You appear to be conveniently ignoring the fact that a lack of regulation of free markets is what put us in this hole in the first place. So what would your uber-capitalist escape plan consist of exactly?

It's all very well you criticising what is essentially a global consensus on a giant economic problem, but I've yet to hear what you would replace it with.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

You appear to be conveniently ignoring the fact that a lack of regulation of free markets is what put us in this hole in the first place. So what would your uber-capitalist escape plan consist of exactly?

It's all very well you criticising what is essentially a global consensus on a giant economic problem, but I've yet to hear what you would replace it with.

I dont think Intrepid has got that far, he just wants to install a lawyer as the chancellor because that'll save the day. Rather than say, y'know, an economist.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

You appear to be conveniently ignoring the fact that a lack of regulation of free markets is what put us in this hole in the first place. So what would your uber-capitalist escape plan consist of exactly

...and THERE you fail HUGELY!

We do not live in a free market capitalist state we have a central bank and fiat currency! Now I think you need to go back to the drawing board and actually do some research!

May I remind you it was the uber-free market capitalists that warned about this crisis before anyone else. I suggest you watch - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... FYkpw&feature=related (I know how Peter feels as well coz u sound like the douchebags objecting to his now CORRECT statements)

Quote from Becky Rose :

I dont think Intrepid has got that far, he just wants to install a lawyer as the chancellor because that'll save the day. Rather than say, y'know, an economist.

I don't trust economists as far as I can throw them. Where were all the economists the last decade warning about the impending crisis?

Vince Cable wanted to join the Euro.... end debate there on his credentials!

You're chock full of I-Told-You-Sos it seems, but you don't actually have an answer to the problem do you?

Come on, you're the one who's spent the whole thread positioning yourself as the forum's resident expert in macroeconomics. What's the solution?

Excuse me if I occupy myself with something else rather than wait for you to get back to me.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

You're chock full of I-Told-You-Sos it seems, but you don't actually have an answer to the problem do you?

Come on, you're the one who's spent the whole thread positioning yourself as the forum's resident expert in macroeconomics. What's the solution?

Excuse me if I occupy myself with something else rather than wait for you to get back to me.

If I were in power? In essance

I would let the markets naturally adjust themselves. I'd dramatically cut public spending to a tiny fraction of what it is today and increase interest rates with a plan to go back to the gold standard (ion fact I believe some businesses are now back trading in gold). It's terribly naive of you to assume fiat currencies are product of a de-regulated free market... very very naive. You can't print gold

I'd massively reduce the size of Government and allow people to keep their own money and own wealth. I'd remove all the barriers to starting up a business.

Propping up a broken system only makes it worse in the long run... like we have done now. I certainly wouldn't have bailed out the banks.

Of course you'd see mass job losses and years of pain but in the end have a much sounder economic base to work from.

However we live in a democracy and the public in general will not digest the realities of what needs to happen so we'll get this continual conflict of electoral interest VS the interest and health of the economy as a whole. My manifesto would be positively a big fail to the electorate! Mind you the Tories didn't go far enough with the pathetic attempt.

Quote from Intrepid :

Of course you'd see mass job losses and years of pain but in the end have a much sounder economic base to work from.

I'm sure a small fraction of rich people would survive, never mind the millions of dirty Labour voters eh? **** them.

Quote from Intrepid :

However we live in a democracy

Not enough of a democracy, but still not quite the elitist nightmare world you'd like us to live in, where the banking system was allowed to collapse, government was disbanded because it was too expensive, and the corporations were given free reign to expand to fill the voids.

In your ideal world we'd be banking with, shopping at, and ruled by Tesco. You idiot.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Ruling parties select prime ministers, we elect ruling parties (or not!). We don't have a president, we have a prime minister, look up the difference. We've never had an elected prime minister because that's not how our system of government works.

Yeah, spot on. Seems everyone these days thinks we have a presidential style of government, but actually it's an old-fashioned parliamentary democracy. We don't elect the Prime Minister, we elect an MP for our constituency and, by tradition, the PM is just the leader of whichever party gets a majority in the Commons. Technically the monarch can elect whoever she chooses to be Prime Minister, but thankfully she doesn't excercise that right.

But I'm with Kev, if anything comes from this, I hope it's proportional representation. Seems this might be the one big chance this generation to actually get it.

Now if I where in power, my approach would differ a little:

I would also cut the size of government, 40% of the workforce is just ridiculous. But I wouldn't get rid of the BBC or the NHS, i'd reduce accountability - statistics only serve political purposes and swell the ranks of middle management rather than frontline services. I'd only be around a term anyway because i've no desire to hang on so political pointscoring would be meeningless to me, the longer you stay in politics, the more corrupt you become so if you want to do anything good you've got to do it quickly anyway.

I'd reform the electoral system and institute a system of proportional representation - far beyond what the Lib Dems are hoping for, with no regional segregation at all. All for one, one for all.

I certainly wouldn't have bailed out the banks, but I also realise that when a bank goes under savings are wiped out and the debts are sold off. So instead I would have issued compulsory purchase order for a penny to any bank wanting a bail out and then invested enough to regenerate the business and to sell it on for a profit.

We'd be out of the Middle East faster than you could say George W Bush, and i'd dramatically reduce the army after redefining it's roll for protection of sovereign territory only. Sufficient force to repatriate the Islas Maldivas, sorry Falklands, is all that is necessary. I'd be placing more consideration on the infrastructure to rearm quickly than to maintaining a permanent offensive force. In short, i'd put the D back in MoD.

I'd then be looking at reforming the whole taxation system, ensuring that taxes are simpler, thus reducing overhead (both for the state and the private sector). Currently taxes need to go up, so i'll not be promising any tax cuts for anyone, but the system will be simple enough you can do it without an army of accounts.

Then i'd nuke Ghana.

Quote from DarkTimes :

But I'm with Kev, if anything comes from this, I hope it's proportional representation. Seems this might be the one big chance this generation to actually get it.

While in principle I agree no one seems to have discussed the fact we would be giving the BNP several seats in parliament, which would give them the credibility to expand. All I am saying is be careful what you wish for.

Quote from Intrepid :

While in principle I agree no one seems to have discussed the fact we would be giving the BNP several seats in parliament.

Well, that's democracy for you. Everyone gets represented, no matter how deranged they are.

Edit: To clarify - if there is a proportion of the British people who support the BNP, they have the right to be represented in parliament. The issue here is with a society where people grow to believe such things, not in the political system which allows them to be represented. If you want to change peoples minds, you do it through education and reason, not through withholding their voice.

Quote from Becky Rose :

We'd be out of the Middle East faster than you could say George W Bush, and i'd dramatically reduce the army after redefining it's roll for protection of sovereign territory only. Sufficient force to repatriate the Islas Maldivas, sorry Falklands, is all that is necessary. I'd be placing more consideration on the infrastructure to rearm quickly than to maintaining a permanent offensive force. In short, i'd put the D back in MoD.

Here here!

Although I would still have some kind of humanitarian effort in Iraq and Afghanistahn, we kind of owe them for hosting a big shootout in their backyard without asking them first, you win hearts and mind over with bread, not guns.

Also I'd ensure the army was equipped and trained to better deal with guerilla warfare, at the moment nobody seems to have learned from Vietnam, that sending in a brute force of Tanks and Planes and trying to fight on fronts against an enemy that can ambush and blend in in seconds and dosen't play fairly just doesn't work.

As for the BNP being represented, we lock up and deport Muslim radicals for preaching hate, yet we let the BNP take part in legit politics? (Regardless of how respectable a front the BNP put on, they are essentially a radical hate group behind all the smarm).

Quote from DarkTimes :

But I'm with Kev, if anything comes from this, I hope it's proportional representation. Seems this might be the one big chance this generation to actually get it.

And let's be honest, no party is going to be petty enough to not do their utmost to fix the economy in the mean time. Except maybe the Tories who of course have to think about how they're going to give tax breaks to their rich backers... But yeah while the economy is obviously the biggest challenge facing this parliament, fixing the electoral system is long overdue and is more important in the medium to long term.

The Tories know though, that if we implement an AV system (wherein if no candidate gets a majority of the vote in their constituency, the secondary preference of the voters is taken into account) they'll be totally ****ed, because the traditionally split vote between Labour and the Libs will be - in practical terms - united against them, without any need for tactical voting.

Quote from Intrepid :

While in principle I agree no one seems to have discussed the fact we would be giving the BNP several seats in parliament, which would give them the credibility to expand. All I am saying is be careful what you wish for.

Quote from DarkTimes :

Well, that's democracy for you. Everyone gets represented, no matter how deranged they are.

Edit: To clarify - if there is a proportion of the British people who support the BNP, they have the right to be represented in parliament. The issue here is with a society where people grow to believe such things, not in the political system which allows them to be represented. If you want to change peoples minds, you do it through education and reason, not through withholding their voice.

This is hugely important. People in a democracy must have representation, regardless of how opposed you may be to their views. If you don't give them representation, that is when people in the political margins feel excluded and turn militant. Bring them into the house, let them argue their corner, it's the only way to deal with it.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Bring them into the house, let them argue their corner, it's the only way to deal with it.

Thats what Von Papen and German President Von Hindenburg thought when they decided to include the supposedly weakening Nazi party into a coalition government, then they let Mr Hitler have a go at being chancellor and it all started to go wrong.

Radical parties should always be kept at arms length, they may be popular with the people but most people are either easily lead or too stupid to know whats good for them, for example you only have to see the average BNP supporter to understand, they're all thick as two short ones.

[/godwins law]

While there were a lot of events that led up to WWII, I fail to believe proportional representation was one of them.

It did help cause a lot of political deadlock which prevented the republic from sorting many of its problems though.

Hitler got his way into government from back room dealings.

Quote from 5haz :

Radical parties should always be kept at arms length, they may be popular with the people but most people are either easily lead or too stupid to know whats good for them,

The BNP aren't popular with the people though are they? They're hugely unpopular.

The night before the election I was in an exhibition space in Euston Road watching this really unusual political play/gig/exhibit involving Billy Bragg and his band (the day of the election itself I was wandering around Westminster getting a nice sun tan, what with all the MPs being back in their constituencies it was quite a nice place to be!).

Billy of course is from Barking, where Nick Griffin was standing as the BNP's candidate, and where they had 12 local councillors and thought they could take control of the council (their local council elections were on the same date). He was understandably quite concerned about the situation.

As it turned out, the next day when the people of Barking and Dagenham voted, they returned a Labour MP, and turfed out every single one of their existing BNP councillors. And the BNP made no inroads but further losses all over the country.

They'll never be a political force, but they do represent a small faction of militant racists and - like it or not - they're British and they have a vote and they have concerns. So let's talk to them. I'd rather they were in the commons getting involved in their democracy than arranging clandestine meetings in pubs and drumming up support by claiming they're the victims.

Quote from 5haz :

It did help cause a lot of political deadlock which prevented the republic from sorting many of its problems though.

Hitler got his way into government from back room dealings.

The whole of Europe has proportional representation (except Monaco and possibly France which i'm not sure about) and has had for several decades. Mr Hitler has not yet taken power of Europe, despite his best efforts.

Proportional representation does not give power to nazi's, that is propaganda sourced from people who dont want to loose their seat.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Proportional representation does not give power to nazi's, that is propaganda sourced from people who dont want to loose their seat.

I'm not saying it did, just it can lead to a lot of parties represented in the house, making it even harder for any bill to win a majority vote from anyone without forming large coalitions made of of lots of small parties.

But then Germany was still quite inexperience in how to work democracy at the time, there were a lot of parties that were just 'vote for an idea' parties, just as they had been under the German Empire before WW1, a lot of them didn't think up proper manifestos, so you had lots of parties representing lots of little niches and conflicting interests not taking the overall big picture into account, leading to deadlock. Democracy might've had a better chance at surviving if it had been able to sort out peoples grieviances.

Probrably wont happen in Britain then, as there are a smaller number of relatively large parties most of which actually bother to come up with full manifestos, with the exception of groups such as UKIP/BNP.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

The BNP aren't popular with the people though are they? They're hugely unpopular.

The night before the election I was in an exhibition space in Euston Road watching this really unusual political play/gig/exhibit involving Billy Bragg and his band (the day of the election itself I was wandering around Westminster getting a nice sun tan, what with all the MPs being back in their constituencies it was quite a nice place to be!).

Billy of course is from Barking, where Nick Griffin was standing as the BNP's candidate, and where they had 12 local councillors and thought they could take control of the council (their local council elections were on the same date). He was understandably quite concerned about the situation.

Yes a rather funny and heavily biased BBC London news report that day featured a quite entertaining bit with a series of vox pops between Nick Griffin and Billy Bragg replying to eachothers comments, needless to say Nick Griffin came out the loser. I've never seen such a biased report in my life, but who cares?

Quote from thisnameistaken :

So let's talk to them. I'd rather they were in the commons getting involved in their democracy than arranging clandestine meetings in pubs and drumming up support by claiming they're the victims.

I suppose its a good idea to let them be humiliated in the open, but lets make sure they don't gain too much influence, after all, nearly every political party (apart from those formed by mergers/coups blah blah) have to start at some small point.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

The BNP aren't popular with the people though are they? They're hugely unpopular.

No, they are worryingly popular. All they need is a charismatic and coherent leader and we'll be see a growing threat from them.

Quote from Intrepid :

No, they are worryingly popular. All they need is a charismatic and coherent leader and we'll be see a growing threat from them.

If they ever get anywhere near the proportion of the popular vote that any other nationalist party receives I will eat any hat you care to adequately prepare for me.

Regardless, if you want democracy you adopt democracy, you don't **** about talking about how you've got a democracy when in reality you've got two opposing, largely hereditary, sets of chinless twats occasionally exchanging power and pocketing private money whilst espousing public service. All the while taking the utmost care to exclude the other 60 million people in the country from ever being involved in any decision-making process relating to anything important.

Because when you've got that you end up with people not bothering to vote. And when you get a 60% turn-out, and 35% of that 60% votes for one party (that's about 1/5th of the electorate), and that party magically emerges with a commons majority because our electoral system is complete bollocks, and it also turns out that most of our taxes are there to contribute to privately held, tax-free property portfolios for these inexcusable bastards, then that's when people start to get ****ed off with the whole thing.

And honestly the least of our worries are a handful of small-minded racists when we've got an overwhelming house majority of firmly entrenched mother****ers pocketing public money at the same time as they're enjoying privately-funded junkets in exchange for corporate-friendly legislation and god knows what else.

Democracy is more important than party politics right now. The economy will get sorted out either way, but the democracy will only get fixed if the Lib Dems manage to make the most of this hung parliament. We will probably not get another opportunity like this in our lifetimes.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Democracy is more important than party politics right now. The economy will get sorted out either way, but the democracy will only get fixed if the Lib Dems manage to make the most of this hung parliament. We will probably not get another opportunity like this in our lifetimes.

That's if the people want change which only a referendum would bring. Labour are proposing AV without a referendum, and considering the complexities of PR and the huge difference in voting systems that would be a right old stitch up. Without an option to vote for a change which a Lab-Lib coalition would bring then that certainly would not be an advancement of democracy. That would be lib-lab making sure a system is in place that suits them... and that's to coin a phrase the 'same old politics'. In fact it's much worse.

I do happen to think the current system is wrong, but I do object to a change without referendum that Labour propose.

I agree with kev.

I just want to add, that once some BNP have their voices heard they're less likely to get re-elected.

Also bear in mind that their votes where miniscule, I was watching them come in and they where getting a few hundred here and a few hundred there and most seats they don't even bother sitting in. There where mad people wearing loin clothes getting as many votes.

People vote BNP in protest and to make the point that they truly are as bigotted, small minded, and stupid as Gordon Brown so enigmatically highlighted during his election fiasco, I meen election campaign.

Only a few hundred people vote BNP because they actually believe in it - and they wont garner much support if ever they get an MP elected and he gets the opportunity to open his stupid small minded dim witted mouth.

Quote from Becky Rose :

Only a few hundred people vote BNP because they actually believe in it - and they wont garner much support if ever they get an MP elected and he gets the opportunity to open his stupid small minded dim witted mouth.

But they will garner support if they find someone who is smart, coherent and not physically odd lol. It's really not something that out of the question. You are making this massive sweeping generalisations about a group of people as well. Makes you not much better than them really in essence. I agree with you hat their arguments and manifesto are a disaster but you have to be careful.

I also think this electoral reform debate is coming from a very loud minority and people in general are becoming increasingly frustrated and annoyed with this whole mess. While electoral reform is definitely something to be debated this chaos needs to get sorted.