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Is Your Mp's Seat A Done Deal?
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Very interesting:
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I'm still voting tho!
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I'm still voting tho!
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Rather than describe all of the thirty-odd systems out there, perhaps you could suggest what you want from a system and I will see if I can tell you a) if it is/ they are possible, b) if FPTP manages it/ them, and c) if there is another system that can manage more still.
By definition no voting system is perfect. FPTP is, by most measures, less perfect than most. The problem is that it's difficult to persuade people of this; primarily, it is because such people get the result they want more often than not, and seem not to care that plenty of other people (indeed, an absolute majority!) do not.
By definition no voting system is perfect. FPTP is, by most measures, less perfect than most. The problem is that it's difficult to persuade people of this; primarily, it is because such people get the result they want more often than not, and seem not to care that plenty of other people (indeed, an absolute majority!) do not.
jim...your enthusiasm for some kind of PR is well known and in many respects laudable, if not very popular. I maintain a certain amount of sympathy with your vies. But the only way for us to change from FPTP is for Labour and/or the Tories to introduce legislation to that effect, and turkeys rarely vote for Xmas. The only reason that we had a vote on AV in the first place, was that it was a condition of Cleggs, after the Election.
So until further notice, we are stuck with FPTP. If Labour win more seats than the Tories, nobody will give a stuff about the relative popularity of the two main Parties.
So until further notice, we are stuck with FPTP. If Labour win more seats than the Tories, nobody will give a stuff about the relative popularity of the two main Parties.
A huge amount of the problem is that anything that is not FPTP is automatically labelled as PR. This is categorically not true. Continually repeating this mistake does no-one any favours, because all of the non-PR proposed improvements on FPTP then get discarded as "omg it's PR and that's a disaster", and any hope of debate or reform gets lost -- and this includes the issue of constituency boundaries, which is completely separate from how the ballot paper is designed. I would at this point like to note that, with a map of the UK, a pencil, and knowledge of who voted for which party and where they lived, I would be entirely capable of drawing constituency boundaries that achieved the following two conditions:
1) an equal number of people per constituency;
2) Almost any result that is possible, including Labour landslide (even in 1983!), or a Conservative one, or even giving the Lib Dems upwards of 200 seats compared to their less than 60. That this is even possible (and it is, although the constituency borders would start to get outlandish) ought to be horrifying.
TTT -- I'm surprised that you rejected my putative suggestion. It was "designed" (such as it was -- the idea about Commons having sovereignty took all of five seconds to dream up) to be as close to the status quo as possible while still being a measure of reform, and is by no means representative of the options out there. I would like to repeat my question from a bit earlier: what do you want in/ from an electoral system? If you care to answer it I'll then explain how well or not FPTP succeeds at delivering this, and what else there is out there that can do better. You may yet be surprised -- although in truth this depends on what people want from an election.
Mikey -- my understanding is that politics ought to be about challenging the status quo, not just resigning to it. There is every chance that this issue will rise with a vengeance in the coming year(s), because FPTP's biggest trump card, its ability to deliver majorities in Parliament, is now almost certain to not happen for a second successive election. As support continues to ebb away from the two main parties, this is only going to get worse, and we'll be delivered coalition after coalition anyway. May as well at least make those coalitions somewhat more representative.
1) an equal number of people per constituency;
2) Almost any result that is possible, including Labour landslide (even in 1983!), or a Conservative one, or even giving the Lib Dems upwards of 200 seats compared to their less than 60. That this is even possible (and it is, although the constituency borders would start to get outlandish) ought to be horrifying.
TTT -- I'm surprised that you rejected my putative suggestion. It was "designed" (such as it was -- the idea about Commons having sovereignty took all of five seconds to dream up) to be as close to the status quo as possible while still being a measure of reform, and is by no means representative of the options out there. I would like to repeat my question from a bit earlier: what do you want in/ from an electoral system? If you care to answer it I'll then explain how well or not FPTP succeeds at delivering this, and what else there is out there that can do better. You may yet be surprised -- although in truth this depends on what people want from an election.
Mikey -- my understanding is that politics ought to be about challenging the status quo, not just resigning to it. There is every chance that this issue will rise with a vengeance in the coming year(s), because FPTP's biggest trump card, its ability to deliver majorities in Parliament, is now almost certain to not happen for a second successive election. As support continues to ebb away from the two main parties, this is only going to get worse, and we'll be delivered coalition after coalition anyway. May as well at least make those coalitions somewhat more representative.
I'm interested in the wake-up call for the far right that Jim makes the point of mentioning. What wake up call - Farage has admitted that he risks being decimated and polls also suggest that, including that he won't even win Thanet. Not unless you think that the BNP are going to make massive inroads and, given their chaos at the moment, that ain't going to happen.
And UKIP voters are flooding back to the Tories and Labour apparently, so your fragmentation of the UK political scene looks, should we say, rather marginal - other than the SNP and Labour north of the border and, even there, I don't think that when the day comes, SNP will make more than 25 seats - most Scots are very sensible people and the silent majority will come to the fore in many seats.
UKIP's fortunes are indeed the wake-up call to which I was referring. It rather relies on enough voters sticking with them at the election, rather than returning, defeated by the system but otherwise silent about it, to the two (or three) main parties, though -- and then, for these voters to still not be enough to lead to any (or no more than a handful of) MPs.
And then on the other side, if the SNP start picking up a huge number of seats on a tiny vote share, then perhaps the right should take notice of that too.
If instead UKIP voters give up, and return to the Tory party etc, then there's any hope of making this an issue gone for another election cycle at least. Even optimistically I wasn't necessarily expecting change any time soon -- just that more people might start to take notice of how bad things actually are.
But as long as the Conservatives and Labour continue to hold, say, over two-thirds of the vote between then, and if the various constituency results aren't quite as tight as they could be, then it is easy for this issue to be swept under the carpet. I'm really hoping that UKIP can get at least 17% of the vote share nationally (or at least in England and Wales), because almost certainly this will still not lead to many seats. And, well, people should be angry about that. They should be angry about it now, for that matter, if people are intimidated by the "inevitable" failure of UKIP at the polls and feel compelled to vote for the two main parties.
We'll see what happens in May, of course. So long as UKIP do well enough that they should matter at Parliament but don't, and so long as the SNP don't do well enough to matter but do, I'm predicting a wake-up call.
And then on the other side, if the SNP start picking up a huge number of seats on a tiny vote share, then perhaps the right should take notice of that too.
If instead UKIP voters give up, and return to the Tory party etc, then there's any hope of making this an issue gone for another election cycle at least. Even optimistically I wasn't necessarily expecting change any time soon -- just that more people might start to take notice of how bad things actually are.
But as long as the Conservatives and Labour continue to hold, say, over two-thirds of the vote between then, and if the various constituency results aren't quite as tight as they could be, then it is easy for this issue to be swept under the carpet. I'm really hoping that UKIP can get at least 17% of the vote share nationally (or at least in England and Wales), because almost certainly this will still not lead to many seats. And, well, people should be angry about that. They should be angry about it now, for that matter, if people are intimidated by the "inevitable" failure of UKIP at the polls and feel compelled to vote for the two main parties.
We'll see what happens in May, of course. So long as UKIP do well enough that they should matter at Parliament but don't, and so long as the SNP don't do well enough to matter but do, I'm predicting a wake-up call.
I read somewhere yesterday that UKIP would have 99 seats if their support was translated into seats. I don't for a second believe the meme that they'll get 0/1 seats and people are deserting them. That's a hoped for self-fulfilling prophecy from a panicking status quo and their tame press.
I'm betting on 10 seats, then another 5 years of Lab/Con treachery, then a landslide in 2020.
I'm betting on 10 seats, then another 5 years of Lab/Con treachery, then a landslide in 2020.
Our seat is a reasonably safe Tory one, so I can cheerfully vote Labour without worrying that a vote for the Lib Dems might be worth it tactically. Of course the score is nil nil at the moment so ideally there should be all to play for, but ... :-)
The constituency a few doors down however is a LibDem Tory marginal and were I still living in it I would definitely vote LibDem. In fancy driving round town having Been away since the start of the campaign, it occurred to me that nothing much had changed: llots of LibDem posters a handful of Vote Tory ones and even one for the Greens. I'd be surprised if the LiibDems fail to hold it especially as the Tory vote might suffer a little at the hands of UKIP - perhaps. Tho their candidate I have to say does look slightly mad :-)
The constituency a few doors down however is a LibDem Tory marginal and were I still living in it I would definitely vote LibDem. In fancy driving round town having Been away since the start of the campaign, it occurred to me that nothing much had changed: llots of LibDem posters a handful of Vote Tory ones and even one for the Greens. I'd be surprised if the LiibDems fail to hold it especially as the Tory vote might suffer a little at the hands of UKIP - perhaps. Tho their candidate I have to say does look slightly mad :-)
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