The result of the poll 'How do we elect our political representatives' is as follows:
By personality 1%
By party 34%
By policies 26%
Combination of the above 34%
Eeny-meeny-miney-mo system 1%
By habit 4%
The number of votes cast was 119.
Surprisingly I thought more people would vote by personality but it would seem a politician's personality alone isn't enough to make us put our cross against their name.
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16 comments:
And looking at the two examples pictured Murphy and Blears, I'm surprised it was even 1%!
"it would seem a politician's personality alone isn't enough to make us put our cross against their name."
That's because the majority of politicians come straight out of the same cloned yes man box and are devoid of any real personality. Very few real characters in parliaments these days as they are weeded out by positive selection processes by the control freak leadership.
I was tempted WfW, believe me I was tempted, but the choice was too vast. :)
You're right QM. I can remember when some of my family chose their MP because he was a 'nice man/woman' and did 'good works'. Seems no longer.
As QM suggests, in party politics I suspect 'political personality' is an oxymoron Rosie.
'By Habit' + 'By Party'(with a smattering of Eeny-meeny-miney-mo) can be the only possible explanations of how Gordon Brown was re-elected in 2010.
The questions were a bit skewed. Most (not all) people haven't a clue who their MP is; they just vote for the person representing the party whose leader is the most charismatic - and therefore who they want to see as PM. That's how we got Gordon Brown: he became PM without an election....and lost the role when he did go to the country!
We would all be better off if the country switched to a Presidential system - it might be flawed but it is more honest, and this AV nonsense is just an irrelevance!
Given that manifestos can be torn up after the election because of changed circumstances or coalition agreements, choosing by personality ought to be the best way of picking a good representative. As others have said the selective process (so make open primaries compulsory) and whips turn everyone into replicants that spout the line to take drafted by maybe half a dozen people close to the leader. I'm not suggesting a Voight-Kampff machine test like in Blade Runner, but an assessment of how they behave with other people in a variety of unfamiliar situations.
Moving to a new area or after an election which (like the last one) wipes out hundreds of incumbent MPs will always see you forced to choose by rosette colour and manifesto content.
It's only after a few elections that a local personal vote really begins to build for anyone (mostly for, but sometimes against!)
Options missing here include ones especially prevalent in some *cough* communities.... "Don't know, our father fills in the postal votes for us" and "That nice man from the Labour Party has registered 267 postal voters as living in our airing cupboard".
Aye Joe, you're not the first to say that in the past 24hours.
It was difficult covering aspects within the technical structure of the poll Affer. My efforts were wasted because Blogger's poll setup didn't record well.
Something said to me yesterday was exactly what you say - ' most people don't even have a clue who their MP is and wouldn't recognise them in the street.
It ought to be Brian, but how many people have met their local MP, especially since local hustings are no longer held.
Your suggestion is great but I can't see any of them touching it with a bargepole. We tend to vote for people we know nothing about as we still have the 'trust' gene - although that's disappearing.
Aye ASE, that one is a problem. I have neighbours who have lived here for years and an MSP who was also MP for 14 years now and, because they don't like his party, they're not even interested in discussing local issues with him. The complexities of us humans.
If you pick by the party, even if you are a party activist, you have zero say in respect of the person. You will be provided with a list of clones by party HQ and be told to have one of them.
I chose, if possible the most non-PC candidate. If the other candidates label him/her as being racist, sexist, homophobic, out of touch, extreme, or any of the other things which the clones most definitely are not, he/she is probably a good person against whom they have no logical arguments, and so would get my support.
If any animal showed the same tendency as a political personality the would be treated to humane extermination.
That's the problem with the AV system here EP. Nobody knows who the party list candidates are. We never see them.
Snails are definitely political Crinkly. They destroy my plants just before they give a final push to flower. Crushed eggshells are the answer though.
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