By RONG REN
Politics Correspondent
BEIJING (China Daily Show) – China’s ruling Politburo has called for the UK to embrace political reform.
The move came as David Cameron addressed students in Beijing today and urged them to “embrace human rights and democracy”.
“The UK’s democratic rights record is appalling,” said an official speaking to China Daily Show on condition of anonymity. “David Cameron’s Conservative Party won just over a third of the total vote [in the May 2010 general election] but were allocated not quite half the seats in Parliament. Once again, the British people were denied their right to a democratically elected parliament.”
Wang Ting, a mid-ranking bureaucrat and member of the CCP, pointed to numerous widespread scandals of voting fraud reported in British media over the last three years, as well as recent accusations that voters were denied ballots in some constituencies when voting booths closed for afternoon tea. “It pains China to see its foreign friends treated so shabbily by their governments,” Wang added.
Chinese politicians have long expressed their wish for UK lawmakers to hold a referendum on their electoral system. Under the current method, the UK is divided into about 650 regional areas, known as constituencies. Whichever candidate gains the most votes in any single area becomes an MP and sits in the Houses of Parliament. An alternative proportional representation (PR) system involves each party being allocated the same percentage of seats in parliament as they won in the popular vote.
“PR is a properly democratic system. Not this first-past-the-post shit,” Wang scorned. But some have questioned the timing of the remarks.
“Every time the UK tries to do something positive on trade, or even civil liberties, in China, PR is thrown back in our faces. People have got to realize the UK has got a very different history to China and can’t be expected to develop at the same pace,” said Vince Cable, a UK treasury spokesman. As a Liberal Democrat, Cable was one of the leading beneficiaries of the current system at the last election.
“China must stop meddling in the UK’s internal affairs,’ Cable added. “I can’t imagine how hurt the feelings of the British people will be right now. I don’t even want to think about that.”
Surprisingly, some Chinese historians have come out in support of Cable’s comments.
“Vince Cable has really put this into perspective: China has over five billion years of history, whereas the UK has only really had a national identity since 1941, when they helped the Americans in destroying the foreign ghost devils of Japan (and some other countries) during the War Against Japanese Aggression [sometimes known as World War Two]. How could they possibly compete politically?” asked Wo Bei Bei, founder of the China Real History Society.
Despite pressure from China, the UK is likely to ignore demands for change, as the system has been successfully propping up unpopular UK governments for decades. “The system works,” one high-ranking British civil servant told China Daily Show.
Sociologists on both sides agree, pointing to research in their respective countries analyzing political dissatisfaction. Independent polls carried out in the UK show between 40-70% of UK voters disapprove of their government at any given time.
Those conducted by China tell a completely different story. Over 92.2% of potential voters in China are “greatly pleased” by the Chinese government, with the remaining 7.2% “completely fucking cock-a-hoop. Anything those muthas say or do is alright by me”. Premier Hu Jintao enjoys a personal approval rating of 96.6%, all of which is cited as strong evidence for the UK to embrace political reform.
British Prime Minster David Cameron was at pains to sidestep the debate last night. “It’s all very well using buzz words like real democracy and people power,” he told reporters. “But where is the trade-off in all of this? Trade is what can really enrich the communication between our two nations.”
Cameron is also said to have warned Chinese officials not to raise the issue of Cornish independence during the talks, saying that it was an “internal matter” and “the British people will never be divided.”
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