[Closed] electoral reform

Deathbed conversion from Brown on this one, isn't it? Despite being a manifesto promise in '97 it only crops up now. Wonder why?

Last ditch attempt to woo some favour from minor parties in a desperate hope of clinging to power.

If Brown and his government really cared about electoral reform, why did they not do anything on this before now? Too busy eating nine bananas a day to be "radiant", I suppose....;-)

The only good argument for FPTP [first past the post] is that it leads to strong government.
I prefer a syatem where every vote counts and then I can vote for who I want to rather than have to just vote for the ones most likely to beat the Tories in my constituency. Prefer some form of party voting- convert the % to seats and then also voting locally for a candidate via AV
I cannot see how a coalition government can be worse than what we have

.EDIT: CPT - thanks for the party political broadcast on behalf of the Tories who use the EXACT system to vote for their own Leader but think we should not use it for Elections. Yes Dave is beyond reproach on this subject and displays huge moral conviction and is a true principle led politician in action. ... sometimes you are just as bad as the I blame Thatcher with your blue tinted specs on you see only one view.
Are you standing at the next election you seem a natural politician....slag the other side off say **** all about your own view

but cfh regardless of browns dubious motives surely this is a good thing and a move toward restoring trust in politicians

Flash like his glorious leader likes to keep things simple.

I would rather have a system of PR, whichever method we choose, for the same reasons as Junkyard above. FPTP is almost there by cartel between the Tories and Labour...they may not like one another, but they know, wink wink, nudge nudge, that they get around a decade or so in power each in turn.

The only voices of dissent in parliament are the LibDems. We have no environmental lobby, no loony right or left lobby, despite a fair amount of the electorate sharing these views. I'd put up with slightly weaker government if only to have a more representative parliament.

whats this slightly weaker government rubbish

germanys coalition seems pretty strong to me

and a better spread of mps is likely to mean reasoned debate rather than slavish voting in line with the party whips

Not against a change and think that PR would be a good one as it would give smaller parties a chance. But am not convinced that Brown is doing anything other than politicing(is that the word?) on this subject. Next he will be offering free hot tubs to all but only when he's back in.

I believe it's a debate we should be having but not(edit) lead by some trying to desperately to keep power.

Whichever system you have, the main parties will still win - this is how democracy works...

its quite sad that something this fundamental to our democracy is being tacked on at the very end of labours term but regardless of that it is surely a good thing that the question is being asked

what really upsets me is the way the times and the telegraph dont seem to mention the vote once on their webpages for fear of making dave look bad?!!?

Sorry kimbers, point taken, I did mean to mention something about some European governments getting it right, but hit "send post" a bit early. Having grown up in a country with a fairly comprehensive PR system, government was painstakingly slow at times (not always a bad thing of course...not much "railroaded" legislation) and coalitions did fragment sometimes.

I think some European countries get the "politics of consensus" thing better than we do, you know like how CallMeDave described before he went all yeah boo again.

It has sort of worked in Scotland - tho the actual mechanism is different. Holyrood has elected Greens, pensioners party, Scottish socialist and independents - tho they fiddled the system for the last time to reduce the number of oddballs.

This has meant at first Labour governed with Lib Dem support - this has meant that they stopped the most stupid of excesses of London Labour reaching Scotland - no foundation hospitals or city academies for example. The lib dems also made PR for councils a part of the deal.

Since the last elections the SNP has governed as a minority administration which means seeking consensus and co operation. Labour have refused to play the game just opposing everything the SNP suggest.

Overall at Holyrood it has worked and has changed the political culture a bit. However it has also led to "pork barrel" politics and some stupid but popular decisions such as retaining Monklands A&E against medical advice

On the councils it has had a much bigger effect. Teh citys all used to be Labour strongholds with no effective opposition. Now the control of most councils is in coalitions of various sorts. This has led to just moderate and perhaps better governance of the cities.

Myself - I am in favour but I don't like the details of some of the systems used.

Labours late conversion? Stupid. It is too late in the cycle to get it adopted so its just a waste of time. Should have gone for it years ago. Never another tory government under PR.

I like it the way it is
In fact I'd probably go further & give the winning party a guaranteed overall majority
The last thing we need is a couple of loony greens or BNP dictating policy

They're only in for 5 years - so can be got rid of

the winning party an overall majority would just make it even easier for the govmnt to do things like go to war in iraq coz the pm likes to cozy up to fellow godbotherer bush

thats a terrible idea

So a party with say 38% of the vote of say 63% of the population can do as they wish for 5 years ... I am not fully comfortable with that scenario.
As it stands we may have the god fearing, pope hating, gay bashing Ulster party instead to give power to Dave which is not much better IMHO.

the winning party an overall majority would just make it even easier for the govmnt to do things like go to war in iraq coz the pm likes to cozy up to fellow godbotherer bush

I can't remember how many MPs voted for it but I can't see how your system would have made it any different

The present system has worked well for a good while IMO - no good reason to change
You feel free to carry on dreaming though, coz that's all it'll be

I think pr would mean that rather than just the brown-nosers dumped in safe seats more outspoken mps would be in government and the 99% of torry and labour who voted for the war would be seriously reduced and the PM would be forced to offer some garuantees ie demonstrate there was a plan for reconstruction etc to win the votes of independents and and more outspoken party members

edit: i know its a pipe dream, will never happen as the 2 main parties are very very happy with the status quo (especially the torries), found a good article here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article7019806.ece

watch live as a whole 12 MPs think that this is worth debating the rest have gone home......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8505255.stm <

Kimbers, the sad fact is that if there was any seriousness about electoral reform, Brown (and Blair) would have had this debate ages ago, when anything that came of it would have had a chance of actually happening. This is just rather sad and desperate political posturing by a government on the way out.

The debate should be happening, I agree, but at the moment, it's not the right time.