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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
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Politics: VOTE GREEN (A petition for electoral reform)

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    • CommentAuthorSeret
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Posted By: owlmanchances are It'll be a wasted vote


    There's no such thing as a wasted vote. They all get counted. That's all you can hope for whichever way you swing.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Posted By: owlmanit WAS a consensus, but only a consensus reached by an elite few, and excluded arguably the vast majority
    You mean that their techniques of consensus were inherently non-extensible to a full wide constituency?
    You mean that modern democracy sets that 'fact' in concrete, accepts its inevitability?
    You're confirming that modern democracy is the present device by which the 'elite few' get their way forever?
    Could that ever change?
    Could consensus techniques ever extend to the whole wide constituency?
    • CommentAuthorbella
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Isn't "democracy", never mind the origin of the word, just a flawed but useful (to judge from history) way of avoiding murder and mayhem as a way of settling who rules?

    If I hadn't already cast a tactical vote weeks ago for a respectable local labour candidate, as a probably effective means of getting rid of a dodgy Tory with nasty views on most things, I might have voted Lib Dem - have done for years but they remain invisible locally. IMHO they have, by a long way, come out best in the campaign. And they probably come closest to a viable energy policy and getting the balance of payments under control. This latter must be THE REALLY BIG political and economic issue for UK PLC yet it has barely been mentioned even by the GBF!
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015 edited
     
    Posted By: bellaa flawed but useful (to judge from history) way of avoiding murder and mayhem as a way of settling who rules
    Is it unrealistic to set our ambition a bit higher than that?

    Posted By: bellabarely been mentioned even by the GBF
    perhaps 'particularly' on GBF because hopefully GBF folk know that just redesigning the wallpaper doesn't cut it.
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    <blockquote><cite>Posted By: bella</cite>................And they probably come closest to a viable energy policy and getting the balance of payments under control. This latter must be THE REALLY BIG political and economic issue for UK PLC yet it has barely been mentioned even by the GBF!</blockquote>

    I think bella that may what djh and snyggapa were referring to when they said that the Green Party policies were from the lunatic fringe. I assume because they don't seem fully costed.


    For Tomfoster: I'm not confirming anything. I think that some form of PR may work but it obviously would need to be carefully thought lest we end up with inertia.
    As an aside, all my life I've heard the Lib-Dems bleating on about an unfair system and how PR is the answer. In this election when they are running a poor fourth in the poll of polls to UKIP they have been noticeably reticent about such claims. If they are true to their beliefs then they should say "the first past the post" system may be totally unfair to UKIP.
    Obviously because if seats were allocated via percentage votes then the Lib Dems running fourth may not be able to hold a balance of power.
    All assuming the poll of polls is correct.
    • CommentAuthorGBP-Keith
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Vote Labour Today if you want a government for the many rather than for the few.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Labour is fully subscribed to making 'the system' work (for the many), ignoring that 'the system' itself is 'owned' by the few (the very very few).
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Posted By: owlmanI think bella that may what djh and snyggapa were referring to when they said that the Green Party policies were from the lunatic fringe
    She's taking about the LibDems' policies.
    • CommentAuthorTriassic
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    We have 6 parties on the ballot paper, including 'Vote Vic' , I didn't vote Vic, or Green for that matter, as they were no hopers.
  10.  
    unless yours is a marginal seat all other candidate are no hopers Triassic
    time for STV or similar
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
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    • CommentAuthorbella
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Tom, Hobbs eloquently addressed a battle-weary 17th century England to make them see that the greatest danger to society is disorder from within - if you doubt that think Iraq. Democracy, for all it's flaws, looks to be the nearest to a safe system of rule we have got so far. So knock it at your peril.

    And Tom I cannot take your "changing the wallpaper" remark seriously. If "the very, very few" are half as bad as you think (and I guess some of them are) then you can be sure that international indebtedness (to THEM, don't forget) on the scale we are currently experiencing in the UK makes us highly vulnerable. That is why politicians generally don't talk about it. Vince Cable does.
  14.  
    It's it interesting they all talk about balancing the books
    I think what they really mean is not increasing level of borrowing
    "the national debt is increasing by approximately £107 billion per annum" wiki
    none of them seem to talk about actually reducing the £1.56 trillion debt
    costing £43 billion in interest, 3% of GDP
    http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html

    wondering what my mortgage is as a percentage of my income ? Is that considered manageable debt
    Is 3% of GDP manageable. Could it be higher and still manageable
    • CommentAuthorEd Davies
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015 edited
     
    “Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

    Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (November 11, 1947); in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 7, p. 7566.

    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Democracy
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015 edited
     
    Posted By: bellaDemocracy, for all it's flaws, looks to be the nearest to a safe system of rule we have got so far
    There's great resistance to trying anything else, like the extensive work that's currently being done on upscaled consensus methods. Consensus by definition is the opposite of the danger created by systematically denying at least half the population what they want (STV, PR etc are still based on that 'outvote the others' principle). But equally by definition Consensus doesn't suit the narrow interests of the current incumbents (by which I don't mean the Tories, but "the very, very few").

    Posted By: bellayou can be sure that international indebtedness (to THEM, don't forget) on the scale we are currently experiencing in the UK makes us highly vulnerable
    That indebtedness (which is just bits of paper, tokens of control more than anything, with little relation to real utility-value, past or present) only survives for as long as 'we' tacitly agree to it.

    They're welcome to all their paper wealth - it's a drop in the ocean compared to the real utility-wealth that resides in 'our' individual and collective 'economic' activity, once we take ownership of it. To starve all of our commoditised 'quality of life' goods in the futile attempt to escape our debt to 'them' is actually nothing of the sort - it's the very mechanism by which 'they' cement their grip.

    Not to diminish the value of what good guy politicians like Vince Cable have achieved over the centuries, even while 'they' get to own more and more of us (the US Federal Reserve has been a private bank since WW1, the first of 'their' mega-debt-creation ploys). It's thanks to those 'social liberals' and Christian-consciences that, particularly in UK, we still have the freedom, despite forces to the contrary, to develop our consciousness of all this, and to break out of the old left-right red-herring that they've so successfully distracted our little energies with.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Posted By: fostertomgood guy politicians like Vince Cable
    The one that sold the Royal Mail off cheap :shamed:
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015 edited
     
    Yes that was daft - we got the badges in Penzance and wore them proudly.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Hope you posted your letters in the Golden Post Box.

    The reason VC gives for selling it off is that under government rules they could not raise money to compete in the market. Why did he not just get that rule changed. Bit like giving your kids away because you cannot afford to send them to Public School.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    Anyone notice what's happened to letter post prices since then? Thank you market/competition - great job.
    Not that anyone even notices these days.
    Our postman says, through the van window "here tis - shall I put it straight in the recycle tub?"
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2015
     
    If you have not voted Green yet, this may change your mind. About 12 minutes in.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05tr714/charlie-brookers-election-wipe
    • CommentAuthorTriassic
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    So the Conservatives got in! Got to ask will this be good for house building or anything green?
    • CommentAuthorgravelld
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    It'll be good for volume house builders. But going by their policies (no need for energy efficiency in starter homes) it can't be good for anything green.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015 edited
     
    More worrying is going to be the referendum about the EU.

    There will not be one true fact in the debates, but a lot of emotional drivel and jingoism.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    And UK as a Federation? What about Cornwall - where would the lines be drawn?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    Just West of the Scillies.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    Posted By: jamesingramnone of them seem to talk about actually reducing the £1.56 trillion debt costing £43 billion in interest, 3% of GDP


    The conservatives pledged to have a budget surplus by 2018/19 so at least there should be money available to reduce the debt. Can they achieve that?

    Labour said they would target a current account surplus (no timeframe) but that excludes "borrowing for investment". So the debt would still increase.

    Liberals , somewhere between the two.

    SNP, same as labour.

    More at..
    http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7726
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    Posted By: TriassicSo the Conservatives got in! Got to ask will this be good for house building or anything green?


    Depends if you count Nuclear power as green. I think there is more chance of that going ahead than with other parties.
    • CommentAuthorCWatters
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaMore worrying is going to be the referendum about the EU.

    There will not be one true fact in the debates, but a lot of emotional drivel and jingoism.


    Bit like the Scottish independence vote?
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2015
     
    Posted By: CWattersBit like the Scottish independence vote?

    In which case, the referendum result will be that we stay in, and the next election result will be a landslide for UKIP :bigsmile::devil:

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