Green party and Ukip join forces to demand electoral overhaul | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... -elections

Nothing like a Tory victory for new(er) thinking.

I understand why parties like that would want PR.
But PR means constant coalitions and back room dealings. It's not as effective and it's not as easy to remove a group from power if they cock up.

Germany has managed on coalitions for several decades.

I have no problems with coalitions. Yes, the government is generally weaker than under first past the post but it is far more likely to represent a broader selection of the views of the actual electorate.
A strong government with a large majority is only really good for the supporters of that party, pretty much everyone else gets the shaft as far as having their view represented goes and that's as true of Labour as it is for the Tories. At the moment the country has a government that 63.1% of those who voted didn't vote for (or over 75% of the entire electorate). It's democracy yes but it's pretty poor in terms of representation of the actual views of the country.

We must change the voting sysyem because the party we didn't like got into power even if we had a referendum about the voting system and we voted not to change it. We must keep on voting until we get the result we like.

All they have to do is get under the current system ~24k people to vote for them and they get a seat. The reason why they have so little seats is that in most constituencies people didn't want them as their MP.

I actually agree with the sentiment that it's a degree of sour grapes. but that argument is bluntly a bit crap.We had referendum between two choices, what we have now and a pretty stupid, complicated system that would actually have changed very little in effect and wasn't in any concrete way any better.

if I give you a choice between a plain piece of bread and a [lifted] sandwich, the fact you don't choose the [lifted] sandwich doesn't necessarily mean you think dry bread is an ideal snack.

As Sir Humphrey might have explained 'Try to never ask a question until you've engineered the situation to get the answer you wanted all along'.

There are several electoral systems in use round the world that are just as easy to explain and participate in as FPTP but give a much better representation of the population as a whole's preferences. None of those systems were available as an option in the referendum. Can you imagine why?

So we have a referendum on every different type of voting system until finally one is the clear winner then :-p

The strength of the argument for FPTP is that you can explain it in under 30 seconds. The guy/gal with the most votes in this constituency wins the seat.
All the other systems require a lot more explanation and frankly most people just lose the will to live.

Anybody who finds proportional representation too arduous for contemplation is hardly the sort of person on whose behalf progress should be permanently arrested.

Umm, no. Not really, because then you have to try and explain gerrymandering and why, if you're arguing in favour of FPTP, that practise isn't grossly unfair; and why a Labour stronghold constituency might be all but ignored by the Conservatives because it isn't worth fighting for - denying those with sympathetic views any chance of contributing to the outcome of the election.

What gerrymandering? Are you accusing the boundary commission of acting illegally?

Are you suggesting it's never happened?

Are you suggesting it's never happened?[/quote]
It might have happened in the past but as there is no proof of anything like that in the recent past and as most of the major parties keep on complaining about them they must be doing something right! Lol

Amazing how many celebrities came out to say how good FPTP was.

Heh. No, we just can't draw any conclusions about what people actually want when all we've given them is two choices they (apparently anyway) don't like either of.


No, the interpretation of the results can be explained in 30 seconds. The whole rest of it - how we define the constituencies etc, takes a lot longer. For example, it's a paradox of the FPTP system that we take part in a general election by voting for local candidates (at least in theory). Try explaining that one - we're deciding who rules the whole country, but we're not supposed to cast our vote on national issues, we're supposed to decide on whether you think some-bloke-you've-probably-never-met would represent you and everyone in the same town as you better than some-other-bloke-you've-also-never-met. Er.. yeah, come again? We should have constituency style elections for local politicians and general elections to Westminster should be an election by the population as a whole. But you can't run an actual general election by the FPTP system, it simply doesn't operate that way.

Besides which, since when is the best way to do something defined as 'the way the least smart people will have to think least to take part in'?


Supposition I'm afraid. Equally I'd suggest that the method of voting would actually have a fairly minimal effect on voter turnout. People vote because they either care about the candidate, care about the party/national issues or because they feel the should, or a mix of all three. Swapping away from FPTP only loses the first one, and I suspect it's the one that is first on the list for the fewest number of people. Plus you'd get back all the people who don't bother to vote because they're in a safe constituency but don't favour the incumbent.

And, If can be gauche for a second, if there's somebody out there who can't figure out 'rank which party you want to be in government in order, from 1 for the one you most like the 6 for the one you least like' , I'm not that sure I want the future government of my country being decided on their say so anyway thank you very much.

Crikey, I find myself in agreement.

We were asked back in '11.
Everyone thought it was too hard to understand. Or were told that, and they bought it without thinking it through. I don't know.
Anyway, we were asked, apparently thought it would be too hard and didn't buy it.

I voted in favour of it, FWIW.