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It's run by a government elected with 34% of the vote. Before that, 43% of the vote. Before that 43%. Before that 37%. None of that sounds like democracy to m

It's run by a government elected with 34% of the vote. Before that, 43% of the vote. Before that 43%. Before that 37%. None of that sounds like democracy to me.

Symbiote 2y ago
Not all the government is elected. There are several ministers from the House of Lords, who aren't elected by the people. I haven't checked for this Parliament, but for the previous one that included people who had LOST their election to be an MP, but got nominated to the Lords anyway.
dijksterhuis 2y ago
we have a constituency based first past the post system. we vote for a local MP to represent our constituency in the house of commons. first one past the threshold wins and represents our area in the house of commons. each MP gets one vote. one vote in the house of commons for each constituency. so yes. this is possible. because it’s not about total votes — it’s about representing the individual local areas and the people within those areas. labour won a landslide of “areas”. that’s how our system works. just because it doesn’t match what you think democracy should look like doesn’t mean it isn’t democratic. it’s just different. plenty of criticisms exist about our system (esp house of lords). we even tried to have a referendum on first past the post about two decades ago. i voted for AV. but oh well.
- AndrewDucker 2y ago
  I know how the system works. I don't consider FPTP to be democratic, because it disenfranches large swathes of the population and means that you can rule the country with a massive majority despite only getting 34% of the vote.
  - milesrout 2y ago
    FPP does not disfranchise anyone. If you vote for someone that loses their seat or wins in a landslide your vote still counts.
    - defrost 2y ago
      Modern democracies moved on past creaky old FPTP and its strong tendency to produce two party non representive majorities. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as Duverger's Law. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
      - milesrout 2y ago
        Novelty isn't inherently good. The word "modern" is the most overused word in the English language on this forum. Every new Javascript framework is "modern" and by implication good. There is nothing non-representative about FPP. It has nothing to do with parties. It is a non-party-based system. There is no a priori reason why it is "more democratic" for the proportions of seats in Parliament when split by parti to correspond to the proportions of votes for candidates from those parties. You can declare that you define "democraticness" to be a measure of the extent to which that is true, but there is no logical reason for them to correspond and no good argument that they should. It is assumed as axiomatically good and you work backwards from there. Party-proportionality is democracy, therefore list-based proportional representation is more democratic. Well only if you redefine "democratic" first to mean "proportional", which isn't what anyone understood it to mean in the past and isn't the way the term is commonly used in any other context.
        defrost 2y ago
        Every voting system has flaws, no voting system is perfect. FPTP has more flaws than other systems and almost inevitably leads to less representation in democracies by promoting two party blocs that barely differ over successive election iterations. It's a political form of Hotelling's Law coupled with discrete dynamics. As has happened to the USofA despite a strong opposition to party politics by the founders and crafters of the current system who failed a few centuries back to understand the dynamics of a scheme that didn't scale well.

It's run by a government elected with 34% of the vote. Before that, 43% of the vote. Before that 43%. Before that 37%. None of that sounds like democracy to me.

Symbiote 2y ago

Not all the government is elected. There are several ministers from the House of Lords, who aren't elected by the people. I haven't checked for this Parliament, but for the previous one that included people who had LOST their election to be an MP, but got nominated to the Lords anyway.

dijksterhuis 2y ago

we have a constituency based first past the post system. we vote for a local MP to represent our constituency in the house of commons. first one past the threshold wins and represents our area in the house of commons. each MP gets one vote. one vote in the house of commons for each constituency. so yes. this is possible. because it’s not about total votes — it’s about representing the individual local areas and the people within those areas. labour won a landslide of “areas”. that’s how our system works. just because it doesn’t match what you think democracy should look like doesn’t mean it isn’t democratic. it’s just different. plenty of criticisms exist about our system (esp house of lords). we even tried to have a referendum on first past the post about two decades ago. i voted for AV. but oh well.

AndrewDucker 2y ago
I know how the system works. I don't consider FPTP to be democratic, because it disenfranches large swathes of the population and means that you can rule the country with a massive majority despite only getting 34% of the vote.
- milesrout 2y ago
  FPP does not disfranchise anyone. If you vote for someone that loses their seat or wins in a landslide your vote still counts.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Modern democracies moved on past creaky old FPTP and its strong tendency to produce two party non representive majorities. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two, a principle known in political science as Duverger's Law. Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections. ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting
    - milesrout 2y ago
      Novelty isn't inherently good. The word "modern" is the most overused word in the English language on this forum. Every new Javascript framework is "modern" and by implication good. There is nothing non-representative about FPP. It has nothing to do with parties. It is a non-party-based system. There is no a priori reason why it is "more democratic" for the proportions of seats in Parliament when split by parti to correspond to the proportions of votes for candidates from those parties. You can declare that you define "democraticness" to be a measure of the extent to which that is true, but there is no logical reason for them to correspond and no good argument that they should. It is assumed as axiomatically good and you work backwards from there. Party-proportionality is democracy, therefore list-based proportional representation is more democratic. Well only if you redefine "democratic" first to mean "proportional", which isn't what anyone understood it to mean in the past and isn't the way the term is commonly used in any other context.
      - defrost 2y ago
        Every voting system has flaws, no voting system is perfect. FPTP has more flaws than other systems and almost inevitably leads to less representation in democracies by promoting two party blocs that barely differ over successive election iterations. It's a political form of Hotelling's Law coupled with discrete dynamics. As has happened to the USofA despite a strong opposition to party politics by the founders and crafters of the current system who failed a few centuries back to understand the dynamics of a scheme that didn't scale well.