The morning after the night before
May. 8th, 2015 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rich_jackoWow. Astonishing results.
So, the UK voted in 2011 to keep FPTP and the night has shown comprehensively why FPTP doesn't work.
Scotland voted last year to stay in the UK but the Union now looks to be in more trouble than ever.
Everyone thought coalition governments would become the new norm, but the Lib Dems' fate makes it unlikely any smaller party will want to go into coalition ever again.
The big story of the campaign was the rise of those smaller parties, but we're ending up with a very blue / red / yellow (albeit a different shade of yellow) House of Commons.
Not a good outcome for so many reasons. Where do we go from here?
So, the UK voted in 2011 to keep FPTP and the night has shown comprehensively why FPTP doesn't work.
Scotland voted last year to stay in the UK but the Union now looks to be in more trouble than ever.
Everyone thought coalition governments would become the new norm, but the Lib Dems' fate makes it unlikely any smaller party will want to go into coalition ever again.
The big story of the campaign was the rise of those smaller parties, but we're ending up with a very blue / red / yellow (albeit a different shade of yellow) House of Commons.
Not a good outcome for so many reasons. Where do we go from here?
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no subject
Date: 2015-05-09 01:37 pm (UTC)I am (and always have been) a floating voter. Last time around, I honestly believed a Conservative / Lib Dem coalition was the best outcome. I stick by that. For all the coalition's (many) faults, they've done a reasonable job on most fronts, whereas another five years of Gordon Brown would have been disastrous.
This time around, I had my fingers crossed for a Labour / Lib Dem / SNP alliance of some sort. Labour seemed to be offering a pretty sensible centre-left alternative; the Lib Dems could've kept their worst tax-and-spend instincts in check; and the SNP would have led them into discussions for sensible electoral and constitutional reform.
The scale and pace of the Conservatives' planned cuts really does scare me. Yes, government borrowing needs to be reduced, but it should be a longer term plan and there are better ways of doing it than they are intending.
I also fear for the future of the United Kingdom. The results were such a disconnect between Scotland and everywhere else, and I worry that Cameron's constitutional reforms will be more about gerrymandering than they will be about addressing the real issues of discontent with over-centralised politics.
We'll see.