PR and other political systems

You nearly always end up with a coalition with PR systems - which leads to a lot of negotiations where the party you voted for may negotiate away key policies for a shot of power - like the Lib Dems did in 2010 when they supported the Cameron austerity government.

Sometimes countries can be without a government for a long time if post election negotiations are tricky - for example Sweden was without a government for over 4 months (129 days) in 2018 as neither right or left had a clear majority and there were a lot of negotiations to win over extra support.

Sometimes it gives undue power to very tiny parties - for example if one side needs 4-5 MPs to get over the line to a majority suddenly the tiny and/or regional parties can hold balance of power (Green, Plaid Cymru, SNP, NI, Independents etc). They know their power and often threaten to flounce as a way of gaining concessions. These multi-party coalitions can be unstable and it is difficult to know who to hold to account for decisions.

Is there any chance that this thread could stick to discussing PR, and not descend into nastiness. Please?

David49

Just think how many seats Reform would get on a PR system, no thanks, the existing system isn’t perfect but better than extremist parties of all shapes getting elected.

Oh you mean the partisan lot in Birmingham who harassed Jess Phillips, as she narrowly defeated a far left palestinian supporting Galloway, thank goodness., Yes I know what you mean. Vile anti semitic creatures.

David49

Just think how many seats Reform would get on a PR system, no thanks, the existing system isn’t perfect but better than extremist parties of all shapes getting elected.

That ties in with my school History teacher's analysis. I don't know though. Wouldn't they be watered down by other outliers? There has to be someone in charge though - I was once part of a co-operative where everyone had to agree before anything could be done, and it was a nightmare.

As I say, the main problem for me is that it will be difficult to represent everyone if there are more voters in some areas than others, which will always be the case.

Our system is an outlier in most of Europe, where some form of PR is used.
This election has shown how ridiculously unfair the FPTP system is.

The Labour Party received just 34% of the vote, the lowest ever I believe, and got 412 seats. They had almost the same share of the vote in 2019 and only got 214 seats!

Whether you favour ReformUK or not, they got 14.3% of the vote and only 4 seats.
Lib Dem’s 12.2% of the vote and 71 seats…….

Why? It doesn’t make sense and means we will always have our awful 2 party system.

Just think how many seats Reform would get on a PR system, no thanks, the existing system isn’t perfect but better than extremist parties of all shapes getting elected.