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joining me is dennis campbell he is editor in chief of u_k_ progressive
magazine also the host of the world view show on youtube at youtube dot com slash
world view show of course dennis we've been talking about gerrymandering
district in the u_s_ for political gain for years in the last week or two we've
been talking about the potential republican plan of changing how
electoral votes are accounted here in the united states also for political
gain among republicans in the u_k_ the gerrymandering aspect seems to have i
don't know if i want to call it a cousin or a sibling or a relative
but the tory party which is closest to the american republican party
seems to have some similar ideas up their sleeves
they absolutely do and and and in fact i got their fingers caught in the cookie
jar yesterday right david camera was handed a very very nasty defeat
when he made his own coalition partners the liberal democrats didn't go along
with it
basically what they were trying to do is that we will have a general election in
twenty fifteen
of the parliament sits for a five-year term unless uh...
there's a no confidence vote in they believe government earlier and the last
election is in twenty ten
and what they were trying to do that for your conservative party
was that they were trying to redraw several of the districts well in advance
of the election for example
here in wales arrived that we would go
from having fourteen members of parliament down to thirty
and whales is considered a very strong hotbed of support of the labor
government which would be the equivalent of the democrats and in the u_s_
congress so in essence that would have had ten less seats and the majority of
the new districts
would have liked we voted to a bit more strongly for the conservatives
and they're not only did that in wales but they did that all across the country
and the estimation was it would result in twenty new seats for conservatives
which just happens to be
the amount they needed to have a pampered all outright majority based on
the stilts in twenty ten socio u_s_ their when these attempts are made
different states have different things going on you've got secretaries of state
you have popular votes you've got
uh... senses resp results tight and then you've got state supreme courts and that
the supreme court in vista chords
what is that the kind of legal framework within which this happens in the u_k_
but it's his father surlis framework is the
government will periodically after a sense is just as you just add we have a
sense is every ten years they will redrawn districts
uh... but it's never been is blatantly political as it was this time around
nor does it have the opposition is usually a year you know they were trying
to go they have six hundred and fifty of members of the house of commons which is
an extraordinarily large number considering our population
is only sixty million people so in essence we have
all fifty percent larger body then your united states congress
however with only ninety percent the population
was only twenty percent well yeah one-sixth actually so it's it's really
um... we probably do you have too many seats but it was a fairly naked power
grab and you know particularly in light of of the prime minister cameron going
before the uh... european union and drawing the line of this and as we
talked about a couple weeks ago
saying you know except all rules and do it our way we're going to leave well
many members of the the european union is saying don't want to do hit you on
the way out so there's a bit of posturing on all sides by the end of the
day
cameron said that you know after twenty fifteen he would have a referendum which
would you thought would put him in in a much stronger position
to then go after and demanded more concessions from europe now all of that
is placed sort of up in the air
so what is the uh... what what action is being taken to try to prevent this from
happening in this way that would give the twenty additional seats
well he was defeated yesterday by the parliament's of a they had a vote
now that the toys do not have uh... got complete control of the government like
two republicans do in the united states house of they are in what's called a
coalition government with the liberal democrats nazi only way they have enough
to have a majority which should form a government their coalition partners the
liberal democrats were very upset because earlier well actually later last
year at uh... the torrez blocked and effort
the liberal democrats to reform the house of lords which is the upper
chamber of community which is
of in a really kind of a mess right now because if you have any sort of a title
here in this body but does it really accomplish much of anything so they
wanted to change it and make it more responsible more representative
the tories fought against that and many view what happened yesterday
with this uncharacteristic defeated which pool delivered ems voted against
the government
as well as several members of the uh... of the conservative party the tories
also voted against the government
ought to be rather extraordinary
last thing i want to touch on as when something along these lines happens in
the u_s_
only a small percentage of people even hear about it and an even smaller
percentage of people really seem to care
when something like this is attempted in the u_k_
in terms of that that the general masses our people aware of what's going on
they ought to some extent but those of the isn't remembers about what is in
this country
onto the political process of the people pay attention when it's time for
general elections which every five years or so but when we have local elections
for example which you will give you are not in your local council of the people
that actually involved in the day-to-day areas
but with most concern you
we see drop offs from roughly those seventy percent to try it out for
general
to somewhere close to the fiftieth not less per cent and if we have a european
election which we sometimes do for european parliament org
special election questions
we can literally find ourselves in the situation as we saw earlier last year in
wales when they voted to throw the devolving take more powers on
twelve percent of the people showed up for that lots of about
dennis campbell editor in chief of u_k_ progressive magazine check out the you
tube showing youtube dot com slash world view show subscribe for free
what's coming up on my worldview shell
well we have uh... wonderful interview with a young man by the name of the
delaware valley
he is the the of but that issue of abortion or did you choose to the gym
brought me this is a very good perspective
of what's happening from the the youth movement them another gentleman member
with mason
will be interviewed or be interviewing him later this evening that will go up
on thursday of we'll be talking about the author of the way in which
are u_s_ government looks of things as opposed to a certain local afghani sees
been part of u_s_a_ i_d_
and many organizations on the ground and i heard him speak at a talk just uh...
earlier last week fortunately while the boss is not going to join us he could
not get out of egypt because of the current address that
we saw a couple of great guests coming
fantastic so remember subscribe free at youtube dot com slash world view show
and we'll talk u next week dennis thanks
will you vote should have a good week