Scotland, where people work together.

[andrewducker]

One of the things that's really annoyed me about the coalition government of the UK are the calls of traitor, the disgust that people from party A would ever work with people from party B. Which I could understand if Britain had any major parties that were extreme left or right wing. But as we're electing neither the Socialist Worker Party, nor the National Front, I find the levels of tribalism both baffling and highly offputting.

I am therefore relieved to find myself living in Scotland, where different parties work together to try and make things work. Sure, each party has their own view - and they'll be trying to get their own policies through. But they realise that they have to compromise, and sometimes that means working with people with differing opinions to your own in order to get things done.

Looking at the results of the Scottish council elections I see that we have councils made up of:
Labour
SNP
Lab/Con
Con/Lib-Dem
Lab/Lib-Dem/Con
Lab/SNP
Lab/Lib-Dem/SNP
SNP/Lib-Dem
Plus various variants involving independents,
So that's pretty much everyone working with everyone else (except for SNP/Con). Looking at how negotiations have gone, it seems that sometimes all the Unionist parties ganged up to keep the eeevil Splitting party out, and sometimes all of the Lovely parties ganged up to keep the eeeevil Conservative party out. And that the way it went varied depending on actual local politics, and the history of that particular council. Which frankly is how it should be.

I'd love to see STV implemented for councils in the rest of the UK. If nothing else, it would get people used to the idea that people can work with each other across the political spectrum.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

It's depressing how often I hear "I'LL NEVER VOTE FOR YOU AGAIN NOW YOU'VE GONE IN WITH THE TORIES! YOU'RE TAINTED!!!"

[andrewhickey.info]

Yes... although, if you talk to those people, 95% of them never voted for us anyway, and the other 5% would vote for us if we got rid of Clegg.
It's the ones we've lost because of our actions in government I worry about, not the ones who are outraged at the idea we've gone into coalition at all...

[andrewducker]

My mistake. SNP/Con alliance announced today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-18070305

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

BINGO!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I also was pleased with the results. I am also wondering at the longer term effect on politicians. All those local councillors being forced to work with each means they get used to making coalitions work, they get used to not seeing other parties as full of starry or starey eyed loons and they get used to not describing each other as Evil-on-a-Stick.

Also, the voters get used to seeing coalitions work, or not work and hopefully realise that they are little different from non-coalition governments made up of the different wings and factions of large parties.

If you have time I recommend the analysis by Lallands Peat Worrier of the Glasgow council elections. The graphs are a very useful way of showing how close, or otherwise an election result using a preference voting system is.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

You don't have to be a fascist or a racist to be extreme right wing.

Dismantling the NHS, cutting disability, re-creating the 1950s divisions between universities, slashing local council funding and then claiming their hands are clean when the results come in..

To me these are all extreme right wing policies. That the modern Conservatives have convinced so many people otherwise is what is so distressing. The Conservatives pre Thatcher would have been horrified.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Except that to the extent those things are happening at all, they would also have happened under Labour. Andrew's point wasn't about where on the political spectrum the current government lie, but about how there is not such a huge difference between the major parties that they shouldn't be able to work together.

For the most part there was a pre-election consensus on what steps needed to be taken to fix the economy (a consensus which it now appears was at least partly wrong) -- if one of the parties involved had campaigned on the basis of "no cuts at all! Tax the rich!" or "Get rid of the NHS altogether! Flat tax of 10%!", then there would be a substantive point of difference which would justify the outrage over the fact of coalition. But when the three main parties were campaigning on, respectively "£82 billion in cuts over the course of this Parliament" (Labour), "£80 billion in cuts over the course of this Parliament" (Lib Dem) and "£96 billion in cuts over the course of this Parliament" (Tory) then arguing that the current government, which is cutting £81 billion over the course of this Parliament, is doing anything more severely right-wing than any other possible government we could have had, is just unrealistic.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

The lack of difference could mean they are all agents of the same Chicago School orthodoxy that fucks the majority of the population.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for local councils STV would make a lot of sense, since most people probably aren't really looking for a representative for their ward, but for their town, but are already used to the idea that a town council will have a bunch of different people, and that the individual councillors will probably make a bigger difference than what party they belong to. And as you say, it would hopefully show people it works :)

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see STV implemented for councils in the rest of the UK.

Me too, me too.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a town which had a Con/Lab council for years, as they wanted to keep the Libs out!

[andrewducker]

Clearly it works in all directions!

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Or is just opportunism from whoever forms a council? Would be interesting to see what happens if a BNP councillor was the one who could give or deny a majority.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

In that situation (which has happened a couple of times), all the other parties gang up against the Bastard Nazi Party.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

As I think you could guess, I agree with every word of this.