| Politics...apols on 13:30 - Nov 13 by TomS |
I'll rise to the bait.
The big difference between the two is that Irish General Elections are conducted under PR. This inevitably leads to nobody getting an overall majority. This is turn leads to the largest party (always one of the two centre right parties) having to compromise on its manifesto to accomodate it's junior partner(s) to allow for a stable government for the duration of the parliament.
This has influenced and helped deliver the profound social change seen in Ireland in recent decades. There is more co-operation and collaboration between Irish political parties than in the UK, all for the common good. The Irish electorate don't take any prisoners if they feel as though they are being taken for a ride. The majority of us are floating voters, which is reflected in significant swings from one party to another from election to election.
Given how splintered UK political parties are at present, there appear to be several tribes within each of the two main parties. The "broad church" of the Conservative Party appears to losing long established parishioners as it embraces a right wing doctrine. I can't help but speculate whether the two main parties will eventually split up to allow all those different voices to be heard and if so, whether the case to change from First Past the Post to PR to reflect the different views of society within Parliament will become overwhelming.
It really is fascinating to watch this evolve. We live in interesting times. [Post edited 13 Nov 2019 13:35]
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Irish elections are conducted under the single transferable vote, not PR, and are still constituency based., As such they do not oscillate wildly between parties as, since the 7th Dail in 1932 when Dev first became Taoiseach, Fianna Fail have spent 61 years out of 87 in power - 70% of the time.
Because the two parties only deal in centre right politics differing only constitutionally, whilst Ireland has had huge upheaval, the distribution of that increase in wealth is enormously imbalanced, leading to huge levels of homelessness, and a housing crisis to make the UK's blush. This was exacerbated by the FG/Labour coalition's austerity programme. Huge corporations are allowed to use the country essentially as a tax haven, whilst everyone has to pay private companies to have their bins taken away from their squalid flat.
The fact that the current Fine Gael government is essentially propped up by Fianna Fail is a damning indictment of both tbh
(apologies for the anglicised forms of names, adding the fada is a real faff on this keyboard)
And tbh there's always been tribes within the two largest parties - in the 20s and 30s the Tories used to tear themselves apart over free trade vs protectionism, Labour has always had its socialist left and its socially conservative right. The Lib Dems name is a literal mashing of two political movements. The Greens have the "watermelons" and the "Tories on bikes". Brexit Party has the Home County Culture War enthusiasts, and those who want to leave the EU but have a legacy cultural hatred of the Tories.
The UK system could be fairer, but PR creates as many problems as it solves - for example List PR is in my opinion incredibly undemocratic |  |
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