The Curious Matter of MP Resignations
As a Canadian, following UK politics is fairly simple since our systems of government and our parliamentary traditions and procedure are so similar. Yet every now and then, I learn something new about how things work at Westminster. Sometimes, it is something that I think might be a good idea to adopt in Canada – [...]
Not the best, but somewhat trusted
I haven’t blogged about the myriad of opinion poll which appear pretty much weekly in the UK because I don’t think polls conducted between elections – particularly when no election is expected any time soon – really contribute much to the debate. The way the media has followed the (mostly downward) path of the Lib [...]
From awwwww to awe
I regularly come across pieces in the UK media that quite literally make me go “awwwww” and feel all warm and tingly inside, a completely ridiculous reaction on the face of it, but one that I can explain only this way: this would never happen in Canada. I believe I’ve at least alluded to the [...]
On Filibusters
The Coalition government’s Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill has hit somewhat of an impasse in the House of Lords. Several marathon debate sessions, one lasting over 21 hours, during which various peers refused to “give way” (interrupt their speech to allow another peer to ask a question or comment), while others discussed such gripping [...]
People like me
Class is still a much more prominent issue in the UK than it is in Canada and the US, not because we don’t have different classes in North American society, but because it manifests itself much more obviously in the UK. You can hazard a damn good guess the minute someone opens their mouth at [...]
By any other name
A few weeks ago, I blogged about Labour leader Ed Miliband’s edict to his shadow cabinet banning them from using the word “coalition” to describe the Government because that word made it sound too nice. Instead, the only acceptable term to describe the government is “Conservative-led government”. This week, Labour decided that this self-censorship shouldn’t [...]
Fall Guy
In the slew of opinion pieces and analysis that followed the by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth, two in particular caught my eye, but not because of their analysis of the by-election results. In “What really won Oldham East and Saddleworth for Labour“, the Telegraph’s John McTernan notes: Nick Clegg may draw some crumbs of [...]
The mandatory post on last night’s by-election
As was expected by pretty much everyone, Labour won yesterday’s by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth. As was expected, at least by me, the range of opinion on what this results means is truly astounding, ranging from the “let’s not read too much into this, it was just a by-election” approach to the “proof of [...]
Mentioning Canada wasn’t a good idea
I’ve been looking over the No to AV website this morning, and had a good laugh when I read their section on why FPTP is better than AV. The reasons provided, six in all, are: It creates strong governments It excludes extremist parties It’s fair It’s simple to understand It’s cheap It’s the most widely [...]
Worst of both worlds
As the pro- and anti-AV campaigns in the UK properly get underway with the launch of websites (the Yes side here, the No side here) in anticipation of the May referendum, I would like to take this opportunity to plug an excellent critique of the First-Past-the-Post voting system that recently appeared on the British Politics [...]
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On procedure and politics by Radical Centrist is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
