However, even if we temporarily accept your premise, it is rather fatally flawed. When you write a manifesto, you are trying to design the best policies to govern a country for the next five years. If your manifesto only finds its value when dealing with a recession twenty five years in the future, it is hardly a “vindication”. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

This is why I for one voted NO2EU, because they are the only party which recognises that right-wing shite is now discredited and the claim that we could all get rich by selling each other houses is revealed to be a total lie.

This goernment is dying because it has not accepted that the world changed in the second half of 2008. Well, not so much changed as it became impossible to deny the true nature of reality, which is that we need to end Blatcherism. Cameron will fail because he is just as fucking clueless, and wedded to the old ways.

Even the most ideologically driven must pay attention to electoral realities. To be frank, anyone who either gets into parliament or is aiming to do so has spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to get votes- its ridiculous to expect them not to pay attention to the results. And the type of person who will do that is likely to be wonkishly interested anyway.

Want to talk about how politics should be more ideologically or policy driven? Fine. Paying attention to election results doesn’t provide any evidence of it, however. Its just a sign of not being stupid. The SDP paid little attention to the situation on the ground and look where that got them- a rather paltry 6 MP’s.

And theres a reason why your post, which you apparently intended not to be partisan, got castigated for being so- because 2/3rds of it consists of saying how evil tories are for, um, contesting elections? Note: I’m not a tory sympathiser. Its just your point is not well articulated.

Hey, ho.

If politician X really does have an altruistic desire to make the world a better place, then clearly she must have the goal of gaining enough power to carry out her intentions.

It is inevitable.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

And because local councils have very little leeway in how they can act, voters will vote on national issues. Or not vote at all.

The main parties, when they are in opposition, talk about giving more power to local councils. And when they’re in power, they do the opposite.

It’s unlikely (assuming that humans exist in 2100, something that can’t be taken as given).

Human nature stays the same (roughly). But societies can still get people to behave differently, by using mechanisms that incentivise different behaviours.

At the moment most politicians (including concillors) belong to one of the big parties and identify with that party. If we change the voting system from FPTP to one of AV, AV+, or STV, people will be incentivised to be more loyal to the electorate and less loyal to the party.

If we give local councils more power, we’ll get voters voting more on local issues, not on how they see the parties nationally.

If we allow local referendums on local issues, voters will take more of an interest in local issues.

The piece was introduced by John Humphreys with the words “If you compare how they [the Conservatives] did with how they were *expected* to do, perhaps it’s not quite so impressive”. Almost every question he then asked was about what the Tory share of the vote meant for a General Election.

It was an interview about whether or not the Conservative share of the vote was as good as everyone had expected, and what it would mean if transplanted to a General Election. What else do you expect Spelman to talk about?

Not really, not while central government holds the purse strings so tightly and can control the financial incentives given to local councils.

Oh wait, thats a perfectly normal thing for all parties to do. If you were contesting parliamentary elections why on Earth wouldn’t you do that? Stop presenting a false dichotomy- all parties can campaign for council control beliving it is best for local interests and also take a look at what it means for GE’s in the future.

Local councillors from all parties, even the ones think I do an awful *job* managing the council, often put in a huge amount of time and effort to try and represent their constituents. But MP’s (and going by the results, the public) deal with national results first, so why wouldn’t they comment on that? Its not like its either untrue or unimportant.

Unless of course people are voting locally based on their national intentions, in which case Spellman is perfectly right in her posturing.