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Isn't this a little bit ridiculous: Labour. Seats: 251, Votes: 29.3% Lib.Dem. Seats: 52, Votes: 22.9%

by jules 17y ago

simonw 17y ago
Yes. That's a big issue every election, but is likely to be an even bigger pain point this time round. Both Labour and the Lib Dems are now calling for electoral reform (some kind of proportional representation instead of first past the post).
- buro9 17y ago
  I suspect Labour are only calling for this to woo the Libs into supporting a wide coalition Lib-Lab government so that Labour can stay in power. People will say anything you want to keep power/money, etc.
  - demallien 17y ago
    Yes, which is actually a good example of the system working - even if they weren't able to win many actual seats, the LibDems have managed to put themselves in a position where they can at least influence policy quite strongly.
  - tome 17y ago
    But Labour and LibDem together only have just over 300 seats, i.e. not enough to govern.
- _delirium 17y ago
  Won't there be fear that proportional representation = BNP gets a seat?
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    That's democracy. It represents the people. If you fear opposing views then you should avoid democracy. I'm not a BNP supporter by a long stretch but, if they get a significant proportion of the vote then IMO they should get representation in parliament. I actually considered not voting, our ward is a pretty much foregone conclusion, proportional representation (in preference to first-past-the-post) makes all votes count and would encourage people to vote with their conscience rather than tactically.
    - _delirium 17y ago
      Yeah, I'm not really that afraid of them either. It was more a descriptive comment, asking if, in practice, fear of fringe parties getting seats would prove to be an impediment to electoral reform. My impression is that it's been a significant issue in some countries with proportional parliamentary systems, and some (most?) have adopted variants of PR for the main purpose of keeping the fringe parties out (e.g. in Germany, you get zero seats if your total vote share is <5%, which keeps the NDP out).
    - DrJokepu 17y ago
      It is reasonable and practical to exclude opinions whose popularity is below some threshold from the government; otherwise the number of these insignificant opinions will make government an awful lot harder.
      - thomasz 17y ago
        Certain Constitutions have a mandatory minimum percentage required to gain seats (5% in Germany, 10% in Turkey)
    - arethuza 17y ago
      I would be quite happy for them to get a seat so that they have more opportunity to advertise how nasty they are.
- kilps 17y ago
  You want to be careful of plain old proportional representation. We have that here in South Africa and the result has been MPs who toe the party and line and have no ties to constituencies (I asked a couple of parties which MPs they assigned to my area, they either didn't know or just didn't reply). That said PR is still a better system for representing minorities and forming governments - so personally I favour a hybrid model, possibly with a different house for each system.
jacquesm 17y ago
Same thing can happen in the US with 'winner takes all' voting and an electoral college in between the active and passive voters.
axod 17y ago
The problem is: Conservatives: South, land owners Labour: North, working class Libdem: Students all over the country spread thinly Maybe libdem should claim wales as their own and relocate all the libdem supporters there. For all the noise made about libdem in the run up to this election it was surprising just how badly they did. Even their share of the vote was only up 1%.
- chunkyslink 17y ago
  I would say 22.9% of the votes wasnt too bad. Its the system that makes it look bad.
  - axod 17y ago
    Regardless, the winner however you cut it, is the Conservatives. IMHO they should be allowed to form a government. Also, lib dems lost 13 seats they formerly held. If Lib Dem support really was solid, you'd expect them to at least hold on to their seats. They didn't.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      I can think of many ways to cut it that result in either the Conservates not being the winner, or the winner being unknown with the data we have. The obvious one given the recent excitement around the 3rd party is the question "How many people wanted to vote Lib-Dem but thought that would be a wasted vote or worse would only help a party they really didn't want to win (note this works whether the hated party is Labour or Conservative).
- arethuza 17y ago
  Labour presumably also has strong support from people employed by the state - most of whom I would not describe as "working class". I suspect that this explains why the Labour share of the vote seems to have grown strongly in Scotland.
  - zeemonkee 17y ago
DrJokepu 17y ago
The single member plurality system used in the United Kingdom to elect the Members of the Parliament has its obvious drawbacks, however it has one important advantage: it keeps extremism out of the Parliament. Rest assured the if there was a party-list proportional representation system in place, parties such as BNP would have an appallingly large number of seats. I believe a good compromise would be a mixed system where a portion of the seats are elected with the usual "first past the post" constituency system and the rest was elected by using national and/or regional party lists.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Keeping extremism out of the Parliament when it is present in the populace has a disadvantage too though, people tend to discount it as 'not being viable' until it is too late. Better to get it out in the open in an early stage.
- ivenkys 17y ago
  "it keeps extremism out of the Parliament", i understand this but would it not be better to have these parties play by the rules in the system rather than be out of it and make things up as they go along. There are quite a few examples of extremist parties coming into Parliament and then having to tone-down the rhetoric or getting rejected by the public. "Rest assured the if there was a party-list proportional representation system in place, parties such as BNP would have an appallingly large number of seats" - i very much doubt this.
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    The British National Party gained 1.9% of the votes this year. That would mean six seats in the Parliament were there a party list system in place.
    - tome 17y ago
      I believe in Sweden a party must receive 4% of the vote to be considered. That seems like a sensible approach to keep extremists out.
Dauntless 17y ago
Now both Labour and Conservative will need Lib.Dems, hopefully this will make electoral reform a possibility.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  Im not sure that's a good thing. Reform to PR would almost certainly lead to a very strong Lib/Lab coalition. The conservatives would, essentially, be out of the picture for decades in all probability. I prefer this way where it could go either way (Lib/Con or Lib/Lab).
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    The conservatives would, essentially, be out of the picture for decades in all probability. Fingers crossed.
- axod 17y ago
  Not completely clear cut. Could be a minority Con govt, or they may be able to get a majority with other parties + independents. Personally I think we should be concentrating on more pressing issues than electoral reform.
  - tome 17y ago
    If we don't get electoral reform now, it's never going to happen.
    - axod 17y ago
      Never is a very long time in politics :/ If Lib Dems had gained seats, or at least not lost so many of their own seats, they would have had a much bigger chance of getting reform.
tokenadult 17y ago
In EVERY electoral system, it is possible for seats in the national legislature not to match the party proportions in the general national vote. No one even asks about the overall national vote between Republicans and Democrats in the United States elections for Congress.
- jules 17y ago
  Sure, but a 6.4 pp difference in votes counts for 201 of 510 seats?! In a reasonable system this is not possible. US Congress is formed by a similarly stupid process (but of course it's a better than voting 100% per district), so I would hardly use that as an example of a good system.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    It depends how the districts are formed, and you know that politicians will have a role in forming them.
- NickPollard 17y ago
  And in the Presidential election too, Gore out-polled Bush in the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College vote.
wlievens 17y ago
Absolutely. Isn't this ridiculous either, though? http://yvespernet.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/zetels2009.jpg http://yvespernet.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/zetels2009.jpg Proportional representation is more correct, but certainly not more stable or efficient. Update: that image is only HALF of the represented parties and seats!

Isn't this a little bit ridiculous: Labour. Seats: 251, Votes: 29.3% Lib.Dem. Seats: 52, Votes: 22.9%

by jules 17y ago

Isn't this a little bit ridiculous: Labour. Seats: 251, Votes: 29.3% Lib.Dem. Seats: 52, Votes: 22.9%

Yes. That's a big issue every election, but is likely to be an even bigger pain point this time round. Both Labour and the Lib Dems are now calling for electoral reform (some kind of proportional representation instead of first past the post).

buro9 17y ago
I suspect Labour are only calling for this to woo the Libs into supporting a wide coalition Lib-Lab government so that Labour can stay in power. People will say anything you want to keep power/money, etc.
- demallien 17y ago
  Yes, which is actually a good example of the system working - even if they weren't able to win many actual seats, the LibDems have managed to put themselves in a position where they can at least influence policy quite strongly.
- tome 17y ago
  But Labour and LibDem together only have just over 300 seats, i.e. not enough to govern.
_delirium 17y ago
Won't there be fear that proportional representation = BNP gets a seat?
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  That's democracy. It represents the people. If you fear opposing views then you should avoid democracy. I'm not a BNP supporter by a long stretch but, if they get a significant proportion of the vote then IMO they should get representation in parliament. I actually considered not voting, our ward is a pretty much foregone conclusion, proportional representation (in preference to first-past-the-post) makes all votes count and would encourage people to vote with their conscience rather than tactically.
  - _delirium 17y ago
    Yeah, I'm not really that afraid of them either. It was more a descriptive comment, asking if, in practice, fear of fringe parties getting seats would prove to be an impediment to electoral reform. My impression is that it's been a significant issue in some countries with proportional parliamentary systems, and some (most?) have adopted variants of PR for the main purpose of keeping the fringe parties out (e.g. in Germany, you get zero seats if your total vote share is <5%, which keeps the NDP out).
  - DrJokepu 17y ago
    It is reasonable and practical to exclude opinions whose popularity is below some threshold from the government; otherwise the number of these insignificant opinions will make government an awful lot harder.
    - thomasz 17y ago
      Certain Constitutions have a mandatory minimum percentage required to gain seats (5% in Germany, 10% in Turkey)
  - arethuza 17y ago
    I would be quite happy for them to get a seat so that they have more opportunity to advertise how nasty they are.
kilps 17y ago
You want to be careful of plain old proportional representation. We have that here in South Africa and the result has been MPs who toe the party and line and have no ties to constituencies (I asked a couple of parties which MPs they assigned to my area, they either didn't know or just didn't reply). That said PR is still a better system for representing minorities and forming governments - so personally I favour a hybrid model, possibly with a different house for each system.

jacquesm 17y ago

Same thing can happen in the US with 'winner takes all' voting and an electoral college in between the active and passive voters.

axod 17y ago

The problem is: Conservatives: South, land owners Labour: North, working class Libdem: Students all over the country spread thinly Maybe libdem should claim wales as their own and relocate all the libdem supporters there. For all the noise made about libdem in the run up to this election it was surprising just how badly they did. Even their share of the vote was only up 1%.

chunkyslink 17y ago
I would say 22.9% of the votes wasnt too bad. Its the system that makes it look bad.
- axod 17y ago
  Regardless, the winner however you cut it, is the Conservatives. IMHO they should be allowed to form a government. Also, lib dems lost 13 seats they formerly held. If Lib Dem support really was solid, you'd expect them to at least hold on to their seats. They didn't.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    I can think of many ways to cut it that result in either the Conservates not being the winner, or the winner being unknown with the data we have. The obvious one given the recent excitement around the 3rd party is the question "How many people wanted to vote Lib-Dem but thought that would be a wasted vote or worse would only help a party they really didn't want to win (note this works whether the hated party is Labour or Conservative).
arethuza 17y ago
Labour presumably also has strong support from people employed by the state - most of whom I would not describe as "working class". I suspect that this explains why the Labour share of the vote seems to have grown strongly in Scotland.
- zeemonkee 17y ago

DrJokepu 17y ago

The single member plurality system used in the United Kingdom to elect the Members of the Parliament has its obvious drawbacks, however it has one important advantage: it keeps extremism out of the Parliament. Rest assured the if there was a party-list proportional representation system in place, parties such as BNP would have an appallingly large number of seats. I believe a good compromise would be a mixed system where a portion of the seats are elected with the usual "first past the post" constituency system and the rest was elected by using national and/or regional party lists.

jacquesm 17y ago
Keeping extremism out of the Parliament when it is present in the populace has a disadvantage too though, people tend to discount it as 'not being viable' until it is too late. Better to get it out in the open in an early stage.
ivenkys 17y ago
"it keeps extremism out of the Parliament", i understand this but would it not be better to have these parties play by the rules in the system rather than be out of it and make things up as they go along. There are quite a few examples of extremist parties coming into Parliament and then having to tone-down the rhetoric or getting rejected by the public. "Rest assured the if there was a party-list proportional representation system in place, parties such as BNP would have an appallingly large number of seats" - i very much doubt this.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  The British National Party gained 1.9% of the votes this year. That would mean six seats in the Parliament were there a party list system in place.
  - tome 17y ago
    I believe in Sweden a party must receive 4% of the vote to be considered. That seems like a sensible approach to keep extremists out.

Dauntless 17y ago

Now both Labour and Conservative will need Lib.Dems, hopefully this will make electoral reform a possibility.

ErrantX 17y ago
Im not sure that's a good thing. Reform to PR would almost certainly lead to a very strong Lib/Lab coalition. The conservatives would, essentially, be out of the picture for decades in all probability. I prefer this way where it could go either way (Lib/Con or Lib/Lab).
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  The conservatives would, essentially, be out of the picture for decades in all probability. Fingers crossed.
axod 17y ago
Not completely clear cut. Could be a minority Con govt, or they may be able to get a majority with other parties + independents. Personally I think we should be concentrating on more pressing issues than electoral reform.
- tome 17y ago
  If we don't get electoral reform now, it's never going to happen.
  - axod 17y ago
    Never is a very long time in politics :/ If Lib Dems had gained seats, or at least not lost so many of their own seats, they would have had a much bigger chance of getting reform.

tokenadult 17y ago

In EVERY electoral system, it is possible for seats in the national legislature not to match the party proportions in the general national vote. No one even asks about the overall national vote between Republicans and Democrats in the United States elections for Congress.

jules 17y ago
Sure, but a 6.4 pp difference in votes counts for 201 of 510 seats?! In a reasonable system this is not possible. US Congress is formed by a similarly stupid process (but of course it's a better than voting 100% per district), so I would hardly use that as an example of a good system.
- tokenadult 17y ago
  It depends how the districts are formed, and you know that politicians will have a role in forming them.
NickPollard 17y ago
And in the Presidential election too, Gore out-polled Bush in the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College vote.

wlievens 17y ago

Absolutely. Isn't this ridiculous either, though? http://yvespernet.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/zetels2009.jpg http://yvespernet.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/zetels2009.jpg Proportional representation is more correct, but certainly not more stable or efficient. Update: that image is only HALF of the represented parties and seats!