quo.

If 5% of the country are nutjobs I'd be very happy for there to be a Nutjobs Party with ~5% of MPs to represent them. If the number reaches 50% then we've got bigger problems than politics...

[Saracen]

Oh I agree on that, but I recall the 'giving extremist parties a voice' argument was promoted very heavily at the time by Tories/Labour to push anyone who could be bothered to vote towards the status quo.

If 5% of the country are nutjobs I'd be very happy for there to be a Nutjobs Party with ~5% of MPs to represent them. If the number reaches 50% then we've got bigger problems than politics...

What do you mean "if"?

You seen the current state of party politics?




Note : Before anyone spends an hour on an opus reply, this post is at least semi-joking.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well if you could say anything you want and do anything you want(more or less) and not be held to the consequences of what you have done in any really meaningful way,then no wonder they are stuck on their little planet and people feel fedup about them. There is a distinct lack of proper longterm accountability in politics,and that is why you have people voted into ministerial positions based on nepotism and not ability, and who they can cosy upto,so they have their future options sorted out. Although,TBF this is something not unique to this country. Having said that the last two years of all the major parties being more worried about internal infighting and leadership battles,than actually trying to work together is really,really sad. Its like a really pathetic version of Game of Thrones. I think they have forgotten who is paying their bills at time.

[Gerrard]

Germany has PR though, right? That's why they didn't have a government for a few months and only just made a coalition? Because you can't please everyone, and just trying to get a majority on a lot of things is going to be almost impossible.

As stupid as it sounds, I think we, the public, are just as much the problem as politicians. We are like kids; if we don't like what Mummy says, we'll go to Daddy. And the parents role is to be the most popular, by almost any means necessary. Neither will make us have our medicine/bad news/whatever until the very last moment when there's no choice. Sometimes, the right thing will be unpopular and whilst politicians are looking out for themselves rather than the country, they will try and bypass it as much as possible. I learnt about the issues with the baby-boomers retiring when I was at school over 20 years' ago, but politicians would be reluctant to do anything about it because old people vote more. Likewise with the future social care and health problems that is coming; there needs to be cross-party collaboration rather than just mud slinging at each other. Democracy would be much more effective if the choices were all plausible rather than just trying please as many people as possible. Like each party had to submit a full budget on how they plan to fund everything (obviously it can't be 100% accurate, but at least something sensible) that had to be certified by an independant agency. I lost track on how many times over Labour were going to use the extra £6bil (or whatever it was) they planned on getting raising the highest tax rate; seemed to change each week.

Problem is politics is so vast and so varied, that trying to say whether a single person, or even party, is doing a good job would be vary person-to-person, e.g. opinions on Thatcher. So whilst I would love to hold every politician completely accoutable for their actions, with life imprisonment for failing their promise and being incompetent, I just don't think it is feasible.

[Saracen]

Paraphrasing a bit, drmocracy is the eorst form of government known to man, except for all the others.

PR has its problems, most notably that it tends to lead to permanent coalitions. Coalitions don't have to come from bacj-room deals, though. They could be a vote-by-vote basis. That result result in if being hard to get anytjing at all done, but I wonder if a lot less government wouldn't often be an improvement.

Another step that would improve our system, and the standard of our MPs, is for constituents to have a practical, viable recall mechanism. Obviously, there need to be measures to stop malicious recalls, but MPs would be FAR more attentive to the views of their constituents, and less inclined to impise their own views, if we had a mechanism to fire their ass that didn't only operate once every five years.

Personally, I think it highly likely that we wouldn't now be going through Brexit if our "democracy" was such that MPs had to actually listen to us.

How come?

Well, either ....

A) We'd have had a vote pre-Maastricht, and/or pre-Lisbon, rejected one or the other, and strangled the non-trade political "ever-greater union" at birth, OR


B) We'd have had such a vote, rejected it, bern unable to block thrm and left vack then, when we were much less integrated, OR


C) We'd have had such a vote, approved it and as a result, the nation would have been far less resentfully in.


The logic is, Brexit took place because our politicial class dragged us diwn that path without permission, without fully carrying us with them, and when they did finally, and most reluctantly, give us a say, the damage was done.

So all the mess, and costs, of Brexit are entirely down to seversl polutical generations, Tory and Labour, that took us ever deeper into the EU without ever bothering with the fundamental democratic principle of getting our permission. That did what they wanted because they wanted it. That isn't democracy.