General election results 2015

[MrGongGong]

Okay, I'll try another tack then finally give this up as a seemingly hopeless exercise.

Taking the four main parties' figures as you did:

Votes 'against' the Tories ... 15,574,265.
Votes 'against' Labour ... 17,631,537
Votes 'against' Lib Dems ... 24,562,979
Votes 'against' 'Kippers' ... 23,097,742

So even if we take the 'against' methodology all the other parties do worse than the Tories.

If we decide to add up all the votes 'against' one party we must do the same for all the others as well or the whole thing is rendered totally meaningless!

I'm afraid (for you) the Tories win either way, and if you actually believe we have a proportional-vote arrangement in the UK I'm afraid it is you who is quite wrong and not I!

Perfectly illustrating why the whole idea that there is a 'winner' is a pile of cr*p
The whole thing IS

totally meaningless

You also need to include those who didn't vote at all, as they are rejecting some (or all) of it.

[french frank]

So even if we take the 'against' methodology all the other parties do worse than the Tories.

A very rare occasion where I think MrGongGong has the right point: the 'Winner takes All' system leaves the vast majority of the voters unhappy.

It's the simple fact that the party which edges out in front gets to decide everything for the entire country - most of whom don't want to be governed by them. But the point is either understood or it isn't. It can't be understood and defended.

[David-G]

It's the simple fact that the party which edges out in front gets to decide everything for the entire country - most of whom don't want to be governed by them. But the point is either understood or it isn't. It can't be understood and defended.

You presumably mean that you can't understand and defend it. You seem to forget that the referendum on AV was decisively lost.

[french frank]

You presumably mean that you can't understand and defend it. You seem to forget that the referendum on AV was decisively lost.

AV wasn't PR - many people who wanted PR rejected it.

And no, I don't mean I 'can't understand and defend it'. Winner Takes All is an easy system to run, easy to understand, gets a clear result. But we aren't all simpletons: it can't be defended on grounds of 'fairness' or delivering 'representative democracy' - and that is surely what elections are about? Which is why most other democracies have abandoned FPTP and Winner Takes All.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I remember John Gummer, a very simplistic Tory politician, justifying FPTP by telling us what we already knew - that technically, every candidate had the same opportunity to win as any other.

[David-G]

AV wasn't PR - many people who wanted PR rejected it.

And no, I don't mean I 'can't understand and defend it'. Winner Takes All is an easy system to run, easy to understand, gets a clear result. But we aren't all simpletons: it can't be defended on grounds of 'fairness' or delivering 'representative democracy' - and that is surely what elections are about? Which is why most other democracies have abandoned FPTP and Winner Takes All.

But equally there may be people who accepted AV who would have rejected PR.

You make it sound as though PR has no problems. Does that mean that if I see problems with PR then I am a simpleton?

[french frank]

Does that mean that if I see problems with PR then I am a simpleton?

No, that would be a non sequitur: it wasn't the context in which I used the word.

[Richard Barrett]

most other democracies have abandoned FPTP

I believe the UK is the only country in Europe which retains it; and countries elsewhere that also do seem to be restricted to the USA and former British colonies. You have to wonder why this is.

[David-G]

I believe the UK is the only country in Europe which retains it; and countries elsewhere that also do seem to be restricted to the USA and former British colonies. You have to wonder why this is.

I suggest it is because we value the strong link between an MP and his/her constituency which is inevitably diluted in PR systems.

[jean]

I suggest we have never had the chance to express an opinion about that.

[Richard Barrett]

I suggest it is because we value the strong link between an MP and his/her constituency which is inevitably diluted in PR systems.

Who is "we"? And, as MrGG has already pointed out, what's left of this strong link when the party whips get going? or if your MP is say a cabinet ministerand has little time left over for his/her constituency?

Another question mark over "democracy" of course is the fact that the upper house in the UK parliament isn't elected at all! How democratic is that?

[jean]

I believe the UK is the only country in Europe which retains it...

Mind you, the Italians have been trying out alternatives to their pure system pf PR for a while now.

I clearly remember that this was a hot topic when I was living there, and I spent many hours arguing with people who looked admiringly at the UK and thought that our system would give them perfectly alternating governments of left and right.

As we had had at the time years of unmitigated Thatcherism, this clearly meant thet they were enamoured of the theory without ever looking properly at what actually happened.

I haven't been involved in such discussions for many years now, but various stages have been gone through to arrive at the latest system, as complex as only things Italian can be - the Italicum.

http://www.lettera43.it/capire-notizie/leggi-elettorali-storia-delle-riforme-dal--48-all-italicum_43675167614.htm

Some previous systems are described here:

http://parliamoitaliano.altervista.org/mattarellum-porcellum-e-altri-latinismi/

(I did point out the role of the whips in impeding MPs' ability to take an independent line some time ago!)

[P. G. Tipps]

I suggest we have never had the chance to express an opinion about that.

At the obvious risk of sounding 'typically patronising' to ahinton I suggest maybe an e-petition to parliament demanding a referendum on FPTP and the various forms of PR?

Of course the winning system in any referendum would have to have a majority of votes over all the others combined or else it would be 'undemocratic' and 'unfair' to adopt it, wouldn't it?

So maybe we could have a coalition of the losing systems instead ... ? :winkeye:

[Richard Barrett]

(I did point out the role of the whips in impeding MPs' ability to take an independent line some time ago!)

sorry I missed it!

[ahinton]

At the obvious risk of sounding 'typically patronising' to ahinton I suggest maybe an e-petition to parliament demanding a referendum on FPTP and the various forms of PR?

Of course the winning system in any referendum would have to have a majority of votes over all the others combined or else it would be 'undemocratic' and 'unfair' to adopt it, wouldn't it?

So maybe we could have a coalition of the losing systems instead ... ? :winkeye:

That site's yet to come back on track as it's being revamped, as I said. Yes, indeed, a petition could indeed thereafter be mounted there about that very issue, not least because the results of the most recent General Election seems to have illustrated better han any other the flaws, unfairnesses and injustices of FPTP, especially given the number of parties now involved - but that would have to wait until the system's back up and running again and for someone then to lunch such a petition.

In the meantime, however, would you please do us all the courtesy of answering (as you have so far signally omtted to do) whether or not you believe, as I suggested, that
(a) the LibDems "lost" the election (in the light of figures that I provided) rather more than the Tories "won" it and
(b) the fact that some one-sixth of all votes polled in that election (i.e. those for the Greens and UKIP) resulted in just two standing MPs
is part of an "acceptable" result for the voting public in terms of the resultant "democratic" nature of the election outcome?

Thanks in advance.