UK Election Thread

[Frozzy]

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.

I disagree with that, and apparantly so do many Britons. I'll use the example of Reading West. For years a guy named Tony Delroy (?) (Tory) was the MP of Reading West, and nobody ever saw him on the streets exempt every four years when his election badwagon drove around. Why didn't they vote him out? Because Labour didn't put up another candidate. All of a sudden a local man in Martin Salter comes along and everyone votes for him. Clearly the entire constiency hasn't gone from blue to red in a matter of months...

Additionally, you kind of get into the realm of presidential elections, being you vote against one party merely because Blair went to war with Iraq. Sure, many Labour-ites agreed with him, but some didn't, and some of them are hardworking honest guys who don't get into parliament because of what Blair did, and you throw away your vote to the Commies in a protest vote. Sounds like the best for the country to me

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

Here's another one then. 1999 NZ elections (uses MMP). The NZ First Party, led by Winston Peters, gets 4.5% of the vote (not enough to meat the 5% threshold). All of a sudden Winston Peters wins his constituency of Tauranga by 65 votes (out of 20,000 or so), and NZ First has five MPs instead of zero! Merely because he won his seat by 65 votes.

Same thing happened with the Progressive Party. They were destined for oblivion with 2.5% of the vote, their party leader barely wins his seat and the Progressives get 2 seats.

[Frozzy]

And Spiffor: How do you arrange a coalition government when the three major parties fundamentally refuse to work with eachother on basic grounds? All MMP does is make the government weaker (albeit more representative of protest votes) and it simply would not work in Britain. It might jolly well work in Germany were people are geared towards on party, but Britain isn't necessarily going to work with it given its regionalisation, attitude to politics, and the fact the three major parties won't work together and form a coalition, especially in such a large parliament.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kalius
Here's another one then. 1999 NZ elections (uses MMP). The NZ First Party, led by Winston Peters, gets 4.5% of the vote (not enough to meat the 5% threshold). All of a sudden Winston Peters wins his constituency of Tauranga by 65 votes (out of 20,000 or so), and NZ First has five MPs instead of zero! Merely because he won his seat by 65 votes.

Same thing happened with the Progressive Party. They were destined for oblivion with 2.5% of the vote, their party leader barely wins his seat and the Progressives get 2 seats.

1. I don't see how it is an abuse that makes the system meaningless

2. I don't see why a MMP system would necessarily attribute the proportional seats to any party that wins a local seat. You could easily imagine an MMP system where the progressives and the NZ First each had one seat in the end.

[Frozzy]

Well, surely the NZ First party should have had 1 seat, not 5, if it were fair. The fact that gaining one seat means they get 4 more is not fair IMO.

It uses the Sainte-Laguë formula which is the standard for most, if not all, MMP systems.

[Frozzy]

Here is what the NZ electoral site churns out using the MMP formula. Not that if the NZ First party had not received that one electorate seat, it would have had NO seats.

Party name   	 Party Votes won Party seat entitlement No. of electorate seats won No. of list MPs  Total MPs  % of MPs
Others      95.50% 	            115 	         68 	                47 	      115 	95.83%
NZ First 	     4.50% 	             5 	                 1 	                4 	       5 	4.17%

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kalius
And Spiffor: How do you arrange a coalition government when the three major parties fundamentally refuse to work with eachother on basic grounds?

They'd quickly learn. You live in a society where political losers accept their defeats (and don't take up the arms against the government). So, you live in a society that is able to cope with compromise. Just like Germany.

All MMP does is make the government weaker (albeit more representative of protest votes)

I feel personally insulted by this statement. A small party isn't necessarily a protest vote. Do you think there are no actual ecologists in Britain, only people who dislike Blair? Do you think there are no actual Keynesian/interventionists in Britain, only protestors? Do you think there are no actual racists in britain who want a race-based policy, only people who dislike Howard?

The small parties provide platforms, that are often much more cohesive than the big "catch-all" parties (simply because the catch-all parties want to attract the largest demographics as possible, and any controversial idea can scare the 1 to 2% that can make the difference between victory or defeat). It's possible, and it's actually very frequent to support the platform of a small party, and to vote for them for other reasons thean protesting. In France, (where we don't have RP) I've heard many people telling me they'd vote for my party, but that they don't want to waste their vote, and they go for the big candidate instead.

and it simply would not work in Britain. It might jolly well work in Germany were people are geared towards on party, but Britain isn't necessarily going to work with it given its regionalisation, attitude to politics, and the fact the three major parties won't work together and form a coalition, especially in such a large parliament.

The regionalisation one is actually the strongest argument. But your system ensures that the power is firmly held by the clique in the government, and that the Parliament is nothing but a "yes" box (albeit a noisy one)

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
see what I mean? Who likes Tony blah? US Bu****es.

I'm not a Bu****e and I like Blair. A social progressive who keeps a close eye on the budget? That's the man I want.

[Alexander's Horse]

strangely enough not all my posts are about you

[Jon Miller]

You mean I am in the wrong forum?

I thought this was the Oerdin forum?

JM

[Whoha]

Ok html people, why the gobs of space here?

UK NATIONAL RESULTS: IN DETAIL
Party	Seats	Gain	Loss	Net	Votes	%	+/-
Labour	354	0	47	-47	9,529,319	36.2	-5.8
Conservative	197	36	3	+33	8,737,150	33.2	+0.5
Lib Dem	62	16	5	+11	5,970,540	22.7	+3.8
SNP	6	2	0	+2	412,267	1.6	-0.2
Plaid Cymru	3	0	1	-1	174,838	0.7	-0.1
Respect	1	1	0	+1	68,065	0.3	+0.3
Ind Kid Hosp	1	0	0	0	18,739	0.1	0.0
UKIP	0	0	0	0	605,282	2.3	+0.8
Green	0	0	0	0	257,758	1.0	+0.3
BNP	0	0	0	0	191,573	0.7	+0.5
Scottish Soc	0	0	0	0	43,514	0.2	-0.1
Scottish Grn	0	0	0	0	25,760	0.1	+0.1
Liberal	0	0	0	0	19,068	0.1	0.0
Others	1	1	0	+1	234,006	0.6
Turnout					26,327,419	61.3	+2.2
After 625 of 646 seats declared

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm not a Bu****e and I like Blair. A social progressive who keeps a close eye on the budget? That's the man I want.

Im also not a Bu****e and I like Blair. I liked him BEFORE 9/11. I liked his concern for social justice matched with market based approaches. And I liked his concern for the defense of human rights against genocide - in particular on Yugoslavia, where he pushed Clinton to be more active (and Gingrich and many US conservatives opposed that).

Blair is a far superior leader to Bush.

[Agathon]

Kalius' complaints about MMP are spurious.

It works just fine in NZ (after initial teething troubles). We've had the best government I have ever experienced in my life, voter participation is high, and there can be no repeat of the previous practice of both parties colluding to do what the voters did not want them to do.

The greatest thing about MMP is that it makes political parties mortal. Under FPP the major parties can pretty much do what they like, because they know that most people have no alternative. MMP fixes that.

The losers are the conservatives. There's nothing wrong with that. Conservative parties in NZ IIRC have never got much above 35% of the total vote, whereas left leaning parties habitually got over 50% (we used to get more people voting left and still lose). MMP has doomed the conservatives to the political wilderness unless they moderate their ways.

Here's another one then. 1999 NZ elections (uses MMP). The NZ First Party, led by Winston Peters, gets 4.5% of the vote (not enough to meat the 5% threshold). All of a sudden Winston Peters wins his constituency of Tauranga by 65 votes (out of 20,000 or so), and NZ First has five MPs instead of zero! Merely because he won his seat by 65 votes.

That's how the system works. No-one complained about this. It's like that so that small parties with regional support can get in to parliament.

Peters is a good example of the success of MMP. He abused the system in the first MMP election by forming a coalition that he had expressly said he would not. Hence he was almost wiped out in the 1999 election, and he learned his lesson (and so did the rest of them).

[duke o' york]

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but I'm too lazy to read all 5 pages.

Please tell me that Boris Johnson's dad got a sound kicking!

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Kalius
All MMP does is make the government weaker (albeit more representative of protest votes) and it simply would not work in Britain. It might jolly well work in Germany were people are geared towards on party, but Britain isn't necessarily going to work with it given its regionalisation, attitude to politics, and the fact the three major parties won't work together and form a coalition, especially in such a large parliament.

Given three things which suck tremendous amounts of arse, we shouldn't change the system to something which marginalises those things? Also, if the national government becomes much more idea-based, then maybe local government will become more important for people to vote for someone they want locally, regardless of party.

It's either that or abolish political parties completely, and force everyone to vote for a person.

[Shi Huangdi]

It should be pointed out now that all of the 3 leaders who participated in the initial invasion of Iraq with a serious contribution, Bush, Blair, and Howard, all 3 of them have been re-elected. All this in spite of angry protests from the left that those leaders who ordered this would all be defeated and swept from power, instead all three of them now remain.