06-05-2005 08:47									#181
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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.

	06-05-2005 09:09									#182
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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.

Last edited by DanS on 06-05-2005 at 09:29

	06-05-2005 09:45									#183
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quote: 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.

	06-05-2005 10:10									#184
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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.

	06-05-2005 11:31									#185
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Reading East votes against gay Labour candidate who has twice been charged with indecency against children ...

...but only by 500 votes.

	06-05-2005 13:06									#186
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quote: 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!!

	06-05-2005 13:46									#187
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Heh. Unsavoury anti-war character, George Galloway, has overturned one of Labour's safest seats.

The Conservatives have also gained their first black MP.

	06-05-2005 13:48									#188
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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?

	06-05-2005 14:07									#189
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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.

	06-05-2005 14:08									#190
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quote: 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?

	06-05-2005 14:13									#191
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PR works failry well for Germany, thank you

	06-05-2005 14:25									#192
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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.

	06-05-2005 14:33									#193
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quote: 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

	06-05-2005 14:41									#194
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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?

	06-05-2005 14:55									#195
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quote: 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.

quote: 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.

	06-05-2005 15:06									#196
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quote: 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

quote: 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.

	06-05-2005 15:09									#197
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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.

	06-05-2005 15:12									#198
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quote: 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.

	06-05-2005 15:16									#199
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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.

	06-05-2005 15:19									#200
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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.

code:
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%

	06-05-2005 15:29									#201
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quote: 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.

quote: 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.

quote: 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)

	06-05-2005 15:33									#202
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quote: Originally posted by Alexander's Horse see what I mean? Who likes Tony blah? US Bushites.

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

	06-05-2005 15:53									#203
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strangely enough not all my posts are about you

	06-05-2005 15:58									#204
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You mean I am in the wrong forum?

I thought this was the Oerdin forum?

JM

	06-05-2005 20:32									#205
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Ok html people, why the gobs of space here?

	06-05-2005 20:45									#206
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin I'm not a Bushite 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 Bushite 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.

	06-05-2005 21:08									#207
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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.

quote: 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).

	06-05-2005 21:46									#208
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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!

	06-05-2005 22:25									#209
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quote: 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.

	06-05-2005 22:30									#210
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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.