Proportional representation.

And that referendum will not be repeated in less than a generation's time. 

ATB from George

Yes and quite rightly so.

If a party wants to win, it can do the simple thing, persuade enough people to vote for it.

Regards

Mick

Which doesn’t always work because you can end up with Hung Parliaments who make up a completely different manifesto that nobody at all voted for. A compete farce.

Gaining a government by outdated and ridiculous arrangements that make allowances for a completely different Party that wasn’t voted in democratically.

The Con-Dem Party is in fact nothing more than some kind of temporary 5 year Dictatorship.

Debs

Madam

At the 2010 election, the percentage of votes cast went as follows.

Tories     36.1%

Labour    29.0%

LibDems 23.0%

Therefore the Con-Dem party picked up   59.1% of the votes cast.

I agree this results in policy bartering but it is at least democratic.

Mick

Mick

the Con-Dem Party didn’t stand or even exist before the election so it actually received 00.0 votes.

However, if the 'Two Elections' System was employed [see above] at least the outcome would be democratic.

Debs

Madam

Whether you like it or not,  over 75% of the electorate endorsed the FPTP system in 2011.

It has its pros and cons as does any other system but it is what the electorate wants because it basically works.

As George said, this referendum wil not be repeated for at least a generation.

Mick

We had a referendum and the majority of those who voted opted for the status quo, FPTP system. Even the Lib-Dems graciously accepted the outcome and I think most of us here likewise accepted this outcome with good grace.

Whether a generation will pass before the subject is considered again by Parliament, only time will tell. But that’s no excuse for silencing discussion of the matter, and i'm not aware that anybody is trying to do that. If circumstances change, then the subject could come up sooner than expected.

With a two party system, FPTP is about as fair and reasonable a system as I can imagine, and here in the UK we seemed to swing from moderate Left to moderate Right, without any significant extremism, for the past 200 years,. And given the typical margins by which votes are cast and seats are won, (where the winning party might have fewer votes but more seats) this also seems to support the idea that we are a civilised society. No one party seeks to introduce legislation to eliminate the other party post-election.

With three parties dominating the electoral system, we know from past experience that its almost inevitable the party winning the most seats, will have polled c.40% of the votes cast and again might not have collected the highest number of votes cast. When c.20% or more of the electorate show they are unhappy with the other two parties, then only a hung Parliament and a coalition enables this 20% to significantly influence our legislation. A coalition isn't an inevitable disaster for the country- the past four years have confirmed that.

With four parties sharing significant percentages of the electorate vote, but only two parties acquiring significant numbers of seats, I can picture unease in the population at a single party forming a government. Significant groups having a slight minority of voters  need to be considered and I’m not entirely convinced that we have got this properly sorted at present.

I don’t think we need to panic yet, IMHO I don’t think UKIP will do very well in next year’s General Election, either in terms of votes polled and certainly not in terms of seats won. But they might split local voting and distort the overall balance of votes/seats won by the other parties, leading to a democratically elected but significantly unrepresentative government.

I just thought a friendly discussion would be nice.

Dear Don,

I think your thread is a reasonable discussion point, though it is unlikely to be revisited with a referendum any time soon.

The system does evolve, and the reality is that we vote for a representative in Parliament as a representative for the constituency. The whole membership of Parliament hold the executive to account and can at any time call a vote of no confidence.

I personally think that if a minority of people end up voting for largest single Party group in Parliament, if this group itself is a minority then it is a bit rich to expect that the Manifesto must not be modified to allow for a coalition government.

I think that coalition government is a splendid idea, and I would welcome it becoming the norm! It would curb the worst excesses of charismatic Prime Ministers, and inevitably moderate any potential extremism. 

ATB from George

I tend to agree George- see the second half of paragraph four of my previous post.

But coalitions as we know it, still depend on seats won, rather than votes cast. This is the nub of my initial post.

Dear Don,

I agree that PR does avoid the risk of a tiny minority voting for the eventual administration formed. Yes, I do agree.

And PR can also lead to a small number of extremists having an undue influence on an executive if they hold a balance of power. There is no perfect system, and in some ways the blunt instrument of first past the post does actually work in a mature democracy, especially one like the UK which really is blessed with such an intelligent electorate. I have considerable optimism about the UK electorate selecting the government it wants with the blunt instrument of the first past the post elections of individual representatives for constituencies.

I  do believe there is room for the boundaries to be redrawn so that each vote has a more equal share of the elected Parliamentary Member.

I am sure that process will be uncontroversially reformed over time.

Best wishes from George

It’s a pity we haven’t got a FPTP system here in the UK.

Here it’s the 1st past the post with a 3rd yappy dog party on a lead cocking a leg up going past the post.

This is why a ‘Two Elections’ system would be far better. The primary election would allow some moderate PR, not only for candidates who may deserve to gain power, but also far better PR with the voters with a second and third choice vote.

The secondary and final election would be a genuine two horse race for one Party to win only, even if the majority was one vote, or one MP in the House.

The third party has been there for a Century!

Firstly Queer Hardy's Labour Party and then the Liberals, when Labour became the more important.

What we might now have is a fourth party called UKIP, which might split the Conservative vote, but I doubt it at a General Election. The UK electorate is much too sensible for that!

ATB from George

Vote Tory I'd rather cut my balls off. Mick P supporting them is the biggest justification for my continuing support for  Labour or at least non-Tory.

Careful with that axe, Eugene!

You don't want to end up in Queer Hardy's Labour Party!  

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."  Abraham Lincoln springs to mind.

The European elections are based on Proportional Representation.

The smaller parties (eg Greens) have secured a representatively small number of seats.

The Conservatives, Labour and UKIP have secured representatively larger blocks of seats.

• Is this a "good thing" ?
• What sort of message does this (and other polls in Europe) send to the EU ?
• Would this pattern be repeated if next year's General election were based on PR ? I know it won't be based on PR so it's entirely hypothetical !!
• What sort of message does this result send to the Coinservatives, Labour, Lib-Dems and the the other minor parties ?

Also hypothetical, what happens if Scotland vote to leave UK in September?

How will the loss of Scottish PM’s affect the mix in Westminster, Labour would lose more than most & it will be a significant shift in the political balance in whats left of Westminster & how will that affect the focus of the Westminster elections in 2015.

Could this become a catalyst to encourage Westminster to think again about PR – my guess it will push Labour firmly against PR & Conservatives more towards it.

As PR will make coalition alliances more common & given Conservatives & UKIP are more natural bedfellows it could mean Labour are faced with a long time in opposition & possibly widening the North/South divide.

Will it force voters with a center left bias to move further left & Labour growth from that.  

What future Lib-Dems,

Then it raises the question of boundary changes & constituency number reduction.   

Kinda puts the Euro issue to one side in the Scottish vote in Sept doesn't it.

Maybe they think the trains will run on time?

The majority of those who bothered to vote is not the same as the majority.

Our system is adversarial which teaches and encourages fighting the opposition over and above working together to find common ground.

In a two party state the alternative is x years of one party pulling in one direction then x years of the other party undoing what the first party did and then pulling in the opposite direction.

The poor institutions at the sharp end are our schools, hospitals etc are in a permanent state of flux.

Hatred is never useful as method of motivation.

ATB from George

Farage is potentially a very risky option.

ATB from George

This is reference to Mussolini, who said he would do that In Italy.

Whilst there is an element of truth in this, most of the time its more of a meander from mid-right to mid-left and back again. Perhaps in Egypt, democracy works with more extreme swings of the pendulum.