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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If the Tories do win more votes than LAB but get fewer seat
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » If the Tories do win more votes than LAB but get fewer seats then let there be no bleating about the system being unfair
If current broad poll trends continue and some of the CON-Ukip shifters return then it is likely that my 8/1 bet that that Tories will win most votes but come second to LAB on seats will be a winner.
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If this scenario does happen, I would expect more disappointment than bleating from the Tory side.
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/reports/briefing-to-mps-on-data-retention-legislation
I am a LibDem inclined voter but nonetheless thought that unjustifiable.
Having said that I don't expect an anomalous seats/vote share result next May between Lab and Con as indicated by the latest ARSE.
The particular anomaly from next May will be UKIP with either a few or no seats on a not too dissimilar share of the vote to the LibDems with 30+ seats. There will be derision from UKIP to little effect.
The boundaries question by the Lib Dems - such democrats!
A referendum on a properly proportional voting system such as mmp might pass now, post UKIP surge.
Bring it on!
However STV is the spawn of Satan, whose advocates require extraordinary rendition to polar parts before a trip downstairs to their leaders HQ.
Mr Salmond repeatedly insisted he would only debate with Prime Minister David Cameron in the initial TV debate before backing down last month and agreeing to face Mr Darling, the head of Better Together.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/salmond-and-darling-tv-debate-two-days-after-games.24715055
Oh well, we can add "only debate with Cameron' to "automatic EU membership", "currency union" and "guaranteed warship orders".......
Draw looks too short to me at 1.76, think it is the most likely outcome but it will trade at or above evens.
Hence a lay of £22.40 on the draw, and a shifting position of zero to there.
Eng +13.59; India +43.3; Draw +0.01
Eng 5.9; India 3.75; Draw 1.75
The Tories wanted First Past the Post. They got First Past the Post. If their toxicity and unpopularity means they can't get first past the post in enough seats that's their own fault. Personally I'd replace it with a fully proportional system in a federal UK, but whilst FPTP remains people need to stop making pointless references to vote counts that have no bearing on how the election process actually works.
And yet another of Eck's pronouncements doesn't come to pass.......
"Politically it does not seem feasible to us that banks like RBS or Lloyds could remain Scottish companies," it said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10956525/UBS-predicts-savings-flight-from-Scotland-in-the-event-of-yes-vote.html
STV, in spite of JackW’s concern, is surely still the best system, although some form of AMS runs it close. However the system used in the Euros should be scrapped closed lists, with candidate order decided by the parties, take far too much power away from the electorate.
House of Lords reform had nothing to do with boundary changes (as per Nick Clegg and the coalition agreement), and no-one in the Tories ever voted against Lords reform. It was a suggestion that they wouldn't vote in favour of curtailing debate on the rubbish that Clegg had come up with that killed it - I struggle to see how that is an unreasonable position!
Tories don't "bleat" about the electoral system. Most are fine with FPTP - they like the constituency link, they like the importance of local issues, they like the tilt towards stable government. (It's the same in Germany with the 5% threshold, for instance).
What people object to is the fact that the internal workings of the system has been deliberately left unbalanced by two parties who saw it as being in their own interest to have a distorted system.
(In maths terms, this is the difference between a tilt and a parallel shift if that makes it easier to understand).
The only way for the Lib Dems to remain in power is in a continuing coalition with the Tories (we're finishing the job) - Miliband would be daft to enter coalition with them (look, I know you hate them but this time they can be trusted.....)
The problem was for the Lib Dems that basically the system would have worked even more against them than FPTP 650 seats does now (The fact it works even more against UKIP doesn't mean it works in favour of the Lib Dems). Hence Clegg quite rationally had to knife Dave over it - HoL reform was a convenient issue to use for this purpose, but it really could have been any excuse.
As Tim formerly of this parish pointed out at the time the Conservatives should have seperated the equalisation of voter numbers and the 650 -> 600 seat change. Anyway they didn't, Clegg shafted Dave (He needed to) on this and the rest is history.
Currently the system is very bias in favour of Labour, slightly bias to the Conservatives, against the Lib Dems & very very bias against UKIP.
But post election comparisons will be made between Labour/Con and separately UKIP/Lib Dem which will lead to the Lib Dems being seen as winners from the system when in fact they aren't; and similarly the Tories as losers from the system when in fact they are winners from it.
The big winners will of course be Labour and the big losers, UKIP.
But you could gerrymander proportionality on purpose, and if you did it would be an improvement. Just tell the boundary commission that one of their goals was to make the system more proportional to the national share where possible. So they'd try to draw up seats that were helpful to UKIP, LibDem and Green, and take whatever opportunities showed up to do things that were unhelpful to Con and especially to Lab. It wouldn't be perfect as they'd have to guess at what would help which party, and they'd have to balance proportionality with other concerns, but it would be better than the status quo, while preserving things like the single-MP constituency link that some people say they like.
Retains the constituency link, gives residents different options post election if they have strong views about which MP they deal with, allows flexibility for voters do choose what they do.
I don't like the fact that people who vote for minority parties get repeated do-overs. Perhaps we could cap the number of votes at, say, 3 (for a 4 member seat) - haven't worked through the implications though. What I don't like is the complexity: how a result was calculated should be very easy to explain to the disinterested voter. That's one of FPTP's great virtues ("oh, he got the most votes so he won" vs "(well A got the most votes, but then D dropped out and his votes were transferred to A and B and C but when E dropped out all his votes went to B, so B won despite the fact that fewer people voted for him first time round)
The Tories agreed the vote on AV and for a Lords reform bill, they did not agree to back the changes. The LDs did agree to support the boundary changes-then went back on it. Broadly I support the LDs in coalition and am happy with their performance in government, but not the petulant response to boundary reform.
However, you seem to base this on the economy and the character of the two potential PMs.
But, unfortunately, there are many many people who vote on other reasons.
Additionally, as we have seen, there is a small but systemic bias in the boundaries (wasn't there a thread last year which suggested it was 7-8 seats? But I don't recall if that was a total effect of 7-8 or whether that was a transfer of 7-8 from Labour to the Tories i.e. 14-16 for majority purposes). May be not a major effect, but in a tight race it could make all the difference.
But that's ok. The LibDems don't believe in doing the right thing
Parliament agreed the principles on which the boundary review would be carried out.
The independent Boundary Commission then came up with a proposal. Of course all the parties would have lobbied, but the Commission made a decision.
And then Labour and the LibDems rejected it for nakedly partisan reasons.
I've see the damage that partisan redistricting has done to the US. It would be a disaster if redistricting became political here.
England would have c. 85% of the votes on anything.
You'd need regional upweighting for our Celtic friends in at least the upper house.
The BNP spent the least per vote, Labour the least per seat.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2010/12/who-got-good-valueformoney-in-the-general-election/
London house price rose at their slowest pace in 15 months in June and values are expected to fall as Bank of England attempts to cool the property market deter buyers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said.
A gauge of home prices in the capital dropped to 31, the lowest since March 2013, from 50 in May, RICS said in a statement in London today, citing a poll of property surveyors. A measure of price expectations for the next quarter fell to minus 10 from 24. That indicates more respondents see declines than increases and is the weakest reading since May 2012.
...
“Rhetoric from key officials at the bank, including Mark Carney, alongside the consequences of the introduction of the Mortgage Market Review are already slowing momentum, particularly in London,” said Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at RICS. “Buyer enquiries in the capital are now slipping back, which suggests that the very sharp upward move in prices will flatten over the coming months.”
Full article: http://bloom.bg/1mM7LHo
Aren't George and Mark wonderful?
We also still have far too many politicians feeding off the public purse. The absurd House of Lords is the worst example of that but a reduction in the number of MPs to 600 (!) would have been a start.
But these ships have sailed and we are where we are. The quirks that meant that Labour got a substantial winners bonus for, err, losing in 2010 will in my view be much diminished in 2015. The main losers will of course be UKIP but it was ever thus for minority parties.
Mike's graph above shows that both the Tories and Labour gain massively from the current system. The Conservatuves wanted to gerrymander the system to give themselves an even bigger premium. It really is that simple. Anyone who thinks they would have been pushing for the changes did they not advantage them is a credulous fool. I don't recall the Tories lobbying to change the system when it favoured them over Labour in the 1980s.
Listening to the radio as driving to work, was amazed to hear a NUT officer saying that he expected public support for the strike, as it is fair.
Obviously does not think of parents or if a parent will be at home anyway due to the strike.
How can a strike, about 2 weeks before school holidays (and teachers get more holidays than working parents), mid-week, that will cost parents more in child care or will have to sacrifice a day's holiday, be popular and supported by the parents?
Just looking at the Wales web-site, found more schools closed in Labour voting areas than in the other areas.
I'm afraid we will have to disagree on Ed. He is not credible. Cameron is.
I'm all for fairness and all that but such a change would be a step too far.
If the LibDems had chosen to vote differently at the point when the Boundary Commission's *remit* was being discussed, that would have been respectable.
But they didn't: they chose, instead, to reject the outcome of an independent review because was in their interests to do so.
Obviously you do not know the meaning of 'gerrymander' To start with equal numbers of the electorate for each constituency (as far as is geographically possible) is not gerrymandering. It is democracy.
However to try to keep unequally electorate-sized constituencies for reasons of political advantage is, in effect, gerrymandering and is against democracy.
Let's say that there's a voter somewhere in the Midlands. (Let's call him CoventryWatcher).
He understands that the economy is improving, and that Ed is crap. He doesn't like the LibDems because they are illiberal and undemocratic. But he has some mystical view dating from the 1970s that all Tories are evil and therefore won't vote for them.
The problem is that lots of voters make their decisions for reasons that are not easily explained. But if they don't think that character or economic performance are important reasons to change their vote, then the Tories' strong advantage in these areas won't help them.
That's why your analysis is flawed. The Tories "problem" is that there was such a stark difference on both of these items in 2010 that it is hard to improve on them - they captured the vast majority of voters who think these items are important.
Equal seat sizes are totally unrelated to getting a more proportional election result in terms of % seats for % votes .
You can have 600 constituencies with their electorates drawn at random via a raffle so that you can be in Constituency 145 , your wife in 322 and your son in 563 .Totally equal constituency sizes . Would it result in a proportional result ? No . One party with a small plurality would win all 600 seats and all other parties zero seats .
The bleaters say that Wales are over represented with 40 MPs they should have only 32 , Labour has therefore an unfair advantage as they have the majority of MPs in Wales . Would the BC review had reduced that advantage ? No - Labour would have lost 4 MPs Conservatives 3 and Plaid 1 under the new proposed boundaries
The Tories don't believe that "proportionality" should be the measure of the electoral system. They want a system that creates stable government. So they are fine with a large winner's bonus.
What is wrong is that the system is tilted: that it produces an advantage for one particular party as opposed to a broadly similar advantage for all potential parties of government
But equally, the difference between Fleet and Alton in Hampshire is not that significant.
They voted against the independent commissions recommendation.
That's the difference.
That said the number of unregistered voters in this country, largely still a consequence of the Poll tax fiasco, is a disgrace and it is incredible that in 13 years of government Labour did so little about it.
In a modern society the State has so much information about most of us. It is wrong that information is not used to ensure the right to vote. As an example if you can satisfy the state that you qualify for housing benefit you should be automatically registered to vote. If you register your children in a school you should be registered. If you fill in a tax return etc etc. We need to be wary of fraud but all of these activities involve far more information than we currently require to register to vote.
"I have bad news for you, old boy".
"What is that?"
"Your wife is having an affair."
"Oh that's nothing to worry about. We have an open marriage".
"But the news is worse."
"It is?"
"The bounder is from West Kensington".
"West Kensington? Now that is serious."
Now imagine the reaction if it were Hammersmith!
And by choosing what the equal size should be (so how many constituencies) and what should be equally sized (voters, registered voters, inhabitants).
For example in West Sussex, I can't see many Tories complaining about boundaries when they get 100% of the seats on 40% of the vote. Whereas the Lib Dems on 30% of the vote get absolutely nothing.
* Tribalism - I personally believe that this is illogical
* Thinking that "saving the NHS" is the only thing that matters - I disagree, but logical given a certain value set, and could encourage one to vote Labour
* Education: believing that "fairness" is more important than achieving the best possible education outcome for as many kids as possible - again, I disagree, but logical given a certain value set and could encourage one to vote Labour
There are lots of non-economic and non-character reasons to vote Labour. Your analysis is flawed because it implies that economy/character are the only things that matter