What will life be like under the Tories? (2010>)

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 11 Apr 2009, 17:12

Tess wrote:
kenneal wrote:Proportional representation usually gives the small parties like the BNP a voice in government; just look at the say the monster raving loonies get in Israel.
There's plenty of flexibility of approach to PR possible. For example, one could set a minimum % of votes that must be attained before any seats are won.

The same rules that prevent the BNP getting a voice also prevent the libdems and especially the greens gettings fair representation, and causes a feedback loop whereby people don't vote for them specifically because they can't win.

PR seems to work quite well for the european parliament, scottish parliament and welsh assembly. Surely it can work for the UK govt too?

Agreed. I really like the PR system in Ireland, though it can lead to more frequent elections - and you know, that's actually not a bad thing, if only people could see it.

The system amounts to you being able to people by preference, so strangely you end up voting for everyone, to a greater or lesser degree!

It means the Greens got seats and the Progressive Democrats, both opposite types of party. It might sound like a nightmare but no, differing viewpoints get some influence without being given free rein.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 11 Apr 2009, 17:15

kenneal wrote:I quite enjoy killing foxes although I do agree with the hunting with dogs ban. That is far to inefficient; much be better to give them all guns. I've had too many chickens killed by foxes to worry about killing a few of the b******ds.

If you cannot protect creatures for which you assume responsibility, then you're doing something wrong.

Why blame the fox?

eatyourveg · Post by **eatyourveg** » 13 Apr 2009, 21:16

emordnilap wrote:
kenneal wrote:I quite enjoy killing foxes although I do agree with the hunting with dogs ban. That is far to inefficient; much be better to give them all guns. I've had too many chickens killed by foxes to worry about killing a few of the b******ds.
If you cannot protect creatures for which you assume responsibility, then you're doing something wrong.

Why blame the fox?

Or you could look at it another way. The fox can devote pretty much all of it's time to figuring how to defeat your defense systems. You can't spend all your time perfectying those systems. Sooner or later it's him or you. Red in tooth and claw and all that.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 13 Apr 2009, 22:17

eatyourveg wrote:Or you could look at it another way. The fox can devote pretty much all of it's time to figuring how to defeat your defense systems. You can't spend all your time perfectying those systems. Sooner or later it's him or you. Red in tooth and claw and all that.

That's about it. Thanks EYV.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 14 Apr 2009, 12:14

The problem (or one of the many) with PR is its reliance on party lists and party whips, which is one of the big problems with Representive Democracy as practiced in Europe.
Some 75% of seats in the HoC are "safe" seats dominated by one party, my seat has been Labour since 1964, thats unlikely to change.
The only thing my MP has to fear is being thrown out of the Labour Party, as long as he's nice and compliant and does as he's told, he has a well paying job for life.

PR makes that situation worse, he cant fight the whips and rely on his constituants supporting him, there arent 68,000 electors to convince, there are 45 million.
There are exceptions, Red Ken as London Mayor for example, but they are few and far between.
If your an EUphile Tory in the South East, a vote for the Tories is first a vote for the most EUsceptic of all MEP's, even if you really the like the woman who's third on the list.

What we need is people to know and care what the MP they vote for stands for, not just to vote for the bloke in the right colour tie.
PR enforces the latter and eliminates the former

Open Primaries would work too.
A US senator in a safe seat is still at risk of a member of his own party challenging him for the seat, if his electorate feel he's loyal to the party not them, they can, and do, throw them out.

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 14 Apr 2009, 12:46

DominicJ wrote: What we need is people to know and care what the MP they vote for stands for, not just to vote for the bloke in the right colour tie.
PR enforces the latter and eliminates the former

People vote for the colour already, I think that's a lost cause. Rare are the elections where the personality matters, and even then it's just that - personality - not their stance on the issues.

In the EU elections of course we have a mixture of constituencies and party lists, and I think it works very well actually, but then I would say that wouldn't I, since it's the only way I'm gonna see Greens in government.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 14 Apr 2009, 17:03

Daniel Hannan might be Eurosceptic but the others in the South East aren't, unfortunately. If I had the chance I would vote for Dan Hannan and UKIP to get us out of the Fascist bureaucracy that is the EU as fast as possible.

monster · Post by **monster** » 16 Apr 2009, 17:58

Don't forget the Euro electins on Thursday June 4th.

The voting system is a form of PR so voting for The Green Party is definately not a wasted vote. This is especially important if you live in London or the South East so we don't lose Jean Lambert in London or Caroline Lucas in SE.

80% of environmental legislation comes from the EU.

Labour promised to look at voting reform in their manifesto for 1997 - not much happend there did it?

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 16 Apr 2009, 20:02

monster wrote:Its a from of PR so voting Green Party is definately not a wasted vote.

Thank you.

Cycloloco · Post by **Cycloloco** » 16 Apr 2009, 23:51

DominicJ wrote:The problem (or one of the many) with PR is its reliance on party lists and party whips, which is one of the big problems with Representive Democracy as practiced in Europe.....

What we need is people to know and care what the MP they vote for stands for, not just to vote for the bloke in the right colour tie.
PR enforces the latter and eliminates the former.....
.

From the comment above, you obviously don't understand PR. PR is a general term which tells you nothing about how a vote is taken. The only PR we have across the whole UK is for European elections by the method of fixed regional party lists. Agreed for that method the parties determine who you vote for. It is possible for the list to be open to voters prioritising the candidates as well as the party but the British gov't doesn' allow that.

The method of PR most favoured in the UK is Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies. At present that is only used in Northern Ireland (and Southern Ireland). With STV the voter can choose within parties as well as between parties. Extra choice for the voter means more complications, more cost and more time to count the results so the big parties have an all-purpose excuse to keep things as they are.

Adam1 · Post by **Adam1** » 17 Apr 2009, 00:05

Cycloloco wrote:
DominicJ wrote:The problem (or one of the many) with PR is its reliance on party lists and party whips, which is one of the big problems with Representive Democracy as practiced in Europe.....

What we need is people to know and care what the MP they vote for stands for, not just to vote for the bloke in the right colour tie.
PR enforces the latter and eliminates the former.....
.
From the comment above, you obviously don't understand PR. PR is a general term which tells you nothing about how a vote is taken. The only PR we have across the whole UK is for European elections by the method of fixed regional party lists. Agreed for that method the parties determine who you vote for. It is possible for the list to be open to voters prioritising the candidates as well as the party but the British gov't doesn' allow that.

The method of PR most favoured in the UK is Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies. At present that is only used in Northern Ireland (and Southern Ireland). With STV the voter can choose within parties as well as between parties. Extra choice for the voter means more complications, more cost and more time to count the results so the big parties have an all-purpose excuse to keep things as they are.

Yes, I'd second that Cycloloco. DJ has it the wrong way round: FPTP is a big problem representative democracy has here in the Westminster parliament.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 17 Apr 2009, 08:37

At present that is only used in Northern Ireland (and Southern Ireland)

Has anyone mentioned any other countries in this thread?
Israel.
Israel also uses party lists...

If your suggesting national, rather than district elections, I agree with you.
However, A system in which I, in the North, could vote for Redwood as my first preference, Carswell as my second, Adlard as my third ect, isnt really PR.

Cycloloco · Post by **Cycloloco** » 18 Apr 2009, 01:34

DominicJ wrote:
Has anyone mentioned any other countries in this thread?
Israel.
Israel also uses party lists...

If your suggesting national, rather than district elections, I agree with you.
However, A system in which I, in the North, could vote for Redwood as my first preference, Carswell as my second, Adlard as my third ect, isnt really PR.

AFAIK Israel uses national party lists for the whole country. That means that small parties get representation and spend a lot of time arguing for their minority interests. No one wants to do that in Britain but...suppose we ran a national list for England and you wanted to vote for Redwood because he is any of:
right-wing Tory, male, middle-aged, southern, married......
you would contribute to a proportional system.

The problem for the Euro-elections in June this year is that as the EU gets bigger, but the Euro-Parliament doesn't get bigger, the number of national reps in every country in the EP goes down. Ergo the number of candidates in a regional list is forced down and the smaller parties have to get a larger proprtion of the votes to get even one rep elected. Result: the British reps to the Euro-Parliament become less proportional. It is not apparent that anyone in the two big parties in GB cares about this.
(Whatever your region I suggest you vote Green or Lib Dem in June.)

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 18 Apr 2009, 02:02

Cycloloco wrote:(Whatever your region I suggest you vote Green or Lib Dem in June.)

Lib Dem? Don't you mean the Vince Cable, One Man Party?

Methinks we had better leave off the politicking before things get to RGR proportions.

marknorthfield · Post by **marknorthfield** » 18 Apr 2009, 12:50

Lib Dem? Don't you mean the Vince Cable, One Man Party?

Vince is only so prominent because everyone is so amazed that a politician appears to know what he's talking about. Without the credit crunch he would still be relatively unknown.

The Lib Dems polled nearly 6 million votes in the 2005 GE, compared to Labour on 9.56 and the Conservatives on 8.77, and as we all know that closeness between the top three was not remotely represented by seats in parliament for the runners up. It's a shocking state of affairs that some votes are worth so much more than others.

The traditional cry of 'It makes for strong government!' sounds weaker and weaker: look where strong government has got us.