Sounds a bit weird. I thought proportional was just in deciding how many seats you got, for example in seats A B and C, party X gets only 5000 voters in each. In the UK first past the post system, party X would have no seats. In proportional, that would total 15000 votes, which would count as 1 seat.

We had 22 parties we could choose from these last elections, of which only 15 managed to get enough votes for seats.
How these parties will now continue, you can best read at https://www.houseofrepresentatives.nl/elections, which is a lengthy process, can take a year.

Wow, sounds like the rules for winning a gameshow. I'd make it really simple, count the number of votes in the country, the party with the most votes gets in power. Doesn't have to be a majority, just more than any other.

I was doing it on my phone so wasn't as clear as I might have been. The same as here, the party with the most seats gets the first chance at forming a government but if the others don't want to play with them and can form a majority between them to keep the party with the most seats out, they can. There are a few different proportional systems around, all with their own pros and cons.

Party winning most seats unless they are very close to getting a majority is likely to have a lot of their legislation voted down. I personally think it is a much better system than first past the post as in UK but then I support a party which would get a lot more seats under it.

That makes sense. So over there they can't form a non-majority government on their own? I was under the impression it could happen in the UK, but they'd have a hard time passing anything the others didn't agree with. Should still work - any legislation others want too will pass. It wouldn't grind the country to a halt, you just wouldn't get radical changes made.

Yes, in UK we have had minority governments but if the opposition parties decide to get together for a vote of no confidence in the government, then if there isn't a combination of parties that will cooperate to form a government then it triggers a general election. I don't know how the mechanics of that work in other countries though.

Reopening this thread to allow you to talk about the attempt on Trump's life. Keep it civil.

Live by the sword, ... .

Either a lousy shot or Trump was not the target.

Given his opposition to restricting access to guns, one might hope he would revise his stance but I won't hold my breath!

Either a lousy shot or Trump was not the target.

One thing I was taught a very long time ago was, never take a headshot. Unless it is the only option, people move their heads a lot even when the rest of the body is still.

Hope you're all safe in England.

Watch out what you say and where. 🤫

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/07/secretive-government-agency-brought-monitor-riots/

Thanks Jord, Your concern is appreciated.

Some posts on Faceache suggesting some of the far right were meeting close to where I live. Friends who were actually at the location suggested said there were kids playing games and nothing different from normal there, same for the rest of the county though listening to the news, just now, lots of areas there were large anti racist demonstrations last night and apart from in Belfast, the rioters all stayed at home.

"During the Harehills riots the lady offered the police tea & ice lollies. She was then arrested for saying 16 years of immigration had ruined the area.

She describes the dehumanisation of her overnight custody.

The policeman said they had to charge her with something."
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1821451662952661287

She now has to follow a mandatory two-hour "racial awareness course"...

And while we're at it.
"Chester woman arrested over inaccurate social media post about identity of Southport attacker

She was arrested on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and false communications"
https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/chester-woman-arrested-over-inaccurate-29704580

Maybe we should start to post in code here. But it's getting terrifying over there.

So happy at least until January that the USA still has free speech.

Quite right too in the latter case.

In reply to Jord's message of 8 Aug 2024:

Maybe we should start to post in code here. But it's getting terrifying over there.

It really isn't for the overwhelming majority of us. and if it were not for immigration our health service would fall apart.

Trying to go to https://www.met.police.uk, I get

Sorry, you have been blocked
You are unable to access soh.police.uk

Why have I been blocked?
This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

What can I do to resolve this?
You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.

All links to the UK police are blocked, even those from https://www.gov.uk/contact-police...