Cameron aims to bring LibDems into government David Cameron has issued an invitation to the Liberal Democrats to form a stable government with the Conservatives, preferring long-term compromise to trying run a minority administration. If taken up, the "big, open, comprehensive offer" is likely to mean Liberal Democrats would take up cabinet positions, rather than merely …
Yes it's a funny system when a party that almost 2/3rds of the electorate votes against thinks it has a clear mandate from the people.
And it's going to be awful. We may have a government that represents at least in some way over half the people who voted. Whatever next?
"Yes it's a funny system when a party that almost 2/3rds of the electorate votes against thinks it has a clear mandate from the people."
Isnt that almost always the case?
Although to be fair, I think my voting form was broke because I never got to vote against any candidate. I just had one to vote for.
Next time, can I have the form that lets me vote against people please?
That's because Labour's Boundaries Commission moved the voting boundaries to ensure that they could win certain key seats with less votes. For instance, entire towns were moved from The Wirral to Merseyside, or from Warwickshire to West Midlands. And by moving a boundary a little bit to the North, South, East or West, they could make sure that seat had a majority of labour voters and far fewer Tory or LibDem voters to challenge them.
"More to the point, why does a party that won 80% of the votes of Labour gain only 20% of the seats compared to them?"
It's a big downfall of the "first past the post" system for deciding who wins in any given constituency. the Lib Dems gain a lot of "second places" in areas, losing out to the two main parties. So they get a decent share of the vote but don't win that many seats. For the same reason, the Tories actually got a greater percentage of the overall vote than Labour did in 2005, yet were unable to get a majority of seats.
I'm not a Lib Dem supporter (I'm not really a supporter of anyone), but I kind of agree with their idea for electoral reform. Essentially, make the contituencies much larger, covering say 5 or 6 seats a piece. Then people vote for their chosen party/candidate, and the seats are decided proportionally in that area.
YES! That's exactly the point. No single party has any kind of a mandate.
Clearly the voters do not want any one party in power - and this has been the case for decades - and yet we're constantly stuck with a one-party government that is governing against the wishes of the majority.
Time to introduce PR and regular referendums on anything important eg our continuing relationship with Europe.
You could have an even bigger Conservative-Labour alliance, which would render the 3rd party irrelevant.
It's (obviously) not going to happen, but it is ideology rather than some inherent power of the 3rd party that prevents it.
For Brown - if he resigns his long term reputation could well be highly regarded. If he clings on his reputation could well be as tarnished as Blair. But without the money.
"For Brown - if he resigns his long term reputation could well be highly regarded."... I don't think there is an danger he will ever be highly regarded.
Brown is even more hated than Thatcher was, the only reason Labour didn't field another candidate is that selecting a new leader so close to a General Election is liable to doom one's party to failure.
Many regard Thatcher as a good PM, however I've never heard anyone say the same of Brown. In fact I don't think anyone's ever really regarded him as PM...
Remember that Blair offered an inquiry on electoral reform, and nothing came of it. Once bitten, twice shy. Think it's going to be "referendum on reform or no deal".
For anyone who suggests that LabLib would not be legitimate:
ConLib coalition - 59.1% of the vote.
LabLib coalition - 52.1% of the vote.
Con - 36.1%, Lab - 29.1%, Lib - 23%.
If the Tories can't come to middle ground with the Lib Dems, and Labour can, then that coalition has the more legitimacy than a minority government in my mind.
Thatcher was a disaster. The laissez-faire economic policy introduced under her has lead us to where we are today. Labout tinkered, and in a good number of ways improved things (e.g. the minimum wage, independence of the Bank of England, 3rd world debt relief), but for whatever reason felt they could not regulate where regulation has been clearly appropriate for many years (the city and the banks). Ultimately we still have an economy based upon "supply sided" aka "trickle-down" ideas where the poor get shafted more and more as each day passes, despite an apparently "communist" government (as it was described in the comments on this article). 3,000,000 unemployed anybody?
Mr Brown as PM has had his problems, that is undeniably true, and I didn't vote for his party. However I worry much more about the coming problems for large sections of our society now the "I'm alright Jack" party is probably back in at least part of the coming government.
Is that your age, or your IQ? I'd beleive either. See many riots on the streets against Brown, and Brown's policies? No? Undertaken any studies to gain a measure of his popularity, compared to Thatcher? Thought not.
I'm no fan of the man, or a voter for his party, but to claim that he's universally-hated, and that you know of no-one who approves of his premiership, is laughably retarded. He was PM because the party chose him as its leader - all above board. Move along, nothing to see (or whine about) here.
Which is *another* point people might like to keep in mind.
He retains No10 as his address *solely* because the *rules* say the incumbent holds the right *wheather* or not they have an overall majority.
It would seem that this is a nice example of the law of unintended consequences. What is meant to improve continuity and stability has the *opposite* effect.
Well from our (the LibDem) point of view the 2 main parties do have more in common with each other than either has with us. But it seems very unlikely they will be able to do a deal with each other for historical reasons and because they don't like to admit how much they have in common with each other to their supporters because this invalidates all the bogeymen arguments of the past (When they have claimed a LibDem vote was really a vote for the bogeyman because it lets the bogeyman in).
However, the needs of the voters have to take priority over the interests of parties, so I guess someone will have to hold their noses to enable government to occur, and I really can't see Brown desperately hanging onto power doing his own party any good by not resigning, or it doing us any good by accepting promises of electoral reform from Brown which he no longer has any ability to deliver.
I'd also much rather have a minority Conservative administration having to moderate their policies by making these more acceptable to the majority of voters who didn't vote for them than by Cameron doing a dodgy deal with the Ulster Unionist parties resulting in Northern Ireland abandoning the peace process.
"which is why they want PR as it gives more power to the smaller parties"
Maybe I missed something, but from the current results: Conservatives got 36% of the vote, but have 47% of the seats, Labour got 29% of the vote and have 40% of the seats and the Lib Dems got 23% of the vote, but only get 9% of the seats.
I think it would be fairer to say they want PR because it leads to a more representative distribution of power, the top three parties *should* have had 234, 188 and 143 seats.
It's just as bad at the other end of the scale, the DUP had 0.6% of the vote, but get 1.2% of the seats (8), wheras the SNP got 1.7%, but have 1% of the seats (6) - how can a fair system allow the party with 1/3 of the votes of another party end up with more seats?
Generally Labour and the Conservatives have the most to lose if the system changes, but we're in an interesting situation now, Labour (or GB at any rate) seem to want to cling onto power by any means necessary, so they're possibly ready to deal. Selling their future for a short-term gain? Surely not! (Don't mention the gold reserves; I did it once, but I think I got away with it.)
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Politicians will have to start talking to each other and persuading them of the benefits of their ideas. This will replace the "we have a thumping majority so shut up peasant" we have had until now.
We might get less stupid laws - don't bet on that. We will get less laws. It will take them longer to get them agreed.
OK - I challenge you to come up with any system which doesn't give the possibility of the third place party being able to be king makers. Just about the only way you can avoid that is to have a system which effectively forces a decision one way or another. That's effectively what happens with presidential electoral systems where there can, be only one winner, either direct (as in France) or via electoral college (as in the US). However, the US system doesn't always reflect the popular vote (George Bush junior got into power on his first term with fewer popular votes than his democratic opponent). Any indirectly appointed presidential system could be vulnerable to this.
Ultimately only one person can win. I suppose it is possible to come up with a parliamentary system which guaranteed the largest party always got more than 50% of the seats but that would be highly distorting. If there were 10 parties with roughly similar levels of votes the winner takes all approach would surely be unnacceptable.
Note that many presidential systems are balanced with parliamentary or other representational systems which can constrain the power of the president.
That stub in the middle read like the most awesome thing I've ever heard during this election!
- Investigate electoral reform
- Scrapping ID cards
- Reversing Brown's NI rise
- Fixing school funding (the sector I work in)
- Keeping nuclear power (Clegg wanted less nuclear power, as well as Trident scrapped)
- A party which might actually be able to run the country in power (Let's be honest; Lib Dem should be *influential*, not over-ruling).
I hope they accept the offer.
Why? If you take a simplistic view of a line with Labour at one end, the Tories at the other and the LibDems in the middle, then it's pretty obvious that the party in the middle is going to have a major say.
If the Tories had got a few tens more seats, then it would have been the Northern Ireland MPs propping them up - with even a small number of votes but with an ideology close to the Tories.
Why is this a funny system? Seems perfectly logical to me... and it's not often I say that about politicians!
Once, our spectrum went Labour - Liberal - Conservative, but under Madelson, Labour has moved to the right in many ways leaving us with no major left-of-centre party.
If you have doubts of that, just look at some of the policies we have seen recently
Christmas bonuses for bankers
Iraq
Trident Replacement
28 days without being charged - they wanted longer
and lots more I'm sure!
I suspect that insiders saw it coming long ago but when they got rid of Clause 4 that really showed that they had changed.
"It allows them a much greater power than their share of votes gives them "
Really? because I would have thought that quarter of the vote would give you quarter of the power, rather than a third of the vote giving all of the power, which is the current system.
They can take their "all party committee of inquiry on political and electoral reform" And shove it, as far as I'm concerned.
We should really let Scotland secede. 41 of labour seats are from there vs only 1 conservative a few libdems and 6 SNP. That is besides our visually impaired friend (I am not going to quote Clrakson here) being from there.
That is also probably the sole reason why Brown and co has been so vehement on keeping Scottish MPs legible to vote on English affairs and other subjects not of their concern.
They have their bank, their money, their NHS, their (different) legal system. Why are they part of this country? Money, bank + legal are standard criteria of statehood. Let's finish this. Next election I am voting only for a party which has in their manifesto a "Let Scotland Go".
In other words, let's kick it into the long grass with a committee which will be loaded with members who will argue and dither and prevaricate and do their damndest to ensure that it never gets *anywhere*...
If that's the best that Cameron can come up with, he doesn't deserve to govern.
Blair promised an inquiry into electoral reform before the 1997 election (when he thought he might need the LibDems to secure a Commons majority). Roy Jenkins ran an extremely thorough inquiry and settled on Alternative Vote Plus.
Essentially there would be five-hundred constituencies where voters ranked candidates. If no one got an outright majority on first preference votes, then there would be a recount with the less popular candidates dropping out one by one (least popular first) with their alternate votes being redistributed amongst the remaining candidates until one goes over 50%.
On top of that, there would be county level seats where voters ranked parties. The representatives would be chosen from a list like that used in the European election.
AV+ is a pretty good system it keeps a link with constituencies and it would achieve a much better representation of people's wishes.
Blair went cold on it when he had his landslide.
<Description of PR system selected by Jenkins Commission>
Excellent point. Cameron's offer of a commission is *redundant*. the choice is already been made. What it needs is *implementation*.
The devtail in PR was *always* the detail. Anyone with a background knowledge of control systems would see 1st past the post as a system with strong *positive* feedback. It's a Bang Bang machine, like your central heating thermostat in a limit cycle.
Does that sound to *anyone* like a system which would give *any* kind of policy stability longer than the life of a parliament *except* at the mercy of senior civil servants.
You say "...it keeps a link with constituencies..." which is nonsense: you can't keep something that doesn't exist.
MPs do *not* vote or represent their constituencies: they vote as the party whips tell them to. In fact it's such a big deal when an MP doesn't do this that it makes the papers!
In the case of Sheffield, they got to the stations in plenty of time. 2hrs+ before the polls closed, in most cases. Some were made to queue for 3 hours, while watching "residents" jump the queue.
I'd say the polling station hadn't prepared for the influx, but they knew how many had registered, so knew how many to prepare for. That and the fact that only the young were made to wait, with residents fast-tracked, isn't people (apart from those in charge) being idiots. It's discrimination. Idiot.
"That and the fact that only the young were made to wait, with residents fast-tracked, isn't people (apart from those in charge) being idiots."
I've heard that from someone else, although I don't know for sure. If that is really true, isn't that electoral fraud, and should result in jail for the people responsible and a re-run for that constituency?
One advantage of the first past the post :
What a result in Redditch, eh, didn't Jacqui look so miserable, having fallen off the gravy ( and freebie porn ) train.
Under PR she could well have been sufficiently high up the nuLabour list to get back in.
It's not my constituency but many thanks to the electorate in redditch. Well done.
Camron liberals - DO WE ALREADY HAVE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION?
I looked at the STATS of Proportional representation V 1st past post in 2010 election
Total of 29.6million people voted = 65.1% turnout(up 4% from 1995)
Conservative = 10.7 million votes, Labour 8.6million, liberal = 6.8million votes
650 seats & a party needed 325+ seats to have majority:-
conservative = 306 seats with 36% of vote
Labour = 258seats with 29% of votes
Liberal = 57 seats with 23% of vote
yet if PR was in place then:-
Conservative 36% = 0.36x650 = 234 seats
labour 29%= 189seats
liberal= 149 seats
So with "PR"= Majority governments will be impossible. You will get a hung parliament every time (the ONE party mandate will be no more)
it would then be coalition governments doing deals ...which is what happens in Germany and other European countries....not a bad thing but it creates other difficulties (i.e. very difficult legislating anything)..
The current system of 1st past the post seems have major benefits. E.g I reckon conservatives would have had the majotity of seats if they were able to get say 39% of vote (They only got 36%)
& the other parties in 2010 Election
UKIP = 0.9 million votes (which converts to perpaps 19 seats in PR.....UKIP actual = 0 seats in 1st past post in 2010 elections)
BNP= 1/2million votes (which converts to 10 seats in PR.....BNP actual =0 seats in 1st past post in 2010 elections)
SNP = 1/2million votes out of 2.5 million scottish votes cast = (which converts to 12 seats out of 59 scottish seats in PR.....SNP actual = 6 seats in 1st past post in 2010 elections)
Plaid = 165,000 votes out of 1.5 million welsh votes cast = (which converts to 3 (possibly 4) seats out of 40 welsh seats in PR.....plaid actual = 3 seats in 1st past post 2010 elections)...So interestingly plaid would not benefit from PR
So does your vote count with minority parties?
YES
as the way the system is recognising PR is from the next election (actually 2011 european elections)each party will recieve £0.50 pence for each vote each party recieves (e.g UKIP will get £450K to fight next election
So we do have Proportional representation working in the british system & your vote for the lesser parties does count
but look at the legislation pushed through by majority controlled governments that was opposed by the 23% of voting liberals. Or the legislation asked for by 23%+x% of the voters that was ignored by the majority controller (for example).
PR is a fair fairer method and since the "regional" MP representation is a waste of time in any instance this would be a better method.
What I find potentially scandalous is the prospect of ANOTHER unelected prime minister. It has been mooted that a LAB / LD coalition might only be possible if Brown was not the LAB leader. Now if that is the case and such a coalition was to happen, we'll end up with another prime minster that we didn't vote for.
To be honest, I think the only sure fire way to resolve this is to have another general election and since everyone now knows where all the marginal seats are for CON to take a majority, it should work for them. The so-called Clegg-mania effect was a right red herring as most parts of the country didn't buy it, whereas the LD constituencies did and was pretty decisive in preventing a CON majority.
I would call LD's bluff let them dare form a coalition with LAB. This would go against public opinion that wants LAB out of government, which would in effect be a nice political suicide note for the LD. There is no need to even entertain the idea of PR when you don't need to. Why change a system that has historically kept the CON power for so long? Even though on the face of it PR is a fairer system, is it really for the good of the country. Without a one party majority nothing will get done in terms of legislation and anything that does it through will be so watered down you might as well not have tried in the first place.
A question we need to ask about implementing PR, is whether the LD deserve to suddenly have such a strong hand in determining policy. What has the LD's ever done in the past? This is a chicken and egg situation as they have never had a chance to prove themselves, but do we really want to risk the country's current economic recovery at such a dire time by giving new comers a crack at the whip?
Also, as a final note, some of you that claim that 2/3 of the country voted against CON because they don't want a CON government is pretty wide of the mark. The electorate is not stupid, they know what the political makeup of their constituency is and will vote accordingly to meet the ultimate aim. For example, I live in Sheffield, but want LAB out, but is their really a point in me voting CON? CON won't get in here in my lifetime and probably the next! So I voted LD in the hope that there is enough of a surge to kick LAB out. A lot of people have tactically voted and taking the popular vote at face value can be hugely erroneous.
Hate to break this to you but no British prime-minister has *ever* been elected by the public.
In Britain we vote for MPs only (and your vote only really counts if you live in a marginal constituency): we don't vote for any of the cabinet posts any more than we vote for the members of the House of Lords.
"We do NOT elect the Prime Minister in Great Britain - that's the job of the *members* of each political party and is carried out in varying ways."
Whilst that is in some respects "correct" you need to ask yourself what is in the heads of many of the people voting - a few are thinking "Yes I'll vote for a 'local' candidate who I think will do a good job for this constituency". I'd argue that for many the individual candidate is of less importance, they regard themselves as voting for a party and/or the leader of that party. There is some sense in putting aside local considerations and thinking more about national policies.
How do we fix the economy - by getting one Green party candidate elected or by getting a party/ PM who is up to the job?
And just look at the number of MPs with "tarnished reputations" that still scraped in. Who in their right mind would vote for them as individuals?
Personally speaking none of my local candidates had much to attract me (one being Clegg) so my vote was for a party (though in my case I'd not really regard that as being an endorsement of its leader - more a matter of least worst) .
Um... I think you'll find *every* prime minister this country has had has been unelected because we vote for the PARTY, not a presidential type vote as in the US.
The party votes for their leader and they become the face of the party. Sure it's more of a popularity contest now and people will vote as to whether they like who is the leader instead of actually looking at the manifestos of each party and deciding whether they wish to cast their vote to their local representative of that party.
I don't ever recall there being an entry or bit of paper asking me to vote specifically for which person to be prime minister, you sure you're not just doodling on your ballot and spoiling it every time?
"we'll end up with another prime minster that we didn't vote for."
Sorry to burst your bubble, but no prime minister has ever been elected. People vote for their local MP, not the prime minister or their party. Yes, its wrong, but that's the system we have. And, yes, it probably needs changing.
"To be honest, I think the only sure fire way to resolve this is to have another general election"
What, and keep calling elections until you get what you want? In any case, this may work against the Tories - the last three elections before this one had a very effective 'block the Tories' informal agreement between labour/libdem voters that could easily be revived, and the left leaning folk are a little rattled by this result, to say the least.
"Without a one party majority nothing will get done in terms of legislation and anything that does it through will be so watered down you might as well not have tried in the first place."
A few points regarding this:
1. We have had ~30 years of majority governments, and look where they got us (both labour *AND* Tory). Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is not by accident that our politicians are corrupt (whatever their party). The reason we need PR is to spread that power thinner, so the corruption is less damaging. Ideally, we also need some form of direct democracy (i.e. a way of calling a referendum on any matter*) to take power away, too.
2. I would consider it a great benefit if less laws were passed, and more time spent considering them.
3. PR would allow us to take the best ideas of all parties instead of taking all the ideas of the least-worst party. We are selling ourselves very short here as all the parties (yes *all* of them) have had good ideas worth implementing.
"A lot of people have tactically voted and taking the popular vote at face value can be hugely erroneous."
Precisely. We need electoral reform so that we can properly express our opinions. The current system is badly broken for you and many, many others.
* There would need to be some exceptions, such as defence.
The PM will be elected which ever party forms a government.
You vote for a party/candidate.
The parties decide who their leader is
The party places their leader as being prime minister
At no point during any election have I or anyone else been asked to vote for a prime minister, I have been asked to vote for candidates belonging to parties or of a given status such as independent!
We do not have a written constitution in the UK. We do not have a vote for a president like other countries including but not exclusively the USA do.
Tony Blair, John Major, Margaret Thatcher, et al going backwards through time have ALL become prime minister because they were the head of the winning political party. Not a single one of them has ever been voted in by the public directly as the head of government.
There is also nothing to say that with PR that a single political party will never form a single party government. It just requires them to have received more than 50 % of the votes.
I voted as I always do for the candidate with which I agreed most strongly with their expressed views. I have never held to supporting only one party, I also do not vote for the party I believe will be best for my pocket/bank lifestyle. I have always voted for who I believe is best for the the country as a whole. At times in the past that has been contrary to my own financial benefit - but Hey I am only one of approximately 60 million population.
PR is in a multi party country the only way to ensure a chance of having someone represent your views. Even if they are a tiny part of the whole 'governing' package.
My view is that they should be fixed terms so everyone knows in advance when the next election will be.
"What I find potentially scandalous is the prospect of ANOTHER unelected prime minister."
You mean a prime minister who isnt a member of parliament? Not going to happen so dont lose any sleep over it.
"we'll end up with another prime minster that we didn't vote for."
When do you get to vote for the Prime Minister? Do you have a special election form or do you just vote for your MP like everyone else?
"This would go against public opinion that wants LAB out of government, "
Well, not enough to have actually voted them out.....
"A lot of people have tactically voted and taking the popular vote at face value can be hugely erroneous."
On both sides of the fence. Lots of people in heavily tory constituencies vote LD to get the tory out.
WIthout wishing to be rude to you in particular, you have to be an idiot to vote simply to get someone out of office. Elections in the UK are to determine who is *your* representative in parliament. If you dont care that the Monster Raving Loony party are representing your views and interests simply because you dont like who Party X have decided should be their leader... well.....
I'll try and use small words so that you can understand, in our democracy you only vote for your local MP not the PM. The only people who could vote for Gordon Brown were the people of his constituancy, the same applies to Nick Clegg and David Cameron. So maybe 25,000 people will ever have voted for the PM, in any election.
But applying your BS logic, Gordon Brown was\is an unelected PM because Labour failed to win a parlimentary majority with him as leader. So as the Conservatives have failed to win a parlimentary majority with David Cameron as leader, that would make him an unelected PM as well. But I guessing your going to ignore that as it's an inconvient narrative in painting the front door of No. 10 blue.
Conservatives refuse LibDems PR and LibDems go back to Labour whilst Brown is still PM.
Conservatives unable to get 326 without Libs and can't do it unless Brown resigns which is something that he wouldn't do. Brown is still PM and retains the right to form the Government.
Labour agrees PR Referendum with Liberals and forms coalition with Libs & other left-leaning parties to get over the 326 line.
Queen's Speech. Brown then resigns. Referendum. Libs get PR they want, then break up the Coalition and force new Election to get a larger share of the seats.
While reading an Internet site, there was an interesting thing in the comments section.
Source: http://www.angrymob.uponnothing.co.uk/home/70-newspaper-lies/1252-an-unfair-system-interesting-consequences
In Sweden they have PR, but they have an odd number of seats, they also have a minimum requirement of 4% of the votes to have one seat. That means fascist groups have little chance of a seat.
Interesting PR system Sweden has there! It would certainly keep those unsavoury extreme nationalists under control.
UKIP 3.1% vote 917,832 votes
BNP 1.9 % vote 563,743 votes
SNP 1.7 % vote 491,386 votes
Green 1.0 % vote 285,616 votes
Sinn Féin 0.6 % votes 171,942 votes
Democratic Unionist 0.6 % votes 168,216 votes
Plaid Cymru 0.6 % votes 165,394 votes
You never know, the English voter may be persuaded to adopt this system.
Here's comes the tidal wave of disinformers of the yet again failed Left whose Big Brother policies have yet again been rejected by a nation.
1. They say that the majority voted against the Conservatives. Well, there we see how they fail to understand the democratic vote and how it is supposed to protect society from the rule of the mob.
2. They say Thatcher's "Laissez Faire" policies wrought destruction. I think not. Successive failed post-war Labour governments and our debts from the days of empire and the war is what caused Britain trouble. We have never had a "laissez faire" economy either. You have to be delusional and living in a basement for a very long time to think so. If only we had one.
"Well, there we see how they fail to understand the democratic vote and how it is supposed to protect society from the rule of the mob."
Don't you know that just because you say something does not automatically become true.
Before Magna Carta the Kings of England stated that whatever they said was true because god had ordained it, to disagree with a King was blasphemy as well as treason. You seem to believe the same thing about yourself. You are, however, not an ancient king but an idiot. hence the title.
WTF?
I types in the URL for The Register but appear to have ended up in the political section of the BBC news site
whys this here? no IT angle at all..... unless we can hope that some new coalition government would ditch all current IT wastes and stop engaging in massively wasteful future IT projects.
ie do it right and do it cheaply (and take your time ot get it right!)
Who do you propose to send to the EU to discuss the Greek issue? The new chancellor could be any one of three possible candidates. Our constitution, like it or not, is quite clear - until Cameron can form a new government, which he hasn't done yet, the old administration must remain in place. And with good reason, too. We *need* that representation. Of course, protocol (not constitution, if I understand correctly) requires that potential new ministers are contacted when major changes or discussions take place during this 'grey' period. That has, in this case, been done.
Prime ministers are never elected by the people. They aren't even required to be members of the House of Commons.
You vote for a person to represent you, not for a party. It's only since wannabe-President Blair was in charge that party affiliation was even permitted on the ballot paper. It is the Sovereign who picks the prime minister, by choosing someone who will have the confidence of the house. It's largely custom that the person selected is the leader of the largest party.
You may decide to vote for someone because they share party affiliation with the person you want to be prime minister, but that's your problem, not a problem with the system.
Many people myself included voted Lib Dem precisely because they weren't Labour or the Tories. Labour are ideologically closer to them than the Tories and I would be willing to give a Lib/Lab alliance with 51% of the vote and a new leader a try as they are more likely to produce policies I agree with than a Tory government.. If it comes to another election it may not go the way people hope as the Lib Dems are the home of a lot of disaffected Labour voters who are not pleased with the current government but may tactically vote labour in a repeat election to ensure the Tories don't get in.
But I'd go one step further, and demand direct democracy: Any issue which can gets more than, say 10% of the population support in a petition must then be presented to the country as a whole in a referendum. This would, almost automatically I'd assume, include the Lisbon treaty.
Some body said....
It's just as bad at the other end of the scale, the DUP had 0.6% of the vote, but get 1.2% of the seats (8), wheras the SNP got 1.7%, but have 1% of the seats (6) - how can a fair system allow the party with 1/3 of the votes of another party end up with more seats?
And the fourth party on the night? - the BNP with over 0.5 million votes - with PR they should have 5 or 6 MP's
Be careful what you wish for - it may not turn out the way you think
To stop the loons a minimum percentage should be required for PR seats
I wonder what the percentage of "spoilt ballots" was? Mine was certainly spoilt as our local MPs are a bunch of effing retards. I had a choice of mad Mr Expenses Mcspend (lab) , gazilionnaire tosspost (cons), raving loon (green), Im an MP but dont actually turn up to vote on things at westminster (lib), mad local businessman (indi), soapbox nutjob (bnp).
errr right. I think i'll pass but I do take the time to vote.
The basic problem is that we have one vote with which to choose two entirely different things - an MP to represent our community, and a Party to run the country. This results in a party being elected to govern on the spurious basis of the number of communities that vote for it rather than the number of people; and in people electing MPs they do not want for fear of electing a party they want even less. Nearly everyone loses.
The principle of PR is a worthy attempt to resolve this problem, but it just tinkers with the flawed existing framework. As long as constituency MPs are also party MPs the inevitable tactical voting and candidate manipulation means that even the most careful PR calculations will always be based on false figures.
Perhaps we should be bold and separate these two quite distinct voting requirements and give people two votes - one for their local MP and one for the governing Party. That way each constituency gets the MP that the majority of people locally want, and the country gets the ruling party that the majority of people nationally want.
I have no simple vision of how this could work in practice; maintaining a separation between political parties and constituency MPs could be difficult. It will clearly need some reassessment of how Parliament works, but it does seem to me that it has the great benefits of simplicity and transparency, and will clearly reflect the majority will of the people, both locally and nationally.
The one vote is made to do two jobs. In my mind this leads to the following.
1. Two votes. US style. but then you can end up with a minority cabinet. All well and good in one-man-and-a-dog control system but party politics gums up the works by making sure that anything cabinet says, parliament disagrees with.
2. Vote for the local representative. To make this work you have to be sure there is no conflict of interest, no political allegiances. You can ban political parties but I think you would just drive it underground. At least with the current system you can see the underhanded, unelected power brokers at work.
3. Vote for the cabinet. You loose the 'local link' of your MP but gain a fair grasp of the country's overall view. If the localness of an MP ever existed I can't see that it still does. Gordon Brown is one of the few who actually come from the place they represent and even he doesn't live there. There are very few who aren't actually based in their 'second home' in London. Not really a great loss. plus you might actually get the services of an MP who represents you views. It's quite rare for an MP to get more than 50% of the local vote so most represent the views of less than half the population.
Right now if a party has a big majority in a constituency they can more or less ignore it at campagn time (and do the bare minimum the rest of the time) knowing they will be re-elected as long as they have an effective majority (in principle 1, but I've heard of Labor wins with a majority of 40).
Why *assume* that *no* party (under *any*) PR system could not get a mandate *within* a constituency of 60% *outright*.
A PR system would *force* parties to *evolve* to the new reality. The *major* complaint about PR seems to be it makes majority rule *unlikely*. It does not make it *impossible* , but parties would have to work a *damm* sight harder for their electorate to gain that majority.
Politicians working harder on your behalf. Subversive stuff.
First the wrong things:
a minority party has greater influence over election outcome than either of the main parties
Tories always want a "mandate" (it generally excuses their collective awfulness and allows them to be butchly sociopathic)
the will of the people is to have no (as in NO!) particular party able to claim a mandate
How to put it right?
For Cameron to lead a government consisting of 36% Tories, 29% Labour, 23% LibDems and 12% others on basis that as no single party can claim a "mandate" the public has expressed wish that all parties get together to form a coalition.
The problems?
Main parties want to claim however absurdly that it has a "mandate".
Clearly if no mandate exists then elected members have to promptly and swiftly devise a model that reflects will of the electorate (well, those that could vote).
Should Tory-LibDem agreement go ahead look out for the next election as soon as indicators suggest the Tories might win outright and claim the "mandate" they so perversely wish they had. (Perverse agains wishes of people who voted in May 2010)
Basis:
Elected members to uphold the will of the people as expressed in election results May 2010 and for that to hold for duration of a full parliamentary term.
I believe that none of the parties declared before the May 2010 what to do in event of an unclear "mandate".
If so, then the basis should be that no organisation enters into discussion as that would breach pre-election information shared to the public.
Hope?
(I can't imagine QE2 doing so but PC were he KC might?)
To invite principle people of influence (one from each organisation) from each political party to the Palace to remind elected members that the voice of the public has spoken, should be observed for a full parliamentary term and that political differences, ambitions or extremes be put aside in order to make manifest the will of the people in the House of Commons (and to not do so will be considered an act of treason?)?
... Is how to form a coalition without appearing to have sold the Lib-Dem electorate down the river.
PR is fundamental to a Lib-Dem future and accepting a coalition without getting that is effectively suicidal. This election has clearly shown that voting Lib-Dem *is* a wasted vote; 23% popular vote and less than 10% of seats. Come the next election (possibly sooner rather than later), that will have a major impact on tactical voting. If they alienate their current supporters they have even less chance of the breakthrough needed.
The question is; do the Lib-Dems have integrity or the same lust for personal political power which has so corrupted the so-called democracy we have had for years?
Well, if there was ever any doubt that voting LibDem was a wasted vote this clears it up.
At least if you voted for one of the "big 2" you would get to choose which colour would run the country. As it stands, LibDems now have the fun of hoping their party leader will wake up in bed with their preferred AntiChrist. (Given that its reasonable to suspect half the libdems are more labour than tory and vice versa, it seems there will be lots of unhappy people next time round).
Clegg's argument that the one with the majority of the vote has the moral right to govern should be taken to its extreme and the LibDems excluded from the final decisions. Why should the Bronze medalists get to chose the winners?
For all future elections, voters should be made clearly aware that voting Lib Dem is just as effective at choosing a Government as spoiling the ballot paper.
To all those who downvoted this - do you think that voting Lib Dem had any real effect in the election?
Do you think the Libdems will get their way in government? Do you think its right that the third party *should* get its way?
Just like the pointless liberal party in 1974, the modern day LibDems are nothing more than a drain (albeit minor) on the number of seats available to the two main parties. Its ironic that lots of people will have "tactically voted" LibDem to stop the Tories getting in....
If you want to vote, vote. If you want your vote to have *any* purpose vote Tory or Labour.
is that you have no clue about democracy, yet you have been brought up in one! A wasted vote? I don't think any of the 6,827,938 people that voted for the Liberal Democrats wasted their vote. In fact not one of the 29,653,638 votes cast was wasted--quite the opposite; the wasted votes were the ~15,897,265 that either couldn't be bothered or weren't able to vote. Those 16 million people could and probably would have completely changed the out come of the election!
I can only presume that you haven't seen any of the debate about parliamentary reform that has been in the headlines and that this accounts for your superciliousness, but the 6,827,938 Lib Dem voters seem to have managed, by "wasting" their vote, to force this issue. The outcome may not be
vastly different, Lib-Dems would still have come third, however, those that are undecided and vote tactically may vote for policy, making the process far more democratic.
IMHO, a wasted vote is one that is used in tactical voting (a misnomer if ever there was one) rather than how it should be used, by voting for what one believe in.
"The outcome may not be vastly different, Lib-Dems would still have come third, however, those that are undecided and vote tactically may vote for policy, making the process far more democratic."
So it would be more democratic but the outcome would remain the same..... Yeah, seems great to me.
I can sort of see the argument that the Lib Dem votes were less wasted than a vote on (say) Labour but it all hangs on who the LibDems go into coalition with. Not something the average voter gets any say in. Basically voting LibDem just means you want the dominant party to have less of a majority. Odd situation.
If we are to believe the politicians (yes, I know) the people in the UK *want* a strong governement, in which case bin all but the two main parties. You could even rename one the Whigs if you want a throwback.
Alternatively the people want a weak government with no one party having an overall mandate to govern - in which case what is Clegg doing trying to cuddle up to one or the other?
Makes no sense to me.
Redo the election or let the tories try to govern. Dont pussy about with the minority LibDem party.
You lot seem to be forgetting that we don't actually vote for party, we vote for a representative in our constituency. Lib Dems might get X% of the vote across the nation but that's irrelevant: each constituency gets the MP the majority votes for. An MP is meant to be part of his local community (yes I know how broken that is these days but that's now it's meant to be) and they're meant to represent their constituents in Parliament. PR would create the final divorce between the electorate and their representatives in Parliament as MPs would be chosen from party lists, and there'd be absolutely no incentive for them to maintain any links with the constituencies at all.
Look at Europe, where they have PR in most countries. Every election there's a kingmaker or two, a little party that always finagles it's way into the government even if it's composed entirely of lunatics. In Belgium they've had to hold more elections in the last two years than we've had in the last decade because the government keeps collapsing. It doesn't "moderate" the actions of the state either; if anything they're more likely to come up with badly written laws that go against the will of the people, because the PR system gives inordinate power to the "little parties", the ones who by their nature do not represent even a small plurality of the electorate.
Look at it this way: PR would put the BNP into Parliament and, judging by the number votes they got, would give them enough influence to weasel their way into a coalition.
IF change is demanded then I'd say use the single transferable vote rather than a "pure" proportional representation. It seems to work just fine in Australia. And Scotland, for that matter; they use it in their local elections.
Read the other posts before commenting.
As has been stated over and over again. We all ceased to be voting for a local representative in any real sense as soon as they started joining political parties. If you don't believe me ask your local MP what his party's Whip's Office is for and watch him (or her) squirm.
Is having repeated elections the union of Flemish half and French half is falling apart. This would probably have happened even under a majority government. Note also, that not only has there been several elections in recent years *no one formed a government*. I was there last weekend, in fact, and the waffles are still good, the mussels excellent and things generally getting done, despite all of this.
1) Make voting mandatory with a hefty fine for non-compliance.
2) Add "None of the above" to all ballots.
3) Where "NOTA" gets a majority, no sitting member is elected.
This forces the parties to engage with the electorate and also likely leads to a much smaller house. As anyone who's ever been on a decision making committee knows, the smaller the decision making group, the better.
3) Where "NOTA" gets a majority, a random member of the public who didn't vote is forced to represent the electorate for the life of the next parliament.
This would not only force the party's to engage with the electorate it would also force the electorate to engage with politics.
The Sun has already done this, and it is pretty stupid. No matter how much you dislike Gordon Brown, he is still prime minister until a new government is formed, whether he stays at number 10 or not, and Cameron is not in a position to do that yet. It may have escaped your notice, but there are important discussions with Europe taking place at the moment regarding Greece - we needed a representative at those negotiations, and that representative was Alistair Darling. Protocol has it, that under these circumstances the departing minister should correspond and work with the potential new minister, and this was indeed done. That's just the way our (unwritten) constitution works, the same constitution that allowed John Major to operate a minority government, too, if I recall correctly...
This is the system that the Conservative desperately want to keep so it is no good complaining about it now.
If the country hated Brown and loved Cameron as much as the Sun et al keep telling us we do, they would have got an overall majority and would be in power now. <sarcasm> It's almost as if Murdoch wants a Tory government or something. </sarcasm>
Most parties do not use first-past-the-post to elect their own party officials. It is not democratic enough!
They usually have a system requiring multiple votes, where the least popular drop outs after each round until only one remains. In this way the supporters of an unpopular candidate are forced to choose again. The winner of the first round often looses in the end because the others dislike someone else less. This is how Cameron became leader of the Tories. Good for them but not for us apparently.
Look at the figures and see if you think he would be Prime minister if they adopted this system for the General Election. I suspect not.
It may be true that there is no way to force an MP to vote as the electorate who put them there wish; but at least if they turn out to be a thieving peace of sh!t, you can (try to) get rid of them.
Perhaps a better reform would be to limit the number of times a party can use the whips in any year/parliament. If for instance they were only allowed to use the whips say twice a year they would have to think very hard when to use them, and all other votes would be secret.
Personally I would like to see the commons stay with FPTP, but have a fully elected Lords with a requirement that ALL votes are secret (ie: no party whips at all). This would also mean they have full mandate to block any legislation that is not passed in both houses. I would also like to see a limit (say 3) to how many times a bill could be presented, after that there would be a mandatory 2 year block.
A Lords with no whips would effectively be party free so a FPTP would still work, as any party affiliation could not be enforced.
It may be true that there is no way to force an MP to vote as the electorate who put them there wish; but at least if they turn out to be a thieving peace of sh!t, you can (try to) get rid of them.
Yes but only after 4 or 5 years. There is no mechanism for recalling you MP from parliament before the General Election.
We were to retain the FPTP electoral system but then weight the votes of the MPs in commons divisions according to the share of the popular vote their party receives?
That way we retain the traditional simplicity of the current "one cross in one box" system (to the benefit of traditionally simple voters), retain the direct linkage between constituency and representative, keep the nutters out (and restrict the damage which can be done by those nutters who do manage to get elected) while still distributing political power in a way which is representative of National voting patterns without resource to lists of loyal party hacks.
This isn't an entirely serious suggestion, and I'm sure there's some terribly good reason why it wouldn't work but on the face of it, it's quite appealing :-)
The current system is not the best. In theory you can be the 3rd Partty but if your voters are placed in the right constituency then you can easily win the elections!! Look what happened with the parties in N Ireland, with a 0.5% of the votes they get 4-5 MP easily, just because of the concentration in the right place. I read today that the Conservatives with another 5-10,000 more votes would get overall majority if they voted in the right place, so more like pot luck.
All votes should count, so because I voted labour in Bromley or Conservative in Hull doesn't mean my vote shouldn’t be counted! Then you have the other controversy of tactical voting which makes a farce of the system, or worse boundary changes. Pure proportional representation is not right cause we will never have a majority party, but a system where some degree of proportion is maintained makes sense. So a party getting 36-38% should be close to forming a government. Also you can put a threshold of 3-5% to get an MP.
This semi-proportional representation system is used in many European countries and I am sure they can pick up the best one, it's definitely more representative of the wishes of the people.
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