h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If each party got a similar number of votes per seat then we would have a roughly equal split in the house of commons with the 3 main parties (Maybe about 36%,33%,30%) this would mean no effective goverenment which would be worse to us than having an unfair election system.

So instead you have a system where the minority governs?

What our system does is increase the diffrence between parties meaning we will be able to have effective goverenment if we used proportional representation their would be no way one party to govern making our goverenment effectivly useless.
Surely it is better to have a system by which goverenment is possible than one where everyone is represented equally but that nothing is done.
More people voted for labour than voted for any one other party so it is logical that they are in power. Propotinal representation only works where one group can command a mojrity otherwise you end up with minor parties getting a lot of power as coalitions are formed.

While this posting from Ferettbadger in another convo really comes under the banner of Lords reform it's the best new idea around at the moment:

Many of the specific problem of the British system arise from the lack of separation of powers. Executive and Legislature should be different things, and indeed Council and Parliament are different. But as virtually all ministers are MPs we end up with the perceived need for single party domination of the Commons. This means, among other things, that the Opposition is always either ineffective or destructive.

This election has convinced me that we do need proportional representation. I've previously been sceptical, but the poor turnout last time round, the expected poor turnout this time round, the disproportinate importance of a few marginal seats, and the massive growth of tactical voting has convinced me. Only by changing the system can we reinvigorate our democracy and make every vote count.

However, I still want a link between MPs and constituents. I still want to have "my" representative for my region. I want each MP to be directly elected - I don't like party list systems which can be used to smuggle deeply unpopular people into Parliament. Each MP should be directly elected and have a personal mandate.

So it looks like I agree with aging jb - Single Transferable Vote in multi-member constituencies. So, if I understand this correctly, I would list candidates in order of preference. Say I support the X party, but I think that one of the X party candidates is a buffoon and that one of the Y party candidates is a clever person with an independent mind who has represented the constituency well in the past. I could then put X1 and X2 first, follwed by Y.

The drawback with this scheme is that it's complicated. It's also less proportional than some other systems. In safe seats that would elect three members of the X party, all the votes for other parties won't count for anything. But it seems the best available to me, because I want to keep the constituency link....

A three member seat under STV would have to be very "safe" indeed to elect three members of the same party.

Something has to be done about the upper house ~ 16 retiring labour people get in while the tories get 5.
Blair has arranged it so he has a majority in the upper house and that means that if they apply the whip the upper house will cease to function as it should.
Why hasn't this been a bigger story over the weekend?

Hi Pixel

Dare I suggest that this hasn't been a big story precisely because Blair called the election KNOWING that the weekend before the good people of the land would be spending time with their families, mayube at the seaside, or down the pub ..... but NOT thinking about Thursday?

Novo

Sad but true ~ i just saw it as a couple of paragraphs in a paper.
I hate that we are that predictable and uninvolved.

pixel
the party in power has always made political appointments to the Lords, the only difference previously being that the hereditaries gave the Tories an enormous advantage there
personally I believe the 2nd chamber should also be elected and I certainly don't trust the monarchy to make appointments

Morning all,

I do not know how the US Senate and Congress get their reprsentatives , in other words precisely how they are eected. Not really important except that as a system it seems to be able to seriously limit Presidential powers - presumably what is was set up to do.

I mention it only because I have been trying to think of a constructive response to the House of Lords problem.

We only need a second chamber in order to provide checks and balances on the activitis of any incumbent government in the Commons. So I would suggest that we extend the previously explained German System by having three vote at election time .

First for the MP of your choice (regardless of his party perhaps) Second a vote for the Party of your choice - The German System so far - Thirdly a vote for a 'Senator' for the second chamber. I would suggest that the senators are selected from a list of names [+ a c.v.] put forawd by the incumbent government and the opposition parties with an equal number of candidates from each. ie, not proportional to the number of seats held in the Commons at the time by the various parties.

I await th destruction of this line of argument!

Has this new batch of appoitments given labour a majority in the HoL? I thought the consevative amount was very high and that this change will not have been adequate but I may be wrong.

However the party whip system breaks down in the Lords as the Lords have nothing to fear from the party if they cease to be affiliated to a party they will still have guarenteed seats in the House of Lords so tyhe only group who suffers is the party the Lords know this and as such often do object to the commons when there party has been brought into line.

I think placing an upper limit on the house of comons would be sensible as goverenments would find it harder to overwhelm the country,

"I think placing an upper limit on the house of comons would be sensible as goverenments would find it harder to overwhelm the country,"

Please explain ~ upper limit numbers,age,height.
Number of MPs determined by number of constituencies.
Could be reduced by making all constituencies geographically and numerically equal.

"... it would be almost impossible for effective goverenment to be carried out."

Not quite true. It would possibly make it difficult to continue with the current confrontational style of government - under PR, political parties would have to learn to get along and govern for the good of the country. Note that PR doesn't guarantee hung parliaments - but it does guarantee that an overall majority can only come about when the country as a whole is in agreement.

The current situation, according to the BBC's Poll Tracker software, could allow Labour to come 3rd behind the Conservatives and Lib-Dems and still have an overall majority. It is impossible to accept that such a situation would give Labour a mandate to completely change the face of Britain - but there would be nothing to stop them.

I believe that the wilder desires of politicians need to be controlled (eg Thatcher - but I'm sure that Conservative voters feel just as aggrieved by the actions of Blair).

STV is not the only PR system that preserves the constituency link.

Some years ago I saw a suggestion that instead of giving each elected member 1 vote in the commons, they should just get a weighted vote depending on the percentage of the popular vote they won in their constituency.

This requires no changes at all to the way that we vote today. It is still a FPP system - the winner goes to parliament - but if he won with 35% then he only gets to vote 0.35 in parliament. Another winning 60% gets a 0.6 vote in parliament. The MP will need to preserve his constituency link in order to try to raise his percent. And all votes count - voting against a candidate reduces his effectiveness (ability to vote against your desires).

This doesn't guarantee true PR, but it would approximate to it, and would be considerably simpler to implement than STV or other proposals.

>>STV is not the only PR system that preserves the constituency link.

Some years ago I saw a suggestion that instead of giving each elected member 1 vote in the commons, they should just get a weighted vote depending on the percentage of the popular vote they won in their constituency.

This requires no changes at all to the way that we vote today. It is still a FPP system - the winner goes to parliament - but if he won with 35% then he only gets to vote 0.35 in parliament. Another winning 60% gets a 0.6 vote in parliament. The MP will need to preserve his constituency link in order to try to raise his percent. And all votes count - voting against a candidate reduces his effectiveness (ability to vote against your desires).

This doesn't guarantee true PR, but it would approximate to it, and would be considerably simpler to implement than STV or other proposals.<<



But the government could still be made up by a party that doesn't have a majority of the populations suport. Since it's the government that controls the voting agenda, then there'd still be a problem.

This is true, but the system does limit the power of the ruling party.

(Incidentally this does not appear to be a priority of many that have written to this forum - most seem to want to be governed by an out-of-control party elected by a small minority - described, for some reason, as "effective".)

If you try a few examples you will see that the system (I have no idea what it is called) actually does approximate to true PR. Under most realistic assumptions you will only get a clear, overall majority if there is a clear, countrywide preference.

"The current situation, according to the BBC's Poll Tracker software, could allow Labour to come 3rd behind the Conservatives and Lib-Dems and still have an overall majority."

That sounds like a good reason for proportional representation to me!

Morning mdhyde

I have just read your post on a version of PR using the FFP system but giving voting ability in the Commons as a proportion of constituency votes won.

Brilliant!

I liked it , if any party put it forward it would get my vote!

Novo