I was at a Young Voters debate in West Norwood on Saturday supporting our excellent candidate for Streatham Rahoul Bhansali. Both the Lib Dems on the panel and the Greens claimed that proportional representation (PR) would be the cure for the problems in parliament and a hung would be good for the country. I made the point that Italy had PR and it didn't stop their parliament being racked by scandal and that a weak government would be hugely damaging for the economy.
The Greens claimed that I only wanted to keep first past the post to protect their belief in a two party monopoly. I find this line of attack deeply hypocritical because as far as I can see the smaller parties only want PR because they think it will get them more seats in parliament.
First past the post (FPTP) isn't a perfect system, but neither is PR, indeed no voting system is. The biggest problem with PR is that it creates very weak executives who have to do back room deals to get a workable majority. This means that far from being fairly representing the views of the bulk of the electorate, the government's actions are dictated by parties with a very small electoral mandate.
Logically a PR derived coalition government should be led by the party with the largest pool of MPs in coalition with the party that has the next highest number of MPs until a majority of created. That would reflect the wishes of the voters more than I minority party jumping into bed with the biggest party.
I'm not sure the Lib Dems, SNP or the Greens would be too happy with that because they would still be excluded.
When minority parties call for a hung parliament in the name of fairness, what they are actually calling for is the chance to wield power far greater than their electoral support justifies. I call that hypocrisy.
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What a load of nonsense. LD's are polling 30% of the vote now and would probably only get about 100 seats on that, whilst Labour would get about 300 seats at 30% and Tories about 200.
That doesn't make any sense at all, and yet you're defending it - you're saying that some voters should be worth more than others.
Electoral reform is going to happen this year, people are tired with the current system and it's time to do something about it.
STV for 2010.
This argument in favour of strong executive with complete power over parliament is an argument in favour of the Poll Tax, the Iraq War, deals with trade union paymasters, and all manner of unpopular and wrong policies by governing parties which have had absolute power. Absolute Power corrupts which may explain a few things about the fiddling MPs we have been landed with in their safe seats.
Italy is always used as the example of PR leading to poor government. But Germany also has PR (a mixed system as used in the London Assembly) and has stable governments and the best performing economy in Europe over a very long term.
If you think that the current system is so wonderful why haven't you changed the system for elections to the London Assembly?
James
I doubt that you'll remember me.
We had a good chat in the runup to the last election when you knocked on my door in st Josephs Vale and I told you that, even though you hadn't got a hope in hell of me voting for you, you seemed like a nice enough guy and I wouldn't mind discussing politics over a pint. You never actually took me up on my offer so I never got to tell you what a load of bollox you're spouting. Our system of government is inherently undemocratic.
Take the latest YouGov poll with a split of 33% Cons, 27%Lab and 31% Lib translating into Labour having 3 more seats than the tories, and the Libs having a meagre 112 seats to Tories 253 and Labour 256 despite having a bigger share of the popular vote.
Why should the party with the most seats automatically form the government if that party has only managed to get 33% of the votes of the 65% of the electorate that voted. Especially if two other parties that represent over 50% can find enuogh common ground to form a coalition.
I wasn't planning to vote this time around as neither the Conservatives nor Labour represent my beliefs, and I though a vote for the Lib Dems would be wasted. Thanks to Cleggs performance in the debate last week I just managed to get my application for a postal vote in under the wire (I live in Paris now)
James is not spouting nonsense. All the systems have their problems. His main point is that Lib Dems and others want PR so that they can get into government, not because they want fairness. This is the hypocritical bit.
The missing elephant in the room is the House of Lords, we should have PR here and FPTP in the Commons - the executive would be more constrained and we would have better Government.
No one is arguing for keeping the Status Quo - just some realisation of that all the arguments put forward are being done by interested parties.
The argument about weakness in a hung parliament is only an issue if you think that a government with an absolute majority would have the strength of character & to weald power wisely. I have seen nothing in any of the major parties, either current or in the last 12 years that leads me to think that nay of them are up to making tough decisions. I may be a bit jaundiced though as I work with military leaders who are consummate decision makers, and frequently face incredibly tough decisions, and just get on with implementing them!
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