Pointless Election

Looks like the socialist are fiddling the results. Vast majority of England votes tory and we end up with Ed Milliband as PM.

How did that happen then?

Wrong Milliband?

Vast majority of England votes tory

🙄

Ed Milliband

😯

Whichever way this goes is likely to cause some issues for the union:

Option 1: Lib/Lab government – limited mandate for English issues (and the need for Scottish MP's to vote on devolved issues) could put strain on the union from England

Option 2: Tory led government- limited mandate for Scottish issues could put strain on the union from Scotland

or you could say vast majority of electorate didnt vote tory (65% of the votes)

A minority voted Tory, and the only people who voted for Brown or Cameron are those that live in their constituencies.

starseven – Member
Looks like the socialist are fiddling the results. Vast majority of England votes tory and we end up with Ed Milliband as PM.

How did that happen then?

Which socialists are they then?

And why look at the scale of England? Westminster governs the UK.

pmsl at some tory mp's faces at the moment, also st some of the tory press's headlines.

Bloke at work will be going mental when he reads the sun tomorrow 🙂

If we get a lib/lab and prop voting the toriess will never scome close to power again in the uk.

Yeah I get them sometimes, surely he brain is complicated enough to realize when there is no girl present it is pointless to get one?

One can hardly call the Labour party socialist any more, given that over the last decade or so they've put enormous efforts into flushing out the last vestiges of socialist policies and personnel. I know it depends to great extent on one's own political position, but from where I stand the closest party we currently have in the UK to anything one could call socialist (or at least a party who stand a chance of getting seats in Parliament should we face another General Election sometime soon) is the Green Party. Check out the Green Party's economic policies, and contrast them with Labour. The LibDems are more progressive that Labour (ie more left wing) in most areas of policy.

And if I could pick you up on another aspect of your assertion, would you call the proportion of the vote that the Conservative Party polled (23.5% of the electorate) compared to those who voted Labour (18.9%) a "vast majority"? A 4.6 per cent difference. My figures by the way are the share of the Electorate, rather than the share of the votes cast

And can I ask if you mean England, or the UK?

So what exactly is so bad about FPTP as an electoral process and why is any alternative better? Everyone seems to be whinging about hung parliaments being bad news and to my (simple) mind PR will only make it more inevitable.

In fact it seems to me that the people most exercised by wanting electoral reform are those who feel it is a way to get more seats for themselves and not necessarily something that is for the benefit of the country as a whole. Funny that.

A 4.6 per cent difference

Go back to school and ask them to teach you percentages again. It's a 4.6 percentage point difference, but 24.3% percent difference.

yes you're right tron, please excuse my sloppiness.

I've been out-pedanted!

no i believe pr will make it harder for the money men who 'influence' our political landscape to buy off a whole government in one go

And why look at the scale of England? Westminster governs the UK.

Because if we're going to argue about fair electoral systems, you have to mention the elephant in the room, which is that Scotland and Wales have their own assemblies, but still elect MPs to Westminster who have voting rights over things that don't affect their own constituents.

Most people who voted voted for nominally left-of-centre parties. Is it not them right that a left-of-centre coalition forms a government?

Under the rules of our electoral system, this is how we get a government.

So what exactly is so bad about FPTP as an electoral process and why is any alternative better?

off the top of my head it rewards winners – how often do the majority party/government have 50% of the votes. Millions of votes are just wasted as they dont count [ every vote for a loosing candidate], it leads to tactical voting – if your pary of choice has no chance of winning.
PR is better as all votes count – you cannot really be against that as principle for a democracy can you?

every vote for a loosing candidate

And? Your point is what? That's the deal with a choice isn't it? Those votes are not wasted. They made a choice for a particular candidate / party. Unfortunately for them, more people made alternative choices. If they chose to vote "tactically" that's their choice / mistake is it not? A bit feeble really to argue that someone voted one way only because they wanted to stop someone else winning and then claim that the current system is rubbish because their vote is wasted. Pillocks. Should have voted for what they want.

Saying PR is better still doesn't really answer the question. Why is it better? What will it mean to the UK government? Surekly all it means is that we will have more hung parliaments / coalition governments. And apparently, at the moment, that's a really bad thing.

PR is fantastic. Every party has a list, with the order that people will get bunged into Parliament in. So if a party gets 23% of the vote, the top 23% of that party's list gets in.

This means that even very small minority parties are fairly likely to get seats. So you'd have Nick Griffin, Nigel Farage and Kilroy Silk in parliament.

It also means that you can't vote someone out. An MP's corrupt, doesn't do any work, been fiddling his expenses, or he's Robert Kilroy Silk? Well, if he's mates with (or is) the party leader, then you're stuffed.

The other issue is that it takes the European countries which use PR an average of 40 days to form a government, and once they are formed, they can crumble, because practically every government has to be a coalition. It looks like it'll take us less than a week, and people are already going berserk, with the money markets sniffing around the idea of downgrading our credit rating.

Oh, and factor in that 50% of the population need to be taught what a percentage is so that they can begin to understand the concept of PR.

to be fair id prefer stv or av over pr

i wonder how many/few seats (in england, say) were close runs between labour and lib dem? And how many seats either party had off each other as opposed to won from/lost to conservatives.

I think there is a case for saying that around 15 million people voted not to have a conservative government. I am rather amused by the notion on the beeb that the liberal mp's feel more politically aligned with the idea of a coalition with labour. No **** sherlock! I think the Libs became the left-est party by default about 12 years ago!

Of course the voting would be completely different under PR but as the conservatives hint at by their opposition to it, it's not really in their favour as they have traditionally won a much higher number of seats for their slice of the overall vote than the other parties.

"So what exactly is so bad about FPTP as an electoral process"

FPtP is a cleaner, quicker process, but it's not better:

[*]Perhaps 70% of the votes cast in the last election made no discernible contribution to the result.[/*]

[*]Voters in marginals where it's worth voting, vote "tactically" instead of with their political opinions, distorting the results.[/*]

[*]The resulting proportions of voices in parliament grossly mis-represents the balance and range of political opinions of the electorate. E.g. LibDems got 1 in 5 votes, but only 1 in 10 seats.[/*]

The resulting "strong" government is only strong because it gives a mandate to ignore the people's will and press on with ideological and partisan policies.

Democracy relies on a "franchise": a shared responsibility between the administration and the people. It gives the people a right to a say how they are ruled. FPtP demonstrably "disenfranchises" the people and is a mockery of democracy.

IMO 😀

It looks like it'll take us less than a week, and people are already going berserk, with the money markets sniffing around the idea of downgrading our credit rating.

Other countries in Europe and beyond get on with PR, doesn't affect their markets. Perhaps why the money markets don't like the idea of PR in the UK is because they may not be able to make the kind of killings they have done in the past.

biking catastrophe you really do seem to be asking me why it is bad that every vore does not count i explained why Pr was better – you just seem to not give a sh1t about wasted votes.

A bit feeble really to argue that someone voted one way only because they wanted to stop someone else winning and then claim that the current system is rubbish because their vote is wasted. Pillocks. Should have voted for what they want

the point is what they wanted could not win. I would have voted green under PR under FPTP they dod not even stand so I had no choice how xcould I vote for a party that did not stand ? Why would voting for a party that cannot win in your constituency suddenlly be a wiser choice rather than just a wasted vote?
Your position is too not treat all votes equally. Not a fan of STV as it rewards mediocrity …noyt being too offensive to either the left or the right. Would prefer that whatever % you get you recieve the same % of seats with perhaps a threshold. Granted not easy to see how we keep the constituency link and also gives too much power to centerist party machine rather than local parties,

Of course the voting would be completely different under PR but as the conservatives hint at by their opposition to it, it's not really in their favour as they have traditionally won a much higher number of seats for their slice of the overall vote than the other parties.

Labour have been getting more seats per vote than the Tories and have been for years – this time round, Labour got approx. 30 seats per million votes, whilst the Tories got 28.7 and Liberals only got 9.3. The reason Labour are happy to go with PR is that they think the Liberals will always be happy to get into bed with them.

PR would mean that the Liberals would have this "king maker" role pretty much every election, giving them disproportionate power over government policy.

To me, the Liberals and Labour are very different – Labour is borne out of old school Socialism, hence the ID cards, heavy terrorist legislation and an urge to tell us all how to live our lives, and to take and give as they please (tax credits).

On the other hand, there's a strong classical Liberal element to the Lib Dems, hence their policies covering things like scrapping ID cards, not taxing anyone earning under 10K, and an emphasis on civil liberties.

Whilst they're both obstensibly "left wing", I don't think Left VS Right is a useful narrative anymore. A lot of the above Lib Dem policies align better with ideas which have been floated by small state Tories (civil liberties, flat tax etc.).

Other countries in Europe and beyond get on with PR, doesn't affect their markets. Perhaps why the money markets don't like the idea of PR in the UK is because they may not be able to make the kind of killings they have done in the past.

The "money markets" refers to the markets where borrowing is sold. If our credit rating is downgraded (ie, the money markets don't like us fannying around trying to get a coaltion government together), the lenders will make more money, not less, but we will all be poorer, because we'll be paying higher interest rates.

tron – Member

PR is fantastic. Every party has a list, with the order that people will get bunged into Parliament in. So if a party gets 23% of the vote, the top 23% of that party's list gets in.

Closed list is not the only form of PR – their are many different forms and they have different effects.

Look at the scottish systems for Holyrood and Councils – both have a proportional element and both have constituency links

Additional member and single transferable vote are the two systems IIRC

Most people who voted voted for nominally left-of-centre parties. Is it not them right that a left-of-centre coalition forms a government?

Since when are new labour left of centre?
I want a dead centre govt, which is what I was hoping for with a tory/lib alliance (kind of moderate each other). Now, we're getting the single most popular party with the most votes and seats without any power!
See how it goes I suppose.
FWIW, I'd rather see Clegg as PM than Milliband and definately more than (Gordos best mate) Balls. How many years shall we go without an elected PM?

I don't think Left VS Right is a useful narrative anymore. A lot of the above Lib Dem policies align better with ideas which have been floated by small state Tories

Not only that, it's worth remembering that Labour lost seats to the Conservatives and also to the LibDems. Conservatives also took some seats, though not many, from the LibDems. So in effect the voting shifted from Labour to he LbDems and the Tories… so this idea that the vast majority of people voted against the Tories isn't right – it's surely more accurate to say that most people voted to get Labour out, without being all that keen on the Conservatives either.

I think it has become clear over the past few days, that a coalition government doesn't matter to the markets half as much as over events.

Governments gave away power and control a long time ago, and without international agreement to change that, no one countries administration effects them to any real effect.

I WANT TO SEE CAMERONS FACE 😥

😆

30 seats per million votes, whilst the Tories got 28.7 and Liberals only got 9.3

So that's 39.3 seats per million *against* the tories, vs 28.7 for.

People get far too hung up on FPTP – as as been previously said, it only benefits the part that gets a significant minority of the vote. That may have been useful for two party politics but the reality – as illustrated by polls/votes – is that it's not clearcut, and the *are* 3 parties with significant support, and it's about time the voting system changed to reflect that.

As for LB holding up everyone to ransom, that's a rather facile argument. Compare and contrast to the fact that the actual result with FPTP is decided in a bunch of marginals of something like 100,000 votes. That's what holds the election process up to ransom.

As TJ wrote, there's lots of way of doing PR.
One criticism against is always re your 'local elected representative'.
That's generally a load of bobbins, most people either vote
*for* a party or leader
*against* a party or leader.

– unless there's some pressing local issue – so it's rather a moot point.
The same argument's used the other way round – eg 'we didn't elect Gordon Brown'. Well, *alledgedly* you're voting for you local representative, not the leader.

edit – one point in favour of some type of PR could well be – depending on how it's done – it may make boundary changes completely irrelevant, which are currently open to much fiddling by all concerned.

How did that happen then?

Not enough people voted for a single party to give them an overall majority, have you been asleep?

Governments gave away power and control a long time ago, and without international agreement to change that, no one countries administration effects them to any real effect.

You are wrong.

We still have near total control of fiscal (spending / tax) & monetary (interest rates) policy. The BoE is independent in name, but it's still paid for and set targets by the government.

I think Greece (which is in the Eurozone, and therefore has less control over monetary policy) provides a suitably vivid illustration of what lax fiscal policy can do for a country.

Ultimately, the issue of a hung parliament causing problems with the markets (ie, our credit rating and interest bill) boils down to fiscal policy. Everyone could see that Labour were deferring fiscal cuts until after the election, and that is why our ratings have stayed steady.

The issue is that people were expecting cuts ASAP after the election, and a hung parliament resulting in a weak coalition will not be able to decisively cut fiscal policy. This means that our outgoings will continue to outstrip our income, we will be seen as less likely to pay up, and Britain will move from borrowing on the equivalent of mortgages to credit cards and payday loans.

Tron will you be my new best mate? Seriously, I thought I was the only person who was worried about PR for the same reasons you cite. Although I do take on board TJ's comments about there being alternative ways of making PR work.

My figures by the way are the share of the Electorate, rather than the share of the votes cast

My view on this is that the view of the people who didn't vote is irrelevant because they didn't vote. And I really don't care for the argument that there isn't anyone worth voting for – that's just feckless BS.

As for the markets and PR in other countries, the crucial point here is that our economy is massively different to other European countries. Germany and France for example has very little in the way of liquid markets (how many people do you think can even name the stock markets of France and Germany, but I bet they've heard of the NASDAQ, DOW etc). Also Germany has a culture of forming alliances in other areas such as their economy. Our system is different and the money markets, as Tron highlights, really do like strong stable government.

You can dimiss those markets as being wrong and irrelevant, but I promise you, if it goes wrong, we will all pay, like Greece.

30 seats per million votes, whilst the Tories got 28.7 and Liberals only got 9.3

So that's 39.3 seats per million *against* the tories, vs 28.7 for.

Sorry, but we're back to basic errors of arithmetic. The average number of seats for Labour / Lib Dem per million votes is ~ 20.45.

I think the point you may be trying to make is that the Lib Dems and Labour together got more votes than the Conservatives.

As for LB holding up everyone to ransom, that's a rather facile argument. Compare and contrast to the fact that the actual result with FPTP is decided in a bunch of marginals of something like 100,000 votes. That's what holds the election process up to ransom.

I disagree. As a rule, the party that gets the most votes gets the most seats, and forms the government. Ultimately marginals are extremely influential, but FPTP still does a reasonable job of putting the people who got the most votes in power.

Looking at past elections, we can say that Labour and the Tories will generally get something like a similar level of votes – within 10 percentage points of each other. It will then come down to the Lib Dems to choose who they like, particularly if we set a precedent by forming a coalition of losers now.

The "money markets" refers to the markets where borrowing is sold. If our credit rating is downgraded (ie, the money markets don't like us fannying around trying to get a coaltion government together), the lenders will make more money, not less, but we will all be poorer, because we'll be paying higher interest rates.

I was referring to the political implications such as deregulation, etc. The money markets would have felt better if the Government in power would not implement any of the tighter regulations which appear to be on their way(after some watering down of course. :wink:)

Have you all heard that the Tories have just offered a referendum on Alternative Voting to the Lib Dems.