Western democracies have fair and competitive elections in the same way they have fair and competitive markets for things like internet access or mobile phones. You are effectively only allowed to choose between a very carefully managed set of choice that are provided to you. This set of choices is often so dire and distant from people's actual desires that many just don't bother voting at all.
George Carlin used the analogy of restaurant to modern democracy. You have the appearance of choice because you are handed a menu where you can choose liberal or conversative or green party, etc. But all of the actual policies and laws are drawn up by the same chefs in the back and you eat what you are served.
our two party system means that more often than not you are voting against some party having power.
The left wing has been vote split for some time, now the tight wing is getting vote split.
It’s not a fair characterisation to say that the UK government is popular, the last actually popular government was probably Tony Blair (though many regret him in hindsight), though Boris had his followers I guess.
I'd say it is the other way around. -- Support for the Tories/Conservatives has collapsed to the point where they are 4th or even 5th place! Reform have benefitted most from this shift. [1]-[4]
The left wing is seeing Labour voters shift to the Lib Dems, Greens, Jeremy Corbin's new party, and Reform.
Western democracies have fair and competitive elections in the same way they have fair and competitive markets for things like internet access or mobile phones. You are effectively only allowed to choose between a very carefully managed set of choice that are provided to you. This set of choices is often so dire and distant from people's actual desires that many just don't bother voting at all.
George Carlin used the analogy of restaurant to modern democracy. You have the appearance of choice because you are handed a menu where you can choose liberal or conversative or green party, etc. But all of the actual policies and laws are drawn up by the same chefs in the back and you eat what you are served.
This is my point. You need to identify the source of the problem if you want to take action. Blaming bureaucrats is not helpful.
> Blaming bureaucrats is not helpful.
Bureaucrats are the ones making the rules of the game we have to play. So why shouldn't we blame them?
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our two party system means that more often than not you are voting against some party having power.
The left wing has been vote split for some time, now the tight wing is getting vote split.
It’s not a fair characterisation to say that the UK government is popular, the last actually popular government was probably Tony Blair (though many regret him in hindsight), though Boris had his followers I guess.
I'd say it is the other way around. -- Support for the Tories/Conservatives has collapsed to the point where they are 4th or even 5th place! Reform have benefitted most from this shift. [1]-[4]
The left wing is seeing Labour voters shift to the Lib Dems, Greens, Jeremy Corbin's new party, and Reform.
[1] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/services_lsdm.html (April)
[2] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20250625... (June)
[3] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html (July)
[4] https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_rrose_20250731.... (August)
Popular politicians tend to do the most damage.
First past the post, and not proportionally representative - so could be improved a lot.
The People’s Republic of China has elections, no?
First past the post, so no, not really.