UK Politics

sigh

I which case it should become the primary chamber. Having the second chamber be more representative of public opinion would be yet another way the commons would repress the views of the people.

The issue with this is the same as with the mayoral system. The next tine the Tories get a turn, they replace it with FPTP and claim it's "more democratic".

I'm pretty sure I've seen that suggested before, it would make a lot of sense, so obviously it will never happen.

Sortition means you dont stand to get elected, instead you get randomly selected to serve, its how jury service works. That said I'd prefer 2/3rds sortition 1/3 appointed cross-bench experts, they are the only good thing about the current lords and it would be a shame to lose them.

That's pretty much what it is - you can think of it like political jury service. It would be a cross-section of the population vetting laws with an eye on how they impact the lives of ordinary people. So you might get an NHS doctor pitching in on medical reforms but you also get a lot of people who use the NHS and are incentivised to improve it because it is life or death to them, rather than a politician who might be more interested in seeing what can be flogged off to their mates in return for a cushy non-executive position.

We largely only get a say in the laws during elections when we have to decide who we trust yo make the changes we want. With sortition in the upper house we get instant and fine-grained oversight of each individual law.

Labour are going to win, and they'll have a large majority. But why, as a strategy for election, would you rest on your laurels especially when there's rumblings of losing votes due to their inaction on the Gaza question.

A good election tactic is to identify something that appeals to the hardcore of their voters and promise to change it. These might have potentially not voted or voted Green (or George Galloway 😩) but this way you might save their vote and win a better working majority rather than a Theresa May majority.

I don't think they'll do it because it sounds like a last minute election line precisely to appease these voters. If they had a thoroughly thought out timeline and action plan rather than just Labour will eat the rich, who's with me comrades? then fair enough, but I might have missed that.

Think about it the other way around, Tories looking to stave off election calamity and get their hardcore voter base to vote rather than not vote or vote Lib Dem (or Nigel Farrage): We will stop the boats, we will make criminals of people who don't have the means to look after themselves, we will give old people ever increasing sums of money as a thank you for their service during the decades of peace after WW2 where they gave nothing and took as much as they could amassing wealth beyond your wildest dreams. You wouldn't believe a word of that would you?