"Currants Bw..."

[Ollie the Optimist]

i don't agree on your point on PR, the fact is that most people vote for centre or centre-left partioes yet the right invariably wins because there's basically only the Tories to vote for other than a few nutter parties - we're then stuck in a right-wing elective dictatorship while they 5 years' worth of damage, some of it irrepairable

A fair argument but one i disagree with.

If the parties on teh left, were similar then they should merge. Those parties all stand separately because they know they have key differences between them so i dont buy into the fact that if you add their votes together, the country wants left wing government. if they wanted left wing, they’d vote labour in (unlikely to get a green etc majoirty) but they dont.

However, PR does run the risk as allowing the lunatics on the left to hold sway or indeed nationalists in Scotland/Wales as we found out when May did her deal with the DUP. That small party holds of a lot power to allow the main party to govern and can demand a lot. Say labour needed the 50 SNP votes to gain power, the SNP would demand a referendum in return etc,. I accept this is also part of FPTP system but less common in our country then would be under PR. There have not been many coalition governments since WWII or indeed ones with confidence & supply agreements and bar the Cameron coalition, i dont think any of the others lasted more then 2 years.

[Letters]

i don't agree on your point on PR, the fact is that most people vote for centre or centre-left partioes yet the right invariably wins because there's basically only the Tories to vote for other than a few nutter parties - we're then stuck in a right-wing elective dictatorship while they 5 years' worth of damage, some of it irrepairable

I can't see any argument against a system which would make the results of an election and the government it produces more representative of how people actually vote. I think the argument for the system we have now is it produces "strong governments". So great, we now have a "strong government" which a minority of people voted for. And don't confuse "strong" with "competent".

[Ollie the Optimist]

I can't see any argument against a system which would make the results of an election and the government it produces more representative of how people actually vote. I think the argument for the system we have now is it produces "strong governments". So great, we now have a "strong government" which a minority of people voted for. And don't confuse "strong" with "competent".

lets take the last election where the tories, brexit party & DUP won close to 46% of the vote with all the remaining parties winning 54%. Very rough maths there and I’ve included brexit party & DUP as they are on the right.

However, they are all very different parties with different aims & policies. I dont think you can lump them together and the same goes for the 54% on the other side.

In that 54%, you have Lib Dem’s, SNP & Labour as well as few others like the Greens. Each party is so fundamentally different to each other that you cant just say that 54% should govern because thats what the country wants. It isn’t. People might have voted labour in Scotland as they want a left wing party who backs the union which is a massive difference to the SNP. It really isn’t easy just to lump that 54% together and say its what the people want because that isn’t true and would create a mess.

I think in the 2019 election its fair to say the tories won it., their votes went up and they gained votes from labour in the seats they won, people were actively voting tory for the first time rather then simply not voting labour.

[Mac76]

lets take the last election where the tories, brexit party & DUP won close to 46% of the vote with all the remaining parties winning 54%. Very rough maths there and I’ve included brexit party & DUP as they are on the right.

However, they are all very different parties with different aims & policies. I dont think you can lump them together and the same goes for the 54% on the other side.

In that 54%, you have Lib Dem’s, SNP & Labour as well as few others like the Greens. Each party is so fundamentally different to each other that you cant just say that 54% should govern because thats what the country wants. It isn’t. People might have voted labour in Scotland as they want a left wing party who backs the union which is a massive difference to the SNP. It really isn’t easy just to lump that 54% together and say its what the people want because that isn’t true and would create a mess.

I think in the 2019 election its fair to say the tories won it., their votes went up and they gained votes from labour in the seats they won, people were actively voting tory for the first time rather then simply not voting labour.

2019 was a unique set of circumstances where the Labour leader was extreme left, some northern Labour morons voted Tory because of the EU thing etc etc

nevertheless a very good example as the majority of votes went to pro-EU or second--referendum parties but we still got a strong pro-leave government - proves my point exactly

[Ollie the Optimist]

2019 was a unique set of circumstances where the Labour leader was extreme left, some northern Labour morons voted Tory because of the EU thing etc etc

nevertheless a very good example as the majority of votes went to pro-EU or second--referendum parties but we still got a strong pro-leave government - proves my point exactly

By same token, in 2017, majority of votes went to parties (tory & labour) who wanted to get brexit done and no second referendum.

Labours position was to accept the result in 2017 and negotiate a deal. There was no mention of a second referendum in their manifesto in that election.


I accept that as things develop policies change and parties adapt to try and win elections but those arguing for PR were not quite accepting of the majority voting for brexit in 2017 as they are on majority voting for second referendum in 2019.


I also accept your point that 2019 was a unique election. However, looking at the 2015 results, Cameron won 37% and UKIP won 13% which under PR would have almost meant a tory government propped up by Farage (and probably the DUP as well i suspect just to really push it over 50%), I’m not sure anyone wanting PR would accept that result thats for sure

I dont think 2015 was a unique election either, it was fairly standard. Given the Lib Dem’s have been in coalition with tories for 5 years and Cameron & Clegg were close, I’m not sure you could argue they sit well with the others on the left either to force out the tories.

[Mac76]

but idealogically, most elections show the majority of the population isn't right-wing and yet we are often under a right-wing party - also it's wrong that only one party with a minority of the vote makes every law - and also there's the distortion of how many seats the winning paty gets as opposed to a share of the vote.

the power and decision-making should be shared out more fairly

[Letters]

The last election was pretty clear, granted.
Although I'd note that it was still under 50% of people who voted for them and despite that they have a huge majority.

The 2015 election is a better example of what is wrong with the system though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_U...neral_election
The Tories got close to 37% of the vote but a majority of seats, so we have a ruling party which fewer than two fifths of people voted for.
And as you say, 13% of people voted for UKIP and they got 1 seat. One! That's 1 in 8 people who voted for a party who ended up with virtually no representation. As much as I can't abide Farage, that can't be right.

A big issue with our current system is that it encourages tactical voting and it leaves a lot of people disenfranchised. If you're in a safe seat then it doesn't really matter who you vote for. Surely any system which yields more representative results has to be a good thing. EDIT: It means people can vote for who they actually want to win, not who they think has a chance of winning. It would pretty much eliminate tactical and protest votes.

It might mean more hung parliaments, ruling parties having to do deals with other parties to get things done, but wouldn't the end result be policies which reflect what more people want?

[Mac76]

It might mean more hung parliaments, ruling parties having to do deals with other parties to get things done, but wouldn't the end result be policies which reflect what more people want?

yes, exactly

[Ollie the Optimist]

The last election was pretty clear, granted.
Although I'd note that it was still under 50% of people who voted for them and despite that they have a huge majority.

The 2015 election is a better example of what is wrong with the system though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_U...neral_election
The Tories got close to 37% of the vote but a majority of seats, so we have a ruling party which fewer than two fifths of people voted for.
And as you say, 13% of people voted for UKIP and they got 1 seat. One! That's 1 in 8 people who voted for a party who ended up with virtually no representation. As much as I can't abide Farage, that can't be right.

A big issue with our current system is that it encourages tactical voting and it leaves a lot of people disenfranchised. If you're in a safe seat then it doesn't really matter who you vote for. Surely any system which yields more representative results has to be a good thing. EDIT: It means people can vote for who they actually want to win, not who they think has a chance of winning. It would pretty much eliminate tactical and protest votes.

It might mean more hung parliaments, ruling parties having to do deals with other parties to get things done, but wouldn't the end result be policies which reflect what more people want?

Or more elections as no one can agree anything

On a serious note though, i do accept that point but on the other hand, if the parties were broadly all the same, they would be the same party but they aren’t hence why people vote for a range of them. The risk with PR say is that in order for labour (for example) to form a governemnt, they need the support of the SNP who say that as their price, they want an independent referendum. Many might have voted labour to stop that so does that policy reflect what those people want? Or a party might stand on a manifesto to build HS2 yet to govern they might need support of 10 greens who refuse to allow them build it etc.

Conversely on the right, for the tories to govern, UKIP could have demanded no deal after the refendum as price their support and got it through. Again, not what people would have wanted i suspect on all sides.

I dont believe that FPTP is a perfect system, there are flaws but I’m yet to be convinced by the alternatives so far. Ive seen a few on twitter arguing that things need to change because they keep losing and its not fair. That is not a winning argument. I dont think labour are losing because of the voting system but rather their leader/policies are deeply unpopular.

We did have a referendum in 2011 on a different system but i think turnout was 27% (could be wrong) so perhaps this is not hte biggest issue in voters minds. It’s a big issue on twitter naturally but as the past 8 years have taught us, what is popular on twitter is not the same in reality

[Letters]

We did have a referendum in 2011 on a different system but i think turnout was 27% (could be wrong) so perhaps this is not hte biggest issue in voters minds.

You are wrong! It was 42%, which is still pretty feeble Maybe only 27% of people voted for AV?
And while AV is demonstrably more representative, it was too complicated for many to understand.
Cameron figured he could give Clegg the referendum, knowing there was a pretty good chance it would get defeated and so it turned out.
You have made up some scenarios above so yeah, there could be issues but we have the current real issues I have outlined.
And as I've alluded to, the very fact we have the current FPTP changes the way people vote. I'd suggest that any system which means people feel they have to vote tactically or vote for the "least bad" option which they feel can win rather than who they want to vote for is inherently bad.

From what I understand Germany has been using PR fairly successfully. I'm sure they have issues, there is no perfect system, but as a country they seem to have done OK.