There is nothing unfair about Labour getting 75% of MPs if it wins 75% of constituencies under FPTP.
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.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
I voted for AV because, proportional or not, it would have meant a simple extension to STV at a later stage.
I do not expect to get STV in my lifetime (I will see one more general election, if I am lucky). Pity, because as a voter, not a partisan, STV would be my choice.
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Graded preference is clearly not the same as proportional representation. I thought you were someone who didn't like snark; I'm disappointed that you're resorting to it yourself.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
From last night's Popbitch
Poll/Positions
When the Sun goes down
There's a lot of internal consternation at the Times as editor Tony Gallagher is planning to have the paper endorse the Conservatives. This, despite fortnightly surveys of their readers making it clear as far back as 18 months ago that the overwhelming majority of them intend to vote Labour this time around.
Then again, Tony has never really seen eye-to-eye with his readers.
Back when he was editor of The Sun, the paper ran a survey about its readers' sex lives. In among the results, one curious bit of information that cropped up was that Sun readers claimed the time they were most likely to have sex was 7:30pm.
When this finding was presented to him, Tony's response was: "What? But it's not even dark then..."
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
I don't have a problem with PR. It would ensure an independent Tory party on even 10-15% of the vote would still win 65-100 seats for example whereas under FPTP it wouldn't win any seats at all.
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
Do you think there's a stronger argument for PR at local level?
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.
Yes I would back PR at local level, though again on a top up basis with bigger FPTP 3 councillor wards
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Sigh.
You're one of the worst individuals for assigning people you disagree with to a group identity, and then arguing against that group identity, rather than the point made by the individual in discussion with you.
Online is already a difficult medium for having complex and contentious discussions, but that's the sort of approach that makes it really easy to ignite into a raging firestorm. Please try to stop.
SV is marginally better than FPTP, because it allows people to give a second preference. That makes it a preferential voting system, not a proportional one. Preferential systems have different advantages and disadvantages to proportional ones, and one of the beauties of STV is that it is a preferential and a proportional system all in one.
Personally I am happy to vote in favour of any incremental improvement to the voting system, which is why I voted for AV, despite it not being a proportional system, or as good as my preferred system.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
I’m thinking the Sun and the Times will say that they accept Labour will win but they are concerned about Labour’s tax plans etc and so whilst they are not suggesting the Tories should remain in charge it’s important to vote Tory and not to vote reform in order to ensure a robust opposition to Labour.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
I’m thinking the Sun and the Times will say that they accept Labour will win but they are concerned about Labour’s tax plans etc and so whilst they are not suggesting the Tories should remain in charge it’s important to vote Tory and not to vote reform in order to ensure a robust opposition to Labour.
The Times will say that, the Sun however likely has far more Reform voters amongst its readers than the Times and Murdoch will therefore probably hedge his bets. The Times will back the Tories, the Sun will back Labour but with strong positive words for Farage
Everyone saying it's impossible for FPTP to be changed, how did other countries manage it?
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
Ireland have used STV since the beginning. When you have a war of independence it tends to encourage a bit of utopian thinking when writing a new constitution. It's a bit harder to make the change to an established system.
STV in Ireland was imposed by the BRITISH administration, as means of attempting to blunt the domination of most Irish constituencies by Sinn Fein under FPTP.
However, the Irish in the Free State then the Republic have retained STV ever since; up North the Unionists ditched it ASAP for FPTP, in order to lock in their dominance, along with gerrymandering & other sharp practice(s).
O/T - or perhaps not, as it is about the Scots Parliament, and it's Friday teatime. Interesting blog on pieces of the old Pmt building and a wider project of what that part of Edinburgh used to look like. Specially for @DavidL too.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
Labour 43%, Con 22%, Reform 13%, Lib Dem 8%, Green 7%.
They seem to be producing some extraordinarily good constituency polls for the greens. Both the NS and YG MRPs pick up a touch of the "We think" green surge but it's considerably larger to the point of winning the seat in their constituency polls.
The idea AV would produce a significantly different outcome is for the birds I think.
AV would probably lead to an even bigger Tory defeat. It hard-codes tactical voting in, in the sense that a voter can list all the options they prefer to X before them, in order to keep them out. No split 'progressive' votes any more. Even Reform voters wouldn't be that likely to give the Tory their second (or later) preference, with surveys (when they had a smaller share, admittedly, showing a lot wouldn't vote for anyone in the absence of Reform, and the rest scatter all over, with the Tories taking only a bare plurality).
The idea AV would produce a significantly different outcome is for the birds I think.
I think we’d get a slightly different result under multi member STV which would be my first choice.
We'd definitely get a different result. Instead of it being announced on Friday morning, we'd have to wait until the middle of the following week.
Imagine the difference electronic voting would make.
22:01 Result 22:10 End of speeches 22:20 Everyone to the pub 06:00 Talking heads still talking
Instead of a recount, candidates could appeal for a full revote. It would be a risky move because voters could punish them for it, but it would allow for buyer's remorse to be corrected.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
I’m thinking the Sun and the Times will say that they accept Labour will win but they are concerned about Labour’s tax plans etc and so whilst they are not suggesting the Tories should remain in charge it’s important to vote Tory and not to vote reform in order to ensure a robust opposition to Labour.
The Times will say that, the Sun however likely has far more Reform voters amongst its readers than the Times and Murdoch will therefore probably hedge his bets. The Times will back the Tories, the Sun will back Labour but with strong positive words for Farage
Would be a feather in the cap for Starmer, if he could win without the backing of the Murdoch press, something Blair can't claim, although obviously newspaper sales are well down on 1997
There is nothing unfair about Labour getting 75% of MPs if it wins 75% of constituencies under FPTP.
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.
It's not the choice of the voters. The voters don't get to say Labour should win 75% of MPs. They just get to pick their local MP and through a system that has obvious problems (the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition in particular, which is what f***s up the Tories at present).
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
Cheers for that. Any idea about the other papers? FT, Independent, Economist etc?
It just feels quiet at the moment, like the media are hedging their bets
There’s probably a lot to be said for an editor to not endorse anyone this time round. We all know Labour will win but if they screw up none of their readers can point at the editor and say “you backed these roasters and now look at things”. No real benefit in pinning on a rosette.
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Sigh.
You're one of the worst individuals for assigning people you disagree with to a group identity, and then arguing against that group identity, rather than the point made by the individual in discussion with you.
Online is already a difficult medium for having complex and contentious discussions, but that's the sort of approach that makes it really easy to ignite into a raging firestorm. Please try to stop.
SV is marginally better than FPTP, because it allows people to give a second preference. That makes it a preferential voting system, not a proportional one. Preferential systems have different advantages and disadvantages to proportional ones, and one of the beauties of STV is that it is a preferential and a proportional system all in one.
Personally I am happy to vote in favour of any incremental improvement to the voting system, which is why I voted for AV, despite it not being a proportional system, or as good as my preferred system.
What was your point again?
STV is my favoured system. ISTR FPTP is second above AV, but I can't now think of a good reason why that should be the case. Any systemof party lists like d'hondt comes bottom, though it's not without its advantages.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
I’m thinking the Sun and the Times will say that they accept Labour will win but they are concerned about Labour’s tax plans etc and so whilst they are not suggesting the Tories should remain in charge it’s important to vote Tory and not to vote reform in order to ensure a robust opposition to Labour.
The Times will say that, the Sun however likely has far more Reform voters amongst its readers than the Times and Murdoch will therefore probably hedge his bets. The Times will back the Tories, the Sun will back Labour but with strong positive words for Farage
What's going to stick in Murdoch's throat more?
Backing a loser or backing Starmer? They're both pretty ghastly prospects.
If I were involved in The Sun, I'd be really tempted to run a big celebrity trivia exclusive on July 4.
OT, I think I was, like TSE, one of the few Tories (yep I used to be one back then) that voted in favour of AV. It seems obvious to me that it is a far better system than FPTP. The reality is that the Conservative Party had the opportunity to do electoral reform and flunked it. Now Labour will do it, and like their gerrymandering of devolution (which went slightly wrong for them), they will try to make sure it favours them and them alone.
I'm not categorising you as a Conservative, Mr F, although I suppose it's arguable that one can, noways, differentiate between Conservatives and Tories, but I think the current Government and it's supporters have a nerve when they complain about possible Labour gerrymandering. 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!
I don't disagree with your criticism of Tory misdemeanours Mr C, but it pales when compared to the blatant gerrymandering of devolution. Devolution as an idea was good IMO, but it was clearly designed to favour Labour (and as @Carnyx mentioned the Libs too) in perpetuity. The fact that it backfired for a while does not make it forgivable. IMO any constitutional change needs to be subjected to genuine and balanced scrutiny by a cross party independent constitutional panel. Problem of course is how you ensure that lack of bias.
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
No. The Supplementary Vote is not a proportional system. An election for a single mayor can never be proportional.
Supplementary Vote is an ordinal system, and ordinality is a good thing and something associated with electoral reform, but it is different to proportionality. You can have ordinal systems that are not proportional (AV, SV) and proportional systems that are not ordinal (closed list systems).
Obviously, the best system is proportional and ordinal, so something like STV or open lists.
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Can anyone confirm who Murdochs papers are backing in this election, a couple of weeks ago someone said on here that they were backing Labour, since then I have not seen any concrete proof, I'm sure at this stage of the campaign in 1997, they were full square behind Blair
I was wondering the same thing. The Sun and the Times still seem pretty hostile to Labour so far
Popbitch this week said the Times will back the Sunak Tories, the Sun however is not yet confirmed either way.
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
I’m thinking the Sun and the Times will say that they accept Labour will win but they are concerned about Labour’s tax plans etc and so whilst they are not suggesting the Tories should remain in charge it’s important to vote Tory and not to vote reform in order to ensure a robust opposition to Labour.
I had a conversation at the pub with a Tory activist I bumped into last night. He spent a while going on about what a waste of space Sunak is, how the Tories had made a total hash of the past few years, how dire it was on the doorsteps, and how broadly deserved that was.
I said to him, "You don't sound as if you want to win. Do you actually want five more years?" There was a very long pause and he then said that he did as he was terrified Labour would "crash the economy" and they at least needed enough Tories to act as a brake (something he didn't believe the Lib Dems and others could do).
My fear for the Tories is that's such a hard message to sell. As soon as you sound as if you don't want it any more, you simply won't get it - it's the stench of decay and death, and people don't want to be associated with it. By the time you get to, "but it's important we can scrutinise legislation on the agriculture sub-committee..." everyone has already turned off.
There's a sharp contrast with Davey. Everyone knows he's not going to be PM but at least he seems to want people's vote, is actively enjoying the whole thing, and conveys messages about the sort of things he'd want to push on like water quality and social care. That's not to say there will be crossover - my view is the hill is far too steep. But he's got something for the activists to sell (as has Farage, even if it's not to my taste at all).
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Graded preference is clearly not the same as proportional representation. I thought you were someone who didn't like snark; I'm disappointed that you're resorting to it yourself.
I don’t care for snide but what was snarky in my comment? I can’t see anything at all. Perhaps it was lost in internet comms - often a problem in online debates.
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
Well said. And nor, I would argue, can you have FPTP - we had an entertaining argument on here some months back about what FPTP means. It was convincingly suggested that technically the system for electing the London mayor is Single Member Plurality Vote (I think). This is also the method for electing constituency MPs. My view is that the 'post' in FPTP is 325 MPs - the first party to achieve that forms the government. Though typically of this place, others had forcefully different views!
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
I don't remember such concerns when the Conservatives were heading toward a landslide in 1983 or 1987 or 2019.
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.
That nice chap Jacob in the Viking helmet who toured the US Capitol on Jan 6th is available on day rates plus a very reasonable retainer, I've heard.
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
Telegraph writers are in the main having a collective nervous breakdown over the coming loss.
Britain is finished etc etc...
They are
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.
PR gives proportional power to the minority and fringe interest groups.
One of the pernicious fictions about PR is you have to work with a party on the same side of the centre line and not reach across it.
In a hypothetical future result where neither the Conservatives nor Labour can form a coalition of the right or left without involving people they simply can't stand, they can always work with each other.
In truth there's already considerable overlap with the two parties and there are plenty of outgoing MPs who could exist quite comfortably in either of them. There's no reason to privilege the right of the Tories or the left of Labour. It's just as legitimate for the left of the Tories and the right of Labour to reach out to each other as it is to bring Reform or the Greens into the mix.
Labour 43%, Con 22%, Reform 13%, Lib Dem 8%, Green 7%.
Changes from one week ago:
Lab = Con +2 Ref -1 LD -3 Green +1
Changes seem quite different to majority of other polls.
Though arguably largely MOE.
Not so much for the LibDems.
Maybe Davey's fannying around is wooing the media, but leaving the voters thinking "prat...."
Maybe the attention was good for their VI but now the football's really gotten going, it's not working. Such was the sage prediction of at least one person on here a few weeks ago, no names mentioned.
This is good news, given the potency of methane as a greenhouse gas, and the large number of ill-managed US wells, with fragmented ownership. About the most cost effective short term spending to address climate change that there is.
ALSO, didn’t the Conservatives do away with PR for the London mayorality?
They dumped the Supplementary Vote system and moved it to FPTP.
Was Tim Stanley complaining then?
You can't have PR for the election of a single individual.
That doesn’t address my point and it’s also not true. The previous supplementary vote system was a form of PR. It allowed voters to express their own proportional preferences.
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Sigh.
Personally I am happy to vote in favour of any incremental improvement to the voting system, which is why I voted for AV, despite it not being a proportional system, or as good as my preferred system.
What was your point again?
Leaving aside the completely unnecessary Ad Hominem (literally do not know what the heck that was about) …
1. The Conservatives who are suddenly moaning about this unfair voting system did not complain in 2022 when they deliberately fiddled with the London mayorality voting to First Past the Post - something less fair than the existing supplementary voting system.
2. We were given the chance to move to AV and we crushingly rejected it. Just 13 years ago. In a vote which actually named FPTP. We rejected AV in favour of retaining FPTP
3. My more general point, apart from the utter cant from tories about this, is that PR can give undue power to minority fringe groups leading to the tail wagging the dog.
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
I don't remember such concerns when the Conservatives were heading toward a landslide in 1983 or 1987 or 2019.
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.
That nice chap Jacob in the Viking helmet who toured the US Capitol on Jan 6th is available on day rates plus a very reasonable retainer, I've heard.
Isn't he banged up ? Or do you mean Rees Mogg... ????
Blindingly obvious thing is reform HoL which needs doing anyway and play around with alternative electoral systems for its replacement if we are having one. If that's a success change the commons to match.
Everyone saying it's impossible for FPTP to be changed, how did other countries manage it?
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
Ireland have used STV since the beginning. When you have a war of independence it tends to encourage a bit of utopian thinking when writing a new constitution. It's a bit harder to make the change to an established system.
STV in Ireland was imposed by the BRITISH administration, as means of attempting to blunt the domination of most Irish constituencies by Sinn Fein under FPTP.
However, the Irish in the Free State then the Republic have retained STV ever since; up North the Unionists ditched it ASAP for FPTP, in order to lock in their dominance, along with gerrymandering & other sharp practice(s).
I don't think that's right? The last pre-independence general election in Ireland, in 1918, was on FPTP.
But the UK had already been using STV for parliamentary elections, in some university seats (one of which was Dublin).
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
Telegraph writers are in the main having a collective nervous breakdown over the coming loss.
Britain is finished etc etc...
They are
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.
PR gives proportional power to the minority and fringe interest groups.
One of the pernicious fictions about PR is you have to work with a party on the same side of the centre line and not reach across it.
In a hypothetical future result where neither the Conservatives nor Labour can form a coalition of the right or left without involving people they simply can't stand, they can always work with each other.
In truth there's already considerable overlap with the two parties and there are plenty of outgoing MPs who could exist quite comfortably in either of them. There's no reason to privilege the right of the Tories or the left of Labour. It's just as legitimate for the left of the Tories and the right of Labour to reach out to each other as it is to bring Reform or the Greens into the mix.
There is also - as you can see even in some of this week's US Supreme Court decisions - usually some agreement that cuts across the political spectrum on particular policies.
Such legislative cooperation is far more likely with a PR system, than under the dead hands of two party hegemony.
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
I don't remember such concerns when the Conservatives were heading toward a landslide in 1983 or 1987 or 2019.
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.
That nice chap Jacob in the Viking helmet who toured the US Capitol on Jan 6th is available on day rates plus a very reasonable retainer, I've heard.
Isn't he banged up ?
He was released after 27 months and tentatively ran for Congress
The Electoral Commission has published donations for the second week of the election campaign - with Labour bringing in over £4million and the Tories just short of £300k...
Labour's biggest donations in the period came from former supermarket boss Lord David Sainsbury (£2.5million) and Autoglass's Gary Lubner (£900k).
Blindingly obvious thing is reform HoL which needs doing anyway and play around with alternative electoral systems for its replacement if we are having one. If that's a success change the commons to match.
I like the idea of replacing the HoL with a (series of) citizens assemblies on important stuff. That way you get representation from all parts of the political spectrum but their ideas have to stand up to the scrutiny of real people, not filtered through favourable media outlets.
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
I don't remember such concerns when the Conservatives were heading toward a landslide in 1983 or 1987 or 2019.
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.
That nice chap Jacob in the Viking helmet who toured the US Capitol on Jan 6th is available on day rates plus a very reasonable retainer, I've heard.
Isn't he banged up ?
He was released after 27 months and is tentatively ran for Congress
The idea AV would produce a significantly different outcome is for the birds I think.
I think we’d get a slightly different result under multi member STV which would be my first choice.
We'd definitely get a different result. Instead of it being announced on Friday morning, we'd have to wait until the middle of the following week.
Imagine the difference electronic voting would make.
22:01 Result 22:10 End of speeches 22:20 Everyone to the pub 06:00 Talking heads still talking
2025-35 numerous Returning Officers jailed for electoral fraud, 2040-45 inquiry as to who in the electoral commission knew what when about backdoors into the Fujitsu voting software.
The Electoral Commission has published donations for the second week of the election campaign - with Labour bringing in over £4million and the Tories just short of £300k...
Labour's biggest donations in the period came from former supermarket boss Lord David Sainsbury (£2.5million) and Autoglass's Gary Lubner (£900k).
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
Telegraph writers are in the main having a collective nervous breakdown over the coming loss.
Britain is finished etc etc...
They are
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.
PR gives proportional power to the minority and fringe interest groups.
One of the pernicious fictions about PR is you have to work with a party on the same side of the centre line and not reach across it.
In a hypothetical future result where neither the Conservatives nor Labour can form a coalition of the right or left without involving people they simply can't stand, they can always work with each other.
In truth there's already considerable overlap with the two parties and there are plenty of outgoing MPs who could exist quite comfortably in either of them. There's no reason to privilege the right of the Tories or the left of Labour. It's just as legitimate for the left of the Tories and the right of Labour to reach out to each other as it is to bring Reform or the Greens into the mix.
There is also - as you can see even in some of this week's US Supreme Court decisions - usually some agreement that cuts across the political spectrum on particular policies.
Such legislative cooperation is far more likely with a PR system, than under the dead hands of two party hegemony.
Very true. I do have sympathy with @Heathener's point, and the motivation behind it. But I think anybody looking at the post-2015 state of British politics ought to reflect on whether FPTP really has kept the nutters at bay. In recent years you've simultaneously had some very dodgy people in both the cabinet and the shadow cabinet, and even the sensible people have been forced to dance to the tunes of the fringe.
FPTP doesn't even succeed on its own terms
Entryism is a scourge. And with sensible people talking in all seriousness of a Reform takeover of the Tories (I don't buy it, but others do) you have to ask yourself whether people are actually paying full attention when they defend FPTP.
3. My more general point, apart from the utter cant from tories about this, is that PR can give undue power to minority fringe groups leading to the tail wagging the dog.
Do you have examples of where this has happened?
I've been travelling to Ireland quite often since meeting my wife in 2007, and have talked to her about Irish politics, and it isn't a description that fits the experience of small parties in Ireland.
To give just one example, the Green Party are the third party in a three-party coalition government at present in Ireland. So weak is their influence over policy that they couldn't even manage to achieve a ban on turf-cutting, probably the most damaging activity to the environment that it is possible to imagine.
Consequently they will likely be obliterated at the next general election. Just as they were the last time they were in government.
Everyone saying it's impossible for FPTP to be changed, how did other countries manage it?
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
Ireland have used STV since the beginning. When you have a war of independence it tends to encourage a bit of utopian thinking when writing a new constitution. It's a bit harder to make the change to an established system.
STV in Ireland was imposed by the BRITISH administration, as means of attempting to blunt the domination of most Irish constituencies by Sinn Fein under FPTP.
However, the Irish in the Free State then the Republic have retained STV ever since; up North the Unionists ditched it ASAP for FPTP, in order to lock in their dominance, along with gerrymandering & other sharp practice(s).
I don't think that's right? The last pre-independence general election in Ireland, in 1918, was on FPTP.
But the UK had already been using STV for parliamentary elections, in some university seats (one of which was Dublin).
The second Dail was elected during the war of independence. It was the election to the Southern Ireland House of Commons, created by the Government of Ireland Act, and used STV as supported by the British government. But SF stood unopposed in the vast majority of constituencies, so the voting system was moot.
Everyone saying it's impossible for FPTP to be changed, how did other countries manage it?
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
Ireland have used STV since the beginning. When you have a war of independence it tends to encourage a bit of utopian thinking when writing a new constitution. It's a bit harder to make the change to an established system.
STV in Ireland was imposed by the BRITISH administration, as means of attempting to blunt the domination of most Irish constituencies by Sinn Fein under FPTP.
However, the Irish in the Free State then the Republic have retained STV ever since; up North the Unionists ditched it ASAP for FPTP, in order to lock in their dominance, along with gerrymandering & other sharp practice(s).
I don't think that's right? The last pre-independence general election in Ireland, in 1918, was on FPTP.
But the UK had already been using STV for parliamentary elections, in some university seats (one of which was Dublin).
The Electoral Commission has published donations for the second week of the election campaign - with Labour bringing in over £4million and the Tories just short of £300k...
Labour's biggest donations in the period came from former supermarket boss Lord David Sainsbury (£2.5million) and Autoglass's Gary Lubner (£900k).
One reason that wars speed up technological progress is the “say no to everything” attitude gets steamrollered.
See in COVID where a determined and multi-pronged attempt was made to stop the data dashboard being created. And note how, after COVID, the team that did the dashboard had a few honours chucked at them.
And then were rapidly disbanded.
Because ministers (and others) were asking about applying the same principles of open data to other departments.
3. My more general point, apart from the utter cant from tories about this, is that PR can give undue power to minority fringe groups leading to the tail wagging the dog.
Do you have examples of where this has happened?
I've been travelling to Ireland quite often since meeting my wife in 2007, and have talked to her about Irish politics, and it isn't a description that fits the experience of small parties in Ireland.
To give just one example, the Green Party are the third party in a three-party coalition government at present in Ireland. So weak is their influence over policy that they couldn't even manage to achieve a ban on turf-cutting, probably the most damaging activity to the environment that it is possible to imagine.
Consequently they will likely be obliterated at the next general election. Just as they were the last time they were in government.
Looks like the most back breaking activity imaginable too.
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
I don't remember such concerns when the Conservatives were heading toward a landslide in 1983 or 1987 or 2019.
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.
That nice chap Jacob in the Viking helmet who toured the US Capitol on Jan 6th is available on day rates plus a very reasonable retainer, I've heard.
Isn't he banged up ?
He was released after 27 months and is tentatively ran for Congress
3. My more general point, apart from the utter cant from tories about this, is that PR can give undue power to minority fringe groups leading to the tail wagging the dog.
Which is exactly what we have now.
These minority fringe groups are within the "mainstream" parties. The European Research Group. The Covid Recovery Group. The New Conservatives. Momentum. Countless more.
Under FPTP, every party is an internal coalition of fringe groups. The tail still wags the dog. But as a voter, you don't have a chance to influence that.
PR means less influence for the extreme fringes, not more. You can't have a One Nation-LibDem-Cooperative coalition under FPTP.
Everyone saying it's impossible for FPTP to be changed, how did other countries manage it?
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
Ireland have used STV since the beginning. When you have a war of independence it tends to encourage a bit of utopian thinking when writing a new constitution. It's a bit harder to make the change to an established system.
STV in Ireland was imposed by the BRITISH administration, as means of attempting to blunt the domination of most Irish constituencies by Sinn Fein under FPTP.
However, the Irish in the Free State then the Republic have retained STV ever since; up North the Unionists ditched it ASAP for FPTP, in order to lock in their dominance, along with gerrymandering & other sharp practice(s).
I don't think that's right? The last pre-independence general election in Ireland, in 1918, was on FPTP.
But the UK had already been using STV for parliamentary elections, in some university seats (one of which was Dublin).
Anglo Irish Treaty was signed December 1921, took effect December 1922.
In November 1920, the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920. This partitioned Ireland into two distinct polities, each with their own Home Rule Parliament: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Both parliaments would be composed of a directly-elected House of Commons and an indirectly-elected Senate, with both lower chambers being elected by the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation.
Blindingly obvious thing is reform HoL which needs doing anyway and play around with alternative electoral systems for its replacement if we are having one. If that's a success change the commons to match.
I like the idea of replacing the HoL with a (series of) citizens assemblies on important stuff. That way you get representation from all parts of the political spectrum but their ideas have to stand up to the scrutiny of real people, not filtered through favourable media outlets.
I don't like Citizens' Assemblies.
IMO they give far too much weight to the 'appointed experts' advising.
"Labour's coming dictatorship" LOL. It's like some of these people have never lost an election.
I don't remember such concerns when the Conservatives were heading toward a landslide in 1983 or 1987 or 2019.
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.
That nice chap Jacob in the Viking helmet who toured the US Capitol on Jan 6th is available on day rates plus a very reasonable retainer, I've heard.
Isn't he banged up ?
He was released after 27 months and is tentatively ran for Congress
One reason that wars speed up technological progress is the “say no to everything” attitude gets steamrollered.
See in COVID where a determined and multi-pronged attempt was made to stop the data dashboard being created. And note how, after COVID, the team that did the dashboard had a few honours chucked at them.
And then were rapidly disbanded.
Because ministers (and others) were asking about applying the same principles of open data to other departments.
During a war, as with a pandemic, everyone stops caring about procurement processes, the location of the jobs and the length of the projects. They just want all the kit they can get their hands on, want it yesterday, and have their ears open to anyone willing to be innovative or unconventional.
Comments
If you PR advocates want to be taken seriously then you can’t be purists. But that’s part of the problem: you don’t agree about one perfect alternative.
Hence why we booted it out 13 years ago and voted to retain FPTP.
Having a hard time imagining other cities in the world having this level of digital sophistication during a wartime energy crisis
https://x.com/timkmak/status/1804153156282015968
I do not expect to get STV in my lifetime (I will see one more general election, if I am lucky). Pity, because as a voter, not a partisan, STV would be my choice.
I thought you were someone who didn't like snark; I'm disappointed that you're resorting to it yourself.
Poll/Positions
When the Sun goes down
There's a lot of internal consternation at the Times as editor Tony Gallagher is planning to have the paper endorse the Conservatives. This, despite fortnightly surveys of their readers making it clear as far back as 18 months ago that the overwhelming majority of them intend to vote Labour this time around.
Then again, Tony has never really seen eye-to-eye with his readers.
Back when he was editor of The Sun, the paper ran a survey about its readers' sex lives. In among the results, one curious bit of information that cropped up was that Sun readers claimed the time they were most likely to have sex was 7:30pm.
When this finding was presented to him, Tony's response was: "What? But it's not even dark then..."
The betting is the Sun will grudgingly back Starmer, he has history at the CPS prosecuting News International journalists but with positive words for Farage too. If Reform overtook the Tories in most polls Murdoch would likely tell the Sun to endorse Reform
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw88x6ww1p8o
You're one of the worst individuals for assigning people you disagree with to a group identity, and then arguing against that group identity, rather than the point made by the individual in discussion with you.
Online is already a difficult medium for having complex and contentious discussions, but that's the sort of approach that makes it really easy to ignite into a raging firestorm. Please try to stop.
SV is marginally better than FPTP, because it allows people to give a second preference. That makes it a preferential voting system, not a proportional one. Preferential systems have different advantages and disadvantages to proportional ones, and one of the beauties of STV is that it is a preferential and a proportional system all in one.
Personally I am happy to vote in favour of any incremental improvement to the voting system, which is why I voted for AV, despite it not being a proportional system, or as good as my preferred system.
What was your point again?
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-915_8o6b.pdf
However, the Irish in the Free State then the Republic have retained STV ever since; up North the Unionists ditched it ASAP for FPTP, in order to lock in their dominance, along with gerrymandering & other sharp practice(s).
Labour 43%, Con 22%, Reform 13%, Lib Dem 8%, Green 7%.
22:01 Result
22:10 End of speeches
22:20 Everyone to the pub
06:00 Talking heads still talking
https://www.old-edinburgh.com/
https://x.com/wethinkpolling/status/1804152514545099071
It just feels quiet at the moment, like the media are hedging their bets
Backing a loser or backing Starmer? They're both pretty ghastly prospects.
If I were involved in The Sun, I'd be really tempted to run a big celebrity trivia exclusive on July 4.
Lab =
Con +2
Ref -1
LD -3
Green +1
Changes seem quite different to majority of other polls.
Though arguably largely MOE.
Supplementary Vote is an ordinal system, and ordinality is a good thing and something associated with electoral reform, but it is different to proportionality. You can have ordinal systems that are not proportional (AV, SV) and proportional systems that are not ordinal (closed list systems).
Obviously, the best system is proportional and ordinal, so something like STV or open lists.
I said to him, "You don't sound as if you want to win. Do you actually want five more years?" There was a very long pause and he then said that he did as he was terrified Labour would "crash the economy" and they at least needed enough Tories to act as a brake (something he didn't believe the Lib Dems and others could do).
My fear for the Tories is that's such a hard message to sell. As soon as you sound as if you don't want it any more, you simply won't get it - it's the stench of decay and death, and people don't want to be associated with it. By the time you get to, "but it's important we can scrutinise legislation on the agriculture sub-committee..." everyone has already turned off.
There's a sharp contrast with Davey. Everyone knows he's not going to be PM but at least he seems to want people's vote, is actively enjoying the whole thing, and conveys messages about the sort of things he'd want to push on like water quality and social care. That's not to say there will be crossover - my view is the hill is far too steep. But he's got something for the activists to sell (as has Farage, even if it's not to my taste at all).
Maybe Davey's fannying around is wooing the media, but leaving the voters thinking "prat...."
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/giving-slovak-jets-air-defence-kyiv-was-sabotage-new-government-says-2024-06-21/
I'd argue the new Slovakian government is treasonous in its lurch towards Moscow.
One of the pernicious fictions about PR is you have to work with a party on the same side of the centre line and not reach across it.
In a hypothetical future result where neither the Conservatives nor Labour can form a coalition of the right or left without involving people they simply can't stand, they can always work with each other.
In truth there's already considerable overlap with the two parties and there are plenty of outgoing MPs who could exist quite comfortably in either of them. There's no reason to privilege the right of the Tories or the left of Labour. It's just as legitimate for the left of the Tories and the right of Labour to reach out to each other as it is to bring Reform or the Greens into the mix.
About the most cost effective short term spending to address climate change that there is.
DOE and EPA Announce $850 Million to Reduce Methane Pollution from the Oil and Gas Sector
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-and-epa-announce-850-million-reduce-methane-pollution-oil-and-gas-sector
1. The Conservatives who are suddenly moaning about this unfair voting system did not complain in 2022 when they deliberately fiddled with the London mayorality voting to First Past the Post - something less fair than the existing supplementary voting system.
2. We were given the chance to move to AV and we crushingly rejected it. Just 13 years ago. In a vote which actually named FPTP. We rejected AV in favour of retaining FPTP
3. My more general point, apart from the utter cant from tories about this, is that PR can give undue power to minority fringe groups leading to the tail wagging the dog.
Or do you mean Rees Mogg... ????
I can’t see them polling less than 10% in the GE .
But the UK had already been using STV for parliamentary elections, in some university seats (one of which was Dublin).
Such legislative cooperation is far more likely with a PR system, than under the dead hands of two party hegemony.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/qanon-shaman-stormed-capitol-jan-6-files-paperwork-run-congress-rcna124858
One suggests low 20s CON, low 40s Lab with clear third.
Others suggest CON/REF evenly split
Labour's biggest donations in the period came from former supermarket boss Lord David Sainsbury (£2.5million) and Autoglass's Gary Lubner (£900k).
https://x.com/ashcowburn/status/1804165572202012957
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/general-election-2024-cheating-and-the-misuse-of-inside-information-in-gambling-what-the-law-says
I do have sympathy with @Heathener's point, and the motivation behind it. But I think anybody looking at the post-2015 state of British politics ought to reflect on whether FPTP really has kept the nutters at bay. In recent years you've simultaneously had some very dodgy people in both the cabinet and the shadow cabinet, and even the sensible people have been forced to dance to the tunes of the fringe.
FPTP doesn't even succeed on its own terms
Entryism is a scourge. And with sensible people talking in all seriousness of a Reform takeover of the Tories (I don't buy it, but others do) you have to ask yourself whether people are actually paying full attention when they defend FPTP.
I've been travelling to Ireland quite often since meeting my wife in 2007, and have talked to her about Irish politics, and it isn't a description that fits the experience of small parties in Ireland.
To give just one example, the Green Party are the third party in a three-party coalition government at present in Ireland. So weak is their influence over policy that they couldn't even manage to achieve a ban on turf-cutting, probably the most damaging activity to the environment that it is possible to imagine.
Consequently they will likely be obliterated at the next general election. Just as they were the last time they were in government.
Fred Thomas’ Certificate of Valediction - signed by the Commanding Officer, Special Forces Support Group
https://x.com/johnestevens/status/1804162095123980459
See in COVID where a determined and multi-pronged attempt was made to stop the data dashboard being created. And note how, after COVID, the team that did the dashboard had a few honours chucked at them.
And then were rapidly disbanded.
Because ministers (and others) were asking about applying the same principles of open data to other departments.
These minority fringe groups are within the "mainstream" parties. The European Research Group. The Covid Recovery Group. The New Conservatives. Momentum. Countless more.
Under FPTP, every party is an internal coalition of fringe groups. The tail still wags the dog. But as a voter, you don't have a chance to influence that.
PR means less influence for the extreme fringes, not more. You can't have a One Nation-LibDem-Cooperative coalition under FPTP.
But BEFORE that,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_Irish_elections
In November 1920, the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920. This partitioned Ireland into two distinct polities, each with their own Home Rule Parliament: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. Both parliaments would be composed of a directly-elected House of Commons and an indirectly-elected Senate, with both lower chambers being elected by the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation.
IMO they give far too much weight to the 'appointed experts' advising.
First result for “shamen storming Congress now”… is that link.
Why would Johnny do this? He's a prat.
The alternative allusion you imply is too vile to consider (not the singer, but Farage).
That said, I don't think you're right. They're only down by 1 in this poll. Reform more than anyone else seem susceptible to methodology changes.