[Closed] Proportional Representation (Or something like that)

Nabbed this from [url= http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/35a6up/video_after_almost_1000000_votes_for_the_uk_green/cr2jevz ]reddit[/url], bit easier to parse.

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I'd love to get PR in, but no doubt we'd have another campaign of this shite:

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Conservative, UKIP, DUP coalition then?....or would a Lib, Lab, SNP coalition be larger?

It's interesting isn't it. Much smaller gap between the 2 main parties and obviously no majority.

FPTP is very distorting though, the whole tactical vote/wasted vote/protest vote/don't bother to vote thing changes voting patterns so much, it wouldn't just change the proportion of seats to votes.

How would seat apportioning work in PR? Sure I'm being stupid, but with constituencies how would you actually choose which of the 240 seats the Conservatives get?

An MP wouldn't be aligned to a constituency in the same way, I think?

Parties would just make lists of their potential MPs, starting with the big hitters who defo would get the first seats and working down to the crap ones no-one really cares about.

But everyone would know that their vote would count, and that's a bit more inclusive

Interesting, isn't it, that the 2 big parties benefit from FPTP and the smaller ones basically don't.

That's why it won't change. Plus, think about the babies who need maternity units before you start wasting cash on a properly democratic system, would you? Sheesh.

I think you would have to fundamentally decouple the national election and national issues and local elections and local issues. It would probably have to go hand in hand with some sort of regional governance IMO and a cutting back in county counsiles.

There was an article in the Guardian by a German journalist, can't find it, but he was quite jealous of FPTP and the direct interaction between candidates and voters.

+1 on that AV referendum being incredibly poorly and dirty fought. Should never have been an option of AV to be fair. Should have been PR but I think AV was only allowed as it was more likely to fail.

the direct interaction between candidates and voters

I guess he doesn't realise that MPs only visit constituents when there's telly crews around. 🙄 Amazing to think other countries admire our faux democracy.

Camo16 in the Scottish election candidates are aligned to constituency's just like the general election but there's a list system on top of that to balance the numbers. The list candidates have a wider area. Essentially you have 2 msps really.

I guess he doesn't realise that MPs only visit constituents when there's telly crews around. Amazing to think other countries admire our faux democracy.

According to him Germans don't even turn up then!

So, the 'right wing parties' (Conservatives, UKIP and DUP) would have almost exactly the same majority/dominance that they have achieved through FPTP?

It would have to be PR in each constituency otherwise the people in that constituency wouldn't be proportionately represented.

So you can't use the national figures like that to gain anything meaningful.

PR is a load of tosh anyway, if you have seen it work. They had it at Uni, once the votes have been slide around you end up with some loser that only has votes 'cos he was on the list and people had to tick a certain number of boxes in preference order.

FPTP works fine on the basis that you vote for the candidate that will best represent the constituency. The problem is party whips preventing Most from voting in the best interest of their constituency, if all votes were free votes it'd be fine.

Turnerguy - I think you hit the nail on the head there, the probe with all PR type systems is the existence of the party list.

Under any form of PR, Farage, Balls, Wee Dougie etc. would still have a job today!

but with constituencies how would you actually choose which of the 240 seats the Conservatives get?

You wouldn't, just like you'd get the long list of Primrose Hill Labour MPS before the sensible ones would be allowed in. Con MP #172 isn't the MP for "Harrogate North" for example.

FPTP works fine on the basis that you vote for the candidate that will best represent the constituency. The problem is party whips preventing Most from voting in the best interest of their constituency, if all votes were free votes it'd be fine.

Agreed. I am sure that there are politicians who still try and represent their constituents views, but they are currently in the minority and most just toe the party line, once elected they are just part of the larger party machinery. Very few voted on who their local candidate was it was all down to the party leader,

According to him Germans don't even turn up then!

Germany has much more power devolved to the states. The national representatives are exactly that, they are not local representatives, who have different powers and responsibilities (sometimes for good and other times not).

ninfan - Member
So, the 'right wing parties' (Conservatives, UKIP and DUP) would have almost exactly the same majority/dominance that they have achieved through FPTP?

I do agree the list system needs improvement, it's open to abuse. It's why we had to put up with hamburger heid as leader of the SLP for so long! 😆 it is still much more representative than FPTP though.

ninfan - Member

So, the 'right wing parties' (Conservatives, UKIP and DUP) would have almost exactly the same majority/dominance that they have achieved through FPTP?

Majority, yes- assuming no change in voting patterns anyway. Dominance, not so much, obviously 3 parties working together would handle very differently to a single party majority.

with the ukips in third i'm no longer a fan of this idea

Germany has much more power devolved to the states. The national representatives are exactly that, they are not local representatives, who have different powers and responsibilities (sometimes for good and other times not).

+1

I don't think PR is viable in the UK within the current. System of Nation -> county structure.

I'm no fan of ukip but a party getting 4 million votes and only having 1 seat does not seem right

Sounds nice in theory, but in reality it would paralyse the country with indecision as all the parties argued out every single issue all the time with half an eye on what's best for the country and one and a half eyes on their own political ambitions and interests. Democracy in reality is an unachievable dream - great for electing governments but not for running them - whatever, for better or worse you need a decisive government. As Churchill said regarding different systems of government - Democracy is the worst option apart from all the others (or something like that).

Do people really think that UKIP would get 4 million votes if those votes counted for anything. We live in a Tory stronghold loads so my vote was pointless so I voted for a party to increase their share of the vote. If we had PR then every vote counts and I would have voted labour. I suspect the same in the northern areas where ukip came second to labour if those counted most would have gone to the Tories.

Forgetting party policies , moonsaballon is right. That's not a true reflection of what people want.
Tell me, am I correct in thinking that each constituency isn,t the same size? Sort of suggests that a remote area could have a rises present a ions effect with few voters but an MP. What puts me off PR is that it would give undue weight to urban areas.

I think that is the case now as most people live in towns of cities.

Constituency sizes are meant to be approximately the same number of population, subject to geographic limitations - rural constituencies are much bigger than urban.

Is it beyond the wit of man to have one chamber - currently the Commons - elected by FPTP, so you vote for the candidate to represent you locally rather than the party, and another chamber - currently the Lords - done on PR?

Say 400 in each? Majority across both to form a government? Make it compulsory to vote and have a none of the above option while we are at it.

Only flaw I can think of is that you lose the "independent" cross bench Lords

So, the 'right wing parties' (Conservatives, UKIP and DUP) would have almost exactly the same majority/dominance that they have achieved through FPTP?

Irrespective of the difference in overall percentages due to protest/get them out voting habits under fptp copared to how poeple think and vote under pr, the cons/dup/ukip coalition would certainly be governing dIfferently from a single conservative majority. No doubt cameron will be dressing up/pulling an 'AV' on the europe referendum (surely he will never let the public decide on a simple in/out without some smoke and mirrors) which he would not dare do if he relied on a large number of ukip mp's to prop his coalition up. Scotland's response to whatever the outcome of the referendum would also surely be different under a scotland with a mix of parties via pr than it will be with their 56 snp mp's.

wobbliscott - Member

Sounds nice in theory, but in reality it would paralyse the country with indecision as all the parties argued out every single issue all the time with half an eye on what's best for the country and one and a half eyes on their own political ambitions and interests.

I love it when people say "sounds nice in theory, but in reality" about things that actually exist already. No need to theorise

Unless of course you think there's just something terrible about britain that means things that work elsewhere can't work here.

I'm okay with a decent PR system if there is such a thing, but not bloody AV. It's not PR, it's confusing, and I hate the whole runner up idea.

I live under various PR systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
It's mostly administered at a local level so the SNP would retain a lot for scotland and UKIP where they did well, if you polled too low across the country you would still loose out. The next step is when you have the preference deals that go with some of the systems that in fact end up returning some very random unrepresentative parties.

Also as NW said above don't assume people would vote the same way in a different system.

MPs aren't really constituency based anymore anyway, most of the candidates are just shipped out from London by central office, and vote for their party rather than for their constituency. I guess an ideal situation would be a partisan House of Commons, elected by PR, and a non-partisan, constituency-based House of Lords. The problem would be that I can't see a way to keep the political parties grubby mitts off the constituency representatives in the HoL.

All our candidates lived in our constituency and had local connections - I deliberately checked. Hate candidates being parachuted into safe seats after [s]10 years toadying at party HQ[/s] their first career

Agree with MCTD above, I too, like a lot of others check the candidate is local. Load of twaddle to suggest that they are shipped out from London. Look at what happened to Balls, Nigel Farage. I would not want PR or similar. Otherwise Balls and the rest would still be in a job when the local people wanted them out. With PR we dont get to vote people out of office. We'd end up with the same old crowd back at the top every time.

Why should for example Thanet South have someone like Nigel Farage forced on them when they clearly didnt want him. PR would have forced then to accept him. Clearly, like Ed Balls both voted out by locals, a good case in point for keeping our MPs local and not appointed by the party leaders

The people of Thanet South wouldn't have Farage forced on them under PR, the people of the United Kingdom would have Farage as part of a national parliament, as a huge number of them wanted. Why should the 33,000 people who voted against Farage in Thanet South have more power than the 3.8 million people who voted for his party (and therefore for him, UKIP being not far off a personality cult)? Its an anachronism that a party leader stands as a constituency MP anyway, as if they're elected they will be far too busy with national politics to focus on their constituency. Thats why I think there needs to be some separation.