Clever me
Well, Labour have a reduced majority, but so much for the Lib Dems making more gains than the Tories. I really despair about this country sometimes. I get thinking “surely there must be somewhere in the world where elections work?*”; think of Australia, where they have proportional representation and the Single Transferrable Vote; remember that I’d want John Howard in charge about as much as I’d want Michael Howard in charge; despair some more; remember my eternal hope and finally pray that God would do something next election because, as he knows, our country is quite messed up. Or perhaps with an eternal perspective these things don’t matter so much. Anyway, the Lib Dems have made moderate gains and my Lib Dem MP has been re-elected – so not all bad then.
* I count this one as a failure simply because less than 30% of eligible citizens voted for Labour, yet they have a majority.
Matthew @ 16:26, May 6, 2005 to Politics | Comments (12)
Comments:
Rory
Argh! I’m 18, I’m able to vote… and I’m in Canada! Damnit! That said, I really don’t know who I would have voted for… The whole system of partisan politics is flawed, and is no way for a country to be run.
Comment added at 21:09, May 6, 2005
Matthew
And your better way is…?
You could argue that proportional representation could make it quite a lot better.
Incidently, it appears Labour won in your seat with the Conservatives being their only real challengers. But you knew that, I’m sure.
Comment added at 11:21, May 7, 2005
Mr E
Proportional representation has advantages and would be fairer, yes. But if the house of commons consisted of whatever it was, 36% Labour*, 33% Tory, 24% Lib Dem etc., no-one would have a majority and nothing would get done. We’d also end up with a couple of BNP and Monster Raving Loony MPs, probably.
Besides, how would we know who represented each constiuency? (Probably a perfectly good answer to this one. I just don’t know enough about the system.) It does seem, though, that the current first-past-the-post system as it stands is weighted strongly in Labour’s favour and clearly far from ideal. Some sort of compromise is needed probably, or perhaps Rory’s right about abandoning partisan politics altogether.
*These are more like the numbers I read. I made them up, but they’re in the right region.
Comment added at 22:00, May 7, 2005
Rory
My upset is not with the electoral method, but rather with the state of representation. Why does every candidate have to align themselves with a national party, with nationwide policies, when what they should be concerned with is the needs of their constituency? Abandon partisan politics, have every candidate as an independant person, with their own agenda – that way, voters will choose depending on the policies and ideology of that actual person, and the strength of their character, rather than because of any party affiliations.
I don’t know if that made any sense or adequately expressed what I mean…
Comment added at 23:55, May 7, 2005
Mr E
How would things be decided on a national level, then, if all the independent candidates had different policies?
Comment added at 11:33, May 8, 2005
Matthew
That’s the main issue with abandoning partisan politics, I believe. Also, Rory, you can do what the Lib Dems do and give their members a free vote on a lot of issues, yet have the core ideas the same. As I agree with practically every one of their core ideas (and only disagree on the ones that they have a free vote on) the Lib Dems seem to be quite good in that respect.
As for PR, you’re correct that (usually) no-one would have a majority, and that’s the main issue with PR. Coalitions can be formed though, and so stuff would get done – perhaps less stuff, but at least what does get done would be more democratically decided. Take our current vote split, for example. The Lib Dems and Labour would (probably) form a coalition against the Conservatives; the Lib Dems would be able to get through their pensions plans and local income tax, in exchange for shutting up about Iraq and top-up fees. Or something. You’d have some compromise, but I think it’d be better than our current system.
As for who gets represented in each constituency, that’s more of an issue. There are different methods of doing this, I believe, which I haven’t researched in detail. I can only explain using an example: say we have 100 seats nationally and 50% of voters vote Green. The Greens would then get the 50 seats where they have the highest percentage of the vote. It gets more complicated as it’s possible for a seat to technically belong to two parties (say the place where the Greens got the highest percentage was also where the Loonies got their highest percentage), but that’s it at its simplest.
Comment added at 14:35, May 8, 2005
Mr E
After Blair’s whole “Voting for the Lib Dems will let the Tories in” thing, didn’t Charles Kennedy say there was no chance of any coalition with Labour?
Comment added at 16:04, May 8, 2005
Matthew
Seeing as we’re working with a hypothetical situation anyway, I’m not sure that matters. I’m sure it’d be different if we had PR and were in that situation – I was just using the current figures as an example, though.
Comment added at 17:32, May 9, 2005
Rory
How do things get decided on a national level? How do you think? Each representative would give their vote on each issue, and the majority would carry. Not very complex. It’s called democracy.
Comment added at 21:45, May 9, 2005
Matthew
It’s more complicated than that. Who raises the issues? In the dynamics of a completely non-partisan parliament it would be hard to find consensus or indeed to come up with any policies in the first place. I’m not sure it’d work. At least, this is my take on things. Generally, partisan politics works, if the numbers from the different parties elected is representative of public opinion.
Comment added at 17:43, May 10, 2005
Rory
Anyone can raise an issue, just like the current system (private member bills and so forth).
Comment added at 17:54, May 11, 2005
Matthew
But which issues would have the time spent on them? It would be (as far as I can see) like a massive hung parliament with even less consensus.
Also, we can talk about this all we want but the main parties will never let it happen.
Comment added at 13:13, May 12, 2005
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