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Post by greenchristian on Jun 10, 2018 18:35:17 GMT
Greenrichard - You have hit the nail absolutely on the head. If that's all you think elections are for, then the case for STV, or some other proportional system, is unanswerable. But I think elections are about much more than that - not just about registering an opinion, but exercising a choice about how and by whom the country should be governed. But FPTP doesn't provide that. Voters are choosing their local representatives, not the national government. Unless the law forces a strict two party system, like in the US, many voters won't have a de facto choice between the big parties most likely to form the main party of government (in Northern Ireland, for example, voters don't even have this choice in theory). Even then, many voters will live in a one party area, and it's entirely possible that a party could win a majority on a lower share of the vote than their main rivals. The only kind of system that actually delivers the kind of clear choice you are after is a Presidential system. But coalition-building after an election is the only time that voters (rather than party members) have any influence over what kind of coalitions are formed. That's because post-election multi-party coalitions are formed on the basis of how the electorate have voted. |
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Post by andrew111 on Jun 10, 2018 20:54:01 GMT
The more I read this thread and follow the poverty of argument for AV and PR the more certain I am in my determination to preserve FPTP and to restore it to all elections at every level in the UK. In a race the best athlete on the day breasts the tape first and wins. We don't tolerate some poxy panel looking at the other athletes and asking who the spectators would have preferred to have won and then after a series of 'calculations' declaring that the third person to pass through the tape has actually won 'after all'! Because that would be deeply silly in a race wouldn't it? Yes. and in all else. the Winner wins. But we do very frequently decide that the winner wasn't the winner after all because of gaining some unfair advantage.
Powerful vested interests with lots of money (increasingly not even based in this country) are the performance-enhancing drugs of our political system. A winner-takes-all voting system reinforces that advantage
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Post by andrew111 on Jun 10, 2018 21:33:26 GMT
The vote bases for the two major parties are quite different from that for the Liberal Democrats (hence the latter's near evaporation). Not as different as you might think. Labour's vote has in the past shrunk below 30%, and the Tories have been nearly as poor on occasions. And that's just on a national basis. In individual constituencies variance have been even greater. But remove the incentive to "keep themmuns out" and all bets are off anyway. 30.7% for the Tories in 1997..
People in France thought the the two main alliances were impregnable, like Tories and Labour here. I have gone back to 1981 and up to and including 2012, the right never fell below 35%, and the left only once to 30%, otherwise always above 36%. (in the first round)
Then in 2017 in the first round the right got 22% and the left just 9%. If people in Britain really thought a centrist alternative could win, similar things might happen. Indeed in the days when the Lib Dems were getting over 15%, several polls showed over 40% of people saying "I would vote for them if I thought they could win.." An opinion backed up by the fact that they DID win and hold in 50+ very disparate seats, covering pretty much the entire range of demography from Redcar, Rochdale and Bermondsey to Twickenham, N Norfolk and S Lakeland.
The collapse in the Lib Dem vote from 22% in 2010 (after being above 15% in every election since 1979) to 8% should be a warning to the big two, not a matter for complacency
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Post by pepperminttea on Jun 11, 2018 13:54:57 GMT
Not as different as you might think. Labour's vote has in the past shrunk below 30%, and the Tories have been nearly as poor on occasions. And that's just on a national basis. In individual constituencies variance have been even greater. But remove the incentive to "keep themmuns out" and all bets are off anyway. 30.7% for the Tories in 1997..
People in France thought the the two main alliances were impregnable, like Tories and Labour here. I have gone back to 1981 and up to and including 2012, the right never fell below 35%, and the left only once to 30%, otherwise always above 36%. (in the first round)
Then in 2017 in the first round the right got 22% and the left just 9%. If people in Britain really thought a centrist alternative could win, similar things might happen. Indeed in the days when the Lib Dems were getting over 15%, several polls showed over 40% of people saying "I would vote for them if I thought they could win.." An opinion backed up by the fact that they DID win and hold in 50+ very disparate seats, covering pretty much the entire range of demography from Redcar, Rochdale and Bermondsey to Twickenham, N Norfolk and S Lakeland.
The collapse in the Lib Dem vote from 22% in 2010 (after being above 15% in every election since 1979) to 8% should be a warning to the big two, not a matter for complacency
I would argue this was the primary reason the LD vote crumbled in the first place. They had (and still don't have) very little in the way of a core vote and the very disparate coalition they built prior to 2010 was always going to be near impossible to hold together whilst in government. I voted for the LDs in 2015 because I generally thought the coalition did a good job but the LDs foolishly tried to run away from their record in government to try to save left wing votes that they were never going to get anyway and thus they ended up getting very little credit from those who actually approved of the coalition and thus most who felt like me went and voted for the Tories. In short they tried to please everybody and ended up pleasing nobody. Ironically if the LDs had actually stood more by their record in government Cameron may well not have won a majority and Brexit wouldn't have happened. Until the voting system changes I think it's very unlikely that the LDs will be seen as anything more than a third party capable of influencing a Labour or the Tory government in the event of a hung parliament though it's also very possible that they will be stuck in the wilderness as the Liberal Party was in the post war period. But if the almost unthinkable does happens and the LDs become a major party of government I think it's almost inevitable that the party will become by default either a centre right or centre left party (albeit with liberal influences) depending on whether it is the Tories or Labour who collapse to third party status. Look at Canada for example the national Liberal Party is generally seen as a party of the centre left as the left wing NDP is the third party whilst in the province of British Columbia the Liberal Party is solidly a party of the centre right due to the collapse of the right wing Social Credit Party in the 90s. France is different because the voting system actively promotes 'centrism' while ours encourages a binary choice between right and left making a centrist breakthrough here much harder. We'll have to wait to see whether Macron is an anomaly caused by the fear of the far right, corruption in the Republicans and a very unpopular Socialist government or whether his party will remain a fixture in the French political scene. His government is already unpopular though and is losing votes on both the left and the the right and if it wasn't for the runoff system I think En Marche would already be in very serious trouble. Obviously if PR comes in the chances of some form of 'liberal' government exponentially increases as Labour and the Tories will inevitably split however I also think it's quite unlikely the Liberal Democrats will continue to exist in their current form either because the spectrum of opinion within the party is ridiculously broad for a party that won 7.4% of the popular vote. Even on this forum there are some LD contributors I agree with on a great deal and some I agree with on virtually nothing. This I think is a major barrier to them building a core vote of any significant size. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
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Post by Sibboleth on Jun 11, 2018 15:42:11 GMT
Then in 2017 in the first round the right got 22% and the left just 9%. If people in Britain really thought a centrist alternative could win, similar things might happen. Indeed in the days when the Lib Dems were getting over 15%, several polls showed over 40% of people saying "I would vote for them if I thought they could win.." An opinion backed up by the fact that they DID win and hold in 50+ very disparate seats, covering pretty much the entire range of demography from Redcar, Rochdale and Bermondsey to Twickenham, N Norfolk and S Lakeland. Thanks for unwittingly providing an excellent example of why 'seats like [insert list]' unrepresentative cherry picking is bad electoral analysis. |
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Jun 11, 2018 16:43:18 GMT
30.7% for the Tories in 1997..
People in France thought the the two main alliances were impregnable, like Tories and Labour here. I have gone back to 1981 and up to and including 2012, the right never fell below 35%, and the left only once to 30%, otherwise always above 36%. (in the first round)
Then in 2017 in the first round the right got 22% and the left just 9%. If people in Britain really thought a centrist alternative could win, similar things might happen. Indeed in the days when the Lib Dems were getting over 15%, several polls showed over 40% of people saying "I would vote for them if I thought they could win.." An opinion backed up by the fact that they DID win and hold in 50+ very disparate seats, covering pretty much the entire range of demography from Redcar, Rochdale and Bermondsey to Twickenham, N Norfolk and S Lakeland.
The collapse in the Lib Dem vote from 22% in 2010 (after being above 15% in every election since 1979) to 8% should be a warning to the big two, not a matter for complacency
I would argue this was the primary reason the LD vote crumbled in the first place. They had (and still don't have) very little in the way of a core vote and the very disparate coalition they built prior to 2010 was always going to be near impossible to hold together whilst in government. I voted for the LDs in 2015 because I generally thought the coalition did a good job but the LDs foolishly tried to run away from their record in government to try to save left wing votes that they were never going to get anyway and thus they ended up getting very little credit from those who actually approved of the coalition and thus most who felt like me went and voted for the Tories. In short they tried to please everybody and ended up pleasing nobody. Ironically if the LDs had actually stood more by their record in government Cameron may well not have won a majority and Brexit wouldn't have happened. Until the voting system changes I think it's very unlikely that the LDs will be seen as anything more than a third party capable of influencing a Labour or the Tory government in the event of a hung parliament though it's also very possible that they will be stuck in the wilderness as the Liberal Party was in the post war period. But if the almost unthinkable does happens and the LDs become a major party of government I think it's almost inevitable that the party will become by default either a centre right or centre left party (albeit with liberal influences) depending on whether it is the Tories or Labour who collapse to third party status. Look at Canada for example the national Liberal Party is generally seen as a party of the centre left as the left wing NDP is the third party whilst in the province of British Columbia the Liberal Party is solidly a party of the centre right due to the collapse of the right wing Social Credit Party in the 90s. France is different because the voting system actively promotes 'centrism' while ours encourages a binary choice between right and left making a centrist breakthrough here much harder. We'll have to wait to see whether Macron is an anomaly caused by the fear of the far right, corruption in the Republicans and a very unpopular Socialist government or whether his party will remain a fixture in the French political scene. His government is already unpopular though and is losing votes on both the left and the the right and if it wasn't for the runoff system I think En Marche would already be in very serious trouble. Obviously if PR comes in the chances of some form of 'liberal' government exponentially increases as Labour and the Tories will inevitably split however I also think it's quite unlikely the Liberal Democrats will continue to exist in their current form either because the spectrum of opinion within the party is ridiculously broad for a party that won 7.4% of the popular vote. Even on this forum there are some LD contributors I agree with on a great deal and some I agree with on virtually nothing. This I think is a major barrier to them building a core vote of any significant size. A lot of intelligent analysis in there whether or not I like it. |
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Post by andrew111 on Jun 11, 2018 18:21:23 GMT
Then in 2017 in the first round the right got 22% and the left just 9%. If people in Britain really thought a centrist alternative could win, similar things might happen. Indeed in the days when the Lib Dems were getting over 15%, several polls showed over 40% of people saying "I would vote for them if I thought they could win.." An opinion backed up by the fact that they DID win and hold in 50+ very disparate seats, covering pretty much the entire range of demography from Redcar, Rochdale and Bermondsey to Twickenham, N Norfolk and S Lakeland. Thanks for unwittingly providing an excellent example of why 'seats like [insert list]' unrepresentative cherry picking is bad electoral analysis. You evidently misunderstood my point. When people actually get a Lib Dem they tend to like the Lib Dems. Not as much now as in the past especially in "Labour seats" of course. The electoral system and the huge concentration of resources required to make a breakthrough in that system is what prevented the Lib Dems breaking through between 1980 and 2010 |
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Post by andrew111 on Jun 11, 2018 18:32:27 GMT
Re. France:
Their system was never good for a centrist Party until 2017, and at assembly level the communists have done much better than elsewhere, not to mention the Front Nationale. I made no comments whatsoever about the longevity of Macron and his party either
My post above was not about the future prospects of the Lib Dems. However my prediction is that while the Lib Dems are not going to go away, getting back to the norm of 15% plus will need another Labour government.
My point was that just because a Party gets a vote of 30% plus for decades, that does not mean that is an unshakeable core vote. The Labour Party in particular has lost a good deal of its past working class vote, and replaced it by middle class voters. They may not prove very reliable in the future
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Post by therealriga on Jun 13, 2018 11:57:46 GMT
If keeping the current electoral system, the one change I would make would be to do away with multi-member wards elected under FPTP at local level. Rather than have 20 wards with 3 councillors, just have 60 single-member wards elected every four years. The only argument I can see for multi-member wards is that it allows election by thirds, but I don't see that as particularly important. If having more regular elections is a concern, you could simply reduce the councillors terms to two years, though I wouldn't support that. Multi-member wards mean that you have ward colleages to aupport each other and spread the load - and, can give the electorate the choice of having multi-party representation. Elections by thirds means that you're not struggling to find 80/90/100+ candidates. Good point on the candidates and you're right about that. However, for spreading the load, I don't see how that follows. There doesn't seem any substantial difference in the load between having 3 councillors covering a ward of 12,000 or 1 councillor covering a ward of 4,000. |
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Post by Ghyl Tarvoke on Jun 13, 2018 22:00:08 GMT
France has personality cults and local machines, it doesn't really have parties (except perhaps for the PCF - RIP!). The UK is very different.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2018 9:43:34 GMT
Multi-member wards mean that you have ward colleages to aupport each other and spread the load - and, can give the electorate the choice of having multi-party representation. Elections by thirds means that you're not struggling to find 80/90/100+ candidates. Good point on the candidates and you're right about that. However, for spreading the load, I don't see how that follows. There doesn't seem any substantial difference in the load between having 3 councillors covering a ward of 12,000 or 1 councillor covering a ward of 4,000. Where a multi member ward has single party representation, councillors often divide activities according to knowledge/expertise/interest - so one of the three might be the "housing person", say. Of course this is a matter of internal party organisation rather than a democratic system per se, and it depends on the electorate choosing not to split representation. But single member wards do by definition require the councillor to cover more issues, if not more ground - so it depends what your priority is. Personally I would very much support what is roughly the current horses for courses system where urban wards are more commonly multi member and rural wards single member. In (eg) London, drawing boundaries for single member wards is often fairly arbitrary and is not likely to appreciably improve representation, especially where it divides communities. |
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Post by AdminSTB on Jun 14, 2018 13:43:30 GMT
Multi-member wards mean that you have ward colleages to aupport each other and spread the load - and, can give the electorate the choice of having multi-party representation. Elections by thirds means that you're not struggling to find 80/90/100+ candidates. Good point on the candidates and you're right about that. However, for spreading the load, I don't see how that follows. There doesn't seem any substantial difference in the load between having 3 councillors covering a ward of 12,000 or 1 councillor covering a ward of 4,000. That very much depends on the ward. I know of wards where the majority of the fairly high casework load come from one part of it. |
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hedgehog
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Post by hedgehog on Jul 2, 2018 15:45:44 GMT
The idea that the two major political parties are broad coalitions doesn't fit well with my experience, we don't live in a world where political questions have binary answers.
For politics to work well the public must have the option to explore a much wider range of opinions, two party politics serves only the vested interests and does nothing to interest people in the political system.
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