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Electoral Reform


MaVilla

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12 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Labour got more votes than any other party.  They are in power. 

Under PR the party with more votes than any other party could find itself in opposition. 

Which of those seems right? 

In the 1929 election the Conservatives won the majority of the votes, but Labour won the election.

in the 1959 election Labour won the majority of the votes, but Conservatives won the election.

Same  in 1974, Conservatives got more votes, but Labour won the election.

In other words FPTP should be scrapped because the party with more votes could find itself in opposition. 

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7 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

In the 1929 election the Conservatives won the majority of the votes, but Labour won the election.

in the 1959 election Labour won the majority of the votes, but Conservatives won the election.

Same  in 1974, Conservatives got more votes, but Labour won the election.

In other words FPTP should be scrapped because the party with more votes could find itself in opposition. 

And frankly, in a pr system, if you don't get a majority of votes, why *should* you be guaranteed a term in government

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10 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

And frankly, in a pr system, if you don't get a majority of votes, why *should* you be guaranteed a term in government

A legitimate government should have at least 50% of the votes behind it. 

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1 minute ago, bannedfromHandV said:

If we had PR, Reform would have many more sitting MP’s as of today.

A warning perhaps?

Yup, but if you only like democracy when the people you like get in, you might not like democracy. If they can get millions of votes, those millions of people deserve representation

I also suspect we'd see far fewer people pushed to the extremes if the political system seemed to work for people instead of against them. Obviously not all of that comes down to the electoral system, but I think it does it's part to make a lot of people feel disenfranchised, because they effectively are

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4 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

If we had PR, Reform would have many more sitting MP’s as of today.

A warning perhaps?

How do you know? Percentages wouldn't necessarily correspond.

I don't know what kind of studies have gone into applying PR to the UK, but the electoral areas would need to be reformed, it would be a big task, but it would free people from simply making a binary choice.

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47 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

The obvious fix is PR, but it would just be shitty coalition after shitty coalition 

A shitty coalition is still a lot better than the dross we have had the last 25 years. Maybe a coalition would have stopped the Iraq war or stopped the EU referendum.

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1 minute ago, viivvaa66 said:

A shitty coalition is still a lot better than the dross we have had the last 25 years. Maybe a coalition would have stopped the Iraq war or stopped the EU referendum.

Don’t think nick clegg did anything to stop the EU referendum 

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2 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

Don’t think nick clegg did anything to stop the EU referendum 

We had the referendum because the Tories won a 2015 majority and Cameron ran on that policy

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50 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

In the 1929 election the Conservatives won the majority of the votes, but Labour won the election.

in the 1959 election Labour won the majority of the votes, but Conservatives won the election.

Same  in 1974, Conservatives got more votes, but Labour won the election.

In other words FPTP should be scrapped because the party with more votes could find itself in opposition. 

Proportional representation often leads to a government that no-one voted for. 

Again, I accept this can happen under FPTP but it's a rarity.  

If I vote Labour it's because I want a Labour government.  I don’t necessarily want a Lab/Lib alliance, or a Lab/Green alliance or a Lab/Communist alliance. 

 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

We had the referendum because the Tories won a 2015 majority and Cameron ran on that policy

an utterly terrible gamble. 
 

I have my timing wrong on that one. Yet, still that coalition didn’t do anything good for the country. 

Edited by CarryOnVilla
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This thread is a great example of PR.  

I want FPTP.  I am in a minority. But if you ever want my support on another topic - I suggest you come around to my way of thinking. 

Alternatively we'll introduce a system called "First Past The Proportionately Adjusted Post" that none of us want but it's better than nothing. 

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16 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

Don’t think nick clegg did anything to stop the EU referendum 

There were no EU referendum during the coalition government between Conservatives and Lib Dem’s, the referendum happened when the Conservatives was in control alone. In other word Nick Clegg delayed the disaster with a few years. 

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15 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

an utterly terrible gamble. 
 

I have my timing wrong on that one. Yet, still that coalition didn’t do anything good for the country. 

Still the coalition didn’t harm the country as much as when Cameron was in charge alone. 

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43 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

If we had PR, Reform would have many more sitting MP’s as of today.

A warning perhaps?

FPTP suppresses actual voting even more so currently. Turnout is down because people in very safe Labour seats just didn’t vote, why bother, they'll change nothing. Reform on the other hand pretty much hit their peak because of the nature of their support.

I'm fairly confident that under PR, turnout would increase massively and Reforms vote would be naturally suppressed

Of course all that depends on which form of proportionality is chosen

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1 minute ago, viivvaa66 said:

Still the coalition didn’t harm the country as much as when Cameron was in charge alone. 

in general coalition governments not just hold up the bad, they hold up the good too. 

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8 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

so what’s everyone’s opinions of rank choice voting? 
 

as an alternative option to PR and FPTP?

a fair vote and ensures a majority party in the end 

Shite. STV is pointless in single seat constituencies. Serves no real purpose in the majority of seats

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42 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Proportional representation often leads to a government that no-one voted for. 

Again, I accept this can happen under FPTP but it's a rarity.  

If I vote Labour it's because I want a Labour government.  I don’t necessarily want a Lab/Lib alliance, or a Lab/Green alliance or a Lab/Communist alliance. 

 

 

 

Are we voting for a party or are we voting for policies?

Now we have government that 80% of the electorate didn’t vote for, I would say that is close enough to say we have a government no-one voted for. 

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