FPTP - Dead Man Walking ?

[olddutch]

http://www.guardian.c...010-how-britain-voted

The Guardian in its post election analysis yesterday said “Britain is now politically fragmented. Labour scored 42% of the vote in Scotland and 36.2% in Wales, both first places. But in England the Tories were ahead on 39%; in the south-east the party took 49%."

"It took:-

284,566 votes to elect one Green MP,
119,000 votes to elect each Liberal Democrat,
34,000 to elect each Tory,
33,000 to elected each Labour MP."

FPTP so glaringly distorts our Political Representation - how long before the New Progressives progress on electoral reform and remove this skewed archaic system ?

[R1Geezer]

They won power under this system. don't hold your breath. Anyway FPTP is the best system, it fails only occasioinally to give a government. Do you want the recent fiasco every election?

There are a few changes that FPTP would benefit from, see my suggestions here:
http://www.theanswerb...s/Question893029.html

[olddutch]

“They won power under this system. Anyway FPTP is the best system“.- The coalition won power under this system this time - Usually a party with about a third of the vote comes up with about two thirds of the seats - its obviously all wrong and definitely not the best system as it innately disproportionate.

“ it fails only occasioinally to give a government.” Its produced a Government this time too - Hopefully a reasonable, less tribal, fairer Government.

“Do you want the recent fiasco every election” - there was no fiasco - there were negotiations - which were basically all reasonably done and dusted within a week .

“There are a few changes that FPTP would benefit from, see my suggestions here” - your suggestions bit of a curates egg - some good - some bad

[R1Geezer]

you're all hung up on precentages, we don't have that system.

[olddutch]

But by all the laws of fairness we should have by now - and if Noo Tory keep the progressive snowball rolling long enough you may have to think your unthinkable FPTP is Doooomed.

[R1Geezer]

Your statements above about the numbers of votes it takes to elect an MP of a particular hue are accurate but flawed thinking. Take the greens for example if they'd only contested one seat their number would be comparable to Tory/Labour, if they contested every seat it would have been many more. Same result still 1 MP. A constituency can be won by a vote or thousands, same result, percentages distorted meaningless statistics that the media do use for swings and other predictions etc but you might as well say we should have system based on colours of their underwear. Ie it takes 39674 votes to elect a blok with Y fronts. All very twee and fair sounding but complete and utter cobblers.

[olddutch]

Dizzy arguments geezer but too clever to make any sense - bit like them CDOs with triple AAA ratings

Its quite straightforward and fair - the percentage vote for a party on a national basis should translate into the same percentage of seats for that party - lets hope Noo Tory and LIbs progressive coalition delivers something significant towards what you see as cobblers

A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times showed 62 per cent of voters favoured a more proportional system of voting.

A BPIX poll for The Mail on Sunday found 60 per cent would prefer proportional representation to the current system.

[R1Geezer]

I just want a system that produces a clear government, even one I can't stand. No one has ever got 50% of the vote in recent times probably never. Under PR how many seats would BNP and other assorted nutters get?. Sorry you'll never convince me PR works. I take the point about proportion and "fairness" etc but I just don't buy it.

[olddutch]

London correspondent for De Volkskrant in a BBC writes:-

“From a Dutch perspective, the coalition horse-trading going on in London now is completely normal. But the feverish nature of the negotiations, and the impatience of the media, is not.

I was looking yesterday at the results of the 1974 general election in the UK: the Liberal Party won six million votes, and got 14 seats in parliament, Labour and the Conservatives won twice as many votes, and got 20 times as many seats, about 300 each.

If this happened in a Dutch election there would be riots!

The system used in the Netherlands, in Germany and most of the Nordic countries may look messy from a British perspective. But if you look at the end result, and ask if the countries are stable and prosperous, the answer has to be yes. “

I believe in time PR can evolve to work well and fairly for the UK - our current conditioned mindset and the tribal interests of the established political order are the real obstacles to preventing PR. Geezer, we are all victims of media and other conditioning but at the moment we are witnessing a trial of new type of grown up consensual politics which could produce good lasting government with a little honest compromise.

The BNP and other assorted nutters would only get the number of seats the voters voted for - and if their policies were that popular the main parties could steal their thunder by moving towards those policies. But I accept you'll never be convinced PR works. Anyway, ta for your points of view.

[R1Geezer]

Ok dutch, well when I say never, I mean in discussion. If we actually got it and I could see it was sort of working, then I'd accept it. It's just that I don't think it'll work and it's irreversable after we've done it.