Morning music
Vysotsky musings
I happened to find an old Vysotsky CD in the car. Playing it as I drove along, I found myself musing on Vysotsky. I was actually unaware, until I looked more closely at his Wikipedia profile, that he was half-Jew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Vysotsky#Early_life. Surprising, perhaps, in view of his occasional lampooning of Jewish types and/or accents in some of his songs.
When I got slightly involved with the Soviet and Russian milieu in the late 1970s and then 1980s (though only in and/or from the UK; I never went to the Soviet Union, and first visited Moscow only in 1993), it struck me rather unpleasantly what a decadent society had grown up in that part of the world. In particular, the excessive drinking of some Soviet citizens (mainly men) and also the heavy smoking (especially though not exclusively men). Not everywhere, certainly not everyone, but enough to rot the society from within. That, and corrosive cynicism.
Vysotsky was to some extent the personification of all that. That is not to take away from his great talent as a singer-songwriter, but that sort of unhealthy lifestyle was, in my view, a large part of the reason why the Soviet Union collapsed so completely so unexpectedly, just as its semi-toleration of underhand dealings, criminality, and (largely Jewish) underground business activity in the 1970s and 1980s led, in the post-collapse 1990s, to the glitzy tasteless Russia of the (mostly Jewish) “oligarchs” under Yeltsin and, to a lesser extent Putin, and to the gangsterism rampant in the 1990s (though far less so now).
Andropov was probably a highly unpleasant man, and extremely repressive, as well as possibly half-Jew (it is not certain), but I think that he saw the train coming down the tunnel at Soviet society, and decided to stop it. His unexpected death really sounded the death-knell of Sovietism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Andropov
Tweets seen
I read a Daily Telegraph piece about “middle class” homeless people (i.e. people who had good jobs, decent houses or flats, and then didn’t). The article waxed eloquent about the pressure on social housing etc, but the words “immigration” and “migration” did not appear; not once.
As Hitler said of many during the Weimar Republic period, “they want not only their daily bread but also their daily illusion“…
While FPTP voting would still be cheating Reform of nearly half of its potential seats under full proportional voting (156), those figures would give Reform about 95 seats, according to Electoral Calculus (Con 219, Lab 207, LibDem 67, Greens 6, SNP 22 etc). Thus Reform would be the “kingmaker”, though even then the Cons would have to agree with another party to get over the 326 line, or even the ~315 practical line.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html
In fact, as Goodwin implies, the only factor that keeps the Cons even as high as 26% in the polls is the pensioner vote. That may reduce by 2029; we shall see. A result of Reform 26%, Con 24%, Lab 23% would result in a Commons with Lab 195, Con 174, Reform 149. Still unfair and illogical, but on that showing, Labour would be unable to form a government even with LibDem, SNP and Green support, whereas a Con-Reform coalition could, just about.
If Reform, Con, and Lab all got 25% (others as given), then the result would be Lab 245, Con 188, Reform 93, LibDem 69, SNP 22, Greens 6.
I myself tend to think that Reform’s star is waxing, but the others waning, so a result somewhere in the area(s) above is not unlikely, with 3 or even 4 parties having almost equal success.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
Good morning! (here is 10.30 AM) A word about Andropov and the obsession of many fools who see Jews everywhere. I remember reading (a long time ago) a pamphlet dealing with the Soviet ruling class of the mid 1980s. According to it, most Soviet leaders were Jews, whithout providing any evidence of course. In the case of Andropov his supposed “real surname” was Lieberman! (LOL) Although this happened a long time ago I am still laughing my head off when I remember it!
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Claudius:
Yes, of course.
The early Bolsheviks *were* largely Jewish or (like Lenin) part-Jew (his mother having been a Jew or part-Jew called Blank), as you know, but by the 1950s the Soviet leadership had broadened.
In the case of Andropov, as Wikipedia says, there was a question about his mother because she was supposedly adopted by a Jewish man and his (?) Russian wife, but may have been their natural daughter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Andropov#Early_life
I always note where Jews are present, but they are not quite *everywhere*, and there is plenty of evil in this world *not” attributable to Jews.
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That appalling woman who serves as our Deputy PM really has no self-awareness at all just like her master, Two Tier Kier. I doubt very much whether Donald Trump cares what she thinks about him. If this country was not so degraded and degenerate as her party and the fake Conservatives have made it she would not even be an MP let alone Deputy PM. Instead, she would be doing her true vocation in life ie as a rather dumb cleaner or prostitute in a Labour Party-run craphole in Northern England.
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Yes, it doddery, old, stupid, rich, selfish and senile dementia suffering oldies keeping the fake Conservative Party alive. When are these people going to realise that Winston died in 1965 and that their present ‘leader’ is an overly argumentative Nigerian immigrant with an Afro-style haircut?
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John:
One of the factors that made me most despise “Conservative” voters was that, over the past 20-30 years, time after time, they permitted the conspirators at CCHQ to impose upon them a host of blacks and browns and Chinese, and voted for them just because they had the right party label. Kemi Badenoch is just one of them (and in effect only came here at 16 or late). There are or were dozens of others.
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Well, in their partial defence our electoral system is so utterly crude and simplistic that a voter only has ONE VOTE for ONE CANDIDATE in ONE seat at ONE time. What this means in practice is that if you don’t like the candidate for any reason but you DO approve of the PARTY they represent you still have to vote for that candidate. We have no separate and specific vote for a PARTY as Germans do with their Mixed-Member Proportional Representation voting system.
As all the evidence demonstrates the vast majority of voters use their SINGLE CANDIDATE vote here to vote for the person in their seat who represents their favourite party ie for the colour of the party rosette they are wearing.
This is why Independent candidates rarely win seats at general elections even when they are former party MPs who have been well-liked in their constituencies and have worked hard for their constituents.
Germans have TWO votes to cast in their system which means if they do not like the candidate in their single-member FPTP constituency BUT they do like the party they represent then a voter can use their CANDIDATE vote for an independent or a candidate for another party whilst using their explicit PARTY vote to still vote for that favoured PARTY of theirs on their respective state party list. Germans do not tend to ‘split ticket’ their votes in this way but as they have two votes to cast they can do so if they wish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-Member_proportional_representation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bundestag_constituencies
New Zealand has a very similar electoral system to Germany and New Zealanders do ‘split ticket’ their votes more often than Germans do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_New_Zealand
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As far as aware, only one country in the world has full Proportional Representation ie The Netherlands where you only have to get 0.67% of the national vote to start getting MPs. All the others including Israel have threshholds either by how the system is specifically designed or by imposing a formal one by law. Most set it at 5% but several have lower ones eg Austria with 4%, Sweden with 4%, Serbia at 3% and Denmark at 2%. Israel’s used to be very low at 1% which caused an excessive fragmentation of parliament thus making effective and strong governments hard to form but they have raised it over the years to today’s 3.25%.
Israel, of course, is used by opponents of PR to allege some silly points about political stability would be damaged if we had fair voting without taking into account that national character comes into this. Are they really saying Israeli Jews are of the same national character as Britons or that Israeli poltical instability might not be caused by having religious parties in the Knesset or Israel’s general situation as a country?
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John:
I think that the UK could handle full PR but, if there is going to be any threshold set, I would have thought that either 1% or at most 5% would be the maximum.
At 5%, Con, Lab, LibDem, Reform, and Greens would all be represented (there would have to be a lower threshold or a different method for Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland).
At a threshold of 1% (in England), the result (in England) would be the same as at 5% in terms of parties being awarded seats (but very different in terms of *numbers* of seats), using 2024 General Election figures.
Without a threshold, Galloway’s Workers Party might have got 5 MPs as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Full_results
So not a huge fragmentation, using the 2024 figures. The main difference would be in numbers of MPs; Reform 92 or 93 MPs instead of 5, and Greens with 40 MPs instead of 4.
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In Germany with its Mixed-Member Proportional Representation system which is basically a hybrid system combining FPTP single-member constituencies to provide for geographical representation of communities as here PLUS regional state party lists so that the OVERALL number of seats each party has in the Bundestag corresponds closely to their share of the national vote there are several thresholds.
Normally, you need to get 5% of the national vote or more to earn Proportional Representation of your vote share or you need to win three directly elected MPs in the FPTP single-member constituencies. There is also a special rule for parties specifically aiming to represent the small numbers of national minorities in Germany. One such national minority are Danish-Germans living near the border with Denmark (one part of Germany near Denmark today used to be a part of Denmark until 1920). Their party had a single list MP elected in 2021 as even though it only got about 0.1% of the total national vote as an specific national minority party it was exempt from the thresholds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-Member_proportional_representation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bundestag_constituencies
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The ideal level for a threshold is a subjective matter but seems to be at about 3% to 4%. At 5% it discourages people from voting for small parties too much and starts to ‘waste’ too many votes and lower than 3% and you get people voting for too many tiny micro parties with silly values and policies and which will only ‘bung-up’ the parliament thereby making stable and effective governments hard to form.
A decent electoral system should achieve two objectives which are NOT mutually exclusive ie it should enable small parties with credible and sensible values/philosophies to enter parliament without too much difficulty and prevent too many votes from being ‘wasted’ AND also allow for stable and effective governments to be formed.
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If we had Mixed-Member Proportional Representation like Germany does we could divide the country up into electoral regions and still have single-member FPTP constituencies to provide for that fabled ‘constituency link’ to parliament. The electoral regions could be based-upon the old EU parliament ones we used to have for EU elections so we would have 12 electoral regions including one for Scotland, one for NI and one for Wales. The South East region which comprised Surrey, East and West Sussex, Kent, the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire might have to be split-up into two separate electoral regions as it is a large region with many voters but the others can be left as they were.
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John:
the so-called link or loyalty to constituencies is, as you imply, not rooted in reality when you look at it, and the vast majority of voters vote according to party label.
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Under our present one vote per voter, stand alone First Past The Post electoral system a voter can choose to prioritise voting for a candidate on account of how good a local MP they are or could be or decide to vote for someone because that person is standing for their favoured party. Of course, in 90% plus of circumstances they choose to vote for the candidate on account of their party label.
In Germany and New Zealand, a voter has two votes to cast one for a local candidate and one for the party they like the most and would wish to form the government or to be its leading coalition partner. This gives increased choice to the voter and an elector can vote for a specific local candidate with their candidate vote without having to vote against that candidate’s party.
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No, I wasn’t aware that the Polish Parliament once had that rule and I am not surprised it caused political instability.
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The Zionist entity is the only ‘democratic’ (as least as far as the Jewish population is concerned) country in the world to my knowledge that has quite a few specifically religious parties in its parliament the Knesset. This factor along with the previous ultra-low electoral threshold of just 1% of the national vote and the fact Israel has a general situation as a country of being in conflict internally and often externally as well has caused political instability. At one time also Israel directly elected its PM separately from its parliamentary elections although this no longer happens.
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The other favoured example of the alleged perils of Proportional Representation used by its opponents here is, of course, Italy. That country at one time used a list PR system with a very low threshold BUT the political instability was ALSO caused by having at one time a very powerful Communist Party that no one else wanted to form a government with and also that Italy is unusual in not just having a lower house of parliament and an upper one but also because these houses of parliament have EQUAL powers. That is almost unheard of in any other country.
The Italian national character as with Jewish Israeli character is a factor to consider here too.
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John:
Were you aware that, in the 19thC, the Polish Diet (Parliament) was the only one ever to have a system whereby a single deputy (MP) could veto any bill? Result, of course, near-chaos.
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Yes, both the Green Party’s voters and Reform UK’s should be properly represented in the House of Commons with many more MPs than they have. Reform UK should have more MPs than the Liberal Democrats as they had two percent more of the national vote.
Using single-member geographical constituencies EXCLUSIVELY as we do means that if voters start to depart in any significant way from voting Labour or Tory by voting for other parties then the system will not represent voters in proportion to those parties’ vote share. Stand alone FPTP is a system basically designed for just two candidates to stand in a seat not several. It can not cope with what we now have ie MULTI-PARTY politics. The last general election where it could be said to be still working quite well was 1970 which was the last election where the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Party as it then was didn’t collectively receive much in the way of a national vote share between them.
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The general election of 1970 was the last election where there were many seats which only had Tory or Labour candidates. From the two general elections of 1974 onwards in which the Liberal Party had 19% of the national vote (in the February election of that year) but which only gained a small and disproportionate share of seats more and more candidates of various parties stood with the principle party doing that being the Liberal Party. As soon as there are three parties or more contesting many seats and they get significant vote shares in them then distorted and disproportionate results can happen at the national level.
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