Good for them. It doesnt necessarily mean that it will make ours any better.
Poll: *** 2010 General Election Result & Discussion ***
- Thread starter Cosimo
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Good for them. It doesnt necessarily mean that it will make ours any better.
You're forgetting that many countries across the world use PR systems of varying types (some for example with minimum vote share requirements to stop uber fringe parties getting seats), and many do well with it. It would require a different approach from our politicians, but again that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Well, why should they get power when they have the least amount of overall votes out of the 3 main parties
Im sorry but it just strikes me that PR will just make it even more difficult to choose a winner for a general election and we will end up with even more occurences of a hung parliment.
What I meant was that neither Labour or Conservatives would ever have an outright majority by themselves (or very unlikely) so hence "power" would go to the lib Dems as now, as it would be up to them who was in government.
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Yeah, you're right; I imagine that is what the "idealistic" Germans feel
As Mr jack says we have that problem now, a party can govern with a huge parliamentary majority with only support of 20% of eligible voters, how is that not a tyranny of the minority.
I know what you mean. I just fail to see people's reasoning as to why this would be significantly better.
We may as well do away with political parties if all anyone wants is coallitions and co-operative government.
There is a page on the ever helpful BBC online that illustrates the effects on the 2010 result of three different voting systems (First Past The Post - Alternate Vote - Single Transferable Vote) and gives some explanation as to how they work. It gives the following results:This may give an idea as to why New Labour and the Tories favour AV and aren't entirely keen on any of the alternative systems
- FPTP - New Labour - 258 : Tory - 307 : Liberal Democrat - 57 : Others - 28
- AV - New Labour - 262 : Tory - 281 : Liberal Democrat - 79 : Others - 28
- STV - New Labour - 207 : Tory - 246 : Liberal Democrat - 162 : Others - 35
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I'm not sure how the BBC can do a comparative result as people would vote different. There would be no need for tactical voting and I know many people who did this election. They voted not for the party they really wanted but voted for the 2nd place party in the hope of keeping the other party out.
Under any type of PR, I would expect the results to come out very different to the BBC's projections. How can they guess whether somebody who puts say a Cons candidate as their first choice, what their 2nd choice candidate would be or what order in the 1,2,3, 4 system? Personally I think the Lib Dems would gain even more seats on the basis it is far more likely a lab/con supportor would put the opposite candidate last and hence Lib Dems would gain.
Yeah, you're right; I imagine that is what the "idealistic" Germans feel
I'm not saying PR is bad and it clearly does work for other countries, i'm just wondering why everyone seems to think it will make OUR political system any better.
For this same reason - I see the Conservatives are in the driving seat - and thus shouldn't get rattled by Lab + Lib talks.
Tactically you could argue the Cons might be better off backing away and allowing Lab & Lib to form a pact and then watch the electorate vaporise them both!
I wasn't. I was explaining why the Lib Dems think this is a good idea and hence they will go with whichever party will give them PR.
On another note, I do think a coalition government could and should be better. It works for most of Europe (the vast majoirty of European governments have being coalitions since the war) and it should work here too. The problem is we are not used to it and our politicians certainly aren't. The thought of politicians having to work together and compromise with their hated opposition and win debates with intelligent thinking rather than just bulldozing their own policies is filling them with dread.
It certainly won't be easy going for the first term at least.
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I take your point and I don't know how these figures were arrived at. As it happens, they were simply reported by the BBC from work done by the Electoral reform Society where you may well find more detail.
Yes, quite true. Perhaps they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats if they had thought they had a chance of gaining any power
Very probably
Why do you vote for a political party? I vote for a party because I think the ideas they're putting forwards are better than the ideas that the other parties are putting forwards. What happens when you have a coallition is that the parties get to put some of their ideas into practice, and reach compromises on others which are agreeable to both parties. The resulting set of policies better represents the spread of opinions of the electorate than simply picking a party which a minority of the electorate supported and letting them enact all of their policies.
Yes, quite true. Perhaps they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats if they had thought they had a chance of gaining any power
Or the opposite
Some people may well have voted a Lib Dem candidate in not because they wanted a Lib Dem government (no chance) but they wanted to either keep a Cons or Lab candidate out. Even my gf voted Cons on the basis of the best candidate to remove a "safe" labour seat and not because she wanted the Cons in.
There is a natural inertia against voting for a 3rd party in our system, unless you can be sure they're competitive in the seat you're voting in a vote for that party is effectively worthless, especially if there is a potential outcome that you really don't like. In most seats if you really dislike Labour/Conservatives it makes sense to vote for Conservatives/Labour, it's a horribly negative way of voting though.Yes, quite true. Perhaps they would have voted for the Liberal Democrats if they had thought they had a chance of gaining any power
Soldato
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The Lib Dems promised STV.
Labour promised a referendum on AV.
What the heck is democratic about the Lib Dems and Labour discussing using a parliamentary majority to force through AV? Who the heck voted for that?
Labour promised a referendum on AV.
What the heck is democratic about the Lib Dems and Labour discussing using a parliamentary majority to force through AV? Who the heck voted for that?
No they shouldn't. Their vote is spread across the country, they only represent the wishes of the local people strongly in a few areas .. hence why they only have a few MPs.
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You do know that the General Election was for a national government, don't you? I believe that there were some local council elections at the same time.
Nothing and nobody.
The third place losers are trying to dictate something they dream about, it's their only chance of attaining that dream. They don’t represent the country or the majority. We’ve sunk so low that we have the tail wagging the dog.