h a l f b a k e r yThe phrase 'crumpled heap' comes to mind.
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Anyone who's heard the Shipping Forecast will know about
Finisterre, South East Iceland, Rockall, Irish Sea and
Fitzroy. Some of these will inevitably straddle waters
belonging to another country - Iceland and the Cod War
spring to mind - so these should clearly not be considered
constituencies.
Anyway,
certain people will be in these sea areas when a
General Election or by-election is in progress. These
people presumably have a postal vote. But this is
disappointing. There are naval and merchant naval
personnel, air-sea rescue, lighthouse keepers and people
on oil rigs, and they should be able to vote for their own
MPs in the sea area they are in at the time. This should be
done remotely and electronically, once only in case of
moving from one sea area to another.
Clearly sea areas are very sparsely populated. I therefore
propose a third aquatic house of Parliament situated next
to the current one but on the river bed of the Thames next
to the embankment. This will have sixteen (I think)
members who have a differential voting system. If the
issue has maritime consequences, each of their votes will
be considered to be forty times the value of a Commons
member's vote. Otherwise it will be considered to have
only a sixteenth of that value, meaning that if the House
votes unanimously it will act as a casting vote.
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I see a problem here: Not-very-democratic countries like NK
(just noticed that NK along with the UE spell a disaster)
would send thousands of their people to vote for the
democracies, and thus put in an outsider party headed by
someone who could change everything to their benefit. |
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But since this will never actually happen, the idea itself is
very nice. I stay neutral on this, unless otherwise convinced. |
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The tantalising thing about sea areas is that they would've
been land areas earlier, but didn't have a name. |
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Build walls along the lines that outline the sea areas, and drain all the water out. |
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Who decides whether an issue has maritime consequences? |
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