brief Fisk on Tory Lord electoral propaganda

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My target is this Torygraph article on Lords reform containing the following para:

"One senior Conservative source in the Lords said of the draft [Lords reform] Bill: “This is fantasy land. It’s a joke. How can you have PR for the country rejected in the AV referendum and then bring in PR for the Lords. The whole thing is utterly ridiculous.”"

Firstly, PR wasn't even an option in the AV referendum. This is certainly one of the reasons why the Yes vote was so low.

Secondly, the referendum vote wasn't a democratic rejection of anything.

The only thing that's ridiculous here is UK "democracy".

UK democracy

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I try to avoid reading or even thinking about UK politics, being no longer a resident of that sordid plutocracy. However, I encountered this article on electoral finance via Twatter and the urge to rant got the better of me:

Dude, there's a hell of a lot more wrong with UK 'democracy' than just the funding environment. And why is it that the best most reformers can dream of achieving in a Western country in the 21st century is the distant promise of proportional representation? Why have developments in democracy not progressed since the early 20th century? What about Direct Democracy? Why does 38% of eligible voters constitute a majority? What about compulsory voting? What about an elected second house, FFS!!!! What about giving the power to vote on every issue back to the people who should hold it?

The idea of elected representatives being the only viable form of government was accurately criticised as "elective dictatorship" by Lord Hailsham 35 years ago. Why has this issue not been considered further since then? The answer is that the UK is a pseudodemocracy where power is concentrated in the hands of professional politicians and their backers. The electorate remain ambivalent to this because much of the mainstream media conducts itself according to the propaganda model made famous by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky.

sign this petition if you want to change things in this sordid mess of a country

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Little steps, people. Little steps.

electoral reform might be imminent

As my dear readers will likely know, I am a big advocate of electoral reform. Apparently it might actually come to pass. Awesome!