Bush looks upon Blair in awe

[Zulu Elephant]

Ruth Kelly as centre-left? I always thought Opus Dei were relatively right wing.

The whole crop of young turks are more left wing than the current top brass. I've heard Miliband will describe himself as a Socialist if pressed - he's the son of Ralph Miliband, the Marxist philosopher.

Ruth Kelly is a member of the Catholic Opus Dei but that certainly doesn't make her rightwing religious reactionary.

Voting is then done on the party, not the person. IMHO it's important to vote for the person you think is best to represent you, not the party that is closest to yourself. For instance I vote Labour in Northampton because our local MP, inept though he is, sits on the select committee for international aid and I largely agree with his position on it, whereas the Lib Dem candidate wants that money spent on hospitals and education. Yet I agree with the Lib Dems more as a party. The idea of representative democracy is that a group of people vote for someone to represent them as a group. Whether that's geographical area, socio-economic group of anything doesn't change that. Proportional representation would, and would mean there is no MP representing *you*, just a party representing your opinion.

In the multitude of parties that would arise due to PR, you might find a party that agrees with you on your international relations standpoints AND your other viewpoints that correspond to the Lib Dem's.

Plus, currently the role of an MP is twofold - to represent that area in the commons and to be a member of the community to deal with the communities problems. That would disappear with proportional representation.

If it was up to me, PR would go hand in hand with devolution. This would allow the problems of the community to be dealt with nearer the source and leave the Commons' party representatives to deal with the national issues.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Zulu Elephant

If it was up to me, PR would go hand in hand with devolution. This would allow the problems of the community to be dealt with nearer the source and leave the Commons' party representatives to deal with the national issues.

De-centralization:

Big national governments distroys regional traditions and communities by smothering it under an impersonal beauacracy. I am a Market Socialist for a reason.

[Zulu Elephant]

Exactly (apart from the Market Socialism part ). Geographical area of residence is not the primary social cleavage (if you can even call it that) in the UK. While its importance should not be understated, it can and should be given voice through devolved institutions - not through the country's legislature.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The same could be said for first past the post - In a PR system, at least the moderate partys can keep the BNP in check. It stops the unlikely hypothetical of a BNP with a total majority in parliament.

Not exactly true. In most PR systems it seems the extremist parties get to dictate the debate if no party has a majority of seats. They need coalitions and the extremist parties become more attractive, since they only hold a few seats in the first place (meaning your party gets most of the control), but you have to make concessions to them.

In a first past the post system, the rise of extremist parties are checked at the polls themselves. They usually don't win seats, even if they have 5-7% support or something.

I'm not a fan of PR myself.