The Greens are a disgrace, they voted with the Liberal/Nationals to defeat Labor's Emission Trading Scheme, in the hope of gaining more seats in the next election. They have done the same with the vote on the Middle East.
To be fair, that was one *smile* Emissions Trading System, full of subsidies to fossil fuels. I can understand why it was a bridge too far for the Greens. The Middle East motion was just grandstanding as they knew the LNP and ALP would vote it down.
Interesting result in the UK. Starmer has a thumping majority, about time the incompetent Tories were thrown out, hopefully they will never come back. Love the voting system: Labour increases their vote by 1.7% and wins 411 seats (up from 198); the Lib Dems increase their vote by 0.7% and win 71 seats (up from 8); the Tories vote fell by 19.9% and win 119 seats (down from 369); Reform get 14.3% of the vote and 4 seats. Note that the Lib Dems with 12.2% of the vote got 71 seats.
Gotta love first past the post. Some similar things happen here with the concentration of the vote of the National Party giving them more seats than their vote percentage indicates (similar to the Lib Dem result above), but first past the post accentuates a lot of things. They really could do with preferential voting (even France has a version of that with their "second ballot" system).
They could also do with an elected upper house, then again, the Lords can't block legislation, I think it takes 6 votes but eventually the Lords have no power to block legislation.
Starmer and Labour have a big job ahead of them. Where does the UK go now? Not an easy question. You would think they may try to reverse Brexit but unlikely in the first term. In any case, if they tried to re-join the EU I suspect the EU would insist they adopt the Euro so not a simple decision for the UK. Their economy is pretty much *smile* unless you are in finance in the City. Their housing, especially London, is a mess like ours. Labour I reckon should be trying to adopt policies to appeal more to younger voters because it is the way that the Tories have favoured the older voters which is part of the reason for the current mess.
Farage may have won his seat but he can be easily ignored, a small and ineffective group of nutters is all Reform will be and likely to disappear next election.
Corbyn won as an independent, although I like the fact he is willing to be left wing, he is a bit of a dinosaur, needs to look at new ideas on the economy. Yes, many of the privatised industries are a mess and should be brought back into government hands, but there has to be more to economic policy.
DS
