Trump, Putin, Farage… your boy took a hell of a beating.
Congratulations to the people of Hungary for showing that populist extremists can be defeated – even despite Donald Trump’s best efforts.
Wait ... those subtitles ... did I see ..
I remember the TV ads from my childhood.
Toblerone
Out on its own
Triangular chocolate
That's Toblerone
Made with triangular honey
By triangular bees
Nicked from triangular lorries
By triangular thieves
Oh Kent Constabulary please
Save my Toblerone
Of course it's all about me! In casting my vote, I will be thinking about who will best represent my political interests, which of course will be mindful of the constituency and the country as a whole. And the stranger in the polling booth next to me will be doing exactly the same.
By definition, I would prefer that my 1st preference candidate is elected. But in the circumstances you describe, not enough of my fellow constituents agree with my choices. But I will get someone I prefer, and that is likely to be true for them too.
I do indeed call it democracy. Even if my first three preferences are unsuccessful, I wil still have an MP that I have chosen to represent me. In my life, this has never happened.
Under STV, if my 4th preference candidate gets elected it will be because my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd preferences have already been elected or there is insufficient support in the constituency for them to be elected. At a minumim, I will have elected someone I have chosen to represent me.
Have you heard of STV (Single Transferable Vote)? STV is AV in multi-member constituencies. It includes preferential voting and is (typically) more proportional than FPTP. You don't have to choose between proportionality and voter choice. STV does both.
You are comparing apples and oranges. AV is a specific voting system. PR covers a range of different voting systems with various degrees of expected proportionality.
STV prioritises voter choice. That it also tends to increase proportionality is a welcome consequence.
I think a lot of voters would be uncomfortable with compulsory preferencing: "You mean I *have* to vote for the Leopard Face-Eating Party?"
I think I'm right in saying that with the exception of 2001 the Liberal Democrats' manifesto commitment to STV has never mentioned the requirement for a referendum. (2001 was complicated by Jenkins' 1998 AV+ proposal.)
Agree that abstaining PR purists were not enough to make the difference, but perhaps not widely appreciated at the time that AV could have served as a step towards STV (by amalgamating adjacent constituencies).
I'm going to keep saying this: Lib Dems need to make the case for STV now. Consensus on electoral reform is emerging and that's fine but you need to be directly advocating for STV rather than just PR. Before it's too late.
Two sides of the same coin.
Don't let Trump's America become Farage's Britain.
Reform UK are reportedly intending to replicate 2025's results by spending £5 million on this year's local elections. I can't match that but I have donated to the Liberal Democrats to try and level the playing field.
The LibDems were not able to simply demand everything they wanted in 2010. A temporary minority government quickly folllowed by a fresh election was always the Tories' fall-back position. Clegg did get a referendum on AV which is one step away from the LibDems' preferred solution of STV.
Even worse if you're doing all that and the dog never left the house.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.
🤷 shroogs
Thank you, this brightened a dull morning!
Stasis, sanctimony and the liberal paradox. New post on my Brexit & Brexitism Blog with such Brexit news as there is, but mainly analysis of what 'responsible Farage' tells us about the tensions in Reform and what the BBC row tells us about Brexitism: chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2025/11/stas...
Is that Peabody or a female Digby?
The BBC belongs to Britain, but Trump wants to tear it down.
We can’t allow the Trumpification of our politics or our media.
Deeply saddened by the passing of Dick Taverne. He will be missed by all of us, including his colleagues in the House of Lords.
His life of public service is an inspiration and a reminder of what politics can be.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
Loving your country means loving it as it is — not as you wish it were.
Britain is getting old. Instead of fearing it, we should lead the world in how to live longer, better.
My new piece on making the most of an ageing society is out.
howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/we-must-lo...
Maybe CIL is doing something that in a saner world would be accomplished by LVT.
Well, this is fun.
Robert Jenrick holds up a judges wig like a puppet during his speech to the Conservative Party Conference.
We have an independent judiciary in this country. Robert Jenrick wants puppet judges.
The Conservative Party once believed in the rule of law and our shared British values - no longer.
These four features, consciousness, intentionality, subjectivity, and mental causation are what make the mind-body problem seem so difficult. Yet, I want to say, they are all real features of our mental lives. Not every mental state has all of them. But any satisfactory account of the mind and of mind-body relations must take account of all four features. If your theory ends up by denying any one of them, you know you must have made a mistake somewhere. John R Searle, Minds, Brains and Science (1984)
John R Searle (1932 – 2025)
