The current system disenfranchises many, while providing disproportionate power to a party with a minority of proportional support.
Would PR be perfect? No.
Would it be fairer and more democratic than the current situation? Absolutely.
This argument doesn’t come from a dislike of the government of the day, it comes from an objective view that democracy should be as representative as possible. I would hold this view regardless of which party seemed to benefit from the status quo.
As a side note, the only people I’ve ever heard to support the current system because it provides “strong, stable government” were Conservatives.
That’s not a coincidence. Even the Labour rank and file have finally realised FPTP is a rigged game.
And sold out any principles they had for a seat at the table and a government car, (ETA) Clegg lost Sheffield Hallam to O’Mara, went to work for Meta taking a knoghthood on the way out to California. They even deposed their leader Farron for stating Christian beliefs and principles and got Swinson as as a replacement. That worked out well. Then there is the late Charles Kennedy, knifed in the front by the humble crofter from the SNP and from his own party, stabbed in the back and in particular by one of the ‘spin doctors’. A very sad death alone in terrible circumstances, may he RIP.
Germany in recession, unable to control its economy because it’s a member of the euro. Has 1.5 TRILLION plus and rising in euro debt with the French on their banks bailing out Club Med states.
Not moved fast enough on vehicles, so companies like BMW are far behind the curve of China with EVs. Roads falling apart, crime getting worse and rising, rise of the AfD because of immigration and still divided on Cold War lines between east and west. A health service that struggles the same as any other in the west.
Using more and more lignite to keep the lights on due to being reliant on Russia for gas as their Russian stooges Kohl, Schroeder and Merkel sold Germany to the Kremlin. Very difficult to import LNG until recently as they had no LNG terminals, which the Poles have been building for years.
Merkel who closed down nuclear power after Fukushima in panic and to keep the greens on board. Fukushima stood close to the ‘Ring of Fire’ so was an inherent risk Germany does not stand close to the edge of tectonic plates.
Edited to add, from March this year. German public sector revolting, just like the UK one.
You mean that Germany.
If you can find it on Iplayer, watch Ed Balls (spits) travels in eurolnd, how totally failed to see why people were voting how they voted, called them in effect racists and bigots without understanding.
As a trial, subject to revocation at any time, at discretion of Mods or the Site Owner.
Play nicely with each other and any individual or party being discussed.
From the AUP:
10.1.2. (your contribution) is not defamatory
12.1 Contributions must be civil and tasteful.
12.2 No disruptive, offensive or abusive behaviour: contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble.
I’ll add for clarity:
No personal comments (against user or 3rd party)
Justify your opinion; don’t just throw a comment out there that isn’t backed up
Debate the point made, not the person making it or any individual/party referenced
No stereotyping
“Dog whistle” and underhanded reporting is common in the media; anything perceived as based on or replicating those types of inflammatory or provably disingenuous arguments may be deleted, but expect to be challenged
As much as possible, rely on facts and use trustworthy references, not emotion
Respect that other people have a different opinion and be empathetic; try to understand their view as I’m sure you want them to understand yours
Generally we steer away from in-depth political discussion, because it can cause massive disharmony, quickly.
There’ll be mod chat behind the scenes so we can form a consensus on whether this remains alive.
All I guarantee is that if it doesn’t remain civil, balanced, rooted in logic, and in line with the above it’ll be yeetus deletus.
If it’s too much hassle to mod, it goes.
If it becomes toxic, it goes.
This isn’t Facebook or Twitter. Don’t debate like that. There are no “mic drops”, “look it up”, or “FACTS” style comments here.
My argument would be for Mixed Member Proportionality, akin to the New Zealand system.
The House of Commons remains. Members are elected to their constituency via the Single Transferable Vote method. This retains the connection of MPs to their area. Additionally, I would like to see a new rule implemented that states a person must have lived in an area for at least 5 years before they can stand for election there - thus preventing parachuting MPs.
The House of Lords is merged with the House of Commons. However, Lords seats become list seats. Electors vote twice in the same election; a vote for their local MP and a vote for a party. The list seats are then used to ensure that Parliament is representative of the percentage of votes cast across the country for each party.
The above system retains local representation and full proportional representation too. However, I doubt either the Tories nor Labour would ever implement such a system, as they would be the 2 parties most likely to lose out as a consequence. It’s a real shame, as I used to live in NZ and have seen it work really well out there, producing stable governments that don’t just have a carte-blanche to make extreme changes.
Democracy is a brilliant concept, but very difficult to enact.
FPTP - will normally mean the majority of electate don’t vote for the winner.
PR - no overall majority leads to compromise
The self proclaimed “most democratic country on earth “ the USA has a system so convoluted that may have worked in the 18th century but is now overwhelmingly characterised by negative campaigning leading to a very polarised situation.
IMHO no system is perfect and to change the current method relies on those elected by it being willing to change it. The expression turkeys voting for Christmas encapsulates the dilemma.
The US system is the most open to a Coup in the world, pretty much everyone else who has had a US style republic has ended up with Colonel Smith of the Royal Logistics Corps installed as President for life.
Or impotence, you only need to look at the convoluted coalitions in some of our European friends to see how bad it can be.
It does also give parties that deserve to be marginalised a voice, people like the BNP would’ve had seats under a PR system.
Under PR we would’ve had a Coalition in 2015 between the Conservatives and UKIP, deputy PM Nigel Farage let that sink in.
With proportionate systems, no one gets the government they voted for; therefore: (1) everyone loses, and (2) manifestos lose their meaning as none will be enacted.
I voted for AV in 2011 because it fixed some of FPTPs worst flaws, without changing to a proportionate system with the issues described above or a model that was too complex to allow results on election night or early the following morning: which is an important characteristic of British elections.
Unfortunately, PR fundamentalists voted against AV. They allowed the ‘perfect’ (in their eyes) to be the enemy of the good and killed off electoral reform for a generation.
Just to be devil’s advocate. If enough U.K. voters voted for UKIP then what’s wrong with them being in a coalition? Representative of the U.K. voter, even if you don’t agree with them.
That is democracy, just some don’t like democracy when the vote is against them, just like the referendum to leave the eu, and that was the biggest expression of democracy in British history.
May in 2017 went to the country and had to rely on the DUP with a a confidence and supply agreement.
The issue for me is that you end up with the lunatic fringe holding the balance of power, the whole country held hostage to single issue or extremist parties who have the ability to bring the government down if they don’t get their own way.
The other interesting point is if you look at 2015 with PR you halve the SNP’s seats.
I’m quite interested in next year what the London Mayoral election will bring now that it’s moved from AV to FPTP.
As I stated upthread you just have top look at the chaos in countries in Europe with PR.
In regard to Scotland, both Blair and Dewer thought that they had fixed the electoral system there so that Labour would be permanently in charge, well that went well then, leaving the insanity that is the SNP in charge. In the words of William Hague at the time ‘devolution is for life not just for Christmas’. Same situation in Wales.
Wales makes me laugh a bit because their nationalists make a big deal about how many votes they get (as do the SNP, using it as a way to bash the Union), but most opinion polls have the number of people in Wales that want to bin off the Welsh assembly completely at a similar number.
Welsh and Scottish NHS have worse outcomes and frequently have to send patients into NHS England, in particular in North Wales who send patients to Liverpool and to a lesser extent Manchester. HEMS flights dealing with major life-threatening trauma go either to Liverpool or Stoke dependent to where the casualty is, as there is no major trauma unit in North Wales.
The NHS in North Wales is an absolute shambles and a near death trap and this is on-going.
Same with Police Scotland, they can’t police an Old Firm Derby without mutual aid from England, but they pretend that they can.
To the extent that last time there was a load of disorder and everyone got commendations the English forces were told that they had to wear flat caps with Tunics so it wasn’t obvious in the pictures that they weren’t Scottish Officers. (English PC’s and Sergeants wear helmets with Tunics).
Police Scotland has very real issues speaking to people who work there.
They are effectively skint, no money for training, no money for overtime, rampant misogyny and homophobia.
The article you posted, they already only run with 2 on nights, no Tasers on team (because the SNP won’t let them have them), no firearms capability on the Island, so if it goes wrong the 2 cops on duty are on their own with a short metal stick and a tin of PAVA.
At least PSNI are armed, but they have their own problems when you consider the recent attempted murder of a DCI by terrorists. During the height of the Helmand ops the army had to withdraw High Threat EOD operators to back up 321 EOD in NI, the terrorist threat was that high, just never reported in the media.
Merseyside Police has had to pull in a lot of mutual aid assistance from local forces and the NCA in the last 12 months with three very high profile murders, two scumbags sentenced to 42 and 46 years respectively and the last one just coming to court. We have even had aid from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary as well on the streets.