Proportional Representation

Pretty much A or B. Left leaning or Right.
C of course = the Lib Dems. They ALWAYS want PR! Unsurprisingly.

Urmstongran

Cooperation and compromise. Sounds Utopian. I think the reality is the electorate don’t get what they want. And a lot of horse trading is done with unintended consequences.

But the majority of the electorate in the UK don’t get what they want now.

Cooperation and compromise. Sounds Utopian. I think the reality is the electorate don’t get what they want. And a lot of horse trading is done with unintended consequences.

So what if 'Italy is in a right mess'? It's not the only country in the world that has PR. And neither is Irael, before you quote them, too.

Not one country which has changed from FPTP to PR has ever changed back.

PR is democratic. The government is the party or group of parties which together gained more than half the votes. Obviously it requires co-operation and compromise.

Co-operation is better than confrontation and willingness to compromise is a sign of maturity.

Italy’s in a right mess though. ?
PR isn’t the Holy Grail.

The great benefit of FPTP, from the point of view of a hostile power, is that it allows much easier manipulation of elections to get the desired result - an actual majority of votes is not required.

Hence Donald Trump was elected with 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Boris Johnson got a "landslide" 80 seat majority with most voters voting against the Conservatives in 2019.

FPTP might be good enough for a puppet state like Belarus, but surely it should never be tolerated in a country aiming to be recognised as a liberal democracy?

Thanks Ixey

Urmstongran

The problem in Scotland is that there is only one issue that matters, independence, but the Unionist majority never wins because there are three Unionist parties but only one independence one.

Rather like the English coalition of "conservatives" then.

Fennel What a brilliant word - Pargumentative - sums up the Israeli Knesset beautifully!

Seats in the Scottish Parliament held by independence supporting parties (parties plural. i.e. more than one). 72.

Seats in the Scottish Parliament held by unionist parties. 57

I think you need to revisit your ideas there Urms

The problem in Scotland is that there is only one issue that matters, independence, but the Unionist majority never wins because there are three Unionist parties but only one independence one.

There's still a Conservative party in Scotland Fennel. (Although they are called the Conservative and Unionists here.) In Westminster they sit with the Conservative party from the rest of the UK. The same with Labour and the Lib Dems.

I'm not being funny Fennel, but I do think people have got a really skewed idea of how politics works in Scotland.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you are meaning.

Volver Apologies but there was a time when there was a Conservative party in Scotland. And others. but maybe not in Westminster.
Like Henetha my sister lives in Scotland. We grew up near the Border and have family on both. sides.
I like Nicola, but to get my sister to give an opinion is impossible. She worked in the Scottish Office as a civil servant for all her working life.

Mollygo

PR fine. It should be fairer and might even, as someone posted earlier, encourage more people outside GN to vote.
I’m impressed that Andy Burnham is trying to promote it, but governments have talked about it for ages. Maybe, when Labour win at the next GE, they’ll be the party to put it in place.

Introducing PR was put forward in a motion to the LP conference last year; the motion was defeated by the unions' vote (notable Unite). However, it's being presented again, I believe and both Unite and Unisons (big unions, I don't know about the rest) have said they will support it.

I voted in favour of the rather unsatisfactory version of PR because I felt that anything was better that FPTP. If PR is Labour & LibDem policy and they turn out to be the controlling majority after the next GE then at least we wouldn't have to have another referendum on the topic

PR fine. It should be fairer and might even, as someone posted earlier, encourage more people outside GN to vote.
I’m impressed that Andy Burnham is trying to promote it, but governments have talked about it for ages. Maybe, when Labour win at the next GE, they’ll be the party to put it in place.

I think one of the things the parties and groups working for PR need to do is to point out that we already have recurrent coalitions.

It's just that voters don't choose them.

The Conservative Party does.

The idea that there would be more diverse opinions and arguments within a coalition elected by the people than in the Conservative one thrust upon us is laughable.

That would not be my view Urmstongran nor do the facts support it.

When the Tories are in power, they have already formed a coalition - we can currently see that very clearly . They threw out some obvious conservative MPs and are run at the moment by far-right neo-liberals some of whom verge on fascists.

The fact that they all call themselves "Conservatives" does not mean each and every one of them is the sort of "Conservative" a conservative voter would choose. They are also not a coalition chosen by the voter but one concocted by themselves.

PR would allow the number of voters for each MP to represent the number of supporters for that form of politics. For example, in the 2019 UK General Election the number of Conservative votes cast works out at 38,264* per MP, while the Greens won 864,743* votes but had only one MP.

I think many on the very far-right would think that is okay. I don't and neither, it seems, do the voters generally.

* Source: Electoral Reform Society

I think any party whilst in power is happy with the status quo and therefore doesn’t want to change things, understandably! Then, once they are in opposition some of their supporters start agitating for P.R.
?

DiamondLily

I thought the UK had a vote over whether to change the voting system, during the Tory/LibDem coalition, and voted, by a large majority, to leave it FPTP? ?

If you look at number 8 in this article, it explains that this was not a vote for PR.

getprdone.org.uk/faqs-on-pr/

varian

Andy Burnham says Labour must ‘seize moment’ and back proportional representation

He's not wrong varian, but timing will be all in getting a progressive parliament which will do this. The Tories, particularly in their current incarnation, will never do it.

DiamondLily

I thought the UK had a vote over whether to change the voting system, during the Tory/LibDem coalition, and voted, by a large majority, to leave it FPTP? ?

I can’t remember the details but it was not fully thought through and was not in all senses PR. Perhaps someone else can remember the details?

My DD was describing New Zealand’s system. They have. PR system whereby each constituency has a member voted for by the majority (I think). They also have a list so all other votes are proportioned out to the parties and representatives are taken from each list in order of popularity. Anyway, she seemed to think it works well for NZ.

I’m all in favour of PR. It ensures parties must work together. One of our most successful governments, IMO was the wartime cabinet WW2. PR hopefully would help longer term planning and could lead to improved services in the NHS etc.

It might even be possible to persuade more people to vote if their vote counted.

I thought the UK had a vote over whether to change the voting system, during the Tory/LibDem coalition, and voted, by a large majority, to leave it FPTP? ?

And one of the Scottish parties.

Sorry Fennel, but really One of the Scottish parties?

It would have been quicker to write SNP, no? Well, at least we know where we stand.

He argues there is now an opportunity for the Tories’ opponents to work together more. Doing so, they could create a political system in which power is spread more evenly and fairly, rather than being concentrated in what he describes as a “small Whitehall elite” as a result of a first-past-the-post election system, which traditionally has favoured the Tories.

Changing the voting system, a move likely to boost small parties and increase the chances of coalitions, would foster a spirit of consensus and agreement on other radical and necessary elements of political modernisation, such as replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber and more devolution.