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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The factors that drive much of the pro-LAB bias in general
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The factors that drive much of the pro-LAB bias in general elections could work for the Tories in the May Euros
We all know that the electoral system for Westminster seats seems to produce an outcome that is more favourable to LAB than the other parties. A big part of the reason for this is illustrated in the chart above. Labour has far fewer wasted votes.
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Did you go to the game yesturday ?
35-6
What a thrashing ;-)
Lovely sunny day as well and only 3 miles away people were wasting their time and money in Meadowhall.
Dear me, is Vincent Tan trying to provoke the fans even more ???
Labour tend to do better in the smaller, lower-turnout constituencies.
That was not a simulation but a real election.
Given the Coalition I think it will be interesting to see if that features quite so strongly at the next election. My hunch is that labour will have more wasted votes then than in the last 2 elections.
So far as the Euros are concerned the greater propensity to vote amongst tories, even when they have no chance, clearly helps them. The level of interest in the Euros in this country is stunningly low. Personally I am not persuaded that the Euro Parliament has any democratic legitimacy at all and I would like it abolished.
For all these reasons and the general lack of enthusiasm discussed on the last thread I agree with Mike it is entirely possible that the tories will once again come top in the total votes cast at the Euros and that Labour will underperform their Westminster support like they usually do. There have been suggestions that Labour is reluctant to spend money on the Euros which is (a) not surprising and (b) an accurate assessment of their importance.
UKIP supporters who think that these elections matter or will be a launch pad to anything more than more expense account dinners for their candidates are deceiving themselves. Let me throw out a challenge. Has anyone on this Board ever got any assistance from a Euro MP?
Bizarre.
Had the Con and Lab vote shares been reversed, Labour would have won 29 seats to the Tories' 11.
You are still having difficulty grasping the concept of 'bias', I see...
the launderette was closed...
Aren't the Euro elections a bit of a paradox for Kippers? Many people who would be inclined to vote for them are, by definition, not fans of the EU. I cant imagine this kind of person would give the EU elections legitimacy by voting in them...
Or more likely, were even aware they were taking place...
Who'da-thunck-it that Geoff Hoon's pension-plan would be at number three in the expenditure chart! Not 'arf...!
That's another reason why I think people are overestimating the Lib Dems' chances in 2015, come to that, because there's surely atleast 6-8 seats which the Lib Dems hold solely because of Labour supporters throwing them a lifeline with tactical voting (before we even start talking about the many genuine Lib Dem supporters who've been alienated).
Basically, you are saying Labour would cut it's nose to spite it's face. No chance, old boy !
It's seats, dear boy ! it's seats which matter !!
So you will find Labour supporters in CON-LD marginals will be commiting a supreme sacrifice and vote for a party which they do not indeed support. There is not better pleasure than keeping the nasty* Tories out !
* the expression "nasty tories" was used by Theresa May in a conference speech !
But in reality, it's not just seats that matter is it. How often do we hear the Tories whining about how they were 7% ahead of Labour last time but got no majority, or how their share of their vote was higher in 2010 than Labour's was in 2005 - even though, in both cases, Labour's share of the vote was artificially depressed by people tactically voting Lib Dem. I'm pretty sure that, if there is a hung parliament, the party that has the highest share of the vote will be of vital importance in the public's eyes as to who the government should be.
Let's say we have two seats, each with 100,000 registered voters:
Constituency C. The Tories win 60000 against Labour 10000. Turnout 70000
Constituency L. Labour wins 30000 against Tories 20000. Turnout 50000.
According to you, there is a pro-Labour "bias". Or, are Labour voters smarter by not piling up extra "unnecessary" votes ?
Even with the Lib Dems falling apart I suspect there will be no change. It is possible that the Lib Dems might lose their seat to the greens or the tories but not very likely. And who would notice anyway? It really is the most pointless election we hold in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biproportional_apportionment
In reality, whatever the electoral system, every vote counts to some extent whether or not it 'elects' someone because it goes to help form a view as to who has (and who doesn't have) a national mandate. That matters if there's a hung parliament - and the fact that the Conservatives won more votes was cited by Clegg as a principal reason why his party would negotiate first with the Tories. It also matters when, for example, the House of Lords is deciding how long to delay something for.
There's also the dynamic factor to consider. Seats change over time and one where former Labour voters get used to not voting can become vulnerable to a challenge from another party experiencing a surge in support, not least because those who've been accustomed to not voting are difficult to drag out when it does matter and may have lost much of their sense of identity with their former party anyway.
This is obviously very different from the usual impression. But I'd suggest that most people have no idea how the EP works or what it does, because the media don't tell them - none of the mainstream press report the discussions at all unless it's someone pulling a stunt. The media don't tell them partly because it's an expensive nuisance to maintain a staffer in Brussels, and partly because the issues tend to be second-level as the EU rarely decides anything that affects everyday life directly (which is why I'm not standing there).
And yes, I've always found MEPs (of most parties) to be really helpful both to me and to constituents who I've referrred to them. Have you tried yours?
That said, I've never been overly fussed about proportionality and regard the benefits of the constituency link as outweighing disadvantages of disproportionality, providing that the constituencies themselves are fairly drawn.
PR^2 for example....
To expect the Tories to top the European poll is not taking into account that the public will use mid-term to register their displeasure with the government of whatever colour.
Labour and UKIP close together and the Conservatives further back with decimation of the Lib Dems is my reading of EP polls.
I wouldn't rule out UKIP bizarrely winning a seat in Scotland...
No one is saying that, certainly not me. But in my example, it takes 80000 votes to elect 1 Tory MP, and only 40000 to elect a Labour MP. Simply because the Tories piled up "unnecessary" votes in the FPTP system. There is no bias here !
Ah yes, the old chestnut of the "constituency link". Is it really that significant in seats of 100,000 or more going forward ? It might work better with seats of 50,000 so a House of Commons with 1,300 MPs - that wouldn't be popular though oddly enough I'm not totally anti.
Yes, we can draw the constituencies "better" which translates as making it work better for the Conservatives but that won't give us proportionality though it gives people someone to go to with their problems.
My MP, Stephen Timms, is an excellent constituency MP though whether he's much more than a "super-councillor" in truth is debatable. The ability to get Councils and other organisations to circumvent their own bureaucratic shortcomings and get something done for an individual shouldn't be restricted to someone with the letters "MP" after their name.
Lab 27% 2
SNP 26% 2
Con 14% 1
UKIP 9.5% 1
LD 8%
GRN 6%
Oths 9.5%
What we really need to be doing is anything we can to destroy the party system, or at least limit the terrible damage it does to our democracy.
Parties are at the root cause of the utter disconnect between the political classes and much of the electorate. Those who espouse giving even more power to the parties through increasing 'fairness' in elections are the ones who are doing the most damage to democracy.
D'Hondt is a divisor-based electoral system. So each party's vote is divided successively by 1,2,3... etc.
We would expect in Scotland the leading parties to be in the approximate range:-
1st 25-30%
2nd 20-30%
3rd 10-20%
4th 5-10%
5th 5-10%
6th 5-10%
So you can see that if the 4th party's first quotient is greater than the 1st party's third quotient, the 4th party will win a seat...
The parties are allowed to make this semi-open, weighting the list-only votes to the people at the top of the list. Big parties tend to do that, so that their key people don't get voted out by accident or design. To my mind that rather spoils it, but of course if voters really like low-place Fred Bloggs over Osborne they can ignore the party list option and just vote Bloggs.
I'd still much rather have primaries and single-member constituencies, though I would accept that single-member elections can over-concentrate local concerns at the expense of parliamentarians actually doing their job! I also think it's a great shame that the recall election idea was dropped.
Some light reading...
http://www.thedanishparliament.dk/Democracy/~/media/Pdf_materiale/Pdf_publikationer/English/The Parliamentary Electoral System in Denmark_samlet pdf.ashx
Have you offered an apology to Ms Soubry for your rather nasty cheap shot that you posted on the site a few days back?.
It's also significant of course that the Tories benefited from FPTP, and indeed on occasion got more seats than their vots deserved. 1951 was a case in point!
The first five places are likely to be SNP (2), Lab (2), Con (1). The final seat will go to the party with the highest number from the following:
SNP total divided by 3
Lab total divided by 3
Con total divided by 2
All other parties' full totals.
You can probably write off the Conservatives, who'll probably not poll much more than 15% (especially with UKIP protest votes), and 7.5 will be less than both Lab/3 and SNP/3.
Clearly, whichever is larger of SNP and Lab will also be the larger of SNP/3 and Lab/3 as well and likewise, whoever finishes with most out of everyone bar Con, Lab and SNP will knock out the rest. So the key question is whether the sixth seat goes is the first placed party's third, or the fourth-placed party's first - and that will depend on the formula Rod quoted.
A little bit of research later. Your point now makes sense, but the conclusion isn't entirely right. It's something like 1st>3x4th first AND 2nd>2x4th etc. Mostly matters will be dictated by the first party's vote.
I'd never realised before that the Scottish parliament had a different system.
Regarding "bias" or wasted votes, this presentation by Thrasher is the simplest and the best.
Doh! I thought you understood that my whole argument as I have espoused many times on here, is that we should ban whips and end the control parties have over our elected representatives. Your whole thinking is just too parochial.
It's certainly impossible to protect everyone from floods when you keep building more and more houses in flood plains. That's why people didn't used to build houses there.
Votes: Lab 40%, Tory 30%, LD 15%, UKIP 10%, Others 5%.
1st Lab
2nd Con
3rd Lab
4th LD
5th Con
6th Lab
7th and 8th between Lab, Con and UKIP
Am I correct ?
edit: to be clearer, The political class are pushing people out of the cities and the new housing they're escaping to is built on flood plains - because that's why that land wasn't built on already.
a) 1st party is >4x 4th
b) 2nd party is >3x 4th
c) 3rd party is >2x 4th
Nonsense (well somewhat) - people are clearly choosing to live in these places. Some of these places are such that people have avoided them in the past. It's not the 'political class' that's pushing them out, it's you and me.
It'd be bad if what is happening is that UK plc subsidises developments there, subsidises people to move there, subsidises the flooding defences, and then finishes up bailing people out anyway.
There's no risk at all of something so daft happening though is there!
It's something along those lines. I'm supposed to be a mathematician, so if I can work out a nice pattern I'll let you know. In the meantime a nice whisky is distracting me from joined-up thinking.
A surprising amount of flooding is localised and not on floodplains - usually where the downstream pumping stations or ditches cannot cope with an excessive flow. This often happens where drainage ditches have not been dug or cleaned out, meaning that water backs up, or in poorly-designed developments (cough)Cambourne(cough).
Even then, flash floods can easily overwhelm ancient defences, as happened at Boscastle.
It's not as simple as just building on floodplains.
And it's not the b/s phrase "political class": it's people wanting semi-detached houses with as much garden as possible which they than tarmac over to park their cars. Rightly or wrongly, those are the sort of houses that most of us in the UK dream of, and they are massively wasteful of space and resources. The flight from town to city (the reverse of what happened pre-WWII) is down to the supposedly superior suburban or country lifestyle.
Add in the fact that family sizes tend to be smaller than before (many singles or couples lives in three, four or five bedroom houses), and the demand for development grows.
They are choosing to move away from the cities. Once that choice is made - a choice forced on them by the political class - then the options are mostly limited to new housing most of it built places that weren't built on during the massive population explosion during the industrial revolution - and mostly not built on during that time for a reason e.g. flooding.
"It's not the 'political class' that's pushing them out, it's you and me."
Are you part of a youth gang culture that the BBC and political class pretend doesn't exist? I'm not.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/27/david-cameron-heckled-flood-yalding-kent
Cameron turns up gets heckled, but flood defences not improved 13 years.
Reference to Yalding and Blair.
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2005_08_12/nodoi.4571878606665301635
Nice one guys.
I think Yalding is built on a flood plain,hence the residents won`t get flood insurance.
In local contests, an Independent has a chance but I live in a Ward of 7,500 electors. Even if I had a few friends to help, reaching the bulk of these electors is almost impossible. Even the local Labour party machine struggles.
Reducing Wards to say 1,000 electors or less might help but that would mean Newham would have 450 Councillors - now, there's a thought.
One option to increase democratic accountability would be for there to be more Councillors and MPs but that seems to flow contrary to opinion which seems to want fewer MPs covering even larger populations than now.
I disagree - we need to change the rules of the game so that instead of effectively full-time politicians as Councillors we have a lot more local elected representatives who would be able to combine work and life with looking after their small patch.
This is the idiocy of modern building combined with councils who utterly fail to understand the basics of hydrology and so don't keep ditches and culverts cleared or as in ,many cases recently actively stop farmers from clearing out ditches because of damage to wildlife. .
If anyone wants to get a law change or a proposal through Parliament or the council they should have to do it by force of argument not force of threat or bribe.
We already have laws preventing organisations and individuals outside Parliament threatening or bribing MPs. The same should apply within Parliament.
There were two other ways it could have turned out:
Bigotgate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTr8IVWBuPE
or the thick of it's
"Do you know what it's like to clean-up your mother's piss?"
But it didnt...
But `don`t tell me,I am only the prime minister` line shows him as rather weak.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/ukip-wiped-out-north-of-the-border-after-its-scots-leader-is-sacked.22833054
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/ukip-at-war-in-scotland.22719662
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/11/18/ukip-s-scotland-operation-falls-apart
@RTyndall: Yes, choosing to live there albeit unknowingly.The gaff was cheap for a reason.
They also had leadership contenders embroiled in scandals that boggled the mind whilst the by-election campaign was on.
Satirical shows such as Have I Got News For You which mock politicians should be reclassified as “current affairs” and face tougher scrutiny from libel lawyers, David Blunkett has suggested.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/david-blunkett-calls-for-satirical-tv-shows-such-as-mock-the-week-to-face-tighter-regulation-9027372.html
Just came back for the festive season - BUT posting can be addictive!
Thomas the Tank Engine has come under attack from Labour for not having enough female train drivers.
Shadow Transport Secretary Mary Creagh MP says the popular series “sets a poor example” to children.
She says more women characters should be introduced to encourage girls to become train drivers and conductors.
Ms Creagh, a mother of two, said the lack of women drivers was a “national scandal” and the “negative stereotypes” on children’s TV was partly to blame.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/thomas-tank-engine-a-poor-2964776