Categories
Why we will be discussing AV and electoral reform a lot more – politicalbetting.com
Why we will be discussing AV and electoral reform a lot more – politicalbetting.com
What's this?Oh, nothing, really. Just a Telegraph columnist advocating that the Tories may need to campaign for PR. pic.twitter.com/mmjpqqi5rk
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
We are stuck with FPTP barring a weird series of elections that create a hung parliament.
As some friends know, I resigned from the Conservative Party & their parliamentary candidates list. It took years to make the list without inside help, and it was never easy.
I’m lucky to have met so many decent folks who truly mean well & hope we can maintain that relationship
https://x.com/HasAhmed_/status/1804096842981888364
Why look at this comment from earlier.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/4834123#Comment_4834123
Was your going to Bantry necessary? On the strictest, Covid-regulations definition of necessity perhaps not.
But is your looking after your wife's and your own mental, physical and emotional wellbeing necessary? Yes, it absolutely is. Did your trip to Bantry help with any of that? Yes, it probably did. So was it necessary? Yes, in a way it was.
This is the problem, by the end of Covid only doing what was "necessary" a lot of people's mental health was deeply damaged. I know mine was too. Because so many non-necessities are actually necessary for a well-rounded, healthy life. Mentally and physically, we need those connections.
They may be lower down (or higher up, depending upon viewpoint) the hierarchy of needs than the barest of necessities such as food and shelter, but they're still there.
Don't underestimate the importance of mental health.
Proportionality is not fairer than every locale having a single representative of their choosing.
That Labour might have so many MPs and other parties do not will be the choice of the voters, and the consequences of the respective parties actions/inactions accordingly.
But Labour beware - what FPTP gives, it can also take away, if they piss off the electorate like the Tories have.
Democracy works. FPTP is perfectly democratic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/376594.stm
The emphasis is always on the perceived unfairness to political parties by looking at national vote shares and seat counts, but I think an aspect of unfairness that might be more convincing to voters would be a large increase in constituencies that were won with very low shares of the vote. If your MP was elected with less than a third of the vote, do they really represent it, even if 29% was a plurality?
You can get a disproportionate national outcome where the vast majority of seats are won by a candidate with more than 40% of the vote, and that doesn't look that problematic to a voter when considering their seat. But a candidate winning on barely a quarter of the vote? That might offend more people's natural sense of justice.
When he used to write a column for my Wardman Wire blog, he had a fun game he played with Iain Dale for quite a long time, when Iain Dale's Diary was generally Top Political Blog.
He would put a piece on Lib Dem Voice baiting Iain Dale or debunking provocatively an Iain Dale blog piece. Then Iain Dale would write a short piece saying "Mark Park has done this ..." or "Over on LDV they have said *this* ... Bah Humbug".
Iain Dale's blog being the more authoritative of the two, that link would help place the LDV piece in Google Results at that time above the Iain Dale piece for searches done by the more general Google audience - which was the one Dr Pack wished to read LDV not Iain Dale.
Quite basic blog strategy, but fun.
(Schrodinger's Cat deleted your puppy.)
AV Referendum 2011:
No2AV 68%
Yes2AV 32%
Minor note: Starmer won an outright majority on the first round, so the benefits of AV are rather moot in his case.
I don't get this sentence at the end of the Header!
In NZ, Italy and Israel and Sweden there are now right of centre coalition governments in power in PR systems so the argument it would always lead to Labour led governments doesn't work. It would also ensure the SNP couldn't win a majority of Scottish seats as TSE says on less than half the vote and also it would avoid Labour landslides on less than 45% of the vote as we will likely get now.
It would also mean no more Tory landslides and fewer majority governments of one party but that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing if it leads to more consensus and higher turnout as all votes count. I would prefer the German style system though with FPTP constituencies and PR top up lists so a constituency link is retained for some MPs
Is FPTP unfair - sure it is.
Has it even bothered him before, under the Tory 'dictatorship' ?
That would place the next AV referendum in 2043. The Scottish IndyRef was in October 2014, so we can pencil in another for early 2047...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_MPs_by_seniority_(2019–2024)
Very few vetrans of 1997 there, and not many of the long exile 1997-2010.
Tim Stanley was a schoolboy when Blair's new dawn broke.
Those currently in charge in the Conservatives (and more, importantly, those likely to end up in charge soon) don't have a clue what is about to hit them.
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
There is always a Yes, Minister quote.
They don't have enough votes.
- "Since recommendations from an independent commission investigating alternatives to first-past-the-post voting could not be implemented before the next election, there was a case for postponing a referendum"
- "Home Secretary Jack Straw has also announced that he was commissioning a survey which could discover if the record low turnout in the Euro-election was due to the new PR voting system which was used"
But if it really bothers you, let's make it STV.
We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system.
@SunPolitics
Vote Labour and Keir will never leave No.10, Rishi Sunak blasts
https://x.com/SunPolitics/status/1804145207291654314
If the result of this election is, in terms of votes: Labour, Reform, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green, SNP
and in terms of seats: Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, SNP, Green, Reform, then that seems to me a far worse problem than Labour getting 65% of the MPs on 45% of the vote.
While that result is probably a pathologically worst case scenario, the chances that the Lib Dems get more MPs and fewer votes than Reform have to be close to 100%. The Greens and Reform have similar chances of similar numbers of MPs, though Reform are getting about three times as many votes according to the polls.
The chance of any of those ways both getting enough public support and then a new government elected by FPTP to change the system are beyond slim.
I'll always vote for fairer voting when offered the chance but it is a waste of time and energy to campaign for it imo.
However, politics is far more local in Ireland than in Britain, to an often farcical degree, but it does demonstrate that if the voters value local representation, they can get it by voting for it under STV.
If used in a similar way in Britain, Epping Forest might conceivably end up as part of a West Essex constituency electing four MPs, containing the current seats of Epping Forest, Harlow, Brentwood & Ongar, and North West Essex. If there was particular antipathy between the voters of Saffron Walden and Brentwood, at opposite ends of such a constituency, they'd likely be able to elect their own local champions, if West Essex was too big for them.
Would that be enough of a constituency link for you?
Britain is finished etc etc...
We should be, and are, transitioning to adopting clean technologies to ensure the world is better for our descendents.
The boring truth is we're doing the right thing already.
It takes time to implement technological changes. But TINA applies.
There is no reason whatsoever for anyone today to sacrifice their economic, physical or mental wellbeing on the grounds of future generations - the only thing that makes a difference to the future is a simple binary choice - do we transition to clean technologies or not?
If we do transition to clean technologies, then you can have as much clean transport or clean consumption as you want.
If we don't transition to clean technologies, then the world is f***ed.
Consuming marginally less, moving marginally less, makes all the difference as pissing into the ocean or farting into the wind.
Electoral reform - get me started !!
The argument for PR at local level is now irrefutable. We need to allow for Independents to stand and that's the potential issue - the question is whether we retain the current Ward structure or whether we just have a single vote for a whole authority.
At Westminster I've wavered a little over the years but this election and the (hopeful) result will put the final nail through the coffin of FPTP. There are all sorts of systems out there including MMP in New Zealand if you want to retain the traditional Party structure but provide proportionality for smaller parties (5% threshold?).
We could go straight to STV - you would rapidly move to two "blocs" of parties with other parties existing outside but occasionally supporting them. It wouldn't the end of "democracy" but it would change the current system where millions of votes are counted but don't count to the final result.
AV wouldn't the answer - if you think it is, you don't understand the question.
From what I can see there's a mixed record for it being changed. India and US* haven't, Australia and Ireland have, for example. So it's clearly doable.
*I don't consider US a good example of how to/how not to change anything cause of their fetishisation of their constitution
Ranked choice of several available PR systems, plus AV, plus FPTP. Then perhaps the PR purists would still have given AV a secondary vote.
California Dreamer in the 2:30 at Ascot came 5th.
Better to suggest a plan as part of the 2028 manifesto and avoid a referendum...
In contrast, a simple majority vote in Parliament can do it here (though occasionally generates the odd complaint).
During the past eight years we';v seen efforts to making voting more difficult for young people, altered the size of constituencies on a basis which assists the Conservatives and enfranchised overseas voters who, it was thought, would be more likely to vote the 'Right' way. We've also seen attacks on Parliament when it refused to do what the (Conservative) Government wanted.
Edit: and of course the change of system for the Mayoral and PCC elections!
Scotland uses AMS system - Wales also did previously and will now switch to a PR system in 2026.
NI uses STV as does Scottish Council elections.
PCC used to use ATV.
Plenty of real life examples to consider - plenty of pros and cons to think about. All of them more representative than FPTP.
All Rishi Sunak has left is fear - all his other "ideas" have run into the sand.
He can now choose to lose gracefully as Sir John Major or disgracefully. As to what happens to the Conservative Party after July 5th, so much will depend on the breadth and depth of the defeat.
David Harlow
Are any of them gambling charities? Just asking because it seems like a few of your soon to be ex-colleagues could do with a referral.
I am opposed to PR not because 'I have played by the rules and won by the rules' but because PR gives disproportionate power to minority and fringe interest groups. The tail can all too easily end up wagging the dog. And in today’s world that’s the last thing we need.
I’d rather have FPTP which favours centrism. It's the lesser of evils.
Anyway, it’s moot. The Right can bleat all they like but to be taken credibly they should have campaigned for it just after their last victory, not when they are about to lose.
They have no one to blame but themselves. Not the system. Not Labour. Themselves.
STV would lead to a Lab-Lib coalition on current vote shares, but Green would almost certainly take votes off both under that system so might end up in government too.
It seems that there is a tipping point around 35% where Labour go from also run to massive majority, maybe I have a dark green sense of humour but I laughed.
I thought ho ho. If they don’t like this electoral tipping point wait till they see the effects of the Atlantic Meridonal Overturning Current being stopped by the Greenland ice sheet melting.
Only a small chance in our lifetimes. Not to worry.
CNN News Central
@NewsCentralCNN
"I believe this will be the highest debate audience that we've ever had...this will be the most important day of the entire election campaign."
Ahead of next week's presidential debate on CNN,
@FrankLuntz & @Boris_Sanchez discuss what's at stake for the candidates.
https://x.com/NewsCentralCNN/status/1803538551046353184
In Newham, Labour won 61% of the vote and 64 of the 66 seats. The Greens got 16.5% and 2 seats. The 14% who voted Conservative got nothing as did the 8.5% who voted for the other parties.
I'm not disputing the fact Labour won a majority of the vote and therefore a majority of the seats but if you apply the 5% threshold for votes, you can argue Labour should have 44 under a proportional system, the Greens 12 and the Conservatives ten.
PR would therefore allow for the election of 10 Conservatives and a Conservative voice on the Council, albeit a minority but still a voice. The current system means Conservative voters have no voice.
That's not right and I think piloting STV in local elections might be a good start but with safeguards for local Independents.
That too. But it wouldn't be so hard to get that consensus for change if they didn't have such a hard on for it (and the founding fathers).
The trend seems to be for alliances to emerge on the right or left, but not across the moderate centre and on the right for domination of those alliances to drift further right.
I used to be in favour of PR but I fear that the reality in the UK would be a shift from historically a broad church Conservative party moderating or excluding far right elements, to a centre-right alliance of Lib Dem/Con/Reform increasingly dominated by Reform (or other far right party) over time. As it has been elsewhere.
It would give centre-right parties more of a chance in urban areas, and left-wing parties more of a chance in rural areas, encouraging both to broaden their appeal.
So it's a bit messier then I made out, but it's not like they switched in 1952 after a few decades.
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?