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"Britain has been saddled with a voting system that treats millions of votes as worthless, shuts out challenger parties & produces perversely undemocratic outcomes". My essay for the @NewStatesman on why progressive politics must reject First Past the Post newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
@NewStatesman "By inflating the representation of the largest parties & shutting out minority voices, First Past The Post legitimises the core claim of populism: that single fragments of opinion can speak for “the people” ... The result is a parliament that locks out great swathes of opinion".
@NewStatesman First Past the Post has always been a flawed way of recording voters' wishes. But it is now much more than that: it is distorting the entire conduct of our elections.
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
I've written a blogpost on "Brexit in Historical Perspective". It's a longish read, so here's a summary of the argument. [THREAD] gladstonediaries.blogspot.com/2020/01/brexit…
2. Brexit marks the end, not just of a four-year political struggle, but of an entire phase of British history: half a century in which Britain was fundamentally reshaped by its membership of the European bloc.
3. From 1961 to 2016, every British government - whether Labour or Conservative - thought that Britain should be inside the European bloc. Yet ministers have shown little understanding of why Britain joined, or of the strategic dilemmas to which membership became the answer.
Read 16 tweets
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
"The UK", says @BorisJohnson, "rose to greatness because of our championing of global free trade." This is one of the core myths underpinning the ideology of "Global Britain", which I wrote about in the @NewStatesman in October. newstatesman.com/politics/uk/20…
@BorisJohnson @NewStatesman In Johnson's rather hazy vision of British history, a coercive military empire is recast as a champion of “free trade”, establishing entrepreneurialism, rather than empire, as the golden thread between past & present. That teaches the dangerous lesson that "nothing has changed".
@BorisJohnson @NewStatesman The classic example of this is Liam Fox, who memorably told a gathering of Commonwealth Ministers in 2017 that what bound them all together was their shared history of free trade.
Read 4 tweets
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Robert Saunders
@redhistorian
"The book rattles with astonishing revelations of ignorance. He really seems to have believed those Tory press releases. He was a conviction politician– it’s just his convictions were written by a load of 23 year-old press officers." Chris Cook on Cameron. members.tortoisemedia.com/2019/12/20/cam…
Even on his government's flagship reforms, Cameron "parades vast holes in his knowledge".
This could be said of much British foreign policy in recent years. @xtophercook on the Cameron memoir.
Read 4 tweets

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Jennifer Cohn
@jennycohn1
America’s critical election infrastructure is for sale to the largest dark money funded bidder. Thread. 1/ nybooks.com/daily/2019/12/…
“As w/ so much in American politics, following the money sheds light on the motivation of some of the election officials choosing these systems [universal use Ballot Marking Devices, which most leading experts advise against]. It makes quite an audit trail of its own.” 2/
“In 2018,...McClatchy...broke a story that ES&S ‘has for at least 9 years coaxed state and local elections officials to serve on an ‘advisory board’ that gathers twice annually for company-sponsored conferences, including one last year at a ritzy Las Vegas resort hotel.” 3/
Read 36 tweets
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Sam Hooper
@SamHooper
Thread: There’s an insidious argument that it is automatically “un-conservative” to oppose anything that has been baked into the British political landscape for more than a couple of decades. Hence Brexit is supposedly a sign of the Tories being irresponsibly revolutionary. /1
Now, I’m the last one to disagree with the notion that this government has been (and continues to be) cavalier and irresponsible in flirting with a disruptive No Deal Brexit, which was certainly not the Brexit which I and many others campaigned and voted for. /2
But the lazy idea being bandied around by journalists, commentators and others (@sullydish has a slightly more measured take) is that Brexit is inherently un-conservative. Which sounds pleasing until you actually stop and properly think about it. /3
Read 34 tweets
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Marguerita
@MzMollyAnna
How abt a voting system similar to social media friends.

Where ONLY We can make our votes totally private.
We can make them so only our approved friends can see.
We can make them totally public.

When voting begins, we could all watch in real time seeinng only what’s chosen.
This would allow for the public to monitor our votes and the votes of our friends if they choose that option.

In this system, we should have a totaling calculator AND each vote showing up as either private, friends only or public, were we could count them individually.
This system would let We, the People, see what’s really happening, IN REAL TIME, with nothing hidden, or a sudden 332,000 votes suddenly appearing in someone’s vote totals.

If we trust the IRS to accurately approve our tax returns, send out social security check, ...
Read 7 tweets
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Darcey Dupuis
@1ProudCdn
Mega Thread of Opinion (1 of 52)

My take on #Election2019, is one that will surprise all #Canadians who will take the #time to read past this #headline. It will be a #long #series of #tweets that will be #purely #honest & straight to the #point.
This #series of tweets will contain #jabs at #voters, the #media & our #political #parties & they are #jabs, that in my own #opinion are #merited. Agree or don’t agree, I won’t care, but it needs to be said to ease my conscience in the lead up to our election!
In 2015, Canada’s #media, declared that #Trudeau & .@liberal_party outflanked the @NDP on leftist policies & for the 1st time in recent history the media supported large deficits & destruction of our country’s finances over a more balanced approach. Let’s stop here for a sec.
Read 52 tweets
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Philosopher Kin
@rogerahicks
#Britain IS #TheMatrix: a mercenary #PatronState deceitfully posing as a nation, in order to legitimise itself, its ruling elites & the immense power they wield & abuse. They, with other states, inflicted both world wars on us & now the madness of mass immigration & #DIVERSITY.
The primary purpose of the state is & always has been to facilitate society's SELF-exploitation, to the personal advantage of its ruling elites & favoured (esp. wealthy & academic/formerly priestly) clients, at the expense of society at large.
Read 13 tweets
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cryborg
@cryborg
If the Trump/Russia conspiracy is ‘legally’ proven & 2016 election proven rigged?

@HillaryClinton should immediately be offered the Presidency.

after Trump is removed & imprisoned every action by Trump as POTUS & ALL laws should be reversed including his SCOTUS appt
I suggest as a remedy we separate the General election from the Presidential election and start the 4yr cycle forward after the removal of Trump. @HillaryClinton rightfully deserves 4 years in office.
Gosh, that idea must sound too radical.

I’ll grant you back in the normal days before the-hack-heard-around-the-world 2016 election I would agree.

Not anymore. We need radical changes to the outdated election system. I’ve been screaming it for years.
Read 6 tweets

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