General election results 2015

[P. G. Tipps]

Have you ever actually been to - i.e. up and down - the Amazon? No, of course not! So we can dismiss that one, then.


I was, of course, doing nothing of the kind, preferring instead to try to address the subject which is very much up for research, consideraton and grabs rather than anyting that might susbstute for any such thing in a world in which you seem already to have decided what can snd should wrok! Ah, ell...


I wonder if you could actually be any more tiresome than you have already demonsrated yourself to be but, somehow, I imagine that you are indeed capable of such...

Mon Dieu, this is tiresome indeed...

On the contrary, I am enjoying myself thoroughly, ahinton!

Isn't it truly fascinating how different human beings can be, even when they seem to be so in accord about FPTP?

[ahinton]

On the contrary, I am enjoying myself thoroughly, ahinton!

Isn't it truly fascinating how different human beings can be, even when they seem to be so in accord about FPTP?

Please don't feel that I wish to encumber your enjoyment - although of quite what I have less than no idea and could care less still.

[P. G. Tipps]

Please don't feel that I wish to encumber your enjoyment - although of quite what I have less than no idea and could care less still.

I acknowledge and thoroughly appreciate your honest and forthright response, ahinton! :ok:

[french frank]

FPTP does not always produce an outright winner as we all discovered in recent times and as I've been at pains to point out it is not perfect. However, it does have a much better chance of delivering the most popular party into government than any other system.

It also very effectively prevents that party from being revealed as the least popular party: that is, the party which the majority of the electorate dislikes most. In evaluating 'popularity' why should one measurement (FPTP) be preferred over the other (preferential voting)?

[And for the record: STV]

[mangerton]

There were the five parties, Con, Lab, UKIP, Lib Dem and Grn and that was it ...

You have omitted what is now the third largest party in parliament. Of course, you couldn't vote for them in England so they don't count.

I (obviously stupidly) expected better from this forum.

[Flosshilde]

Please don't feel that I wish to encumber your enjoyment - although of quite what I have less than no idea and could care less still.

I think that ScottyTipps' enjoyment is of the kind that is self-inflicted (possibly with a cucumber).

[Flosshilde]

You have omitted what is now the third largest party in parliament. Of course, you couldn't vote for them in England so they don't count.

I (obviously stupidly) expected better from this forum.

But you shouldn't really expect better of Tippsy.

[P. G. Tipps]

You have omitted what is now the third largest party in parliament. Of course, you couldn't vote for them in England so they don't count.

I (obviously stupidly) expected better from this forum.

I was, of course, referring to (as stated) the parties that actually stood in Osborne's constituency.

It would have made no sense whatsoever to the very point I was making to have also included any party (even the largest in Parliament) which didn't, and especially one where it would have been clearly absurd to have done so!

[P. G. Tipps]

It also very effectively prevents that party from being revealed as the least popular party: that is, the party which the majority of the electorate dislikes most. In evaluating 'popularity' why should one measurement (FPTP) be preferred over the other (preferential voting)?

[And for the record: STV]

Sorry, can you expand on that a bit further?

I'm not aware that the least popular party should have any role to play in the formation of a government anyway? And the election of a government is what the whole thing is supposed to be about?

The most popular party is simply the one with the most votes and the least popular with the least votes ... you surely don't need a more complicated proportional system to ascertain either of those.

I acknowledge that sometimes there are, on occasion, rare anomalies when the party with the most votes doesn't actually win the most seats (as Vinteuil helpfully pointed out!) so I'm not at all claiming that FPTP could and should not be open to possible reform at various stages.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wasn't it great when we used to talk about Radio 3?

[french frank]

Sorry, can you expand on that a bit further?

Certainly, I will explain a simplified version to make the point clear. If we have a system whereby people are allowed to register a second preference (which we don't), you could have a first 'round' of voting where Party A gets the largest number of 1st preference votes (and in your view is therefore the 'most popular'), say 36%. But when the 2nd preferences are distributed, Party A is found to have NONE. PARTY B, which only gained 35% of the 1st preferences, gains half the 2nd preferences to take its total to 85 (35+50), and Party C which had 29% of 1st preferences gains the other half, taking its total to 79 (29+50), while Party A still only has 35.

If one counts a 2nd preference as only half a vote, Party B scores 60 (35+25) and Party C scores 54 (29+25); Party A only scores 36. Since most people do have second preferences, it is unrealistic to pretend they each want one single party and do not want any of the others under any circumstances. This system allows the electorate to register that although 36% has put A top of their list, a resounding 64% has placed it at the bottom - because Party A split its 2nd prefs between B and C, but the B and C 2nd prefs were exchanged between each other (E&OE - it's still early in the day).

But I can see that is far too complicated for the British (as John Cleese once pointed out, PR means voters have to be able to count up to 6).

[Anastasius]

Why is it that the same people drag these threads down by making snide comments against individuals? It happened all the time in the last political sub-forum and it has started again.

FF -- time to pull the plug, methinks.

[ahinton]

Wasn't it great when we used to talk about Radio 3?

But we still do! Look at most of the other threads...

[ahinton]

Why is it that the same people drag these threads down by making snide comments against individuals? It happened all the time in the last political sub-forum and it has started again.

FF -- time to pull the plug, methinks.

I think that it's down to FF and no one else to decide whether or when to do that; as she just just posted in it herself, such an action doesn't appear imminent but, as always and as it should be, it's her call.

[french frank]

I think that it's down to FF and no one else to decide whether or when to do that; as she just just posted in it herself, such an action doesn't appear imminent but, as always and as it should be, it's her call.

I do feel perhaps that although I don't really want to prevent/ban political discussion (as many forums do), I would prefer to discourage it on the grounds that people (among whom I include myself) get a bit too involved with this discussion, or one single thread, when as Alpie commented, I might prefer to encourage discussion on the more relevant topics? [Discouraging means removing from the main board (aka returning it to the Basement) so that people have to actively seek it out rather than have it constantly forced on everyone, willy-nilly, on the What's New? list]. Is that unacceptably illiberal?