I can't agree that there's flip flopping going on. Corbyn would have been a flip-flop if elected but instead he was electorally destroyed.
When looking at actual leaders, the UK has had highly stable government for decades. It may not feel like it because of the manic focus of the press on a tiny number of issues at any one time but Tony Blair, David Cameron and Boris Johnson are extremely comparable in general world and politics. If it weren't for the single divisive issue of the EU you'd struggle to tell their administrations apart. They're all middling elite/centrist types who aggressive optimise for voter preference via focus groups and polls, even outside of election time. They're all lacking in any clear vision for what to do or change, and thus delegate relentlessly to civil servants and assorted academics.
No-one cared about the EU until Cameron sprung the referendum on us, that referendum was entirely the result of back room shenanigans in an attempt to reduce the influence of UKIP
This statement is self-contradicting: the reason Cameron 'sprung' the referendum on the UK was exactly because UKIP was taking a lot of voters and was getting dangerously close to the threshold where it'd start denying the Tories seats. BTW it wasn't really sprung on people: in reality an EU referendum had been debated for years, in fact the Lib Dems had once been the primary party pushing for one. They called for an in/out referendum in 2007 for example, and the rise of UKIP showed that many people cared.
FPTP clearly can't mean always a two party system because otherwise the SNP would never have existed. Scotland would have remained Lab/Con forever.
It may appear to be very different to a coalition-oriented PR system on the surface, but it's not really in the end. You tend to get two parties because FPTP incentivises what are basically large coalitions posing as single parties. The Conservatives aren't really a single party, nor are Labour. That's why there are so many factions within them like the ERG on the right or Momentum and its offshoots on the left. They're uneasy coalitions of people who often don't agree on all that much, but who agree with each other more than the other side.
In PR systems these factions are much more prominent, but still have to assemble themselves into what are effectively make-shift political parties in order to form a functional government. It happens after the vote, rather than before it, which isn't actually better. It just means people have no idea what set of strange compromises they're actually going to get by casting a vote in any particular direction, because those compromises weren't made yet. It also tends to mean very long periods of suspended government whilst the different factions try to thrash out a coalition. This is why Belgium managed to go nearly two years without a functioning government.
When looking at actual leaders, the UK has had highly stable government for decades. It may not feel like it because of the manic focus of the press on a tiny number of issues at any one time but Tony Blair, David Cameron and Boris Johnson are extremely comparable in general world and politics. If it weren't for the single divisive issue of the EU you'd struggle to tell their administrations apart. They're all middling elite/centrist types who aggressive optimise for voter preference via focus groups and polls, even outside of election time. They're all lacking in any clear vision for what to do or change, and thus delegate relentlessly to civil servants and assorted academics.
No-one cared about the EU until Cameron sprung the referendum on us, that referendum was entirely the result of back room shenanigans in an attempt to reduce the influence of UKIP
This statement is self-contradicting: the reason Cameron 'sprung' the referendum on the UK was exactly because UKIP was taking a lot of voters and was getting dangerously close to the threshold where it'd start denying the Tories seats. BTW it wasn't really sprung on people: in reality an EU referendum had been debated for years, in fact the Lib Dems had once been the primary party pushing for one. They called for an in/out referendum in 2007 for example, and the rise of UKIP showed that many people cared.
FPTP clearly can't mean always a two party system because otherwise the SNP would never have existed. Scotland would have remained Lab/Con forever.
It may appear to be very different to a coalition-oriented PR system on the surface, but it's not really in the end. You tend to get two parties because FPTP incentivises what are basically large coalitions posing as single parties. The Conservatives aren't really a single party, nor are Labour. That's why there are so many factions within them like the ERG on the right or Momentum and its offshoots on the left. They're uneasy coalitions of people who often don't agree on all that much, but who agree with each other more than the other side.
In PR systems these factions are much more prominent, but still have to assemble themselves into what are effectively make-shift political parties in order to form a functional government. It happens after the vote, rather than before it, which isn't actually better. It just means people have no idea what set of strange compromises they're actually going to get by casting a vote in any particular direction, because those compromises weren't made yet. It also tends to mean very long periods of suspended government whilst the different factions try to thrash out a coalition. This is why Belgium managed to go nearly two years without a functioning government.