General Chat

The United Kingdom has criticised the elections in Zimbabwe as not being fair and representative

That made me wonder about how fair things are here in the UK ;-)

We have had governments that were not elected by the majority of those eligible to vote in this country :-|

We had politicians of all parties caught with their fingers in the till :-|

We have trade unions accused of manipulating selection procedures for candidates wishing to stand as an MP :-|

We have big business influencing government policy through lobbyists :-|

We have rich donors to political parties being appointed to the House of Lords :-|

We currently have, in my opinion, a government hoping to win votes by deliberately creating divisions and inequality in our society and exploiting these by trying to label all people who are on benefits as scroungers and layabouts :-|

We currently have, in my opinion, a government hoping to win votes by whipping up racial tensions by playing the immigration card and in doing so has adopted what some describe as a racist approach to some of the methods it is using to deal with the issue of illegal immigrants :-|

How morally upright it must be to be without shame or guilt ;-)

'New governments, elected by jubilant voters, often practice such corruption & tyranny that soon the new rulers are hated more intensely than the old'.

(From 'The Story of Civilisation' by Will Durant).

But to my knowledge we have never had more people vote than the whole eligable population :-0

I am not disputing that the elections results in Zimbabwe were probably not fair and that they don't represent the view of a large number of the people in Zimbabwe, it was just that when I read about the alleged corruption in the Zimbabwe system and their government - it made me think about our system and governments.

.....then we wonder why reporters eaves drop / hack on private conversations in order to get at the truth.???- jl

Just tell me how much a ticket costs to Zimbabwe and I will pay for you to emigrate to a country with a much fairer voting system than UK, OFG. Interesting post, but what a load of twaddle.

The UK system may have faults, but at least I have a choice of candidates and can go and vote without fear of intimidation.

Doesn't even bear comparison, so not worth discussing.

Next?

Agree with you, OFITG.
The United Kingdom calls itself a democracy - but I found the following extract from 'Teachers' Resources' from Newsround, after the Zimbabwean elections in in 2002 interesting:

Read students the following definitions:

Dictatorship:
A form of government where the leader has total power.

Democratic society:
A form of government where the people share in deciding how things are run.

Read out the following descriptions.
After each description use a show of hands to vote on whether it describes a democracy or a dictatorship. [ * = dictatorship]
•Free and fair elections.
•People in charge are beyond the law*.
•Ordinary people feel powerless*.
•People can change things.
•The majority (most people) get their way.
•Only a small group of people get their way*.
•The leader can declare war on anyone he wants*.
•You get a chance to change the leader.
•It normally takes violence to change the leader*.


full site:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/teachers/
citizenship_11_14/subject_areas/government_
forms/newsid_1879000/1879088.stm

Have to admit, some of the * comments (ie dictatorial) definitely apply to some of our recent governments :-|