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His article in today's FT may be a better link. I'm a big fan of JBM. https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998 https://www.ft.com/conten

His article in today's FT may be a better link. I'm a big fan of JBM. https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998 https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12... I thought the UK graph was incredible. How did such a left-leaning country end up with such an opposite government for 14 years? The answer is the voting system, first past the post. Boris Johnson won total control of the UK with 43% of the vote.

dentemple 3y ago
This is behind a paywall. Got an alternative link?
- failingslowly 3y ago
  https://archive.is/PSONZ https://archive.is/PSONZ
deleted 3y ago
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CaptainMarvel 3y ago
The Conservative party won 43% of votes and 56% of seats. The Labour party won 32% of votes and 31% of seats. Despite winning only 1.34x more votes, the conservatives received 1.8x more seats. (It's even worse, the Liberal Democrats won 11% of votes, and got 2% of seats; the Conservatives received 3.9x the votes and 28x the seats...) The Conservatives changed the voting system for the London mayoral elections from supplementary vote to first past the post with the Elections Act 2022. The UK has become a less democratic country with the government being less representative of the views of its people.
- awjlogan 3y ago
  You could also point out that the SNP got 3.9% of the total vote and 7.8% of the total seats. I don't have a solution to this, the game has to be played under the existing rules, but I don't think this means it's "less democratic". Certain measures are definitely anti-democratic (for example, the voter ID issue), but the system itself is what it has been for a long time. I still think that a partial driver of Brexit was that UKIP didn't get a single seat, despite getting a large proportion of the vote. That may have exposed their shallowness as well as sating their voters somewhat, but looking at Europe just now (e.g. the AfD in Germany) maybe that's naive of me.
  - CaptainMarvel 3y ago
    First Past the Post is less democratic than other systems of voting. Consider various definitions of democracy, they're usually along the lines of: > Democracy is a system of government in which laws, policies, leadership, and major undertakings of a state or other polity are directly or indirectly decided by the “people,” a group historically constituted by only a minority of the population (e.g., all free adult males in ancient Athens or all sufficiently propertied adult males in 19th-century Britain) but generally understood since the mid-20th century to include all (or nearly all) adult citizens. https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-democracy https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-democracy Put simply, democracy is a government by the people. But in the elections I referenced, we see that some groups of people are underrepresented in government. Their opinions are not contributing to decisions as much as other people's. It's similar to gerrymandering. Keep the same voting system, but distribute electoral areas so that a certain group of people will never have political power. Wouldn't you say that's less democratic?
    - awjlogan 3y ago
      Gerrymandering is different to the system itself getting less democratic. The UK Electoral Commission is meant to be non-political in setting boundaries. Obviously, there will be pressure applied for advantage but, frankly, that's how adversarial politics works. As I pointed out, you get groups who are over represented as well. While FPTP is not 1:1 mapping of voters to representation, it's still democratic, particularly in a representative democracy, as "the people" choose someone to represent them. Watching PR in action in Europe, I also don't think it's the panacea some people see it as. The horse trading happens behind doors when forming coalitions, rather than upfront, at least in theory, in a manifesto. It seems to start promisingly, but fragments to the extent that there is no stable government formed (Belgium), or a minority government that can't actually do anything (France), or having to bring in formerly shunned "unpleasant" groups (as I mentioned before, I can see there are pros and cons to that) because voters are so disenchanted with the disfunction (Germany) they don't vote for the more palatable options anymore. I don't have a good answer to what is "better", but the main thing in any democracy is to get informed and vote. Even if you are in a location where your vote is taken for granted or diluted, it is still pressure on the main parties to change their position (vis UKIP and the Conservatives) as votes slip away quickly.
philbin 3y ago
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dentemple 3y ago

This is behind a paywall. Got an alternative link?

failingslowly 3y ago
https://archive.is/PSONZ https://archive.is/PSONZ

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

CaptainMarvel 3y ago

The Conservative party won 43% of votes and 56% of seats. The Labour party won 32% of votes and 31% of seats. Despite winning only 1.34x more votes, the conservatives received 1.8x more seats. (It's even worse, the Liberal Democrats won 11% of votes, and got 2% of seats; the Conservatives received 3.9x the votes and 28x the seats...) The Conservatives changed the voting system for the London mayoral elections from supplementary vote to first past the post with the Elections Act 2022. The UK has become a less democratic country with the government being less representative of the views of its people.

awjlogan 3y ago
You could also point out that the SNP got 3.9% of the total vote and 7.8% of the total seats. I don't have a solution to this, the game has to be played under the existing rules, but I don't think this means it's "less democratic". Certain measures are definitely anti-democratic (for example, the voter ID issue), but the system itself is what it has been for a long time. I still think that a partial driver of Brexit was that UKIP didn't get a single seat, despite getting a large proportion of the vote. That may have exposed their shallowness as well as sating their voters somewhat, but looking at Europe just now (e.g. the AfD in Germany) maybe that's naive of me.
- CaptainMarvel 3y ago
  First Past the Post is less democratic than other systems of voting. Consider various definitions of democracy, they're usually along the lines of: > Democracy is a system of government in which laws, policies, leadership, and major undertakings of a state or other polity are directly or indirectly decided by the “people,” a group historically constituted by only a minority of the population (e.g., all free adult males in ancient Athens or all sufficiently propertied adult males in 19th-century Britain) but generally understood since the mid-20th century to include all (or nearly all) adult citizens. https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-democracy https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-democracy Put simply, democracy is a government by the people. But in the elections I referenced, we see that some groups of people are underrepresented in government. Their opinions are not contributing to decisions as much as other people's. It's similar to gerrymandering. Keep the same voting system, but distribute electoral areas so that a certain group of people will never have political power. Wouldn't you say that's less democratic?
  - awjlogan 3y ago
    Gerrymandering is different to the system itself getting less democratic. The UK Electoral Commission is meant to be non-political in setting boundaries. Obviously, there will be pressure applied for advantage but, frankly, that's how adversarial politics works. As I pointed out, you get groups who are over represented as well. While FPTP is not 1:1 mapping of voters to representation, it's still democratic, particularly in a representative democracy, as "the people" choose someone to represent them. Watching PR in action in Europe, I also don't think it's the panacea some people see it as. The horse trading happens behind doors when forming coalitions, rather than upfront, at least in theory, in a manifesto. It seems to start promisingly, but fragments to the extent that there is no stable government formed (Belgium), or a minority government that can't actually do anything (France), or having to bring in formerly shunned "unpleasant" groups (as I mentioned before, I can see there are pros and cons to that) because voters are so disenchanted with the disfunction (Germany) they don't vote for the more palatable options anymore. I don't have a good answer to what is "better", but the main thing in any democracy is to get informed and vote. Even if you are in a location where your vote is taken for granted or diluted, it is still pressure on the main parties to change their position (vis UKIP and the Conservatives) as votes slip away quickly.

philbin 3y ago

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