Americans: - Britain loyal friend or Insignificant other?

[Foxx]

Originally posted by Neil_Caple
Unlike American Presidential elections, we do not get to vote for our Prime Minister. If we did, Blair would be dead meat, no question. Here we elect Members of Parliament and they choose the Prime Minister. Inevitably the choice is the leader of the largest party but, again, the electorate has no direct say in the matter. Political parties choose their own leaders.

Now, I know the US Presidential elections do not directly elect the President but the fact is the electors are voting for the candidate of their choise and those votes are then used to decide the make-up of the electoral college. There is no direct equivalent in Britain.

What you say is true in regards to both USA and British elections: The will of majority of the average voters is not necessarily reflected who becomes president or PM.

George Bush The Younger lost the 2000 Presidential Election to Al Gore in terms of popular votes, although with a majority of Electoral votes because of the "Winner Take All" nature of the Electoral College.

In other words, Bush won the election of 2,000 because he had a less than 1,000 vote majority over Al Gore in a key state: Florida.

However, if America had a parliamentary system like Britain, then Bush would have been appointed PM by his party because the Republicans held a majority in Congress.

Under representative democracy the majority often doesn't rule, as the judges are usually unelected and a jury must rule 12 out of 12 to find a defendent guilty of a crime in a criminal case.

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

---Churchill

Actually, in Scotland, a criminal jury has 15 members and a majority verdict is often accepted, at the judge's discretion. The US adopted the English legal practice of having a 12-member jury.

And I'd dispute that Bush won Florida. He was awarded Florida by the Supreme Court, and the vote would not have been even close if Florida's Governor (what was his name again?) hadn't blatantly gerrymandered the electoral rolls to exclude many probable Democrat voters.

[Foxx]

Originally posted by Neil_Caple
Actually, in Scotland, a criminal jury has 15 members and a majority verdict is often accepted, at the judge's discretion. The US adopted the English legal practice of having a 12-member jury.

And I'd dispute that Bush won Florida. He was awarded Florida by the Supreme Court, and the vote would not have been even close if Florida's Governor (what was his name again?) hadn't blatantly gerrymandered the electoral rolls to exclude many probable Democrat voters.

Neil, thanks for the factoid about Scottish juries and law!

Perhaps the liberalism of your legal code was the reason one of our U.S. Senators cited Scottish Law when he refused to vote "guilty" or "not guilty" at the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton back in 1999.

Anyhow, in regards to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in reference to the 2000 Presidential election, if I recall correctly the Supremes reversed the decision of the Florida Supreme Court (which had been appointed by Democratic Florida Governors) which had ruled that apparently the Florida voters count would go on endlessly, or until Gore was declared a winner, when a speedy decision was needed due to the consitutional mandate that the Electoral College needed to cast its votes at a certain time to officially elect the new President of the United States who was scheduled by law to take office by January 20, 2001.

The decision of the Supremes was a wise one that very likely avoided a constitutional crisis that may have ended in violence because neither side was going to back down at that point.

Personally, I think the whole thing could have been avoided had Gore or Bush did the grand thing that the much hated Richard Nixon did back in 1960 over the disputed voting in Illnois, conceded the election to the other guy!

However, 2000 was not 1960 when politicians were statesmen who put the welfare of the Republic first and foremost, but rather political activists so much in love with their own "Glorious Cause" that would led their country down a dark road that could end in civil war.

[ANDY-J2]

Originally posted by Foxx

Perhaps the liberalism of your legal code was the reason one of our U.S. Senators cited Scottish Law when he refused to vote "guilty" or "not guilty" at the Senate impeachment trial of President Clinton back in 1999.

The reason would have been that,uniquely a Scottish jury can return one of three verdicts.As well as not guilty or guilty they can return a verdict of not proven which means that while there is a suspicion of guilt the prosecuting authority have not put forward a strong enough case to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

[Celyn]

Originally posted by Foxx
>..
In regards to Blair, I notice that he's still PM, so a majority of Briton's must agree with his foreign policy....Or do you maintain that Britain has become a "colony" of the USA?

Nah, you cannot reasonalby infer that a mojority of U.K. voters "must agree" anything of the sort.

As others have pointed out

A - we have not had a General Election since attacking Iraq.

B - yes, I think this party is likely to be re-elected, but that will be in spite of his following of George Bush, not because of it. I'd expect their percentate of the poll to show a decrease though.

[Smith_USA]

Blair might seem to go along with Bush, at least more than people think he should, but we are the two greatest allies in the world (in my opinion). If you consider what our two nations have gone through together (England specifically) and the level of relations we have with each other today, it shows that we mean something to each other. If Britain were to engage in something like the Iraq war, I'm sure the U.S. would give aid in all possible forms. It's a shame that more nations cannot get along the way we do. We still have our differences, but that doesn't hurt us.

---In reference to previous posts... I missed the chance to reply earlier.

[MDempsey]

Smith,
Hello there, I am a fellow American. I don't know if you know much about what's going on with horrid war but the only reaon we're over there is so that Bush the ******* could finish what his father di not and for the oil, we're not looking for Osama anymore and he(bush) could care less about him. Blair was an idiot for going along with Bushs plan.