UK Election Thread

[Frozzy]

Reading West keeps Martin Salter Shame he's Labour, he's a nice bloke.

Reading East undeclared and Labour are fielding a new MP there despite it being Labour in 2001... could be interesting.

[DanS]

Just looking at the vote percentages, a gain for the Tories of 1% or whatever off of an election in which they were blown out is hardly anything to crow about. UKIP and BNP probably gained more.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Drogue

When we have a leader who got fewer votes than his opposition, I'll admit our system sucks. Until then, at least it's better than the US.

*cough* Winston Churchill's election in the 1950's *cough*

You guys DID get a PM who got fewer votes then the opposition. Having a leader elected who did not recieve the most votes is a possibility under either of our systems. It's very unlikely to happen, we just happened to have that be the case in 2000. At least most of the time we still get a majority vote behind our President.

[Wise Ass]

besides that we use a pluralist model anyway.

We like to assume that our people know absolutely nothing so we don't give them any real power.

[Frozzy]

Reading East votes against gay Labour candidate who has twice been charged with indecency against children ...

...but only by 500 votes.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
*cough* Winston Churchill's election in the 1950's *cough*

You guys DID get a PM who got fewer votes then the opposition. Having a leader elected who did not recieve the most votes is a possibility under either of our systems. It's very unlikely to happen, we just happened to have that be the case in 2000. At least most of the time we still get a majority vote behind our President.

Drogue is PWNED!!

[Sandman]

Heh. Unsavoury anti-war character, George Galloway, has overturned one of Labour's safest seats.

The Conservatives have also gained their first black MP.

[Starchild]

Labour's back in with a majority but massively down from their 160 odd majority in the last Parliament. Can we but dream that they'll turn to the increased Lib Dem influence to do some business and seal the Tories out?

[lightblue]

15% swing to the Lib Dems from Labour in my seat (Cambridge), Tories lose 6.4% as well, Lib Dems share up 18.9% overall. I guess Campbell really pissed some people off

A loss of 100 of it's majority is a bloody nose imo, it's more than they expected. There will be a lot more power to the Labour rebels (who have largely been reelected), meaning Tony might have to go slightly more back to the labour roots.

[Frozzy]

It's because of the "winner-takes-all" system... two opposition parties in mall-sized districts = governing party can get > (1/2) seats with less than 40% of the total vote. Shame, shame. Luckily we don't have systems like that in Finland.

FPTP always favours the winning side regardless. It happened to the Tories in the 80s when they got less than 50% of the vote many times, but had just as many majorities.

Sure, PR makes it all nice and relative to vote percentages, but that's not what British Parliamentary system works on. It works on each area electing a person to represent its views. The whole "party" thing is just a label to most people. You'll find A LOT of British people vote for the MP, and not for the party (not how many people say "I'd have voted Labour but our local MP is a sleazebag", etc.). And that's how it should work. A 33% seat allocation to Labour and the Tories et al would mean a hung parliament AND NONE OF THE PARTIES are going to work together. Charles Kennedy has gone on record as saying he would not work with a declining Labour, and a Tory-Labour vote is, frankly, laughable.

Afterall, PR worked mightily well for Italy didn't it?

[Spiffor]

PR works failry well for Germany, thank you

[lightblue]

How about a compromise. Make seats contain twice the number of voters they do now, and have FPTP for them, then fill up the remaining the 50% of the Parliament via PR. Seems to be the best of both worlds in a way.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lightblue
How about a compromise. Make seats contain twice the number of voters they do now, and have FPTP for them, then fill up the remaining the 50% of the Parliament via PR. Seems to be the best of both worlds in a way.

That's the German way, btw

[Frozzy]

There's a system like that called MMP.

There is a HUGE problem with tactical voting in that regard though. The first vote for an MP is often FAR less important that the overall party vote, so by splitting up your votes (say between the Lib Dems and your MP who is, say, Labour), you can get your local Labour MP into Parliament, but the Lib Dems have the upper hand because OVERALL you're adding to their total, and not just your constituency's.

Also you have the problem of what party list members represent? They can't talk about problems about crime in Hull because they don't represent Hull. all they can do is sit there, and follow the party line, which to me seems like a bit of a waste of time.

There is also the problem of abuse by other parties. In Italy, our lovable nation of crappy electoral systems, the two main coalitions (the House of Freedoms and the Olive Tree) linked many of their constituency candidates to decoy lists (liste civetta) in the proportional parts, under the names Abolizione Scorporo and Paese Nuovo respectively, so that if they won constituencies then they would not reduce the number of proportional seats received by the coalitions. Between them, the two decoy lists won 360 of the 475 constituency seats, more than half of the 630 total number of seats, despite winning a combined total of less than 0.2% of the national proportional part of the vote.

Sounds fair, huh?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kalius
There's a system like that called MMP.

There is a HUGE problem with tactical voting in that regard though. The first vote for an MP is often FAR less important that the overall party vote, so by splitting up your votes (say between the Lib Dems and your MP who is, say, Labour), you can get your local Labour MP into Parliament, but the Lib Dems have the upper hand because OVERALL you're adding to their total, and not just your constituency's.

Which is good, because in a national election, you're voting for the body that'll decide national policies. Some local representation is useful, but the MPs should be nationally-minded. When you vote for a party in a RP system, you either vote for a set of ideas (the noblest thing a voter can do), or you vote for the personality of the one you want to be leader of your nation.
It's better than voting for someone who can only think of Hull. This guy would be an excellent mayor, but not an excellent MP.

Also you have the problem of what party list members represent? They can't talk about problems about crime in Hull because they don't represent Hull. all they can do is sit there, and follow the party line, which to me seems like a bit of a waste of time.

Party list members are more likely to see the bigger picture, which is something you should wish from a national MP (as opposed to a local mnandate). As such, they are more likely to have informed opinions on Britain-wide topics, which are the bread and butter of a Parliament. A MP with a strong local bias toward Hull will certainly be heard when it comes to Hull issues, but he'll be more likely to trust the party's position on other issues, for they escape his grasp.

As for abuse, I don't think there is such a thing in Germany. If we were to judge political systems only on Italy (and not on other places with similar systems), we'd conclude that democracy is inherently corrupt, inneficient and laughable

Besides, I'd like to add there is nothing noble with tactical voting. Tactical voting may be indispensable in systems where your vote can be wasted if you vote in a non-tactical fashion. But this is not good in itself, because democracy is supposed to be about voting those people and those ideas in which you believe. A system where votes can be wasted is a system that has room for improvement.