The two party system is finished

Assembly tongue in cheek, it's an auld joke sorts out the Scots from the knots 😉

Heathermomo

Proportional Representation does what it says. It allocates power in proportion to the support of the public. If 25% of voters support right wing politics then however distasteful it may be they should have 25% of members. If 55% of Scottish people support independence parties then 55% of members should be SNP/Green/Alba. Too frequently in Westminster elections parties with 30-40% of support get overwhelming majorities. Whether led by Thatcher or Starmer. The early years of the Scottish Parliament (not assembly) had parties working together in coalition, until the Conservatives under Baroness Davidson brought in Westminster mores into the chamber, turning it into a bearpit.

I'm sure you won't need me to set out all the flaws in the Scottish system, not least that it is only proportionally representative regionally, not nationally. The huge flaw that Salmond tried (failed, but remains open for others to manipulate). The successful Green candidates were voted in in the reserve list so served no constituents but had the greatest influence of any party on the government (they had 2 MSPs!) and proved incredibly detrimental to Scotland. The minority propped up the majority and all the other parties (and all those who voted for them had far, far less proportionate representation. If the Greens had not had so much influence l would have granted it was a better system than FPTP, but seeing first hand the damage done and having zero representation proportionately for many years, the system was clearly abused

So we have clarified that it wasn't ilovecheese so who is it then?

Ilovecheese

PoliticsNerd You said:
"The far and hard-right, in whom I assume previous posters place their confidence were, in the guise of far-right Andrew Lawrence and far-right Alison Pearson,"

As you posted this under a copied quote of mine, I do hope you are not suggesting that I place my confidence in the far right because that really could not be farther from the truth.

I addressed the full quote of your post in the first paragraph to provide a clear and direct answer.

This set the foundation for a more complex argument. In the subsequent paragraphs, I developed my opinion, provided supporting details, and explored related points. This meant I could expand my thinking while ensuring readers know the main answer to the quote is given right from the beginning.

PN makes these vague accusations on many threads, never identifies who they are talking about.

PoliticsNerd You said:
"The far and hard-right, in whom I assume previous posters place their confidence were, in the guise of far-right Andrew Lawrence and far-right Alison Pearson,"

As you posted this under a copied quote of mine, I do hope you are not suggesting that I place my confidence in the far right because that really could not be farther from the truth.

Whatever it’s perceived unfairness I think FPTP in each constituency is the best way.
I hope that this government doesn’t put me off voting Labour in the future, it hasn’t inspired me so far, but really the other choices to me are so limited.
I wouldn’t vote Lib Dem as they have such a pro trans following who seem to have a lot of input into the Party.
So do Greens.
I can see all the political parties by their words and actions driving voters into the arms of Reform.

Thats a fascinating analysis Silverbrook thank you. Especially the "Results" for Reform because of the lack of "second choice" support.

I'm undecided. In theory its hard not to support some form of PR becuase it gives more people a chance to vote for a party closest to their views,

but in practice the "horse trading" does lead in some cases to a small extreme party holding a balance and effectively calling the shots.

It can also result in a very unstable government where its difficult to get things done if things are very close.

Shinamae

nanna8

I now believe in compulsory voting after being against it for many years.

If they didn’t want to vote, they would just spoil the paper

Surprisingly enough, very few do. I am genuinely amazed at this. I have worked at different polling stations over the years. I suppose if they bother to turn up to avoid being fined they might as well vote.

nanna8

I now believe in compulsory voting after being against it for many years.

If they didn’t want to vote, they would just spoil the paper

In the 2011 referendum, I voted for the Alternative Vote system where voters rank parties in order of preference. I was outvoted.

It works like this:

If more than half the voters have the same favourite candidate, that person becomes the MP. If nobody gets half, the numbers provide instructions for what happens next.

The counters remove whoever came last and look at the ballot papers with that candidate as their favourite. Rather than throwing away these votes, they move each vote to the voter’s second favourite candidate. This process is repeated until one candidate has half of the votes and becomes the MP.

I can't recall if it was YouGov or MoreInCommon who did polling on this last year but it showed that if we had AV, the LibDems would do well as they are most people’s second choice. Reform would do badly as, other than Reform voters, few like Reform. Most rank Reform their least favourite party.

If you look at polling data from 2024, few MPs won their seats with more than 50% the vote, even party leaders. Starmer won only 48.9%, Sunak 47.5%, (Badenoch only 35.6%), Davey 51.1%, Farage 46.2%, Denyer 56.6%, Ramsay 41.7% So only Davey for the Lib Dems and Denyer for the Greens would have won their seat outright.

In a seat, where there are many candidates, AV could tip the balance. In Clacton, for example, almost 12,000 people voted for candidates other than Farage and the runner up, previous incumbent Giles Watling. On the basis that Reform are few people’s second choice, Watling would have picked up the reallocated votes and retained the seat.

I’m not keen on the European type of government with coalitions of opposing factions horse trading. No thanks.

Proportional Representation does what it says. It allocates power in proportion to the support of the public. If 25% of voters support right wing politics then however distasteful it may be they should have 25% of members. If 55% of Scottish people support independence parties then 55% of members should be SNP/Green/Alba. Too frequently in Westminster elections parties with 30-40% of support get overwhelming majorities. Whether led by Thatcher or Starmer. The early years of the Scottish Parliament (not assembly) had parties working together in coalition, until the Conservatives under Baroness Davidson brought in Westminster mores into the chamber, turning it into a bearpit.

I now believe in compulsory voting after being against it for many years.

We have PR. There are negatives because small parties often have undue influence. There are some truly awful extreme small parties around and they often have the balance of power playing one large party off against the other.

Before the purists jump on me, I am using proportional representation to describe systems which give more proportional representation than FPTP.

ayse

But it still needs to be reflected in the elections. PR would be a reasonable solution. The New Zealand system seems to work quite well.

No system is perfect either but FPTP seems the least democratic.

I agree ayse.

Any system which results in proportional representation runs the risk of awarding disproportionate power to minorities, Israel has often been singled out to illustrate this. In Scotland where the Assembly is elected by the Additional Member Vote disproportionate power and influence was gained by the Green Party who propped up the SNP for many years (until Yousef lost his rag). The damage done by minorities with disproportionate power is clear to see.

keepingquiet

We had a referendum on this issue back in 2015. The turnout was very low. People voting against STV. Like Brexit, we have to accept the will of the people. Cameron did not have a track record on referendums did he?
If a no more referendums party appeared I might vote for them...

Just for clarity the referendum was in 2011.
Turnout was around 42%
More than double voted against than voted for.
It wasn't Proportional Representation that was being voted on, it was Preferential Representation.

Despite the hostility against the Labour government, largely generate by the right wing media, they are doing quite well in the circumstances, Starmers steady hand and calm diplomacy gets my vote, even if I disagree with some of the policies.

keepingquiet

We had a referendum on this issue back in 2015. The turnout was very low. People voting against STV. Like Brexit, we have to accept the will of the people. Cameron did not have a track record on referendums did he?
If a no more referendums party appeared I might vote for them...

You surely don't believe the dead can dictate to the living keepingquiet? That's what you seem to be suggesting.

People are vaguely trying to have a conversation about methods of voting, and someone pops on to tell us that the mysterious 'previous posters' support the far right. Is it me or are things a bit weird at the moment.

Ilovecheese

The two main parties are so similar now, people are looking for something different in both directions

Conservatives definitely wanted "something different", although I would agree they find it difficult to articulated what that is.

The far and hard-right, in whom I assume previous posters place their confidence were, in the guise of far-right Andrew Lawrence and far-right Alison Pearson, predicting in January that the UK economy would be collapsing in April of this year. I guess some of the right-wing still believe it is if that's the propaganda they're reading!

And yet, and yet, here we are in April. Inflation is lower than expected, growth is higher and we may get a bigger interest cut than expected next month.

Yes, Trump is likely to attack our economy but are those complaining are often fans of Trumps, believing he is right to attack us. Meanwhile consumer confidence in what is actually happening is improving.

Looking at previous comments it really is time to stop thinking the government of this country should be run on the premise of individual gransnetters opinions, gathered from the depths of mass-media and just let the government get on with their job with realistic opposition when some group or other can actually pull such a thing together.

David49

We have a regional system in the UK and the regions are still not content

Not sure we are talking about the same thing David49. What I meant was that to have PR means that at national level, politicians no longer represent a geographical patch in the same way as our current MPs do, to ensure all voters are represented. Having experienced effectively half that system in Wales, where half the seats are ‘local’ FPTP, and half ‘regional’ PR, I don’t think PR works as well as the local system personally, because ‘regional’ MS are too remote from what is happening - they operate in an almost purely political arena, so don’t achieve anything.

We had a referendum on this issue back in 2015. The turnout was very low. People voting against STV. Like Brexit, we have to accept the will of the people. Cameron did not have a track record on referendums did he?
If a no more referendums party appeared I might vote for them...