Good day for political ying yang and the conservatives‏

[Maximus Zeebra]

Bad day for democracy, it becoming quite apparant that the UK system like others are not democratic.

Can you explain to me how a party who gets 23%(almost 1/4th) of the votes from the electorate, end up only having 1/11th(less than 10%) of seats in parliament?
BNP and UKIP both had more than 500.000 votes, yet get no seats, while 7 parties with less than 500.000 votes get between 1 to 8 seats in parliament.

This is very confusing. Can you explain it?

BBC NEWS | Election 2010 | Results | United Kingdom - National Results

 

[alexa]

Bad day for democracy, it becoming quite apparant that the UK system like others are not democratic.

Can you explain to me how a party who gets 23%(almost 1/4th) of the votes from the electorate, end up only having 1/11th(less than 10%) of seats in parliament?
BNP and UKIP both had more than 500.000 votes, yet get no seats, while 7 parties with less than 500.000 votes get between 1 to 8 seats in parliament.

This is very confusing. Can you explain it?

BBC NEWS | Election 2010 | Results | United Kingdom - National Results

Yes, I can explain. It is because we vote for people in a particular area. The person with the most votes in that area gets the seat. As the person has to represent the people from that area there is certainly some reasoning in it.

The BNP did not have a good night last night, no MP's and lost all of its Barking and Dagenham Council seats.

BBC News - BNP loses all 12 seats in Barking and Dagenham council

 

[gunner]

Bad day for democracy, it becoming quite apparant that the UK system like others are not democratic.

Can you explain to me how a party who gets 23%(almost 1/4th) of the votes from the electorate, end up only having 1/11th(less than 10%) of seats in parliament?
BNP and UKIP both had more than 500.000 votes, yet get no seats, while 7 parties with less than 500.000 votes get between 1 to 8 seats in parliament.

This is very confusing. Can you explain it?

BBC NEWS | Election 2010 | Results | United Kingdom - National Results

The UK method for selecting representatives is called the single member plurality system [SMPS] or commonly known as 'first past the post'. For ease of explanation consider [hypothetically] one seat in one constituency has

-two MPs up for election

-the electorate consists of 100 people

- one candidate receives 51 votes

-the other candidate receives 49 votes

As the name suggests 'first past the post' the candidate who received 51 votes will gain the seat. Here's the unfair part [in my opinion] those 49 votes count for a big fat 'zero'. Consider the worst case-this happening throughout the UK you have many voters who's vote just does not count for much.

Hope this helps?

Paul

 

[Andalublue]

Bad day for democracy, it becoming quite apparant that the UK system like others are not democratic.

Can you explain to me how a party who gets 23%(almost 1/4th) of the votes from the electorate, end up only having 1/11th(less than 10%) of seats in parliament?
BNP and UKIP both had more than 500.000 votes, yet get no seats, while 7 parties with less than 500.000 votes get between 1 to 8 seats in parliament.

This is very confusing. Can you explain it?

BBC NEWS | Election 2010 | Results | United Kingdom - National Results

Technically I can explain it, morally and philosophically it is inexplicable. Much as I hate the BNP and UKIP, I would be happy to see them win a couple of seats in Parliament in order that the vote actually does reflect the reality of the public's political opinion.

 

[alexa]

Technically I can explain it, morally and philosophically it is inexplicable. Much as I hate the BNP and UKIP, I would be happy to see them win a couple of seats in Parliament in order that the vote actually does reflect the reality of the public's political opinion.

Maybe, maybe not. Like some of us said in your first election thread, voting technically is one of the choices we have.

This time my family, generally Labour voters, all voted SNP, simply because in this area it was a choice between the SNP and the Tories so we voted to keep the Tories out and succeeded.

I suspect the election does pretty accurately reflect the position of British voters. When it is a near thing, a great number vote technically to try and keep the party we don't want out.

I do not know how dispersed the BNP votes were just that Nick Griffin came third. I am not sure I want people who come third getting a seat in Parliament and I am not sure that in a representative system this does reflect the people.

Might help you get a few more Green seats though - and really grind the political mechanism down to standstill. I am not sure about these changes at all and would not be happy with such a wide distribution as the European Elections.

In Scotland we have 1 Conservative Politician. Proportional Representation would only change that situation a bit. We would still not be represented by a Conservative government.

What I am saying is that with Representative Democracy it can always be argued that it is not fair, however it is worked out.

Direct or Active Democracy is not possible in our big societies.

 

[Andalublue]

I suspect the election does pretty accurately reflect the position of British voters. When it is a near thing, a great number vote technically to try and keep the party we don't want out.

I can't agree, Alexa. 36% = 307 seats, 23% = 57 seats? How does that represent public opinion? It should be closer to 36% = 234, 23% = 149.

I do not know how dispersed the BNP votes were just that Nick Griffin came third. I am not sure I want people who come third getting a seat in Parliament and I am not sure that in a representative system this does reflect the people.

Nationally they won 1.9%, that would mean 12 seats. Greens would have 6 seats, UKIP 20.

What I am saying is that with Representative Democracy it can always be argued that it is not fair, however it is worked out.

Direct or Active Democracy is not possible in our big societies.

No, the only thing you can demand of representative democracy is that it's REPRESENTATIVE.

 

[PeteEU]

The present system favors the 2 big parties, especially the Torries. With it they have a chance of getting a majority government on their own, but without it they would out the political wilderness forever. No way they would change that.

 

[Djoop]

The present system favors the 2 big parties, especially the Torries. With it they have a chance of getting a majority government on their own, but without it they would out the political wilderness forever. No way they would change that.

Well, we have seen what happens if Labour loses big and Libdems don't seem to take advantage of the situation, Tories still don't have a majority. Times change, and I severely doubt the Tories will ever secure a large majority in parliament again. I think the conservatives should give in to electoral reforms believing they'll have more chance of governing in a coalition. The danger is that they will have to stay well on the right to prevent nationalists and libertarians from gaining ground.

 

[PeteEU]

Well, we have seen what happens if Labour loses big and Libdems don't seem to take advantage of the situation, Tories still don't have a majority. Times change, and I severely doubt the Tories will ever secure a large majority in parliament again. I think the conservatives should give in to electoral reforms believing they'll have more chance of governing in a coalition. The danger is that they will have to stay well on the right to prevent nationalists and libertarians from gaining ground.

Actually they "only" need 40%+ of the vote to do it, so they are not far from it. And as long as there is a chance then I doubt they will want any change what so ever in the process. Remember these are "conservative" and they hate change, especially if that change will mean a change in the status quo which is highly favorable to them.

 

[Mirepoix]

An election system as it exists in Great Britain favours the big parties and then gives a clear majority to the country, contrary to other systems where there must be coalitions like in Germany or Israel. Of course this time it doesn’t work as apparently there will be a coalition of two parties.

 

[alexa]

I can't agree, Alexa. 36% = 307 seats, 23% = 57 seats? How does that represent public opinion? It should be closer to 36% = 234, 23% = 149.

We have a hung Parliament. That is the state that Britain is in right now. No one has an overall majority.

No, the only thing you can demand of representative democracy is that it's REPRESENTATIVE.

The only way you will get REPRESENTATIVE democracy is to have active democracy. It is the only way.

People criticise other countries and say it fails their democracy as they are always having to give lee way to super right factions and so on.

 

[Maximus Zeebra]

Technically I can explain it, morally and philosophically it is inexplicable. Much as I hate the BNP and UKIP, I would be happy to see them win a couple of seats in Parliament in order that the vote actually does reflect the reality of the public's political opinion.

I am a deep believer in a democratic system where the % matters, so that independent candidates get heard and small parties take part, and make a broader representation of the full nation and more opinions heard in the "government".

In a parliament of 650 representatives that means that every 0.15% should mean 1 seat. That is the only fair thing.

In Norway its also unfair even though we use proportional representation, because we block out any party with less than 4% of the total votes. Which is directly undemocratic and another example of "misrepresenation".

Direct or Active Democracy is not possible in our big societies.

Completely wrong. With todays technology, a new type of democracy should most definetely be possible.

It should also be possible to not have an unfair election system that favours big parties and excludes everyone who is in a small party or independent.

 

[alexa]

Completely wrong. With todays technology, a new type of democracy should most definetely be possible.

I never said it wasn't. I said that the only way you can get democracy which represents the people is by active or direct democracy.

It should also be possible to not have an unfair election system that favours big parties and excludes everyone who is in a small party or independent.

Small parties and independents do get seats. Indeed I would think Independents would be the biggest people to suffer in PR.

Yes, the UK system favours the big parties because they win the most seats by first past the post. The Liberals get lots of second place. Tactical voting can help that to be the situation but I would think only tactical voting.

I am not adverse to looking at other ideas but I think they too can be problematic.

I could not find a newer one but in the 2006 World's best democracy the UK came 23 but it was not our Political process which was as good as No 3, it was our lack of Political Participation. If we become more interested in politics as we possibly have in the last few weeks, we may begin to see our government representing us a bit more.


http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_TABLE_2007_v3.pdf

 

[Camlon]

I am a deep believer in a democratic
In Norway its also unfair even though we use proportional representation, because we block out any party with less than 4% of the total votes. Which is directly undemocratic and another example of "misrepresenation".

No, that's a good thing, because in Norway they have party called "Venstre" and "KRF" who has way more power than the amount of people that vote for them. Venstre went under the 4% limit last election, because they said openly that they were going to pursue policies that are deeply unpopular. Direct quote "We're going against the stream" Didn't work out very well, and many of them got mad and want to remove the 4% limit.

One of the problems with proportional representation is that small parties get more power than the amount of voters. To illustrate. Let's pretend we have three parties, A, B and C. If A and C has 48%, and B has 4%. In this case, party B has the same amount of power as A and B.

To solve this problem, the 4% limit is put in place. So that very small parties won't get too much power. If Britain get proportional representattion, they probably should set up a similiar limit at for instance 6%. For instance, do Britain want a BNP with 3% controlling the parliment? It's not very fair, is it?

 

[Camlon]

Completely wrong. With todays technology, a new type of democracy should most definetely be possible.

Well, the biggest problem with direct democracy is that the average person is not able to understand all of the issues. First off, some stuff is just too complicated for tha average voter. Also if you give people the choice, opinion polls have shown that people will vote for lower taxes and higher spending which certinally won't work in the long run.

How is technology going to solve that?

BTW: I'm in favour of referendums on popular issues, but not direct democracy.

 

[Blueangel]

Let's look at the stats here...

Conservative 306 +97 10,706,647 votes 36.1% of the vote +3.8%
Labour 258 -91 8,604,358 votes 29.0% of the vote -6.2%
Liberal Democrat 57 -5 6,827,938 votes 23.0% of the vote +1.0%


There are 650 seats up for grabs, yet...

Conservatives got 36.1% of the vote and 47.1% of the seats
Labour got 29.0% of the vote and 39.7% of the seats
Lib Dems got 23.0% of the vote and 8.8% of the seats.

How is that fair?

The left of centre parties pulled in 50% more votes than the right of centre party, yet the Conservatives are assuming the right to rule?!!
Their rule will be a very long way from being representative of the wishes of the people of this country. It's that simple!

 

[Maximus Zeebra]

No, that's a good thing, because in Norway they have party called "Venstre" and "KRF" who has way more power than the amount of people that vote for them. Venstre went under the 4% limit last election, because they said openly that they were going to pursue policies that are deeply unpopular. Direct quote "We're going against the stream" Didn't work out very well, and many of them got mad and want to remove the 4% limit.

One of the problems with proportional representation is that small parties get more power than the amount of voters. To illustrate. Let's pretend we have three parties, A, B and C. If A and C has 48%, and B has 4%. In this case, party B has the same amount of power as A and B.

To solve this problem, the 4% limit is put in place. So that very small parties won't get too much power. If Britain get proportional representattion, they probably should set up a similiar limit at for instance 6%. For instance, do Britain want a BNP with 3% controlling the parliment? It's not very fair, is it?

But that is completely wrong, because the party with 4% has far less power in parliament than the one with 48% in the example above. Usually there are many parties, so the 3% to get majority is almost never represented by only one party. It has been very long in the PR systems that I have seen a party with more than 40%, or two parties with more than 25% each.
I support indepenent politicians, I actually despice party politics alltogether, a 4% blocking minority just blocks out more diverse opinions and voices and makes overall representation much poorer.

Personally I want a "no party" system where everyone are independents and vote independently on each case, according to their own best judgement, not the one of their party. This should be the basis of a system where the people participate fare more in direct and intelligent democracy.

 

[Maximus Zeebra]

Well, the biggest problem with direct democracy is that the average person is not able to understand all of the issues. First off, some stuff is just too complicated for tha average voter. Also if you give people the choice, opinion polls have shown that people will vote for lower taxes and higher spending which certinally won't work in the long run.

How is technology going to solve that?

BTW: I'm in favour of referendums on popular issues, but not direct democracy.

Technology is not going to solve that, education reform is.

Thats why the people should be handed "referendum"/deciding power in certaint areas of politics to begin with, and while political and economical education becomes bigger part of elemenatary education, these rights can easily be expanded.

Beyond this I believe in having definete rules to work with. Say unchangable interest rates and a tax framework where taxes cannot change out of the framework.
I also believe we can treat different cases differently, whereas big change in say for example the tax system would need a 75% referendum majority in order to be even allowed to be considered and re-written for the parliament and eventually people to approve. Its always possible to use mechanisms in creation of a new political model.

 

[mikeey]

Alexa i agree with u, it is a shambles,i say we should have same number of poeple in each seat and take it from there.Keep me right lads will u if u dont mind.

mikeey