Europe

[Zhivago]

I just thought we needed a thread to discuss European politics.

Main news is clearly the German elections. SPD done well - took Mutti Merkel's old seat. Laschet done bad, failed in his constituency, but given the weird system they have he still gets into their parliament. If you ask me, anyone who fails to win their constituency seat should be disqualified from the list seats.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I just thought we needed a thread to discuss European politics.

Main news is clearly the German elections. SPD done well - took Mutti Merkel's old seat. Laschet done bad, failed in his constituency, but given the weird system they have he still gets into their parliament. If you ask me, anyone who fails to win their constituency seat should be disqualified from the list seats.

I can't really agree with that one. The alternative would be to elect listed people who haven't even stood for election, which seems even less democratic to me.

IMO the ideal way to select 'top-up' MPs would be from candidates (from the relevant party) who got the highest % of the constituency vote while not winning a FPTP seat.

[Zhivago]

I just thought we needed a thread to discuss European politics.

Main news is clearly the German elections. SPD done well - took Mutti Merkel's old seat. Laschet done bad, failed in his constituency, but given the weird system they have he still gets into their parliament. If you ask me, anyone who fails to win their constituency seat should be disqualified from the list seats.

I can't really agree with that one. The alternative would be to elect listed people who haven't even stood for election, which seems even less democratic to me.

IMO the ideal way to select 'top-up' MPs would be from candidates (from the relevant party) who got the highest % of the constituency vote while not winning a FPTP seat.

Not sure what this is even supposed to mean. If they're on the party list then they have by definition 'stood for election'. Anyway, it's clearly a feature/flaw of mixed member systems. I am personally more in favour of a straight up Open List PR system. That avoids this whole issue.

Hasn't helped Laschet that he's been in denial mode somewhat. When you lose, you should just accept it gracefully.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I just thought we needed a thread to discuss European politics.

Main news is clearly the German elections. SPD done well - took Mutti Merkel's old seat. Laschet done bad, failed in his constituency, but given the weird system they have he still gets into their parliament. If you ask me, anyone who fails to win their constituency seat should be disqualified from the list seats.

I can't really agree with that one. The alternative would be to elect listed people who haven't even stood for election, which seems even less democratic to me.

IMO the ideal way to select 'top-up' MPs would be from candidates (from the relevant party) who got the highest % of the constituency vote while not winning a FPTP seat.

Not sure what this is even supposed to mean. If they're on the party list then they have by definition 'stood for election'. Anyway, it's clearly a feature/flaw of mixed member systems. I am personally more in favour of a straight up Open List PR system. That avoids this whole issue.

Hasn't helped Laschet that he's been in denial mode somewhat. When you lose, you should just accept it gracefully.

By that I mean people who haven't personally stood for election in a seat, haven't had the voters consider them personally for office.

You're saying that someone who failed to win a seat, however narrowly, is less eligible than someone who never even tried to win a seat directly and merely appears on a list. I think the opposite.

[Zhivago]

I can't really agree with that one. The alternative would be to elect listed people who haven't even stood for election, which seems even less democratic to me.

IMO the ideal way to select 'top-up' MPs would be from candidates (from the relevant party) who got the highest % of the constituency vote while not winning a FPTP seat.

Not sure what this is even supposed to mean. If they're on the party list then they have by definition 'stood for election'. Anyway, it's clearly a feature/flaw of mixed member systems. I am personally more in favour of a straight up Open List PR system. That avoids this whole issue.

Hasn't helped Laschet that he's been in denial mode somewhat. When you lose, you should just accept it gracefully.

By that I mean people who haven't personally stood for election in a seat, haven't had the voters consider them personally for office.

You're saying that someone who failed to win a seat, however narrowly, is less eligible than someone who never even tried to win a seat directly and merely appears on a list. I think the opposite.

a list like a ballot? not sure why you say 'merely'

in Germany the ballot looks like this:
https://images.app.goo.gl/7Ne4MUHaSkPwYJDT8

I can agree with you insofar as it's better that the person is chosen directly, but that can happen also with a party list. Like in NL where it is open list PR. The ballot then looks like this.
https://images.app.goo.gl/SBxErzwo5ceKDNSd7

Here the person is chosen directly. And it's a much more simple system than Germany's mixed member system.

Germany can be a crazy country sometimes - other news from Germany, Berlin is going to expropriate properties from the largest landlords. That's radical. Berlin is a special city.

[Sandydragon]

Bit confused by this argument. Surely the idea of a constituency MP is that the voters can directly elect their parliamentary representative, whereas list MPs are the top n number of MPs from each parties list depending on their share of the vote, which always suggests that the voters vote for a party in full knowledge that the list MP might not be someone they individually want?

[Zhivago]

Bit confused by this argument. Surely the idea of a constituency MP is that the voters can directly elect their parliamentary representative, whereas list MPs are the top n number of MPs from each parties list depending on their share of the vote, which always suggests that the voters vote for a party in full knowledge that the list MP might not be someone they individually want?

Party list varies from closed to open. I personally am in favour of the open type. Indeed with closed party list setups only the party itself determines the list order. If the local aspect is desired the party lists are often regional, so you retain the local link. You just don't need it so local like "Cardiff South". You could have a party list for South Wales. Local issues should be dealt with by council or mayoral elections. There is also the impractical situation that our system causes whereby MPs have to split themselves between Westminster and their constituency - sometimes as far afield as London and Inverness or similar. It's a stupid way to construct a system.

[Sandydragon]

Bit confused by this argument. Surely the idea of a constituency MP is that the voters can directly elect their parliamentary representative, whereas list MPs are the top n number of MPs from each parties list depending on their share of the vote, which always suggests that the voters vote for a party in full knowledge that the list MP might not be someone they individually want?

Party list varies from closed to open. I personally am in favour of the open type. Indeed with closed party list setups only the party itself determines the list order. If the local aspect is desired the party lists are often regional, so you retain the local link. You just don't need it so local like "Cardiff South". You could have a party list for South Wales. Local issues should be dealt with by council or mayoral elections. There is also the impractical situation that our system causes whereby MPs have to split themselves between Westminster and their constituency - sometimes as far afield as London and Inverness or similar. It's a stupid way to construct a system.

Some of the stuff MPs deal with us truly pathetic. Unfortunately most people know that local councils can't do much of anything so go straight to their MP instead.

[Stom]

All other parties in Hungary got together to hold a primary to select one mp and one pm candidate to run against Fidesz in the general next year.

And we got a surprising winner, someone I’d class as either an old school liberal or small c conservative. Peter Marki-Zay. He’sa conservative Christian who is happy to let others live their lives if it doesn’t interfere with his, so he’s pro gay marriage and on. His views on other areas are not clear though. He’s anti migrant, but when you dig, it appears to be anti the kind of state sponsored migration Fidesz have been engaging in (bringing in thousands of Chinese, for example).

He seems to have united a lot of people despite running his campaign on a tiny budget. He could well be the best pm here.