Buffalox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The most idiotic part is that UK actually had a vote to end this shitshow, and they chose not to!!!
How moronic can a population get?
I currently live in the UK (moved a few years ago), and one of the single most infuriating thing in the culture here is how “we’ve always done it this way” is THE answer when it comes to justifying anything moronic or broken.
I know that resistance to change and attachment to traditions is not a uniquely British thing but it’s markedly worse here than anywhere else I’ve lived.
I was told in history lessons, that it was also why UK didn’t modernize after WW2.
While the rest of Europe modernized, especially Germany that had to rebuild a lot.
But when UK rebuild, they made the same mistakes as the first time all over again, because of tradition as you say.
As a counterpoint to that, after WW2 the UK created the National Health Service, comprehensive education and the rest of the welfare state, while nationalising many huge industries. For the UK that was pretty radical stuff, and it lasted until the 1980s when Thatcher and her mob started tearing it all apart.
Whether you’d call that modern I’m not sure, but it wasn’t traditional either.
Being radical is not a sign of being progressive in thinking and definitely not a sign of doing what is best.
UK at the time was way more radical on both the left and the right side, exactly because of FPTP. And it lead to politically unsustainable solutions. Again a sign of stupid policies, and a sub par form of governance.
Nationalizing is radical, but it’s a double edged sword that can easily become a burden.
The Social democracies of Scandinavia avoided nationalizing but used regulation instead. A model that has been proven on average to work way better.
So again I’d say the UK politicians weren’t very clever in nationalizing industries.
Also the improvements in the Social Democratic countries on health education and infra structure were way ahead of UK.
The UK voter seems to be roughly as well informed as the US voter.
There are striking similarities.
The press widely covered AV as if it was incredibly expensive and didn’t solve any problems, so presented it as if we’d be throwing away beds at children’s hospitals, support for pensioners and equipment for soldiers just to introduce pointless bureaucracy. If the choice was the one most voters thought they were making, then voting against it would have been the sensible option.
The Conservative government response to a 2016–17 parliamentary petition demanding proportional representation said that “A referendum on changing the voting system was held in 2011 and the public voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the FPTP system.”[209] Tim Ivorson of the electoral reform campaign group Make Votes Matter responded by quoting the petition’s text that “The UK has never had a say on PR. As David Cameron himself said, the AV referendum was on a system that is often less proportional than FPTP, so the rejection of AV could not possibly be a rejection of PR.”[210]
elgordino@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
I remember David Cameron being interviewed by John Humphries on Today (the Radio 4 morning news show). Cameron basically lied about what was in the proposal to make it sound like it was some crackpot idea, Humphries did nothing to call him out on it.
Same went for most media coverage really.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s almost like it’s a hobby for Conservatives to lie.
TriangleSpecialist@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We’re way past hobby territory and into full blown professionals.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Indeed.
tomi000@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Its their job actually
sicjoke@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s almost like it’s a hobby for
Conservativespoliticians to lie.FTFY.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
TBF the people that wanted reform had been pushing for PR. AV was a compromise nobody really liked.