How much did Brown pay for RBS etc?

But nationalising *is* making us shareholders.

I don't think he had much choice.The people to blame are the greedy and criminally incompetent management.They are still in a job and have taken out millions in bonuses. I thInk the Lloyds group will recover, RBS may be broken up, like Citi group. Barclays shares have been hammered, apparently a hedge fund has made £12,000,000 by short selling Barclays shares.The Quatar Investment Co could end up with control. They might take it private.

Since the share price had fallen so far, not much. And in any case, not with real cash but with future cash in the form of government guarantees. As Chancellor, Brown showed his mastery of the small print. Same with this deal. His obfuscation is designed to kid us all into believing that it's a low cost solution, when really it is not.

No need. Brown knew that the shares were worthless (thanks to his hands-off/bank friendly policies for the last 10 years or so) and could be bought for a song. All he needed to do was to pledge on our behalf (our un-elected Prime Minister) that the taxpayer will stump up whatever it takes to save the banks. But he will not stump up to save your mortgage, or yours, should the banks dispossess you.

That's what they have, in effect done. But they refuse to admit (so as not to give political ammunition to the Tories) that it's socialism, not neo-liberalism (now proven not to have worked) that we need.

So they try to ape the US model, of privatising profits, but socialising losses. Hence the talk about forming a state bank to take all the banks' toxic assets.

The markets only think they are worthless because they reckon there'll be no money left for shareholder dividends after they've paid the government back over the next decade or so.

Eh? What's the difference?

We don't elect Prime Minister in the UK

we elect parties (or even more correctly, we elect our local MP)

tim

Yes, tim I know. But what do the majority of UK voters know?

Brown and his backers have failed (as Callaghan in a similar position also failed) to convince the UK electorate that their claim to exercise power is legitimate, whatever the small print may say.

Crisis? What Crisis? was unfairly pinned on Callaghan.

'Saviour of the World' will be unfairly pinned on Brown.

And why? Because Brown, following Blair, tried to triangulate and failed.

Only if we vote for the winner, otherwise our vote counts for nothing.

Surely that's irrelevant.

Whatever the electoral/parliamentary system, if you vote for the eventual losing party, your vote counts for nothing.

tim

Yes, I'm familiar with the constitutional position. But Brown is hiding behind that technicality to claim that he is the legitimate Prime Minister of the UK, when everyone knows that his support is falling and he wishes to avoid an election. In the US such a President would be referred to as a lame duck.

In a FPTP system all votes for the non-winner count for nothing. In other words if all these people had decided not to vote at all it would make no difference.

In a proportional system if the same people decided not to vote, it would make a difference.

Therefore I believe your statement is incorrect.

Surely if only those who voted for the winner voted, then that winner would get in as a result of getting 100% of the votes cast, and this would be the case whether the system is proportional or not.

No. In a proportional system if 55% voted for one party and 45% voted for another party then the number of MPs would closely match the vote. In the FPTP system the number of MPs elected from each party may not be anywhere close to the 55/45 split, as is usually the case in the UK.

In a proportional system every vote counts *a little*.

You haven't thought this through fully enough.

I agree that in a PR system the people that vote for the eventaul losing party will have their vote count towards the size of the opposition.

But given that the winning party can push they agenda through, regardless of whether the opposition has 1 seat or 100 seats, the vote for the opposition party counts for nothing.

tim

Yes I have.

Only if all MPs toe the party line all the time, which they don't. There will be more opposition MPs to sit on committees, even be government ministers!

Even with our FPTP system governments find it harder to push through controversial bills if their majority in the house is small. With a proportional voting system the government is likely to have a smaller majority. It may not even have an absolute majority.

That's true, of course, but your claim had to do with what would happen if those who would have voted for the non-winner decided instead not to vote.

So what you would have to consider is not "if 55% voted for one party and 45% voted for another party" but rather "if 55% voted for one party and the other 45% did not vote at all". You would then end up with the winning party getting all the seats, even under a proportional system.

The example I gave about people deciding not to vote was to illustrate that votes for the non-winner count in a proportional system. i.e. if we took away all the votes for the non-winners in the FPTP system it would make no difference.

I don't see why one case is any less relevant. A voting system needs to work and be fair no matter how people actually vote.

Yes, OK.

Ah, well, but what does it mean to say that a voting system "works" or "is fair"? And are those two requirements not in some sense inherently incompatible, particularly if you hold "the voting system works" to mean that it produces a parliament which works?

Even fairness is inherently impossible if you have more than two candidates.