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I'm not sure the quality of the Government at Westminster is much of an advert for FPTP. But in the end, the argument for PR isn't really about quality of politicians - in any electoral system, that's down to things like party organisation and structure, how engaged the electorate are, and how...

One thing that does amuse me about Labour's plans... Usually whenever discussions come up about Labour making policy, someone raises a concern that Labour shouldn't produce very detailed policies because the Tories will nick them. Yet here, we have a very detailed policy - and in one key aspect...

Add to that that most aircraft fly at something like 500+ mph - whereas very few trains average more than 100mph. That means that you can transport people maybe 5 times the distance in the same time. Since most of your costs (staff, rents, leasing, etc.) depend mainly on how long you are using...

Oops, yep, my mistake, thanks - fixed. (Rewatching the video, Chris Philip and Jeremy Hunt do look very alike - at least to my eyes)

Would you prefer the Scottish Parliament to have an overwhelming majority of SNP MSPs, with very little representation from any other party, despite the SNP only getting a minority of the vote? That is after all what FPTP would have delivered. 1714116176 A recently published independent review...

How did they manage to do that when no-one had actually explicitly referred to the DR Congo? The DR bit is entirely in the BBC report and the subtitles - as far as I can see, it's nowhere in the actual recording. The questioner merely said, Congo, which by itself is completely ambiguous.

That seems in principle a good idea. And I'm guessing on at least the Woolwich line, it should be possible in principle to increase frequencies, since as I understand it, the frequencies are currently so low due to having been cut back during Covid times rather than because of lack of capacity...

This is a case where it's worth watching the video linked to in the BBC story before you pass judgement based on a couple of lines of a BBC report. If you watch the video, it's pretty clear that the story is making a mountain out of nothing by apparently trying to make out that Chris Philip...

Then you're wasting your time dismantling an argument that no-one was ever making in the first place. Seriously, the concern of people who are against FoM has always been that the numbers coming into the UK are far greater than the numbers leaving the UK (with the UK Government having no...

Yes, that's certainly one of the issues that would need to be worked out if we tried to do a solution along those lines.

That seems to be making the mistake I alluded to in post #8122 - of presuming that the fault and the unreasonableness is all on the British side, while France has a completely reasonable and lovely Government that is just waiting to help us out and sacrifice their own sovereignty for our sake by...

The way I would imagine it working, there would be no UK involvement at the application stage, and no UK presence in France. People would be expected to apply in France to the French authorities for asylum in France. The agreement between the UK and France would be that France could then...

Does having an already bad situation mean that it's acceptable to make it even worse?

Exactly. You compare the numbers of immigrants. By your own figures, 3M to 1.3M. That difference caused a rapid and unexpected population increase in the UK which put huge pressure on much of our infrastructure: Housing, transport, community facilities, etc. That is the issue! Nothing to do with...

Biggin Hill arguably also benefits from being in London - to the extent that it has excellent bus services for a town of that size (with one of them even extending to Westerham)

Yes, I agree that would seem to be the basis for the most practical solution, and is probably something we should be pursuing more. I'm somewhat puzzled that, as far as I'm aware, no-one anywhere across the political spectrum is advocating anything like that. While things like Liz Truss's...

While in Camden Town yesterday, I stumbled across an Aldi Local. I don't ever use Aldi and had no idea they too had jumped on the convenience store bandwagon. And in a way, Aldi Local almost sounds like a contradiction, since one thing I don't associate Aldi with is paying-more-for-convenience...

Ah yes, the familiar immigration Ponzi scheme. Which of course will fail as soon as those people reach old age and need someone to support them.

While that may be true, remember, the new line doesn't have to tempt everyone or even a majority of people, who commute by car from Hythe etc, to Southampton to swap to the train. Railways outside London run successfully despite only a small proportion of journeys being made by train. I'd bet...

Yet these people are already in France, a country in which they could, by claiming asylum, probably get a more prosperous life than in Rwanda - so it's clear there's a particular pull of specifically the UK that is tempting people to make dangerous crossings. That would suggest that being told...