[jambutty]

You seem to have gone through my post with a fine toothed comb Cyfr but what stopped you commenting about my last paragraph?

I agree that it would be harder to get bills passed but those that do get passed will be supported by the genuine majority of the country and not forced onto us. Can I mention the proposed ID Cards as an example? Can I mention the bi annual budget? When was the last time that a budget was defeated? The Chancellor lays out his budget and come what may it is passed. It is only very rarely that some tiny part of the budget is defeated and he is forced to think again.

The party in power can push through any legislation that it wants regardless of any possibility that the nation does not want it. The House of Lords can only delay a bill because the Commons has the whip hand and the party Whips see to it that the party members vote as they are told and woe betide the rebels. They end up being censured by the Whips and even expelled from the political party. That’s not democracy – that’s dictatorship.

If only your view of Cabinet selection was true. But what happens is that the Cabinet is staffed by Tony’s cronies that he chooses and none dare to disagree with him for fear of losing their jobs and the high salary that goes with it. Whatever he says goes. Not the sort of democracy that holds any cheer for me.

Well thats the thing, not all policy is good policy. If policy is clearly wrong,

In whose opinion? Who is to say that a policy is wrong? You? Me? Him? Her? Different people have different views on a specific issue. That is where the freedom to debate and vote comes in - to determine if a proposal is a good one or not or at least acceptable. Sadly the party Whips have the last say and not the MP’s. What is so democratic about having someone tell you how you should vote?

You see we have a mini parliament in this thread. You have one opinion and I have a different one. Who is clearly right? You are from your viewpoint and you are wrong from my viewpoint. Conversely I am right from my viewpoint and I am wrong from your viewpoint. To resolve the issue we need 600 plus people who have been charged by the public to debate the issue and then after sufficient debate, vote on it. What if I could tell some of them how to vote and so could you but I could tell more than you could.

By definition proportional representation would mean that those with the most backing of the public would be in Parliament. That is not the case today and hasn’t been for hundreds of years.

Democracy is a system where the majority rules. That means the majority of the public. Never once since the last war has a government been in power that has had more votes cast for it than the rest put together. Not MP’s but votes cast by the public. Some democracy! Proportional representation would go a long way to bringing our governing system closer to a real democracy.

In a typical General Election out of an electorate of 41,095,649 - 31,221,362 votes were cast. 13,697,923 voted Tory. Labour gained 11,532,218 votes. To gain a democratic majority the Tories would have needed to gain at least 15,610,682 votes. Yet the Tories won the election with 339 seats over Labour’s 269.

In the same election Lib gained 4,313,804 votes but only 11 seats. They gained one third of the votes that Labour did yet Labour had 24 times the number of seats. Some democracy!
Figures taken from http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html