Tactical Voting

A party who has got into power with a majority is unlikely to want to pursue PR, which might well have diluted their majority.

The only party strongly opposed to PR is the Conservative Party, who have in the past benefitted from the undemocratic distortion of FPTP - eg getting a massive eighty seat majority in the HoC on the basis of 43% of the votes as happened in 2019.

It looks likely that this time the Conservatives will get a much lower percentage of seats than votes, which might just make them think again.

Although the vast majority of Labour Party members, constituency organisations and trade unions strongly support a change to PR, Starmer has said it "is not a priority"., presumably because he anticipates his party winning a huge majority, probably on the basis of a minority of votes. He is clearly more interested in power than democracy, which I suppose is a reaction to 14 years in opposition.

The UK is the only European country to elect its government by FPTP, except for Putin's puppet state Belarus.

keepingquiet

If you want PR then you should vote LibDems as they are the only party that will persue it.

Reform want it too.

It seems strange to me that some people don't know which party won in their constituency last time and which came second, but you should also know whether there have been boundary changes. That is why these tactical voting websites are so helpful.

I’m going to vote for the party that I want to win. All this tactical voting is too much for my little brain.
If I don’t get what I want then I will have to accept it and get on with life. I will presume that, for once, I didn’t know best!!

Where I live Labour always gets in, so I don’t have to vote tactically to keep the Tories out. I can vote how I like. It’s a good feeling. I’ll probably vote Green.

Have been voting all my adult life, never yet have I had a MP I voted for !
This year I will be a tactical voter, don't want to be but no option.

Sir Ed characterises this as an “ABC election” (Anyone but the Conservatives) and is pitching his party as the “Tory removal service” in places where the Lib Dems are the principal challenger.

It is his party, more than Labour, that poses the greatest personal threat to several high-profile Tories. Cabinet names in the Lib Dems’ sights include education secretary Gillian Keegan in Chichester, culture secretary Lucy Frazer in east Cambridgeshire and Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, who has a hugely vulnerable majority of less than a thousand in Cheltenham. The highest value target on the Lib Dem hitlist is Jeremy Hunt who can feel their hot breath on his neck in Godalming and Ash in Surrey. The chancellor has injected more than £100,000 of his own money into his local Tory party. At a recent charity event, he jokingly urged opponents of the government to back Labour in his seat to split the anti-Tory vote and help him fend off “those bastards, the Lib Dems”.

Team Davey believes that targeting senior Tories is good for attracting coverage, rustling up donations and attracting voters with the thought of punishing the Conservatives for the last 14 years by ejecting a cabinet name. It also presents a headache for Tory campaign planners by pinning down high-profile Conservatives in local struggles to save their skins.
ir Ed is fishing among two pots of voters. One group are the potential switchers, people who voted Tory in 2019 and have since become estranged from them. Canvassing and polling suggests to the Lib Dems that quite a lot of these voters are currently calling themselves undecided. It is conjectured that many of them may not start breaking decisively one way or another until the final weekend of campaigning. The Lib Dems have clocked up some spectacular byelection gains by capitalising on discontent among these voters. They need to do the same on 4 July.

The other challenge for the Lib Dems is to impress the virtues of tactical voting on left-leaning voters in the targeted seats. One of the leadership team says: “It’s critical, really critical, that Labour supporters in these seats know they have to vote Lib Dem if they want to get change.”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/02/you-can-laugh-all-you-like-at-ed-daveys-antics-if-they-restore-the-lib-dems-clout

General election: Britons say Ed Davey would be better PM than Rishi Sunak

yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49805-general-election-britons-say-ed-davey-would-be-better-pm-than-rishi-sunak

Anniebach

Ed Davey when interviewed on the Clegg in the Rose Garden
fiasco said they did much good in that time , ! ! ! !

I sometimes wonder what planet ED lives on. Watching him on tv is like watching some appalling take off of 'It's a Knockout'.

The last time they had any power they put the Tories in, threw students under the bus, and didn't get any form of PR. They put Cameron in No 10 and ultimately that led to the Brexit vote.

If tactical voting means trusting the Lib Dems I certainly won't while they include Ed Davey.

You need a strong opposition whichever party is in power but I don’t think you are going to get it. Things will be rocky for the next few years.

There are websites which advise which party has the best chance of beating the Tories in each constituency

stopthetories.vote/
tactical.vote/all/

It will be remembered that the 2010 result was such that neither of the main parties could form a government on their own. It was equally open to Labour to offer coalition to the Lib Dems but they had no wish to do anything constructive.
And as Varian says, Nick Clegg had to choose between the pupil premium for disadvantaged children - which a sole Tory government would not have introduced - or retaining the cap on tuition fees. Coalition involves compromise.

But how do we move forward as a country? How do we pick ourselves off the floor? The feeling of hopelessness about politics is real.
For me, I am completely blindsided by Labour’s plans for Great British Energy and I simply don’t understand where the extra 650000 (not 65k) workers are coming from. The concept of a wealth fund is a bit surreal too. Apart from which we will have all new oil and gas licenses stopped licences in the accelerated pursuit of net zero. Or have I misunderstood this policy initiative? Do we start piling up logs to keep warm?

The coalition was a far more stable and responsible government than the disastrous Tory governments we have endured for the last nine years.

Cameron was held in check by the LibDems but his successors were held to ransome by the rightwing headbangers of the ERG and the result was the disaster of brexit and unrestrained chaos and corruption.

Lib Dems ditched the Uni fees pledge in return for extra funding for deprived children at primary and secondary level (Pupil Premium). This was inevitable in view of the tory insistence on the (entirely unnecessary) need to cut public spending; they couldn't let the LDs have both.

I think it is most unfair when the greater part of the electorate refuses to accept that their belief that a national budget is the same as a household budget, is a total myth, which makes these kinds of compromises inevitable, but punishes a party for accepting that very belief...

Ed Davey when interviewed on the Clegg in the Rose Garden
fiasco said they did much good in that time , ! ! ! !

I shall hold my nose and vote Lib Dem to get the Tories out. The Lib Dems are tainted by their craven time in coalition, by ditching university fees reform and by Davey effectively ignoring Alan Bates.

It will probably be a very low turn out. Lots are saying they won’t vote as it’s a farce, it should be law to vote even if you spoil your paper.

If everyone actually voted, perhaps the result would be different. I read about spoiled ballot papers, or not voting because we don’t trust any of the parties, but is that the best thing to do?
I suspect if LibDems ever got in via FPTP, they would be just as reluctant as the two main parties, to change the system that allowed them to win.

We can't risk a "who knows" approach at the moment. This is a real opportunity to get rid of this shameful government and we must not let it slip by.

varian

I don't think so because in so many constituencies the party you really want to vote for has no chance of winning.

I have still done that on previous occasions.

If many other people did that too, who knows what would really happen.

If you want PR then you should vote LibDems as they are the only party that will persue it.

fancythat

If everyone just voted for the Party they really want, there could end up being a seismic shift away from the two main Parties.

Which is why Proportional Representation is a much fairer option.

I don't think so because in so many constituencies the party you really want to vote for has no chance of winning.