Podcasts about fptp

In this thought provoking interview, Marlene and Fiona sit down with data analyst Stuart Donald to discuss his fascinating research on the "union dividend".  Stuart's research delves into the origins of the Barnett formula and even further back to pre war economics to unpack the myths and misconceptions about the financial benefits Scotland supposedly receives from England and how much better off we would be if we were able to make our own political choices.  Stuart also highlights how the Westminster First Past The Post electoral system disproportionately favours the right and disenfranchises poorer communities.  Could Proportional Representation hold the key to a fairer system?   Will independence come soon enough to save Scotland from the demographic time bomb created by Westminster mismanagement? Main chapters 00:01:27  What is this Union Dividend? 00:03:10  Why does Scotland get more funding than England? 00:06:48   The Barnett formula 00:08:50   Unionist Spin 00:11:50   Debunking the myths 00:18:47  Europe to the rescue 00:26:05  FPTP, a spiral of doom 00:37:28  Prospects for PR 00:43:06  Getting the message across Find detailed research presentations on this and other topics on Stuart's website here https://sdonald4pr.com  and read his papers for Bylines Scotland https://bylines.scot/politics/a-right-turn-that-put-first-past-the-post-onto-a-precarious-path/ and  https://bylines.scot/news/economics/scotlands-union-dividend-if-ever-there-was-a-misnomer/ #Scotland #UnionDividend #BarnettFormula The Scottish Independence Podcasts team produce a NEW podcast episode every Friday search for Scottish Independence Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.  Remember to like and subscribe! Contact Us: indypodcasters@gmail.com  Visit our website https://scottishindypod.scot for blogposts, newsletter signup and more episodes Subscribe for free to our Youtube channel @scottishindypodExtra for more of our video footage and clips.  video premieres most Tuesdays at 8pm If you've enjoyed this podcast you might like to buy us a coffee?  https://ko-fi.com/scottishindependencepodcasts or choose us as your Easyfundraising good cause. Music: Inspired by Kevin MacLeod Industrial Cinematic by Kevin MacLeod  

TNT Show host John Drummond interviews data analytics expert Stuart Donald about the insights we can gain from his research into electoral systems, Brexit and the Scottish Constitutional question.  Topics include: 00:02:06   Is the Union killing people? 00:05:28   Inequality and the FPTP system 00:07:41   The Myth of the Union Dividend 00:16:17    Slapstick Accounting 00:19:00    Faulty stats drive faulty narratives 00:20:37    Scottish "dividend" based on English needs 00:21:57    How much should Scotland get? 00:26:40    Starmer's Labour continuing inequality 00:30:33    Why can't UK have PR? 00:37:47    Labour elected on sufferance  00:40:00    Falling prey to the Far Right 00:44:53    England needs a national conversation 00:49:24    Building Messaging Stuart's website containing his research is www.sdonald4pr.com The Scottish Independence Podcasts team produce a NEW podcast episode every Friday search for Scottish Independence Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.  Remember to like and subscribe! Contact Us: indypodcasters@gmail.com  Visit our website https://scottishindypod.scot for blogposts, newsletter signup and more episodes Subscribe for free to our Youtube channel @scottishindypodExtra for more of our video footage and clips.  video premieres most Tuesdays at 8pm If you've enjoyed this podcast you might like to buy us a coffee?  https://ko-fi.com/scottishindependencepodcasts or choose us as your Easyfundraising good cause. Music: Inspired by Kevin MacLeod

We have returned for a special look at the UK's dramatic 2024 election, which saw Labour win a landslide majority on a record low share of the vote and Ed Davey humiliate himself for attention. Features some unavoidable discussion of Chris' mortgage. Chris also published this insightful piece, and Jonathan was inspired to rant about FPTP a bit.

This week I'm joined by another returnee to the function Room, a lecturer at the Maynooth University Department of Geography and we're talking about voting systems and the numbers they generate. We catch an STV, - single transferrable vote, FPTP -first past the post and the second chance of the French system.We find out why Eurovision is a giant democratic experiment and ultimately why a vote in Ireland goes on an adventure.

The left-wing alliance in France won the most seats in parliament in a dramatic election, dealing a surprise blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile the push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics. Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK's Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote. “This election has thrown the spotlight on to the electoral system as the result was the most disproportional on record,” said Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. “We have already had a growing chorus of calls for PR [proportional representation] in the aftermath.” Farage said the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system was “unfair” after Reform took 14.3% of the popular vote – making it the third biggest party by vote share – but won only five seats. The Green party received 6.8% of the vote for its four seats. Tune in every Tuesday at 7AM on KPFK.org

The left-wing alliance in France won the most seats in parliament in a dramatic election, dealing a surprise blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile the push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics. Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK's Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote. “This election has thrown the spotlight on to the electoral system as the result was the most disproportional on record,” said Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. “We have already had a growing chorus of calls for PR [proportional representation] in the aftermath.” Farage said the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system was “unfair” after Reform took 14.3% of the popular vote – making it the third biggest party by vote share – but won only five seats. The Green party received 6.8% of the vote for its four seats. Tune in every Tuesday at 7AM on KPFK.org

The left-wing alliance in France won the most seats in parliament in a dramatic election, dealing a surprise blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile the push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics. Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK's Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote. “This election has thrown the spotlight on to the electoral system as the result was the most disproportional on record,” said Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. “We have already had a growing chorus of calls for PR [proportional representation] in the aftermath.” Farage said the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system was “unfair” after Reform took 14.3% of the popular vote – making it the third biggest party by vote share – but won only five seats. The Green party received 6.8% of the vote for its four seats.

The left-wing alliance in France won the most seats in parliament in a dramatic election, dealing a surprise blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile the push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics. Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK's Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote. “This election has thrown the spotlight on to the electoral system as the result was the most disproportional on record,” said Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. “We have already had a growing chorus of calls for PR [proportional representation] in the aftermath.” Farage said the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system was “unfair” after Reform took 14.3% of the popular vote – making it the third biggest party by vote share – but won only five seats. The Green party received 6.8% of the vote for its four seats.

The left-wing alliance in France won the most seats in parliament in a dramatic election, dealing a surprise blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile the push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics. Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK's Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote. “This election has thrown the spotlight on to the electoral system as the result was the most disproportional on record,” said Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. “We have already had a growing chorus of calls for PR [proportional representation] in the aftermath.” Farage said the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system was “unfair” after Reform took 14.3% of the popular vote – making it the third biggest party by vote share – but won only five seats. The Green party received 6.8% of the vote for its four seats.

The left-wing alliance in France won the most seats in parliament in a dramatic election, dealing a surprise blow to the far-right party of Marine Le Pen. Meanwhile the push for electoral reform in the UK has received a shot in the arm after the “most disproportionate election in history”, according to campaigners and academics. Longstanding reform campaigners have become uneasy bedfellows with Reform UK's Nigel Farage in recent days after Labour secured a 174-seat majority with just 34% of the popular vote. “This election has thrown the spotlight on to the electoral system as the result was the most disproportional on record,” said Darren Hughes, the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. “We have already had a growing chorus of calls for PR [proportional representation] in the aftermath.” Farage said the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system was “unfair” after Reform took 14.3% of the popular vote – making it the third biggest party by vote share – but won only five seats. The Green party received 6.8% of the vote for its four seats.

Matt Risser, Charter Challenge Co-lead Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

India Policy Watch #1: Ganesh Ji & Lakshmi Ji To The Rescue  Insights on domestic policy issues — RSJSometime last week, this newsletter marked three years of its existence. A blink of an eye in the larger scheme of things. Yet, it feels nice to have reached this milestone. Consistency might be the virtue of an ass, but it is a virtue nevertheless. In these three years, we have stayed somewhat true to our purpose in every edition we have sent out. We have analysed policies intending to anticipate their unintended consequences. We have debated about what's good in the long term for India since we care for it. And we have tried to influence or perhaps shape the demand side of the political equation by increasing awareness about public policy among our readers. This is a marathon, and we are in it for the long run. No effort is too small. We cannot thank you enough for the generosity of your time in reading us. Anyway, returning to one of the things we care for deeply. India's future prospects. No amount of thinking about it could have brought us to the conclusion that Arvind Kejriwal reached last week about this vexing issue. The leader of AAP addressed a press conference where he asked the PM for a critical policy intervention:"I appeal to PM Modi that the Indian currency has the picture of Gandhi ji on one side, it should remain like that. But on the other side, there should be a picture of Ganesh ji and Laxmi ji. We need efforts to make the Indian economy stronger, but we also need the blessings of gods and goddesses," he said.While Laxmi is the goddess of prosperity, Lord Ganesh is believed to solve all our 'vighnas' (problems), Kejriwal said."We are not asking for printing fresh currency, but all the new currency that gets printed, this should be implemented. Eventually, the circulation of these notes will increase," he said.As the yesteryear villain Ajit (“the loin”) would say: smart boy.Soon another AAP leader, Atishi, took the battle to the BJP camp:“BJP leaders can hate Mr. Kejriwal but why hate Hindu deities Lakshmi and Ganesh? Do you not want the blessings of our gods to be with the people of the country? I humbly request leaders of the BJP not to oppose this noble proposal. It is not just a proposal from Arvind Kejriwal, but is the proposal of 130-crore citizens of this country.”I don't remember when I (among them aforementioned 130-crore citizenry) signed up for this proposal, as Atishi suggested. There's something to be said about how times change people. A person whose last name ‘Marlena' was derived from her family's belief in the Marxist-Leninist strand of godless communism is now asking for deities to be put on currency notes as a policy measure. I guess this is how things roll in politics. Keeping an open mind, I looked around for evidence correlating having Lakshmi Ji and Ganesh Ji on currency notes with economic growth anywhere in the world. I didn't make much headway. No developed nation has ever had them on its notes. Indonesia did issue 20,000 Rupiah notes from 1998-2005 with Ganesh Ji on them, but it was discontinued in 2008. The Indonesian economic growth during those intervening years was nothing to write about. I also came across a few Devdutt Pattnaik videos on Lakshmi Ji and yajman and how the yajman must make sure she doesn't leave them. Very compelling stuff. Considering he was with the Future group during those days and it has since gone into bankruptcy, I'm not sure it helped much there too. The bottom line, there isn't a lot of academic literature out there to help with the Kejriwal thesis.The AAP move has spawned numerous opinion pieces, of course. Some have accused them of soft Hindutva (a unique Indian term like ‘mild lathicharge') and being a ‘B team' of the BJP. Others have lamented the loss of idealism in politics. And then some think it is the pragmatic way for Kejriwal to turn the tables on the BJP and nothing more should be read into it. Well, who knows? I think it is helpful to examine this in the context of public choice theory. There are three conclusions one can draw from this, which I will elaborate here.Firstly, we must acknowledge that any political system, particularly a democracy, rewards a politician who appears to be doing the right things. Now, what's the ‘right thing' is defined by the moral standards prevailing at a particular time in that society. Most politicians will try to do what is considered good by the people. But moral standards aren't constant. They change with time. An astute politician, therefore, needs to be morally flexible to change according to what's considered good at a point in time in society. Moral rigidity might be good for philosophers and idealists but not for politicians. There's no incentive for a politician to question the prevailing moral standards. A rare politician who does that is playing a high stake game. They often lose. And a politician who loses is worthless. The conventional moral standard prevailing now in India allows Kejriwal to make a statement like this. Anyone in India can now position their bad-faith actions or beliefs in a way that they fit this conventional standard. Politicians are power-hungry. Their incentives are aligned that way. A singular pursuit of these incentives separates a good politician from the bad one. It makes them sociopaths, but that's an unfortunate side effect they learn to live with over time. The question in India today shouldn't be why Kejriwal is making such bizarre demands. The real question is what does it say about our society that politicians can make such demands in the garb of what is good or right for the society. Secondly, there's this belief that democracy, with its periodic elections, changes in the mood of the people and a system of checks and balances can temper this power lust of the politicians and channel it for the good of society. In this view, Kejriwal (or any another politician, really) is making these statements to do well in some elections (Gujarat?), but once he's in power, his true moral self will be back, and that will be good for the society. He's got to play the game, you see. There are two problems I see with this thesis. One, it assumes that the conventional moral standards of society are permanent and any number of such statements don't change them. Once the gains from such a statement are realised, society, like some kind of a memory foam, will remember its original shape and go back to demanding what's right for it. This is optimistic and isn't borne out by history. Two, it also assumes that a politician who gets positive returns from this approach will not continue doing so in an ever-spiraling escalation down this path. That will be an illogical option for any power-hungry politician who doesn't like to lose. He would like to keep doing more of the same if the returns don't diminish. This isn't about what's right. It is about ensuring he gets the power to do what he thinks is right in the larger scheme of things. Politicians are plain old opportunists. This is why I don't understand how any logical mind can have ‘tribal loyalty' to a particular political party.Thirdly, some of you may ask this. On the one hand, we advocate free markets, where we believe that individual incentives come together spontaneously for everyone to benefit. On the other, I'm making a case that in the political marketplace, individual incentives don't work for the overall good. How do I square this? Well, for one, there is a fundamental difference between a businessman (to use a gendered term) and a politician. The businessman has the belief and the incentives (long and short term) to maximise profit. He might couch it with good intentions in his public statements because of his bias for social desirability. This bias won't change his actions, though, because he's a rational actor. He might say something against his conviction but he will do exactly what will maximise his incentives. In the case of a politician, this might play out differently. The social desirability bias can, and often does, change their immediate actions in a manner that's different from their long-term incentives. Not only will he speak against his conviction to be more accepted, he might also act in the same manner. The Kejriwal statement is a good example of this. Also, history has shown that voters are different from consumers. Voters get swayed by emotions, tribal loyalties, affiliations and demagoguery. Consumers might be swayed temporarily, but soon rationality takes over. A good example of this distinction is evident in the film business in India. Over the past few years, the incentive to make films that portray some glorious Hindu heritage without historical basis was quite high. This led to a steady pipeline of films with ever-increasing religious jingoism and ramping up of Hindu ethno-nationalist pride. Yet, within a relatively short period, the consumers have seen through this ‘formula', and the recent box office rejection of these films bears testimony to this. Free markets have corrections built in because the assumption of rational actors largely holds. That doesn't work for the political marketplace.At a broader political level, Kejriwal's statement is an interesting reflection of how the political class is reading society now. Conceptually, there are two possible approaches to contend with the formidable politics of Hindutva. One option is to counter it with the diversity of thoughts and iconographies within Hinduism to deny a monolithic, Abrahamic version of the religion that Hindutva desires to apply to all its adherents. This diversity or internal divisions that often cancelled each other out in electoral politics was considered a societal default position. There wasn't much to do to change it, except to get the electoral arithmetic right and capture power. That default is changed now and you could try to bring that back. That's one play in the current political landscape. The other option is to join the Hindutva politics bandwagon, raise new issues, however bizarre and peddle those optics to the public. The goal isn't to outdo the original Hindutva masters. Pursuing that would be folly. The idea is to make the Hindutva plank par for the electoral course in a manner that voters no longer find it necessary enough to make it a part of their voting calculus. If everyone is on to it, it no longer is a differentiator. It is clear now that the political class is giving up on the first option. There will be greater convergence on the second option. The underlying belief among them seems to be that one can retrace the steps back after having used the second option opportunistically. That's what those supporting Kejriwal believe. I'm not so sanguine.   Postscript: Pratap Bhanu Mehta articulates the fundamental fallacy of an either/or formulation in making these choices in his excellent column in the Indian Express: ‘Why it's wrong to say that Hinduism is a product of colonialism'. He writes:If the Hindutva project is to homogenise and centralise Hinduism, the answer to that cannot be the historically ill-founded and philosophically inept strategy of denying the historical existence of Hinduism altogether. Or worse, to imagine that pre-modern Hinduism is simply an endless proliferation of sects, walled up, with few interconnections and not dependent on a shared cosmology, social system, or even intellectual concerns. It is to reduce Hinduism to simply an aesthetic heteroglossia, and not take seriously any of its imaginative constructions, intellectual endeavours or practices. If Hindutva uses identity to erase diversity, it is also important to avoid the opposite fallacy: To use diversity to deny the fact that the diverse parts may also be parasitic on referencing a larger whole, and common canons of contestation.     India Policy Watch #2: The Tyranny of Context in Electoral SystemsInsights on domestic policy issues — Pranay KotasthaneIsrael voted for the fifth time in four years earlier this week. The former PM Benjamin Netanyahu is set to come back once the arduous coalition-building talks reach another precarious consensus. Opinion pieces routinely refer to this process of coalition stitching in Israel as “horse-trading”. Meanwhile, the vote share of the extreme right-wing party Religious Zionists has more than doubled, and they will now demand their pound of flesh in the government formation talks. One aspect of the Israeli political system should interest many Indians. Unlike India, Israel follows the List Proportional Representation (PR) system. This system optimises for the proportional conversion of vote share into equivalent seat share. People vote for a party, not a candidate. All parties with a vote count above a minimum threshold (3.25% currently) are sure to have their representatives in the Knesset. India follows the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. Voters vote for a candidate. The one who polls the most votes wins. The parties fielding the losing candidates get zero seats, even if they poll just one vote lesser than the winning candidate's party in every constituency. The disproportionality between the vote share and seat share is a feature of this system, not a bug. So a party with a 30 per cent vote share might be able to win a majority of seats and form a government. Now, one is sure to come across this statement in casual conversations about elections in India: “the root cause of unfair electoral representation is that India follows the primitive FPTP. We should instead move on to a ‘fairer' Proportional Representation (PR) system, one in which the legislature represents the true vote shares.” But the lived experiences of Israel's (and earlier, Italy's) PR system show it's riddled with problems too. In this article, I explain why PR is an overrated solution to India's problems with electoral representation.Issue 1: The Purpose of an Electoral SystemA PR system can be perfectly representative and yet utterly dysfunctional. The proponents of the PR system are right when they say that it is fairer than FPTP in translating vote shares into seat shares. By design, it will have another positive effect of having representation of many more political parties in the legislature. At the same time, another inescapable feature of the PR system is post-election coalition-building, in which many fringe parties hold all the aces. Israel's recent electoral struggles are a case in point. Many smaller extremist parties are openly demanding specific ministerial posts as a precondition for their support to Netanyahu. In a democracy that is 120 times bigger than Israel, this problem of unstable and unworkable coalitions could get amplified. A government would be formed by a coalition of 20-30 parties, and the smaller partners will have disproportional leverage. Fewer governments will complete their full term. Israel has had 25 elections to the Knesset thus far, and only on nine occasions has the government completed or come closer to completing the four-year term. Confronting the trade-off between fairness in translating vote shares to seat shares and effectiveness in creating governments that can perform is inevitable. And I'm not sure if the PR system in India can strike the right balance. I spoke with a friend who understands India's polity much better than me. In his view, the fundamental goal of an electoral system is not necessarily proportional representation but to render a government legitimate. And on that count, Indian governments elected using the FPTP system have been broadly accepted by the Indian electorate after the elections. The current government is testing the limits of this acceptance, but its legitimacy to govern is not under serious question yet.Issue 2: The Party vs the LegislatorIn a PR system, the legislator is virtually a rubber stamp, as candidates vote for parties, not specific candidates. The political party is at the front and centre of the system, unlike in an FPTP system where people vote for individuals to represent them. In the Indian context, political parties are an already unhealthily powerful institution which has accreted more power through instruments such as the anti-defection law and opaque electoral bonds. Switching to a PR system would break even the modicum of connection between legislators and the electorate. Issue 3: The Fringe as the CentreIn a divided polity such as India's, successful political parties have no option but to cater to a broad section of the electorate to win the 30-40 per cent vote share. In a PR system, parties have no incentive to appeal to a broad section of the electorate. As long as they can win the votes of a narrow group, they are assured of seats, which would be enough to make them “king-makers”. Moreover, as the Israel experience has repeatedly shown, a PR system can legitimise small, extremist parties, a result India definitely doesn't need at this time.These three issues highlight that the PR system might make us worse off. Of course, this debate between PR and FPTP is not new. Some countries, such as Germany, have tried a mixed-member system in which voters cast one vote for their legislator (who has to qualify through FPTP) and another for a party list (which then translates to seats on a proportional basis). But one thing's for sure. Every alternative is path-dependent and not without drawbacks. The unthinking support for shifting to PR at the margins is a specific case of a general phenomenon I call the ‘tyranny of context'. The existing familiar system appears unworkable in this phenomenon because we know its pitfalls too well. On the other hand, a reform from another context appears attractive because we don't understand it at all.Changing to a PR system is unlikely to result in better governance outcomes. On some parameters, it might make things worse. Ambedkar had famously warned: “However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good.”What he said of the Constitution also seems to apply to the electoral system. It's better to look for solutions within the constraints of the FPTP system, perhaps. What do you reckon?PolicyWTF: Abnormal Bovine MovementThis section looks at egregious public policies. Policies that make you go: WTF, Did that really happen? - Pranay KotasthaneThis headline in the Deccan Herald caught my attention: Online pass permit to be mandatory for cattle transport in Karnataka: The new cattle pass permit system will include transport certificate, ownership document and veterinary first-aid equipment.Let that sink in. If you own a cow and want to transport it to another place 15 km or more away, you need to first get appropriate blessings from the Animal Husbandry Veterinary Services Department manifested as an online cattle pass permit. Never to miss a revenue opportunity, the owner of the transporting vehicle also has to pay a fee to obtain the permit. Plus GST. There's a backstory to these absurd rules. In January 2021, the state government passed the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Act, imposing a blanket ban on cattle slaughter. One of the sections of the Act prohibited the transport of cattle for slaughter. But, of course, cattle need to be transported for reasons other than slaughter. And hence, the online permit will now ascertain that the movement is for a bonafide reason.That Act also gives the Police the power to search and seize if they have reason to believe any violations have occurred. It would be funny if it weren't so tragic that precious state capacity is being expended on bovine transport controls in one of the country's best states. HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters* [Knowledge Base] The Ace Electoral Knowledge Network has a good overview of all electoral systems, their weaknesses, and their strengths. * [Podcast] In the next Puliyabaazi, Sumit Kumar of Bakarmax webcomic discusses the state of Indian comics and animation. * [Podcast] Anita Anand and William Darlymple's Empire presents familiar stories of colonialism in a new light. * [Report] Why do Indian Founders in the Space Industry start their start-ups abroad? The reasons equally apply to start-ups in other deep tech sectors. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit publicpolicy.substack.com

Fraser is a Scottish Catholic highlander who now edits (brilliantly) the Spectator in London. Deeply versed in Tory politics, and sympathetic to Boris, he seemed the ideal person to ask to explain what’s been going on in Westminster, what went so wrong under PM Johnson, and who is likely to replace him. It’s a one-stop guide to contemporary British politics in a mild Scottish accent.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on how Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss compare to one another, and what Fraser calls the “absolutely electrifying” effect of Kemi Badenoch — pop over to our YouTube page.A good complement to this episode is the one I had last year with Dominic Cummings, the brilliant strategist behind Brexit and the rise of Boris. Here’s the transcript. Here’s a clip about Dominic’s break from Boris:To continue the debate over my recent column on Trump and Boris, a reader writes:Here’s a dissent: You are right about Trump. You are wrong about Johnson.Lying comes naturally to Johnson. It’s not just to get out of trouble. He lies about everything. Max Hastings knew this and presciently forecast it would all blow up.  It has.Let’s turn to Brexit. First take the term “elites.” This glib, trash term is overused, over-hackneyed and should have no place in your lexicon. Unless very carefully defined, it is completely meaningless. I know as many lawyers and city types who voted for Brexit as did Remain, and likewise for gardeners, carpenters, plumbers etc. The British public was conned, lied to and persuaded there was a problem of the EU’s doing. To be fair, there were problems, some of which can be laid at the EU’s door, but for too many years, blame deflection was the name of the game. Most of the problems the country faced were homegrown. Now look at what has happened: we have a stuttering economy, low growth and haven’t yet introduced the checks at our borders we are supposed to, as it will cause even more chaos — Jacob Rees-Mogg has admitted as much. That’s what happens when you erect major trade barriers with your neighbours and largest market. We can debate immigration as much as you like, but the problem has got worse, and as you correctly pointed out, the numbers have increased.Now let’s look at the so-called Conservative Party. Under Johnson, one-nation conservatism died. He killed it. It was replaced, deliberately, by a populist, divisive style of rule, not dissimilar to Trump’s, quite happy to bend or break laws and conventions in order to further its agenda. Its leading persona was Boris Johnson, and to the eternal shame of the Conservative Party, precious few demurred. The problems the country now face stem directly from Brexit: a plethora of unfulfillable promises built on lies. There are still many who think Brexit was a good thing, but there is a growing and significant majority that now recognises it isn’t working and was a mistake. It’s happened, and Keir Starmer is right to say that the next step should be to improve relations with the EU and to see what can be made to work, starting with the Northern Ireland Protocol (putting a border down the Irish Sea was, you’ll remember, a promise Johnson swore he would never do.  And then promptly did “to get Brexit done”). All the deceit involved drives me mad, but the Labour Party, by electing a no-hoper and no-brainer in Jeremy Corbyn, made winning a majority inevitable (and remember FPTP didn’t require a significantly higher number of votes to achieve this).It might be too early to write off the Conservative Party, much as I would like to, despite having voted for them most of my adult life. But they are tainted, out of ideas, and despite the diversity you applaud, not impressive. I fear the next few months may prove as entertaining as the last few years.One aspect that you haven’t touched on is the role of the media. It is staggering to see the degree of partisanship on display. The Telegraph, Mail and Express appear to be living in an alternative universe where truth and fantasy commingle without differentiation. And why did the Times, which I read along with the Guardian, pull the blow-job report? This, along with the Londongrad money saga, is for another day.  By the way, I am pleased you quoted Marina Hyde. Her sassiness, razor-sharp intellect and acerbic wit are spot-on.We will have her on the Dishcast soon enough. Here’s a reader in London:Sure, there was mounting frustration about Boris Johnson’s lying — not just the lying, but the fact that he invariably had to follow with “oh yes, come to think of it …” But voters, as opposed to MPs, think politicians lie all the time anyway, so I don’t think the cut-through is as great as might be supposed. I think the great point lost in all this is that Boris got his landslide because of Brexit and the increasing frustration with his inability to grasp the potential benefits became a hugely increasing sore, exacerbated by the daily shots of illegal immigrants turning up on our shores in rubber dinghies, often helped by the lifeboat service. This and his inability to grasp until too late how badly the economy was going to hit Mr & Mrs Average was what cost him public support as much as, if not more so, than his economy of truth. Another point not made enough is that Boris seemed to be a prisoner of focus groups and vocal groups of MPs, which meant he was constantly veering from one view to another. He made a string of supposedly exciting announcements that remained just that, never getting anywhere. You can only do that for so long before the public wises up.Yes, it was the MPs who knifed him, but these were MPs getting it in the neck from their constituents for what was (or more often was not) going on. My neighbour tore up his Tory membership card in sheer frustration and told our MP about it. Boris could offer no clear guiding principles we could cling to that would help us bat aside the machinations of Cummings, the BBC et al, who were manifestly on a mission to defenestrate him. In the end, even those who fear for Brexit in the wake of his departure could see there was no other course.Looking back to last week’s episode with Peter Staley, here’s a key moment where he calls the federal incompetence over monkeypox “Covid 2.0”:The whole 20-minute segment on monkeypox is here. Another listener “enjoyed the episode”:I share Mr. Staley’s concerns about the government’s handling of the monkeypox outbreak. I agree with him that the US did a disturbingly poor job of handling the Covid pandemic at the start. However, I have two important qualifiers:The US was hardly the primary “bad actor” in Covid; stupidity and misconduct in other countries was more flagrant and more consequential.I don’t know the details of the bureaucratic mangling of the monkeypox vaccine, but everything Staley reports sounds sadly accurate. However, it seems to me that the core problem early in the AIDS pandemic, and in the past two months with monkeypox, was the unwillingness of many in the gay community to modify their behavior consistent with obvious public health concerns. I was struck that neither you nor Staley mention this, beyond your effort to provide some rational current health advice, which is however strongly tilted toward vaccination over behavior modification.We did urge gay men to “cool it” for a while. Maybe we should have been more adamant. It’s also becoming clearer how this version of monkeypox is spread: primarily through sexual contact. If mere skin-touching were spreading it, then it seems to me the epidemic would be much, much larger, given the crowds during Pride. That means, of course, that we have the ability to help stop it, by not having sex until vaccinated. That’s not sex-phobic or homophobic. It’s just sensible health advice.Another dissenter expands on the reader’s second point:Your discussion of monkeypox really bugged me, for a reason I hope you take to heart. The vast majority of it was focused on the failures of the FDA and CDC, which I don’t take issue with. But the assumptions of the world you live in, particularly when in Provincetown, were alarmingly similar to the assumptions you make (rightfully) about the progressive left — that it takes for granted people not having agency in their own lives.The US government has (probably) failed with monkeypox, as it has with other diseases. Given that, what should people do? You and Staley both took it for granted that you seemed to have a right — almost an obligation — to party hard in P-Town, which the government’s failure was interfering with. It wasn’t until more than halfway through this part of the conversation that Staley and then you mentioned offhand that “some” people were suggesting people “cool it” for a month or so.But listen again to the rest of your conversation about monkeypox. Time and again, you blamed the government for its failures and never said anything about maybe the party boys could do something besides bemoan the inability to get vaccinated — maybe party less or (trigger warning) not go to Provincetown one summer. Self-restraint in the face of a still small but looming epidemic was only on the margins of your assumptions.At this early stage, restraint now among the mostly gay-male monkeypox spreaders would have exponential benefits going forward. Isn’t that a message about social good that is worth the telling?I’m older and was never much of a partier, so I guess it’s easier for me to say this. But the pretty confined groups of A-Gays ought to take some agency in their own lives at this critical time, and maybe give something up temporarily for the benefit of both themselves and a very real group of future A-Gays and B-Gays and whatever letter the rest of us get. Not to mention heterosexuals.As you can see, I take your point. Another listener moves to a different part of the discussion:Your interview with Peter Staley was fairly interesting regarding his participation during the critical years of AIDS. But the conversation became electric when the subject turned to critical queer theory, the indoctrination of children, and the discussion of sex identity in preschool. You kept asking Staley if he thought it was ok to teach children this curriculum and he kept nervously laughing and avoiding to answer and said that you’re confused and banging your little drum. I agree with you: critical theory has hijacked the gay community, gay rights, etc. and there very well could be an anti-gay backlash. Please continue to voice your side and fight for common sense. Your observations of critical theory’s dangerous impact are not anecdotal — they’re unfortunately everywhere.To decide for yourself, here’s a clip of that heated exchange:From a listener in San Francisco:I had never heard of Peter Staley before (I’m a 49-year-old gay man in SF). ACT-UP and Queer Nation had already fallen apart when I landed there in 1993 as a young punk rock guy. So I was interested in hearing his retelling of that period in the late ‘80s. But then the convo moved to gay activism today — and wow. I thought, “Well this is it. This is the denial that so many gay men have about the gender ideology cult.” They are f*****g terrified of speaking out against this. And of course it’s because they know it would mean expulsion from polite Democrat society.I was recently discussing the mass delusion period we’re living through around Gender ID extremism. Someone said we should get ready for a massive gaslighting from people who will tell us that they never believed in this cult.For what it’s worth, I keep hearing from gay men in Provincetown how alienated they are from this ideology, but also how scared they are to voice their concerns — especially about what this indoctrination is doing to gay children. Peter is emblematic of the majority, however, who prefer dismissing these concerns as overblown, and sticking to their own political tribe, which they have now internalized as “LGBTQIA+”. It’s maddening, but a function of real homophobes latching onto the “groomer” discourse, and tribal gays closing ranks in opposition. The real trouble is that the non-profit institutions allegedly representing us are packed with critical theory zealots who experience no pushback, and if they do, purge the dissenters. My view is that gay men should stop funding groups that are dedicated to the abolition of homosexuality. From a parent:It was so hard for me to listen to Peter Staley downplay the gender stuff for kids. My five-year-old stayed up an hour past her bedtime last night because she was worried she could suddenly become male, or that my breasts might disappear. She is extremely confused. At a time in her life when she is only beginning to understand what it will mean for her to grow up and become a physical woman, she thinks her “pronouns” might suddenly change and she might become genderless. Teenaged camp counselors with clear and obvious feminine features are telling her that they are neither male nor female. The worst part of that, is that my daughter is beginning to believe that her sex is determined by her interests and behavior. For example, she thinks that if I swear too much, I may become male. The result is her belief that womanhood is some sort of cartoonish stereotype of old-fashioned gender roles. It’s all so regressive. As a lifelong liberal, I am repulsed by the mainstream push to reinforce gender stereotypes and essentialism. What might be an even bigger crime for a writer like myself is that my daughter — who hasn’t even started kindergarten yet — thinks pronouns are a personal trait, not a part of speech. As horrified as I am at the regressive and sexist gender roles being pushed on my child, I am equally grimacing at the grammatical confusion this creating. Can’t the school teach my kid what a pronoun even is before scrambling her brain? Happy to air your personal experience. It’s horrifying. Another worried parent:I just had the most intriguing conversation with my 17-year-old daughter. She said that if she ever had a child who was trans, she would totally support that. Curious, I asked why. She said, “Because it’s all about who you love, and it’s ok to love different people.”I said, “Hold up, you’re talking about being gay. Trans doesn’t have anything do with who you love.”She insisted that it did. I said again, “No, you’re talking about being gay.” She said, “They're the same thing. Whenever a guy wants to be a girl, it’s because he wants to be able to date other guys. And when a girl wants to be a guy, it’s so that she can date other girls.”I said, “Now you're just confirming it — you are literally talking about being gay. There is no connection. Sometimes a guy transitions to being a woman, but still wants to date women — and will say that he has become a lesbian.”She just didn’t believe me! She shook her head and said something like, “It’s all over TikTok, and 99 percent of the time, when someone wants to be trans, it’s because they’re just trying to be gay.”We changed the subject, but even though this is just one data point (my daughter), I do wonder how prevalent her point of view is among other teenagers who watch TikTok.God only knows. But the attempt to conflate very different gay, lesbian and trans experiences is part of an ideological project, rooted in postmodernism. It is designed to destroy anyone’s coherent understanding of stable human nature. This next listener is on Staley’s side, not wanting to scapegoat queer theorists:I have to agree with Peter Staley that mass indoctrination of critical trans/queer/gender theory in school children is not the cause of any rise in gender confusion and trans identity. Something else is going on. My theory: the biological organism of homo sapiens is undergoing evolutionary reproductive change due to mounting environmental stresses.Let’s start with the simple observation that schools are only one small part of the cultural, political, environmental, familial and technological waters children swim in. One lesson from the story book How To Raise A Trans Inclusive Child is not going to make much of a sexual identity dent in the ocean of information, stress and confusion children are growing up in these days.There are so many other stresses that are going to have far greater biological impacts. Overpopulation is of course the big one that cannot be discussed. There are too many rats in the cage. Humans now live on a planet in which they are constantly bathed in low doses of industrial and agricultural chemicals of every kind. It is in our food, air and water. Developing embryos are all bathed in these chemicals to some degree.Throw in all the current economic and political chaos. Add in the bugaboo of social media and the cultural worship of money and fame. Body modification with tattoos, piercing and plastic surgery is a norm. You can create yourself to be anything.A big change, of course, is the rising equality of women. Economically, that is going to give women a better hand to play in reproductive choice. House husbands are becoming more and more common. Stereotypical gender expectations are pretty much kaput. Let’s not forget the #MeToo movement — that certainly threw a wrench into heterosexual relations.So what are these kids supposed to think about sex and gender? These are just some of the dots that Staley suggested may need a bit more connecting. So it’s a bit of a stretch to pin any rising gender confusion and dysphoria on indoctrination with critical gender/queer/trans theory in school children. That would be about as effective as conversion therapy for gay men. It’s not that simple to convert.But it’s very easy to confuse a third-grader. One more reader keeps another debate going:I wanted to respond to your response to the theory that another reader “wanted to float by you” about the nature/nurture debate over trans identity and sexual orientation. First, I think you dismiss this person’s idea a bit too readily. The possibility that sexual orientation isn’t inborn (even though I agree with you that it’s involuntary) is actually relevant to this discussion. Much of the modern trans movement incorrectly attempts to hitch its claims to the claims made by the gay rights movement, and “born this way” is no exception to this trend. If people are born trans, as this movement claims, then it’s theoretically possible to identify trans children with perfect accuracy and medicalize them before they go through puberty. But if instead, maturing into a trans adult is a stochastic process, then it’s impossible to predict perfectly which kids will persist in their trans identity after puberty. And in such a case, convincing the public to support youth medical transition is a much harder sell.Additionally, I disagree with you on whether trans people choose to be trans. Dysphoric individuals like Lauren Black, who choose to deal with their gender dysphoria without transitioning, complicate the claim that transitioning is the only possible outcome for someone with gender dysphoria. I think there are some people with dysphoria severe enough that medical transition is the best choice for them. But the decision of whether to transition or handle dysphoria in other ways is still ultimately a choice.As always, send your dissents, as well as other comments and personal stories, to dish@andrewsullivan.com. Get full access to The Weekly Dish at andrewsullivan.substack.com/subscribe

FPTP presents: SoSick Corner hosted by Jigz from SoSick Photo. Jigz typically brings on guests to talk all things automotive and freedom. Jigz is the founder of the SoSick Motorsports and SoSick Photo. He's dedicated his life to chasing his passions through cars and photography. Subscribe or you'll fry your piston rings! Join the Discord: discord.gg/fptp IG / Twitter / Facebook: @FPTPmedia Guests: @MISHKAcreates & @NoeOneTheCreator Jigz IG: @SoSickMotorsports Jigz Twitter: @SoSickPhoto Official Merch: fromporchestoporsches.com

FPTP presents: 'A Breath of Fresh Debauchery' hosted by Austin and Charlie. It's exactly what it sounds like. We all have that friend we live vicariously through... well in our case, we got blessed with 2 of 'em. Big Ragoo and ThiccBoi share their tales of midnight bravery and their pursuit of happiness. Austin - @AJGibson21 - ThiccBoi Charlie - @LumberChuck - Big Ragoo Gio - @NoeOneTheCreator Mishka - @MISHKAcreates Join the Discord: discord.gg/fptp Official Merch: fromporchestoporsches.com IG / Twitter / Facebook: @FPTPmedia Watch this episode on YouTube: FPTP Episode 122 on YouTube

Nigel Farage is a broadcaster and former politician who was leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and again from 2010 to 2016. SPONSORED by Fortune and Freedom:  It's time to take control of your money… Sign up for free here: https://subscribe.fortuneandfreedom.com/X983Y230/faf2-b Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: marketing@triggerpod.co.uk Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. -  Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:20 Why Brexit Didn't Reduce Immigration 05:42 The State of British Politics, Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party 08:53 2019 UK General Election and the Brexit Party 11:06 Will Nigel Make a Comeback to Politics? 16:03 Are We in a Political Crisis? 18:45 FPTP vs PR 22:17 COVID Authoritarianism 28:04 State Power vs Individual Freedom  32:55 Inflation, Energy Bills, Net Zero 41:17 Energy Security and Globalisation 42:30 War in Ukraine? 51:50 Joe Biden and the Democratic Party 54:13 Will Trump Run Again? 01:02:37 January 6th Capitol Riot 01:05:20 The Class Divide

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A voting theory primer for rationalists, published by Jameson Quinn on the LessWrong. What is voting theory? Voting theory, also called social choice theory, is the study of the design and evaulation of democratic voting methods (that's the activists' word; game theorists call them "voting mechanisms", engineers call them "electoral algorithms", and political scientists say "electoral formulas"). In other words, for a given list of candidates and voters, a voting method specifies a set of valid ways to fill out a ballot, and, given a valid ballot from each voter, produces an outcome. (An "electoral system" includes a voting method, but also other implementation details, such as how the candidates and voters are validated, how often elections happen and for what offices, etc. "Voting system" is an ambiguous term that can refer to a full electoral system, just to the voting method, or even to the machinery for counting votes.) Most voting theory limits itself to studying "democratic" voting methods. That typically has both empirical and normative implications. Empirically, "democratic" means: There are many voters There can be more than two candidates In order to be considered "democratic", voting methods generally should meet various normative criteria as well. There are many possible such criteria, and on many of them theorists do not agree; but in general they do agree on this minimal set: Anonymity; permuting the ballots does not change the probability of any election outcome. Neutrality; permuting the candidates on all ballots does not change the probability of any election outcome. Unanimity: If voters universally vote a preference for a given outcome over all others, that outcome is selected. (This is a weak criterion, and is implied by many other stronger ones; but those stronger ones are often disputed, while this one rarely is.) Methods typically do not directly involve money changing hands or other enduring state-changes for individual voters. (There can be exceptions to this, but there are good reasons to want to understand "moneyless" elections.) Why is voting theory important for rationalists? First off, because democratic processes in the real world are important loci of power. That means that it's useful to understand the dynamics of the voting methods used in such real-world elections. Second, because these real-world democratic processes have all been created and/or evolved in the past, and so there are likely to be opportunities to replace, reform, or add to them in the future. If you want to make political change of any kind over a medium-to-long time horizon, these systemic reforms should probably be part of your agenda. The fact is that FPTP, the voting method we use in most of the English-speaking world, is absolutely horrible, and there is reason to believe that reforming it would substantially (though not of course completely) alleviate much political dysfunction and suffering. Third, because understanding social choice theory helps clarify ideas about how it's possible and/or desirable to resolve value disputes between multiple agents. For instance, if you believe that superintelligences should perform a "values handshake" when meeting, replacing each of their individual value functions by some common one so as to avoid the dead weight loss of a conflict, then social choice theory suggests both questions and answers about what that might look like. (Note that the ethical and practical importance of such considerations is not at all limited to "post-singularity" examples like that one.) In fact, on that third point: my own ideas of ethics and of fun theory are deeply informed by my decades of interest in voting theory. To simplify into a few words my complex thoughts on this, I believe that voting theory elucidates "ethical incompleteness" (tha...

So, how did that Labour conference go? Did Keir Starmer snatch victory from the jaws of fratricidal defeat with that closing speech? Special guest Clive Lewis MP joins us to work out whether Labour is back on the road to recovery – and what was missing from the Conference. Plus, the German elections a row of light for the centre-left? And is it really so terrible if politicians call other politicians “scum”?“If you were casting hecklers to look mad and unsympathetic, you couldn't have done a better job.” – Alex Andreou“Starmer won on a platform of sensible Corbynism. Now he's changed into a New Labour tribute band.” – Clive Lewis“Labour's choice is they can be the biggest coalition party under PR – or be in opposition forever under FPTP.” - Naomi Smith“The Conservative Party is the most successful party in the world – which by default makes Labour the most unsuccessful.” – Clive Lewiswww.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnowPresented by Dorian Lynskey with Naomi Smith and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

India's parliamentary democracy is going through a phase of intense confrontation between the dominant ruling party and a weakened but belligerent Opposition. Is this situation a consequence of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, where a party with the the highest votes gets the seat even if it doesn't win a majority? Here we address this question. Guests: E. Sridharan, Academic Director and Chief Executive at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India, and Editor-in-Chief of India Review; Suhas Palshikar taught political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, and chief editor of Studies in Indian Politics Host: Srinivasan Ramani Read the Parley article here. You can now find The Hindu's podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Search for Parley by The Hindu. Write to us with comments and feedback at socmed4@thehindu.co.in

Show Notes and Linkshttps://www.fairvote.ca/2021/08/15/earlyelectionpowergrab/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_federal_general_electionshttps://www.fairvote.ca/a-look-at-the-evidence/Rise up! DEFY. Do NOT comply! #JFS Live www.trew.tubeThis channel and the Jim Fannon Show Podcast consist of older terrestrial radio shows and current interviews and performances by friendly musicians, movie industry influencers, media personalities and a variety of general interest clips. Interact with the community and you'll no doubt, get a response from @JimFannonShow Follow:https://twitter.com/teamniagarahttps://www.facebook.com/jimfannonhttps://www.instagram.com/jimfannonhttps://podcasts.apple.com/.../jim-fannon-show/id1211826245https://www.facebook.com/jimfannonhttps://twitter.com/TeamNiagarahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/teamniagara/https://www.instagram.com/jimfannonshow/https://gab.com/Fanmanhttps://www.twitch.tv/jimfannonshowhttps://dlive.tv/JimFannonhttps://www.tiktok.com/@jimfannonshowThanks for SubscribingYour support for this channel is appreciatedYou may contribute here www.patreon.com/freespeechContribute here www.paypal.me/jimfannonPPC FPTP PR STV MMP #Elxn44 33 Days Until Election #JFS Live Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/jimfannon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Max PPC #Elxn44 FPTP vs PR Vote Splitting Trudeau LiesShow Notes and Linkshttps://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/an_electoral_system_for_allhttps://theconversation.com/what-the-canadian-election-results-would-have-looked-like-with-electoral-reform-125848Rise up! DEFY. Do NOT comply! #JFS Live www.trew.tubeThis channel and the Jim Fannon Show Podcast consist of older terrestrial radio shows and current interviews and performances by friendly musicians, movie industry influencers, media personalities and a variety of general interest clips. Interact with the community and you'll no doubt, get a response from @JimFannonShow Follow:https://twitter.com/teamniagarahttps://www.facebook.com/jimfannonhttps://www.instagram.com/jimfannonhttps://podcasts.apple.com/.../jim-fannon-show/id1211826245https://www.facebook.com/jimfannonhttps://twitter.com/TeamNiagarahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/teamniagara/https://www.instagram.com/jimfannonshow/https://gab.com/Fanmanhttps://www.twitch.tv/jimfannonshowhttps://dlive.tv/JimFannonhttps://www.tiktok.com/@jimfannonshowThanks for SubscribingYour support for this channel is appreciatedYou may contribute here www.patreon.com/freespeechContribute here www.paypal.me/jimfannon Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/jimfannon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The United Kingdom is an oddity in Europe for many reasons, but not least through its use of the majoritarian first-past-the-post voting system. We discuss why efforts to change the UK's electoral system have failed, from the end of the first world war, to the New Labour era to the AV referendum. We also ruminate if and how such efforts could ever succeed in the future, and break down what effects FPTP has had on the the British party system and British political culture. Please do rate and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on twitter @Ballotworld.

Can you compare the effect of 2 different election systems in any given democracy ? It's hard ! You cannot do controlled experiments like in science: too many different influences at play when comparing any 2 countries with different election systems. However, you can compare the effect of election systems on 1 key thing that matters: how do they influence the growth of knowledge (i.e. the growth of knowledge that solves the political problems in a country)

Today I spoke to the MP and Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party about the FPTP system, the environment and much more!

It’s our FOURTH BIRTHDAY edition! And what a sumptuous spread Classic Dom has laid on for us. The classic line-up of Dorian, Naomi, Ros, Alex and Ian reassemble in an actual physical studio (!) to discuss Cummings’ committee drive-by on Johnson and his vendetta against multi-sackable Matt Hancock, and why he supported a PM he knew was unfit for the job. Plus a special treat for listeners: yes, we’re talking about the Progressive Alliance! This edition out early as a special bonus for our loyal listeners.• “When Cummings reports that Johnson ‘loves chaos because it shows who’s in charge’, that has the ring of truth.” – Alex Andreou • “Cummings knows he’s the reason Johnson is in No.10… and his ego was big enough to fool him that he could stop Johnson’s worst excesses.” – Ros Taylor • “There are no great points of principle here. Cummings just hates Johnson’s girlfriend and he’s a spiteful, resentful t**t.” – Ian Dunt • “Hancock was working on what he could claim as a success at the next press conference… He was disrupting all the long-term work.” – Alex Andreou • “We don’t have democratic equality in this country… We are the only ones who use antiquated FPTP.” – Naomi Smith Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Naomi Smith, Ian Dunt, Ros Taylor and Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Alex Rees. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"Mad Max" Maxime Bernier is the Leader of The People's Party of Canada #PPC 1:42 Lockdowns, against constitution, effecting our health, lockdowns don't help2:52 Immigration, moratorium, 100-150K per year, recession, unemployment rate affects immigration, economic immigrants, integration, family reunification under Trudeau, costs associated, Liberals buying votes7:44 Standing against media labels, speaking the truth, Preston Manning, suing Warren Kinsella10:55 Rising above the dirty politics, Speaking truth, don't pander to special interest groups, being told to be more aggressive15:52 Radical decentralization, roles of governments, the constitution, speaking in Alberta20:49 Equalization of the provinces, energy, Quebec24:50 FPTP vs. proportional representation, good ideas win, flexibility on the future platforms, getting out of the Paris Accord, winning in his old home riding, getting other PPC candidates elected, attaining 4% and getting on the debates29:19 Recruiting candidates, Pierre Poilievre invitation, first round of candidate selections, running in all riding32:30 What does a PPC governed Canada look like, no subsidies, flat tax of 10%, no foreign aid, stay out of the provinces business, honour the Constitution, pipelines, free speech in higher learning, the CBC38:30 Bringing accountability back to politics, Max's private sector work and beliefs have been the same for decades41:55 End The Lockdowns Caucus45:23 Max's previous portfolios in governmentThis channel and the Jim Fannon Show Podcast consist of older terrestrial radio shows and current interviews and performances by friendly musicians, movie industry influencers, media personalities and a variety of general interest clips. Interact with the community and you'll no doubt, get a response from @JimFannonShow Follow:https://twitter.com/jimfannonhttps://www.facebook.com/jimfannonhttps://www.instagram.com/jimfannonhttps://www.youtube.com/TrewTubehttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jim-fannon-show/id1211826245Thanks for SubscribingYour support for this channel is appreciatedYou may contribute here https://www.patreon.com/freespeech Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/jimfannon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Join our Group Chat: https://groupme.com/join_group/57282573/UzLPEypE Follow us on social & check out our YouTube channel! Instagram/Facebook: @FromPorchesToPorsches Twitter: @PorchesPorsches Personal: IG/Twitter/Facebook: @MishkaCreates IG: @NoeOneTheCreator

The Footy Prime Crew can sometimes self-indulge but usually this leads to confessions and transparency. Danny shares who he despised for one of the best stories in FPTP history. Insight and laughs galore. And this is not hyperbole. All the best for our 60th episode!

We spoke to a few people who don't think voting is worth their time. Some of you might even relate to what they had to say because they have valid concerns:Caller 1: I'm honestly not really bought in. I feel that neither the Republican or Democractic parties resonate with my morals or fully exemplify what I want in the world. And smaller parities will never get enough votes to win, so what's the point? Caller 2: My majority of voters in my state don't share the same political views as me. So what's the point of me voting if their side always wins? Caller 3: How can one vote out of a million votes make any type of difference? The truth is that the laws and policies we vote on affect our daily lives, workplaces, and communities whether we like it or not. But that can sometimes be hard to see when we don't have all the information. And not having the information ISN'T anyone's fault. The government and how it works is complicated—but it doesn't have to be. The systems we have now are the ones American citizens just like you put into place throughout our country's history by voting. So, if you want to find out how you can use voting to create the country you want to live in, tune in to S1E2 to learn more about the voting systems we have in place and possible alternatives. And we break down everything we covered into social media graphics that make it easy to understand (and share). Download them at nocreamnosugar.org:Find out more about the voting system we use now: First-Past-The-Post votingLearn about a possible alternative to FPTP voting: Rank-Choice VotingUnderstand the reasons you should vote (even if you don't want to)See where presidential candidates can get public funding (made possible by our tax dollars) Follow us on Instagram @americandreamoncaffeineHave questions about our government or its systems, laws, or policies? Send an email to americandreamoncaffeine@gmail.com or call (260) MY-DREAMFor those of you who would rather watch and listen, check us out on YouTube

The current electoral system is First Past The Post, where if you win even +1 vote than the next party, YOU TAKE ALL. (Therefore the "winner takes all" saying) Some constituants feel unheard under this system, and suggest a proportional system instead of a plurality one, where the number of votes = number of seats in the house of commons. I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both system along with examples as fresh as the 2019 General Election to support my argument for there being no need to replace the current FPTP system.

(Alternate episode title - "Electoral Reform 2: Electric Boogaloo") With a fresh mind and a new look at the problem, Mike and Adam discuss some possible changes to our electoral system that would allow First Past The Post (FPTP) to remain relevant in our modern elections.

With the AV referendum gaining 68% votes to keep the FPTP system of representative democracy and the Brexit EU referendum that caused political unrest, it is crucial to consider and provide an argument for both sides of the story.

A history of madness There is bullshit in the air and blood in the water, it must be election season in Ireland. Prepare for the "deep dive" no one asked for and even less people want now that it's here. A History of Madness looks backwards at Irish elections, spits out stupid controversies and pokes the media in their blind-spots. Acronyms will make you insane. Irish Politics 101 // stupid statues // PRSTV vs FPTP vs AV - Antibiotics required // lacking confidence and supply // @bridsmithTD // pre-Free-State // FF FG SF origins // DON'T TALK ABOUT ISRAEL! // Great Connolly's Ghost // Coalition & Tribunal Republic // Labour become (neo)Libs // Kev's Healthcare Hot Take // ill-timed protest // Break Captain Comrade Peoples' Hero of the Worker and Billy Proletariat Vs the Fash, music by Audionautix.com Womped at the ballot box // Pricks with Penions // Unchecked Power of Police // media & bourgeoisie, the criminal classes // Seb declares war on profit // the Poshboy Omerta // Bat-Lenin vs the rest // Get Educated Stay Antifa //

What difference does an electoral system make? We look at recent Green gains in Portugal, Switzerland and Canada - and ask why the Green result varied so much and what that means for that country’s politics. We draw some parallels but also acknowledge the key differences and take a deep dive into what kind of a challenge the First Past the Post system presents to the Green Party of England and Wales. Enjoy the episode and as always, show us some love and follow us here: twitter.com/biggreenpolpod. Big Green Politics Podcast is presented and produced by Seden Anlar (@SedenAnlar) and Julia Lagoutte (@julialagoutte).

Fourth of what we hope will be six interviews with the major party candidates in Portsmouth's two constituencies. This episode, Antonia Harrison, Liberal Democrat candidate for Portsmouth North. All guests will be presented with two introductory questions plus three they choose at random from the Pompey Politics Pot Of Pondering. • Each guest is invited to introduce themselves and give an insight into why they got involved in politics. • We’ll invite guests to provide a brief description of where they stand on Brexit. Guest will then select three questions at random from the Pompey Politics Pot of Pondering. The full question list is: 1. Turnout in 2017 GE was 69%. How do we increase voter participation in our democracy. 2. If cost wasn’t an object what physical changes would you make to parliament. 3. FPTP – protector of our democratic institutions, or a burden. 4. If tomorrow you were Chancellor of the Exchequer - what would be your first act. 5. Name the policy of your political opponents you like the most – and why. 6. Which one of your Parties Policies are you most proud of (no Brexit answers) 7. If you could change anything about the 2016 referendum (excluding the result() what would it be? 8. What do you admire most about one of the other main party candidates standing against you? 9. Do you think the NHS will always remain free at point of use?

The third of what we hope will be six interviews with the major party candidates in Portsmouth's two constituencies. This episode, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Liberal Democrat candidate for Portsmouth South. All guests will be presented with two introductory questions plus three they choose at random from the Pompey Politics Pot Of Pondering. • Each guest is invited to introduce themselves and give an insight into why they got involved in politics. • We’ll invite guests to provide a brief description of where they stand on Brexit. Guest will then select three questions at random from the Pompey Politics Pot of Pondering. The full question list is: 1. Turnout in 2017 GE was 69%. How do we increase voter participation in our democracy. 2. If cost wasn’t an object what physical changes would you make to parliament. 3. FPTP – protector of our democratic institutions, or a burden. 4. If tomorrow you were Chancellor of the Exchequer - what would be your first act. 5. Name the policy of your political opponents you like the most – and why. 6. Which one of your Parties Policies are you most proud of (no Brexit answers) 7. If you could change anything about the 2016 referendum (excluding the result() what would it be? 8. What do you admire most about one of the other main party candidates standing against you? 9. Do you think the NHS will always remain free at point of use?

**please note - audio file updated** The second of what we hope will be six interviews with the major party candidates in Portsmouth's two constituencies. This episode, Amanda Martin, Labour Party candidate in Portsmouth North. All guests will be presented with two introductory questions plus three they choose at random from the Pompey Politics Pot Of Pondering. • Each guest is invited to introduce themselves and give an insight into why they got involved in politics. • We’ll invite guests to provide a brief description of where they stand on Brexit. Guest will then select three questions at random from the Pompey Politics Pot of Pondering. The full question list is: 1. Turnout in 2017 GE was 69%. How do we increase voter participation in our democracy. 2. If cost wasn’t an object what physical changes would you make to parliament. 3. FPTP – protector of our democratic institutions, or a burden. 4. If tomorrow you were Chancellor of the Exchequer - what would be your first act. 5. Name the policy of your political opponents you like the most – and why. 6. Which one of your Parties Policies are you most proud of (no Brexit answers) 7. If you could change anything about the 2016 referendum (excluding the result() what would it be? 8. What do you admire most about one of the other main party candidates standing against you? 9. Do you think the NHS will always remain free at point of use?

The first of what we hope will be six interviews with the major party candidates in Portsmouth's two constituencies. This episode, Donna Jones, Conservative party candidate in Portsmouth South. All guests will be presented with two simple questions plus three they choose at random from the Pompey Politics Pot Of Pondering. • Each guest is invited to introduce themselves and give an insight into why they got involved in politics. • We’ll invite guests to provide a brief description of where they stand on Brexit. Guest will then select three questions at random from the Pompey Politics Pot of Pondering. The full question list is: 1. Turnout in 2017 GE was 69%. How do we increase voter participation in our democracy. 2. If cost wasn’t an object what physical changes would you make to parliament. 3. FPTP – protector of our democratic institutions, or a burden. 4. If tomorrow you were Chancellor of the Exchequer - what would be your first act. 5. Name the policy of your political opponents you like the most – and why. 6. Which one of your Parties Policies are you most proud of (no Brexit answers) 7. If you could change anything about the 2016 referendum (excluding the result() what would it be? 8. What do you admire most about one of the other main party candidates standing against you? 9. Do you think the NHS will always remain free at point of use?

This week we discuss the Brexit thick word soup and why the UK needs reform of everything instead. Support us on Patreon! WE HAVE A T-PUBLIC STORE what a fashionable way to support our podcast We now have a website that you can find here! Feel free to send us an email at PreviouslyInEurope@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @PrevInEurope If you can please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and if you can't do that tell a friend, this stuff really helps us out Also, have you considered Matteo Renzi? Show Notes Also happening... That Leaving the EU thing With a heavy heart we have been forced to return to that thing we usually ignore because nothing happens with it. There's a funny article in Foreign Policy that seems to argue the strength of the Italian President as a political figure is the reason Italy is super okay now and the UK is not... so like... it's the systems fault? Umm.. I guess. Though the probably many things? https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/30/britain-cant-afford-the-queens-weakness-anymore/ Why don't we talk about this more? Well most of the news follows the pattern of "X says Y about Brexit Deal" - This week's examples: Barnier said no renegotiation until Parliament ratifies deal https://www.politico.eu/article/barnier-no-alternative-to-backstop-until-withdrawal-deal-ratified/ https://www.dw.com/en/brexit-eus-top-negotiator-doubts-no-deal-can-be-avoided/a-50245537 Johnson says they need to renegotiate deal Former PM John Major says suspending parliament to avoid votes relating to deal may be illegal and joins court case (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49523055) Corbyn says "sovereignty" should rest with people, speaking about the deal (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/31/final-sovereignty-on-brexit-must-rest-with-the-people--jeremy-corbyn) Trump says deal bad... (insert infinite sources...) The words coup, sovereignty and backstop have lost all meaning, not just because of overuse - but because both sides are playing the "no accepting the terms" game and accusing each other of the same thing "Suspending parliament is a coup"... "no the real coup is the remain weirdos and their pal Corbyn trying to pass legalisation"... I don't see how either of these things are coups so no wonder https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/coup But then again this is nuts PM effectively being the executive is pretty nuts and combined with a FPTP system it creates some weird power trips. The whole Chancellor's advisor being fired and escorted out by armed police without asking the Chancellor... The weird guy Benedict Cumberbatch played in a film once seems to be making staffing decisions now? Other countries where the PM has effectively absolute power (in europe anyway) are much more fragmented systems like Denmark where the PM has to watch themselves somewhat because their government is much more fragile

This week we discuss is the Ukraine elections, oh boy that Servent of the People party, is ho boy, oof. In our "No Elections Left Behind" section! Support us on Patreon! WE HAVE A T-PUBLIC STORE what a fashionable way to support our podcast We now have a website that you can find here! Feel free to send us an email at PreviouslyInEurope@gmail.com or follow us on Twitter @PrevInEurope If you can please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and if you can't do that tell a friend, this stuff really helps us out Also, have you considered Matteo Renzi? Show Notes Ukrainian parliamentary election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_parliamentary_election Genuinely unprecedented and unique election: - First ever in Ukrainian history since independence to have a majority - 60% of new members of parliament will be first time politicians - major parties took enormous hits across the board (https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiy-on-course-for-majority-in-parliament/30069728.html) What's their deal? Zelensky is so new to politics it's hard to box him under any umbrella other than extreme reforms. His party says their ideology is libertarianism and are generally pro strengthening EU ties. Some highlights currently on the table from their manifesto: Replacing their hybrid FPTP and party list system with party lists only (this has actually now happened) A mechanism to recall members of parliament via no-confidence from voters Some currently not well defined direct democracy measures "re-launch relations with Ukraine's closest neighbors in the West" Reform of law enforcement agencies Which seems to be a mix of reducing regulation on financial crimes but also holding police officers to account... and also gun rights? A lot of "audits" into how almost everything works Very new party There are concerns of many of the new party MPs being... well of mixed quality and lacking due diligence in candidate selection. However, the election went well by recent Ukranian standards from a democratic perspective. "votes did not go towards the “lesser evil” as before; voting for rather than against something. This is a rare achievement in the region and an essential shift for the country’s democracy towards maturity." http://neweasterneurope.eu/2019/07/24/the-new-ukrainian-parliament-at-first-glance/ Honourable mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_(Ukrainian_political_party) Russian Tensions The security service said it detained the Russian tanker in a Ukrainian port on Wednesday 24th of July. Authorities said the tanker was involved in blocking Ukrainian vessels from sailing through the Kerch Strait in November. Russia alleged the vessels breached its territorial waters. The Ukrainian Security Service, also known as SBU, is still led by an ally of Ukraine’s former president, Petro Poroshenko, The 10-member crew of the Russia’s tanker was allowed to disembark and leave Ukraine since they were not involved in November’s incident, Russian human rights ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova said. Russian ships fired on and seized the Ukrainian vessels on Nov. 25 in the Kerch Strait, located between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Ukraine has insisted the vessels were in international waters when Russia intercepted them. https://apnews.com/e212d39680f349a0b8e787d4f45ad250

Between cups of tea and a lot of dithering, Richard and Carola try to understand what it means to be a European family and live in the UK. Carola and Rich still have clinking cups of tea but they could not resist and record their first reactions to the EU parliament elections. They ponder over election mathematics and what the share of the votes means for popular opinion about leave vs remain. They dissect the D’Hondt system, still not being as proportional representative as they would like, and they rant about those media channels who still act as if these where FPTP elections. Links: Our calculations on DHondt vs excact proportional representation  (on Twitter) (https://twitter.com/DitheringE/status/1133445232455028736 ) BBC: EU Parliament Elections – UK Results (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48403131) BBC: EU Parliament Elections – EU Results  (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c7zzdg3pmgpt/european-elections-2019) Guardian: EU Parliament Elections – UK Results (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/may/26/european-election-latest-results-2019-uk-england-scotland-wales-ni-eu-parliament )  

That is the name of the system using which India has its election. It is crucial to understand what it is as it can massively swing elections this way or that way. Sneha gore Mehendale discusses this important phenomenon with Neha Phadke Mahajan and notes a few interesting statistics of electoral wins and misses due to FPTP.

British Columbians have voted against changing the province's electoral system. In a province-wide referendum, 61.3 per cent of voters cast a ballot against proportional representation, with 38.7 per cent of voters voting in favour of changing the electoral system. Green Leader Andrew Weaver says he's disappointed B-C voters rejected electoral reform in a provincewide mail-in referendum, but he sees it as a clear signal people support the current electoral system. He says he believes electoral reform has struck out with B-C voters after three failed reform votes. Do you think B.C. voters made the right choice by choosing to stick with FPTP in the electoral reform referendum? Yes No

Chapter 1

The land of the free and the midterm elections will be the topic of conversation as we discuss the current landscape of the US government and the so-called First-past-the-post voting system. Ken Greene transitioned from being a Professional Engineer (P.E.) to the “Engineer of Finance.” His goal is to help people become financially independent and help them earn better yields with less risk by investing Off Wall Street.   Links and Resources from this Episode For resources and additional information of this episode go to http://engineeroffinance.com Connect with Ken Greene http://engineeroffinance.com Office 775-624-8839 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-greene https://business.facebook.com/GreeneFinance   Show Notes Republican or democrat? - 5:05 The size and wealth of the government - 6:08 US voting system - 6:50 How Trump won the Primaries - 8:04 First-past-the-post (FPTP) system  - 8:10 Contributions to political parties - 9:58 A balanced budget - 11:07 The feeling of a misplaced vote - 12:54 Choosing the candidate we want - 14:56 Buying an association (President and Vice President) - 19:03 The US as a free nation - 20:50 Freedom to vote or not - 21:59 Distrust in the voting system - 23:00   Review, Subscribe and Share If you like what you hear please leave a review by clicking here Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you get the latest episodes. Subscribe with Apple Podcasts Follow on Spotify Subscribe with Stitcher Subscribe with RSS

With the referendum in British Columbia to ditch first past the post in favour of proportional representation just around the corner, we have on the show an activist from the prorep movement to talk about the topic. We discuss why FPTP needs to be replaced, some of the different systems being propsed as well as the limitations of reforming our voting system.

The survey showed respondents sample FPTP ballots – as well as sample ballots from systems that have either been proposed to a House of Commons committee looking into Canada’s voting system, or are in use in other countries, said Shachi Kurl, the institute’s executive director.

Presently, federal elections in Canada use the first past the post (FPTP) system where the candidate with the most votes in a riding becomes its Member of Parliament. As a result, many candidates win their seats with less than 50 per cent of votes. During last year's election campaign, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said he would, if elected, create a committee to look at alternatives to the FPTP system and promised that next election, likely in 2019, a new system would be in place. Alternatives include proportional representation, ranked ballots, mandatory voting and online voting. Electoral reform often proves to be difficult to accomplish because it combines debates over different and often competing values, political party and politician self-interest, and the need for citizen acceptance, even though many citizens have only a poor understanding of the alternatives available to them. The potential impact of changes to our electoral system are huge and the stakes are high for politicians, political parties, and citizens. The speaker, who supports a mixed member proportional electoral system, recently appeared as an expert witness before a meeting of the House of Commons all party Special Committee on Electoral Reform. Speaker:     Harold Jansen Harold Jansen is a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge interested in the ways in which Canadians and Albertans interact with their governments through political parties and new technology. He completed his B.A. at the University of Alberta and earned his M.A. at Carleton University in Ottawa before returning to the University of Alberta and finishing his Ph.D. in Political Science in 1998. Jansen came to the University of Lethbridge shortly after receiving his Ph.D. and has been here ever since. His research has focused on Alberta politics, electoral systems and electoral reform, Canadian political party finance, and the impact of the Internet on political communication and democratic citizenship. Passionate about teaching, Jansen appreciates the opportunities which smaller universities offer for mentoring undergraduate students. From July 2013 to June 2015, he served as one of the university's two Board of Governors Teaching Chairs and on July 1, 2015, Jansen became Chair of the Political Science department at U of L. Moderator: TBA Date: Thursday, September 29, 2016 Time: Noon - 1:30 pm Location: Country Kitchen Catering (Lower level of The Keg) 1715 Mayor Magrath Dr. S Cost: $12.00 (includes lunch) or $2.00 (includes coffee/tea)

Presently, federal elections in Canada use the first past the post (FPTP) system where the candidate with the most votes in a riding becomes its Member of Parliament. As a result, many candidates win their seats with less than 50 per cent of votes. During last year's election campaign, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said he would, if elected, create a committee to look at alternatives to the FPTP system and promised that next election, likely in 2019, a new system would be in place. Alternatives include proportional representation, ranked ballots, mandatory voting and online voting. Electoral reform often proves to be difficult to accomplish because it combines debates over different and often competing values, political party and politician self-interest, and the need for citizen acceptance, even though many citizens have only a poor understanding of the alternatives available to them. The potential impact of changes to our electoral system are huge and the stakes are high for politicians, political parties, and citizens. The speaker, who supports a mixed member proportional electoral system, recently appeared as an expert witness before a meeting of the House of Commons all party Special Committee on Electoral Reform. Speaker:     Harold Jansen Harold Jansen is a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge interested in the ways in which Canadians and Albertans interact with their governments through political parties and new technology. He completed his B.A. at the University of Alberta and earned his M.A. at Carleton University in Ottawa before returning to the University of Alberta and finishing his Ph.D. in Political Science in 1998. Jansen came to the University of Lethbridge shortly after receiving his Ph.D. and has been here ever since. His research has focused on Alberta politics, electoral systems and electoral reform, Canadian political party finance, and the impact of the Internet on political communication and democratic citizenship. Passionate about teaching, Jansen appreciates the opportunities which smaller universities offer for mentoring undergraduate students. From July 2013 to June 2015, he served as one of the university's two Board of Governors Teaching Chairs and on July 1, 2015, Jansen became Chair of the Political Science department at U of L. Moderator: TBA Date:Thursday, September 29, 2016 Time: Noon - 1:30 pm Location: Country Kitchen Catering (Lower level of The Keg) 1715 Mayor Magrath Dr. S Cost:$12.00 (includes lunch) or $2.00 (includes coffee/tea)

Presently, federal elections in Canada use the first past the post (FPTP) system where the candidate with the most votes in a riding becomes its Member of Parliament. As a result, many candidates win their seats with less than 50 per cent of votes. During last year's election campaign, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau said he would, if elected, create a committee to look at alternatives to the FPTP system and promised that next election, likely in 2019, a new system would be in place. Alternatives include proportional representation, ranked ballots, mandatory voting and online voting. Electoral reform often proves to be difficult to accomplish because it combines debates over different and often competing values, political party and politician self-interest, and the need for citizen acceptance, even though many citizens have only a poor understanding of the alternatives available to them. The potential impact of changes to our electoral system are huge and the stakes are high for politicians, political parties, and citizens. The speaker, who supports a mixed member proportional electoral system, recently appeared as an expert witness before a meeting of the House of Commons all party Special Committee on Electoral Reform. Speaker:     Harold Jansen Harold Jansen is a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge interested in the ways in which Canadians and Albertans interact with their governments through political parties and new technology. He completed his B.A. at the University of Alberta and earned his M.A. at Carleton University in Ottawa before returning to the University of Alberta and finishing his Ph.D. in Political Science in 1998. Jansen came to the University of Lethbridge shortly after receiving his Ph.D. and has been here ever since. His research has focused on Alberta politics, electoral systems and electoral reform, Canadian political party finance, and the impact of the Internet on political communication and democratic citizenship. Passionate about teaching, Jansen appreciates the opportunities which smaller universities offer for mentoring undergraduate students. From July 2013 to June 2015, he served as one of the university's two Board of Governors Teaching Chairs and on July 1, 2015, Jansen became Chair of the Political Science department at U of L. Moderator: TBA Date:Thursday, September 29, 2016 Time: Noon - 1:30 pm Location: Country Kitchen Catering (Lower level of The Keg) 1715 Mayor Magrath Dr. S Cost:$12.00 (includes lunch) or $2.00 (includes coffee/tea)

The Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Democratic Reform Maryam Monsef have pledged that Election 42 will be the last using the "First Past The Post" system. What their plan is has yet to be revealed to the Canadian public. But the discussion is very lively about what a new electoral system should look like for Canada outside the House. Over 90 countries, including 85% of OECD members, use some form of Proportional Representation. The old rhetoric of "every vote counts" is simply not true in a FPTP electoral system. Since World War I, Canada has had 17 "majority governments" based on seat count. Only four of those had an actual majority of the popular vote. Canadians have in reality been electing minority governments most of the time, based on vote totals. The Liberal government has publicly decried "We will make every vote count". Do Canadians really think their votes translated into an accurate seat count? On October 19, it took 37,728 votes to elect one Liberal MP. It took 602,755 votes to elect one Green MP. Nearly 17.6 million votes were cast, yet the overwhelming Liberal majority was delivered with just 4.6 million of them. Kelly Carmichael, Executive Director of Fair Vote Canada, joins us to examine what is and what needs to be for Election 43. Proportional Representation delivers equal and effective votes, better environmental performance, better gender equality and better policy development and implementation, based on historical data. Check out the background for this episode listed below and join us for a lively discussion http://www.fairvote.ca/  many topical areas here http://www.everyvotercounts.ca https://secure.fairvote.ca/en/declaration  Declaration of Voter Rights http://www.fairvote.ca/suggested-videos  Videos https://www.twitter.com/FairVoteCanada    

#20 - Lawyer takes on Fine Bros, free of chargeBusiness Not a video, but the FineBros have cancelled all plans of copyrighting   #19 - Zika virus declared global emergency by WHO   #18 - TIL that a children's entertainer named Soupy Sales asked on-air that children send him "those funny little pieces of paper with pictures of presidents on them" from their parents' purses and wallets and was thus suspended from his show for 2 weeks   #17 - Every "How it's made" video should be archived in the event of an apocalypse.   #16 - I have become science   #15 - Every group conversation needs this guy   #14 - Headbutt   #13 - Impressive juggling   #12 - Wave riding   #11 - It's my birthday, so Xbox sent me a year in review email. Their definition of "Favorite" is different than mine   #10 - Ant Simulator Canceled After Team Spends the Money on Booze and Strippers   #9 - Legal US pot sales soar to $5.4B in 2015   #8 - I am Don Rawitsch, a co-inventor of the original Oregon Trail computer game. AMA!   #7 - Stop pointing   #6 - TIL that despite the NFL making more than $9 billion annually, projected to make more than $25 billion a year by 2027, pays its CEO more than $30 million a year, 68% of NFL stadium construction costs since 1923 coming from taxpayer money.   #5 - Google passes Apple as most valuable company   #4 - Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast   #3 - Olive oil soap factory in Syria   #2 - Canada moving ahead with plans to ditch first-past-the-post electoral system. "FPTP suited for fledgling democracies, mature democracies can do better," says minister in charge of reform.   #1 - Uninstalling Facebook app saves up to 20% of Android battery life   Thanks Show contact E-mail: feedback.ireadit@gmail.com Twitter: @ireaditcast Phone: (508)-738-2278   Michael Schwahn: @schwahnmichael Nathan Wood: @bimmenstein "Music" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In this video, Jocelyn and Richard discuss the state of the UK’s electoral system. Is it still fit for purpose or are the arguments for change now overwhelming? The key questions they debate are: • Is it true the FPTP system isolates smaller parties, or have they now found ways of working through the system? • Does the existing electoral system help prevent radical parties from gaining a foothold, or does it deny some people representation simply because we don’t like their views? • With the decline of the two-party system and the emergence of a more diverse electorate is there anything FPTP has still got in its favour? This item is released with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Is First Past The Post (FPTP) still the right system for national elections in the UK, or would different electoral systems better represent a more diverse electorate? In this video, Jocelyn reviews the key characteristics of the Westminster electoral system. He considers the historical background of FPTP, its impact on party and government in the UK, and explores the system’s strengths and weaknesses. Advocates of electoral reform argue that other, more proportional systems would deliver electoral results that were fairer. Jocelyn looks at the possible alternatives and the arguments for and against. This item is released with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)