Electoral Reform

[cyrusr]

12 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

It's obvious that the other parties would form a coalition to stop a Tory/Reform coalition. 

I posted what COULD happen not what WOULD happen.  

Theoretically our government could be decided by Ed Davey's willingness to form a coalition with Labour. 

I don’t agree with a syatem where the Labour Party (with significantly more votes than any other party) could find itself with no ministers whilst Farage is PM and the Tories are the ministers. 

It gives the most popular party no power, which is clearly disproportionate. 

Yeah but Could is a not a great phrase and has a high level of interpretation and has wide range of probability.  

As I think has been raised with you elsewhere, it is arguable that the Tories/Labour are already coalitions of some nature anyway and an extreme wing of 1 of them has taken us down a very bad path which we could feel for decades. PR isn’t going to make matters worse in that sense. In fact I would argue that actually it will be clearer where the government will actually stand on issues. Of all those Tory seats that turned Lib Dem today, if they realised how far the Tories would go to the right, would they have voted that way in 2019? I mean it’s impossible to say, but really it could have changed the whole course of the country. 

I also address suggestions of how the previous elections and although it would have been likely we would have had the referendum, under PR we certainly would not have trodden the path we did. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

1 minute ago, cyrusr said:

Yeah but Could is a not a great phrase and has a high level of interpretation and has wide range of probability.  

As I think has been raised with you elsewhere, it is arguable that the Tories/Labour are already coalitions of some nature anyway and an extreme wing of 1 of them has taken us down a very bad path which we could feel for decades. PR isn’t going to make matters worse in that sense. In fact I would argue that actually it will be clearer where the government will actually stand on issues. Of all those Tory seats that turned Lib Dem today, if they realised how far the Tories would go to the right, would they have voted that way in 2019? I mean it’s impossible to say, but really it could have changed the whole course of the country. 

I also address suggestions of how the previous elections and although it would have been likely we would have had the referendum, under PR we certainly would not have trodden the path we did. 

It's all theoretical because people vote differently under different circumstances. 

I just don't want a system that allows Hamas UK, The Nazi Party or Lord Buckethead to have a disproportionate say in government simply because they hold the keys to power. 

I know that can happen under the current system.  But it's a rarity. 

[StefanAVFC]

2 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

 

This is the reason I don't like PR.  It gives smaller parties a disproportionate level of power.  

 

On the flip side, it holds the bigger parties properly accountable and makes it so they can't be politically toxic without consequence. See, Netherlands and Poland recently.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

13 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

On the flip side, it holds the bigger parties properly accountable and makes it so they can't be politically toxic without consequence. 

Today's results show that we already have a system that makes parties accountable and they can't be poliically toxic without consequences. 

The difference is the voters have shown the Conservatives how disgracefully they behaved. 

As I have already stated, the Conservatives could still be in power this morning under PR. 

Under PR its the politicians who tend to decide who is in power and those small extremists parties can have a massive influence.  

 

 

 

[Mr_Dogg]

5 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Today's results show that we already have a system that makes parties accountable and they can't be poliically toxic without consequences. 

The difference is the voters have shown the Conservatives how disgracefully they behaved. 

As I have already stated, the Conservatives could still be in power this morning under PR. 

Under PR its the politicians who tend to decide who is in power and those small extremists parties can have a massive influence.  

 

 

 

That happened already with the DUP. You are displaying British exceptionalism. FPTP is shite.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

5 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said:

That happened already with the DUP. You are displaying British exceptionalism. FPTP is shite.

Thanks for the post but I have no idea what it means.  Would you mind explaining what already happened with the DUP please? 

[Mr_Dogg]

Just now, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Thanks for the post but I have no idea what it means.  Would you mind explaining what already happened with the DUP please? 

The DUP backed  the minority conservative government under Therea May. They then used this to attempt to exert undue influence over Brexit negotiations.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

6 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said:

The DUP backed  the minority conservative government under Therea May. They then used this to attempt to exert undue influence over Brexit negotiations.

Ah!  I understand what you mean now. 

In a previous post I did say the FPTP does allow smaller parties to apply disproportionate influence.  It just very rare. 

The LD during the CONDEM alliance is the obvious example.  

Could you now explain British Exceptionalism and how I am displaying it please? 

 

Edited July 5 by Mandy Lifeboats
Spelling mishsteaks

[Mandy Lifeboats]

2 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

It's all theoretical because people vote differently under different circumstances. 

I just don't want a system that allows Hamas UK, The Nazi Party or Lord Buckethead to have a disproportionate say in government simply because they hold the keys to power. 

I know that can happen under the current system.  But it's a rarity. 

See above @Mr_Dogg

[viivvaa66]

I see a lot of people on here that are scared of democracy. We like to promote free and fair election around the world, but not here in UK.

Turnout dropped again to 60%, more and more people are realising that voting is a futile exercise.

Labour won a majority with 33.8% of the vote, or 20% of the electorate. 

The Labour Election Manifesto had no policies in it, it’s more like a wish list; the economy to grow, inflation to fall and so on, but not a word on how they are going to get the economy to grow or inflation to fall. The entire campaign has been based on vote Labour because we are not the Conservatives. 

[bobzy]

10 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

The Labour Election Manifesto had no policies in it, it’s more like a wish list; the economy to grow, inflation to fall and so on, but not a word on how they are going to get the economy to grow or inflation to fall. The entire campaign has been based on vote Labour because we are not the Conservatives. 

I'll take it you haven't read their manifesto?

[PaulC]

3 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

I see a lot of people on here that are scared of democracy. We like to promote free and fair election around the world, but not here in UK.

Turnout dropped again to 60%, more and more people are realising that voting is a futile exercise.

Labour won a majority with 33.8% of the vote, or 20% of the electorate. 

The Labour Election Manifesto had no policies in it, it’s more like a wish list; the economy to grow, inflation to fall and so on, but not a word on how they are going to get the economy to grow or inflation to fall. The entire campaign has been based on vote Labour because we are not the Conservatives. 

Labour have policies but whether it's wishful thinking we will have to wait and see.  I see tough times ahead. Democracy this is not. People are scared of far right politics. Used to be far left but communism is dead as an ideal. 

[Danwichmann]

3 hours ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

 

Is it right that a party with 49% of the vote could have no say in government whilst a party with 10% gets to introduce some of its policies? 

In my opinion, definitely not. 

It's no more wrong than a party with about a third of the votes getting a huge majority of seats allowing them to introduce policy not wanted by 2 thirds of voters. No system is perfect but I remain convinced that PR is much fairer and more democratic than FPTP. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

5 minutes ago, Danwichmann said:

It's no more wrong than a party with about a third of the votes getting a huge majority of seats allowing them to introduce policy not wanted by 2 thirds of voters. No system is perfect but I remain convinced that PR is much fairer and more democratic than FPTP. 

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? 

[foreveryoung]

This is hardly democracy anyway. Vote the next best party in to do what 'they' think is best for the country. It'll probably be a little better under Starmer, but still not what the country really needs.

I worry also, cause he's a bit if a pussy cat.

[viivvaa66]

6 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I'll take it you haven't read their manifesto?

Since you didn’t quote a single policy from the manifesto that would have disproven my statement, I assume you agree with my summary of the manifesto.

I don’t really care about the manifesto, my point is that FPTP now allow one of the two major parties to be elected not because of brilliant policies, but because the other party is so hated. I think that is wrong, and that is the reason UK is in this mess. I will have the same opinion when Conservatives win back the government in 10-15 years, because Labour have become so unpopular. 

[Davkaus]

To say they have no specific policies is clearly just uninformed nonsense, why would anyone else bother to list the policies out for you.

[CarryOnVilla]

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

I feel FPTP just needs rank choice voting.. so everyone can express their opinions in a measurable way. Each MP has more representation from their constituency. It makes votes for smaller parties more meaningful 

[Rolta]

8 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

Since you didn’t quote a single policy from the manifesto that would have disproven my statement, I assume you agree with my summary of the manifesto.

I don’t really care about the manifesto, my point is that FPTP now allow one of the two major parties to be elected not because of brilliant policies, but because the other party is so hated. I think that is wrong, and that is the reason UK is in this mess. I will have the same opinion when Conservatives win back the government in 10-15 years, because Labour have become so unpopular. 

The UK isn't a mess because people didn't like one party. The UK is a mess because a huge amount of the UK fell for the bullshit of a bunch of self-serving con artists who just got voted out. 

And before any comments about 'they're all the same' – they're not. To be a social democrat and campaign under that philosophy is night and day to the neoliberal, nationalist tosh we've been served up for the last 14 years. 

[bobzy]

12 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

Since you didn’t quote a single policy from the manifesto that would have disproven my statement, I assume you agree with my summary of the manifesto.

I don’t really care about the manifesto, my point is that FPTP now allow one of the two major parties to be elected not because of brilliant policies, but because the other party is so hated. I think that is wrong, and that is the reason UK is in this mess. I will have the same opinion when Conservatives win back the government in 10-15 years, because Labour have become so unpopular. 

I'll be completely honest - I was always going to vote Labour due to wanting rid of the current government, so I didn't read their manifesto.

But you can find it on the link below and it seems to explain what they plan to do - such as (as you mentioned growth):

 

"Business has for too long been hampered by a government that does not work with it. As a result, investment in the UK is too low. To address this long-standing problem Labour will use every available lever. Public investment, where it supports and de-risks additional private investment, is one important tool being used successfully across the world. It can create good jobs across the country and would mean British taxpayers can reap the benefits of economic growth. To realise these opportunities Labour will establish a National Wealth Fund.

Capitalised with £7.3 billion over the course of the next Parliament, the National Wealth Fund will have a remit to support Labour’s growth and clean energy missions, making transformative investments across every part of the country. The fund will have a target of attracting three pounds of private investment for every one pound of public investment, creating jobs across the country. We plan to allocate:

£1.8 billion to upgrade ports and build supply chains across the UK

£1.5 billion to new gigafactories so our automotive industry leads the world

£2.5 billion to rebuild our steel industry

£1 billion to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture

£500 million to support the manufacturing of green hydrogen."

(Link: https://labour.org.uk/change/kickstart-economic-growth/)

 

That seems to be fairly specific in a goal.

 

As I say, you haven't read it.