Janet Daley in the telegraph suggests that the frequent claims that the American political system is broken are without merit:
The power of the people is being stolen
How strong should central government be, and how much of our money should it spend?
In the aftermath of the crisis in Washington — or more aptly, in the lull between crises — there is a danger that a few smug assumptions will solidify into received opinion on this side of the Atlantic. In the hope of dispelling some dangerous misconceptions, I will attempt to counter three myths that manage to be both alarmist and complacent at the same time.
The first is that the American democratic system is now so damaged that the country’s ability to govern itself effectively is in unprecedented peril. In fact, what has been impaired is the temporary credibility of the federal government, which has relatively little effect on the lives of most Americans. It is state governments that run the affairs that govern most civic and economic activity.
Hardly a day passes when one of the BBC’s political commentators does not indeed spout that smug assumption.
The likelihood being that they do so because if they claim the system is broken then there must be someone who broke it….and that’s, sure as eggs is eggs, going to be the Republicans, the Tea Party to narrow that down.
Many a BBC journo has wistfully announced that perhaps the ‘decisive’ Chinese method of government would be the ideal….and it was John Humphrys who, visiting Tibet, cheerfully applauded the Chinese invasion and talked in awe of the wonders that the Chinese railway was bringing to the Tibetans…along with the hundreds of thousands of Chinese ‘immigrants’…or occupiers as some might call them…not Humphrys though…and never mind the ‘cultural genocide’.
Democracy is so yesterday.
Or as Evan Davis says …the Americans are asking how politics can be reformed to avoid partisan showdowns of a kind that brought government to a standstill…yes Evan, let’s see what Obama wants…and then vote ‘Yes’. We can’t have any ugly dissent can we.
Davis goes on to claim that:
‘There’s one special and distinctive feature of American politics…gerrymandering….drawing boundaries of congressional seats to suit political ends… to wipe out rivals or to create safe seats for your party.’
Yep….that would never happen here, it’s certainly a distinctive and special feature of US politics alone.
Britain’s electoral system unfairly gerrymandered in favour of Labour
In his piece on David Cameron’s road to Number 10, Iain Martin touches on a crucial issue: “The geography and the electoral map are against the Tories: they need a 10-point lead on polling day to get an overall majority of one seat”. He cites research from YouGov pollster Peter Kellner showing that if Labour and the Tories were to gain an equal share of the vote at the next election, Labour would get 80 more seats.
Good old BBC tunnel vision…only seeing what it wants to see as long as it supports its narrative…US politics are broken…broken by Republicans…the Republicans need to be ‘fixed’.
Evan surely has had the weekend off to get his early Christmas shopping and check on his Latvian cutie who seemed to need a job in W11 or somewhere like that .
Hope Richard Reid wasn`t bumped up to First.
Yes-after the EU took away the voting rights of Denmark and Ireland until they voted again…how they eviscerated democracy in Italy and Greece in 2011…it`s clear that the BBC are actively seeking a coalition of niceness between themselves, the Guardian (and maybe Ken Clarke). None of that horrid voting stuff unless it`s Tower hamlets style…then the BBC and EU will get just what they want won`t they?
S`pose there`s no chance of we BBC shareholders(compulsory) getting any vote on the license fee or the personnel they employ like Savile or Brand is there?
“if Labour and the Tories were to gain an equal share of the vote at the next election, Labour would get 80 more seats.”
if the reality was
“if the Tories and Labour were to gain an equal share of the vote at the next election, the Tories would get 80 more seats.
do you think the BBC would mention it? Is there a BBC apologist out there (with an IQ over 80) who doubts that BBC “News & Current Affairs” would draw attention to this issue on each and every possible occasion?
If the “Tories” (for the sake of argument) deliberately voted against keeping the boundaries up to date, do you doubt for a single moment that the BBC would report it as a political scandal? That they would (quite rightly) report it as a subversion of our democracy.
Was it the BBC which told us about MP’s corruption?
Was it the BBC which told us about the Public Sector Gravy train?
The BBC pay themselves to excuse the greed, corruption, and abuse of power of the public sector. They are rotten to the core.
BBC news “The Republican Party drew its lowest approval ratings in history” accompanied by photo of Reagan in 1984.
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24574589)
Pretty bad eh, the worst ratings in history …
But actually, it’s lowest in the 21 years Gallup has been asking the question (http://www.gallup.com/poll/165317/republican-party-favorability-sinks-record-low.aspx). Still pretty bad, but ‘since 1992’ is a bit different from ‘in history’, and yes 1984 is before 1992. Still, why spoil a headline with some clarity eh? I suppose the BBC would argue that because there was no sampling of this before 1992 then it’s true to say that this is the lowest figure ‘in history’ as well as the lowest ‘since 1992’. Me, I’d call it bias, especially by using a prominent photo from before the period covered by the polling.
The jolt I got was to hear this smarmy geezer’s voice declaring ” Hi Evan Davis reporting live from Washington DEE CEE. Why the expense ?
Indeed why the expense! Just how many beeboids are wasting our money in America? Let’s see the budget for this crap which is a bad service to the licence payers because these davis and mardell types are so woefully ignorant. What’s wrong? They don’t suddenly speak English across the pond? After all, they invented the telephone, so why can’t someone at the new plush hq pick one up and call an actual American journalist?
Not often I agree with Evan Davis – democracy is over – especially the ‘fake’ democracy – a-la the EU. Let’s have an emperor or a king. It can’t be worse than Liebour!!
If anyone would care to acquaint themselves with the American electoral system, what they would discover is that the “gerrymandering” takes place as a result of a Constitutional mandate that the lines be drawn every ten years as a result of the decennial census carried out in “decade years” (i.e., 00, 10, 20 etc.). The results determine which states lose seats in Congress, and which ones gain. Once the number of seats per state is ascertained, the State Legislatures draw the district maps for each constituency, at both Federal and state levels. The proviso is that the populations per electoral district must be as close to even as it is possible to get them, consistent with relative compactness and non-dilution of minority voting strength.
What happens is that, in states which gain seats from a rise in population, the boundaries can be made correspondingly smaller, and more closely adhere to the non-dilution proviso. Assuming the suburban constituencies of the state legislatures have gained population from white flight, they can be drawn more compactly too– and become, because there are now more of them, the controlling factor in how the congressional constituency lines are drawn.
In states that lose seats, the constituency lines must be enlarged, and a certain amount of minority dilution is inevitable. The shifting patterns of population may produce white flight electoral districts in these states as well, on the state legislature constituency level. Thus, by eliminating the most egregious type of vote dilution of minorities, and setting up a few obvious “majority-minority” Congressional constituencies, they “skate” on the charge that they are unduly “rigging the game.”
There are slightly more State Legislatures Republican than Democrat, with a few with their chambers split (only Nebraska is unicameral). Gerrymandering is hardly the evil it once was, as a result of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and the Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims decisions– and the precision necessary to avoid racial vote dilution had the backfire effect of creating Republican districts for the constituencies of the State Legislatures which draw the lines.