With PR, the party with the most votes will almost never gain an absolute majority. That means that there have to be discussions with another party/parties. Inevitably that means that any extremist policies will be watered down, as they were with the 2010 coalition. I will never understand why Nick Clegg & Co never shouted from the rooftops what they actually achieved. They were only a minor party, so it wasn't much, but they did get some of their ideas passed.
However, we can't really look at past performance. If we had a PR system, there would have been more LibDem MPs, because the number of MPs would more accurately have reflected the number of votes cast and people might not have thought they were wasting a vote.
A PR system would almost certainly result in UKIP/Brexit MPs. I know some people would throw their hands up in horror at that, but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to see what they'd do if they were actually made to walk the talk rather than constantly moaning.
In the long run, we would end up with more centrist governments (which wouldn't please everybody), but might end up displeasing fewer people than the current system does. It would mean that politicians from different parties would be forced to talk to each other (as they already do on some committees) and more views would be taken into account.
Good Morning Good Friday 29th March 2024
Shall we reboot our cartoons thread again? 😁