Comment by mathiaspoint
1 day ago
The people in charge are largely hated by the electorate. They won by default effectively due to a quirk of how UK elections work (which was less of a problem when the monarch/aristocracy was still involved to counter balance things like this, but now that that's gone the state is effectively out of control.)
Unless by "democracy" you mean "sleepwalking administration everyone hates" the current UK government is unusually undemocratic.
No post war U.K. government aside from the 2010-15 coalition had a majority of voters voting for the parties in power. 1951 came close I think.
However opinion polls consistently put support for the “anti porn” bill up high amongst multiple demographics.
The cause for this is a lack of computer literacy, in both government and the population, but that doesn’t really matter.
The electorate hated the politicians, then they still vote for the same guys. The general public doesn't care about politics, those who cared treats it like tribalism and don't want to learn what are actually happening, they don't want to think they only want to be told whatever feeding their brain chemistry.
> They won by default effectively due to a quirk of how UK elections work (which was less of a problem when the monarch/aristocracy was still involved to counter balance things like this, but now that that's gone the state is effectively out of control.)
I’m reading this as you saying that the system is worse now that the monarchy and aristocracy have less power. Is that correct? If so, how do these unelected groups make it better?
You have misread (in a very common way for, I believe, a very common reason.)
I said it's less democratic. That's not necessarily less bad unless you believe democracy is the ultimate measure of fitness for a state.
Tell me about this "quirk" and winning by "default" (and how this never applied to other recent elections).
Less than 30% of the electorate voted labour. The problem is that the opposing party consistently ran as opposition but then executed on labour's policies instead so most people just didn't vote because they didn't see anyone running to vote for.
The electorate legitimately did not want these people or their policies, they effectively weren't given a choice. To call that democracy delegtimizes democratic elections.
Everyone also had the choice to vote Green or Liberal Democrat. I believe both promise electoral reform.
2 replies →
That's how our representative democracy works though. Even if just one person votes in each constituency.
I say that those who didn't vote knew it was a foregone conclusion and would have voted in the same proportion as those who did vote.
You say they weren't given a choice, but there are now more parties represented in parliament now than before.
What percent of the electorate voting for the biggest party would be acceptable to you?
>The electorate legitimately did not want these people or their policies
> so most people just didn't vote because they didn't see anyone running to vote for.
Probably shoulda voted then
It was a win under the rules but a memorably shallow one. Labour won a big majority of seats in 2024 on fewer votes (grand total) than when they lost handsomely in 2019.
The paradox of politics : are hated whilst actually doing what the majority wants.
As we saw in the case of the Winter fuel Payments : if a policy is unpopular with voters, it is abandoned. The Online Safety Act is popular, so it will stay.
Being unpopular is not the opposite of popular.
The winter fuel payments were very unpopular with a very vocal part of the population, while any benefits were very thinly distributed on the rest of the electorate.
The cost of the online safety act is very small and almost invisible distributed across everyone. Any major effects (leaking of personal data) can be blamed on the victims (most people assume that only perverts will have to verify their age). Another effect where security conscious people will be excluded from online discussions is probably in invisible (if not a benefit) to most people.