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Plain old me said:We do have a representative democracy, the vast majority of the time, the party with most votes wins, this even happened in 2005. It is true, PR would be far more representative, far more democratic, all main parties would have the influence they deserve, the smaller ones would have far more, but the I believe the problems of PR in the UK would far outway the benefits, whilst the benefits of FPTP outway the problems.
This is how it goes. Unfortunately the majority who didn't want Labour divided their vote.
Proportional representation would still give Labour the majority, but such a tiny one that nothing would get done. We'd have votes of no-confidence all over the place and an election every month. The Lib-Dems have put a coalition as an impossibility with either party, and I cannot see the Tories joining Labour. Even so, I would say it is just as bad to vote for one party on their policies, and find that although they've won, some of those policies you wanted have been thrown out the window simply in order to shift a majority into parliament.
That situation would become even more likely under PR.
The Iraq War is just an example. How many of the ordinary man on the street can be bothered to read a dossier on invasion plans, intelligence reports, budget issues, NHS reports, education statistics, environment reports, and god knows how many things the commitees have to consider? We elect these people to have the time, and willingness to do this so they can vote, with an informed vote, on our behalf. Rather then the whimmed, Daily Mail influenced vote that would be the undoubtable result of consulting the people on each issue.
There been a couple of elections over the past 100 years where the party with the most votes lost, this doesnt strike me as a particually fair system. If you ranked all the different voteing systems in terms of the amount of choice they gave the voter and how representative the system is F.P.T.P would come off worse on both counts.
I doubt proportional representation would give labour a majority because under p.r people would vote for the party they wanted rather than the party most likely to keep the concervatives out.
I wouldnt assume nothing would get done under a minority government as partys could still vote together even if not in a coalition.
In terms of nationalist partys haveing to much of an influence would be that much of a problem. The last time a nationalist party ended up in a coalition was when the irish nationalists ended up in a coalition with the liberals on the condition that the liberals implememted home rule for ireland [which led to the formation of the republic of ireland if i remember rightly] So i imagine the same would happen if the S.N.P or plaid cymru ended up in a coalition with someone except there would be a referendum.