Search Sort Posts:  Oldest to newest Newest to oldest

03/02/2010, 4:14 PM AllMouthNoTrousers Joined on 21/02/2008 Weston Posts 906 Re: General Election 2010  Mike Bell wrote: The issue is not who wins or who doesn't, it is a question of what is fair. This is true. And personally, I think it's fair that whoever gets the most votes wins the seat, and those who don't get many votes miss out. It's a system which is 100% even, giving all an equal chance. All they have to do is impress the voters with their verve and ideas - what's unfair about that?  I don't understand the point of questioning the 'fairness' of a council having a large majority when their party 'didn't get even half the vote' and advocating giving more powers to losing candidates who got even less. Why should they - as aza asked above - be rewarded for mediocrity? Why should coming second, or third, or worse - a clear demonstration of the public's lack of faith/confidence/belief - still secure a slice of power? It's election by default, and it's nonsensical. It may not be ideal that a group is in control without being supported by an overwhelming consensus, but in my view it'd be worse to dilute their effectiveness to accommodate groups that people didn't want. The fact is they didn't get enough votes for a reason, so what do we achieve if we give them a seat anyway?   The danger of proportional representation means that any party would be virtually guaranteed some seats. If they don't have to win a seat outright, or even be second, third, or fourth most popular in any given area, a dangerous extremist party - BNP or worse - could end up with representatives in the House of Commons. If the BNP polls even just 2% of the national vote then you'd be talking about 13 or so MPs. Do you want to see that happen? I don't. That's not to deny people the right to vote for them, of course. And if the BNP were to win outright, then however unsavoury a proposition it might be, it would deserve the power because it had earned it, and it reflects the will of the nation. But I don't think it's a good idea to offer it a backdoor route to the annals of power for a minority party with prejudice at its heart at a time when the vast, vast majority of the nation would never vote for the BNP or support its ideas. Under PR, all a party would have to do would be to put up some candidates and it's virtually assured of some form of success, however tiny its number of backers in any given area.  And you talk about there being a lack of accountability for MPs in 'safe seats', and it's of course true that there are some areas that are historically loyal to certain parties, but even that can change. An incumbent MP is still - always - accountable and liable to pay at the ballot box for incompetence, laziness, scandal, deceit or failure. And quite honestly I'm surprised to see a LibDem candidate raise the lazy 'safe seat' argument, since it was only three elections ago that Brian Cotter wrested control of what had always been a 'safe' Weston Tory seat, and you express confidence in your ability to do the same this time around...    Report

03/02/2010, 4:32 PM Flyer Joined on 17/09/2008 Posts 623 Re: General Election 2010 There have been a lot of posts on this thread, regarding how and why PR should be introduced in the UK. Quite a number of these people, who have no real experience of PR, have their own ideas of how PR could be "tinkered with" to suit their particular Party.  What about the voter, what's it going to be like for him/her ? To answer this question, I 'phoned my brother-in-law last night, in that far away land, Wales. My brother-in-law, in Cardiff North, always votes Lib Dem.  At the last Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) election, he had a conventional ballot paper for his "proper" Assembly Member (similar to MP) and he voted Lib Dem.  He also had another ballot form with spaces for voting 1,2,3, and 4.  He was unsure of how this form should be completed, like many other voters in the school at that time.  The audience of voters were told to vote, for their Parties of preference. He tells me that most of the voters eyes glazed over when the election officials started talking about quotas, percentage of votes, transfers of votes, etc.  So, he put Lib Dems 1, Conservatives 2, Labour 3, and Plaid Cymru 4. The result of the election was that he has Labour "proper" AM, and he has a Plaid Cymru AM under the PR system. He wondered what would have happened if he, and other voters, had only voted for one Party on the preference form, would that have made a difference ? He also discovered that his "proper" AM covers just Cardiff North, his Plaid Cymru AM covers South Wales Central. I asked him if this was the centre of Cardiff.  He said no, this AM covers part of Cardiff and part of other parts of the Valleys. It just doesn't make sense, and he has given up trying to fathom it out. By the way, he also has a Labour Member of Parliament, and a Labour European MP, 4 politicians in all ! Apart from all this, the WAG election resulted in a "hung" Assembly, with Labour having most of the seats, but not a majority. Labour then said, "hello, Lib Dems, how about throwing your lot in with us?". The Lib Dems wanted this and that, and that and this, which was too much for Labour, so Lib Dems walked away. Labour then said, "hello, Plaid Cymru, how about throwing your lot in with us ?" Plaid wanted this and that, and that and this, and a coalition was born.  One of the first things Plaid wanted was an air link between Plaid heartland, North Wales, and Cardiff.  If there was any real demand for it, someone would have already established it. They haven't !  There is now an air link subsidised to the tune of almost £1 million per annum, in a 3 year deal, that will almost certainly close when the subsidy expires. Anglesey Aluminium, with 500 jobs was threatened with closure, due to the high cost of electricity from a nuclear power station in North Wales. As this was in Plaid territory, WAG Ministers went up to the plant and offered a "package" of almost £45 million (yes, forty five million) to keep the plant open. The Prince of Darkness was also wheeled out and sent to the smelter's owners, Rio Tinto Zinc in London, in an attempt to keep the plant open.  A week or so ago, a call centre and engineering factory in Montgomeryshire with almost 300 jobs, were told they would close. The premises are in one of the very rare Conservative held WAG seats. The WAG's response to this news, "oh dear, that's a shame". No help, no package, nothing. That's what can happen when coalitions are formed, with small parties wielding big power for their own ends, or else. If my brother-in-law needed to approach "government", he wouldn't know where to start !     Report

03/02/2010, 4:49 PM Mike Bell Joined on 16/08/2007 Posts 39 Re: General Election 2010 Thanks for the further comments AMNT. I can see we will not see eye to eye on this one! Just a couple of further observations. On safe seats: I would campaign to be elected here even if this was the safest Tory seat in the country, because I believe I am the right man for the job and can persuade people that my ideas are better. So in that sense, a seat is only as safe as we all let it be. However, since 1970, only 50% of the parliamentary seats in England have EVER changed hands. Nothing - social change, economic booms and busts, Tory landslides, Labour landslides, third party surges, scandals, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair - has been enough to see the seat change hands, even just once. That looks to me like something that should be looked at. We need a system that is capable of holding MPs to account and the evidence is that we don't have one. Why is first past the post unfair: To use a simplistic analogy, in your office, if two people want cordial, three people want tea and four want coffee (when all options are available), you'd think it pretty unfair if all of you HAD to have coffee because that's what the highest minority wanted (because its not as though anyone had a majority). That is exactly what we have to put up with in North Somerset. A minority voted Tory here in 2005 and 2007 (albeit the largest single minority), but we are lumbered with virtual Conservative hegemony. What is democratic or representative about that?    Report

03/02/2010, 4:59 PM Doc Richard Joined on 15/12/2009 Churchill Posts 48 Re: General Election 2010  AllMouthNoTrousers wrote: Richard, Mike: If your policies and personalities are good enough, you and your colleagues can be successful under the current system. But if they're not, you won't be. AMNT Policies and personalities play a very minor role in the outcome of constituency elections. The vast majority of voters have tribal loyalties, and always vote for their preferred party come what may. Then there are the popular movements of votes, where people follow the drift of the general consensus, away from the Tories in 1997, back to the Tories in 2010. There are a minority of floating voters who really think, and assess the personalities of the candidates. As I have said before, it is the floating voters in key marginal seats, less than 1% of the electorate, whose choices determine the next Government under FPTP. I fail to see how anyone can regard this as the right way to arrange things in a democracy in the 21st century.       Report

03/02/2010, 5:05 PM Mike Bell Joined on 16/08/2007 Posts 39 Re: General Election 2010 A last word on electoral reform (probably). The important thing here is that our system of government belongs to the people, not to politicians. So it must not be up to the parties to stitch up deals behind closed doors or, as Gordon Brown wants to do, bounce a referendum for a particular voting reform on the country. If we are ever to get to grips with this issue we need a proper national debate about the merits of any changes (a constitutional convention) that can eventually put recommendations to people with real meaningul options that are not simply photocopies of a page from any particular party manifesto.    Report

03/02/2010, 5:14 PM Doc Richard Joined on 15/12/2009 Churchill Posts 48 Re: General Election 2010  AllMouthNoTrousers wrote: I think it's fair that whoever gets the most votes wins the seat, and those who don't get many votes miss out. AMNT The point is that in a democracy, Parliament is supposed to represent the will of the people. In 2005, the percentages of the national vote gained were Lab 37 Con 34 LD  23 This vote delivered the following percentages of seats in Parliament: Lab 55 Con 31 LD   9.6 Is the will of the people delivered by FPTP? No it is not.  Therefore FPTP does not serve democracy.    Report

03/02/2010, 5:45 PM Howard JG Joined on 06/07/2008 Kettering Northants Posts 117 Re: General Election 2010 Yes it does! Because elected MPs represent ALL their contituents ,your argument implies otherwise. The percentage of votes cast is largely irrelevant because you could have a seat with 90% of the votes cast for the winning MP and 10% not,that would seem,to you, fair but,equally, you could have a seat where 51%  voted for the winner and 49% didn't.In that  situation and, if there were only two candidates, how would you overcome the problem? The system we have works,it normally returns a strong Government and all the other electoral systems I have studied seem to be just as 'undemocratic' in one way or another.    Report

03/02/2010, 5:47 PM Howard JG Joined on 06/07/2008 Kettering Northants Posts 117 Re: General Election 2010 P.S. In your scenario, who represents those that do not vote?    Report

07/02/2010, 11:48 AM blarg Joined on 23/09/2009 Posts 23 Re: General Election 2010 Part of the problem is that people feel that they do not have a say when it comes to voteing as over the last 30 years there have been no real huge changes economically or socially between the two parties, granted some have ben more generous then others but overall there has ben no gigantic overhaul. PR might provide a better soulution although you may find no overall majority or extremist parties getting a sea or two the pros with it would be that the bigger parties may have to focus on the issues that the smaller parties represent and find new policies or ways to appease them this may then encourage more people to vote in the electoral system and not be disillusioned with it.          Report

08/02/2010, 3:54 PM Doc Richard Joined on 15/12/2009 Churchill Posts 48 Re: General Election 2010  Howard JG wrote: Yes it does! Because elected MPs represent ALL their contituents ,your argument implies otherwise. The percentage of votes cast is largely irrelevant because you could have a seat with 90% of the votes cast for the winning MP and 10% not,that would seem,to you, fair but,equally, you could have a seat where 51%  voted for the winner and 49% didn't.In that  situation and, if there were only two candidates, how would you overcome the problem? The system we have works,it normally returns a strong Government and all the other electoral systems I have studied seem to be just as 'undemocratic' in one way or another. I think we are getting confused between constituency representation and national representation. FPTP lets MPs get elected on a minority of the vote. Gordon Brown's proposed AV system would improve on this, by ensuring that all mPs are elected by at least 50% of votes cast. But for a national parliament to be democratic, it must at least try to reflect the range of opinions in society. You must agree, looking at the figures I gave in the last post, that FPTP distorts the popular vote in a grotesque way, with Labour getting more seats than it deserves, and libDems getting fewer. How can anyone defend this as right and proper? This list shows that there are more than two, or even two-and-a-half, opinions in society. FPTP has ensured that for 30 years, the section of society that believes that economics should be founded on ecology has had almost no voice. Granted, there are a few MPs who do understand this argument, but basically the Green voice has been excluded from Parliament and also from political discussion, even on the BBC. This is one of the reasons that the UK lags far behind Germany in matters like renewable energy. We all agree that one-party states are a disaster. Two party states (as in the USA) are not very good example of democracy in action, judging by the US's barbaric health system. We live in a diverse society, and parliament does not reflect that diversity. Turnout is poor in safe seats, and safe seat MPs claimed more in expenses.  Germany's post war democracy was designed by the Allies to avoid a repetition of Hitler, and they chose a PR system as part of this. The vast majority of modern democracies have some form of PR system. One of the arguments used against PR is that the British people would not understand it. I do not think the British are stupid. Just ill-informed.    Report

09/02/2010, 11:23 AM AllMouthNoTrousers Joined on 21/02/2008 Weston Posts 906 Re: General Election 2010  Mike Bell wrote: Why is first past the post unfair: To use a simplistic analogy, in your office, if two people want cordial, three people want tea and four want coffee (when all options are available), you'd think it pretty unfair if all of you HAD to have coffee because that's what the highest minority wanted (because its not as though anyone had a majority). That is exactly what we have to put up with in North Somerset. A minority voted Tory here in 2005 and 2007 (albeit the largest single minority), but we are lumbered with virtual Conservative hegemony. What is democratic or representative about that? That may make FPTP sound unfair. But using that analogy, you'd be forcing everyone to have both coffee and cordial (not either, let's remember, but both).  And bearing in mind how few people actually wanted cordial, surely it's even more unfair to force cordial upon everyone? In trying to please the cordial-loving minority, you'd actually be upsetting more people (the seven who voted for options other than cordial) than you would by going with just coffee as the most popular option (five). What's 'democratic or representative' about that? I think it's a mistake for you to claim that PR means more people get what they want - even your own analogy surely shows that in fact more people end up unhappy about being forced to accept things they didn't want. The fact that you get the coffee you wanted doesn't count for much if you also have to drink the cordial you don't like. The whole idea smacks of wanting to move the goalposts because you're not very good at the game. (And please remember that I am arguing this without agenda - I have no binding party loyalty or allegiance, and have not yet even decided where my vote will go this time around...)    Report

09/02/2010, 12:48 PM Flyer Joined on 17/09/2008 Posts 623 Re: General Election 2010 When we know the exact date of this year's General Election, the various Parties will publish their manifestos. Every election time, I always read the manifestos, of all Parties that care to push a leaflet through my door.  I then switch into Ronald Reagan mode and say "where's the beef !". It's surprising how poorly some political Parties "sell" their policies. This is a golden opportunity to make a "sale".  Some Parties might think themselves above "selling", but this, along with radio, tv, and newspapers, is the only way most voters will decide.  Public Meetings, unless the candidate is a Parliamentary "big hitter", who on earth wants to go to one of those !  Many of the leaflets I have read don't have much to offer many householders, and yet these Parties expect to harvest votes. For all those budding would be MP's out there.  Us voters want to know what you would do regards, Council Tax (Tories promising 2 year freeze-good),  Crime and Punishment (ask anyone who has had their house trashed or car vandalised), next the big one-Immigration (how it affects jobs, schools, health service, housing, etc,- how you're going to stop it and down to what level ), government waste (all singing all dancing IT systems that never work, e.g. NHS Computer System. The £billions wasted on Benefits Fraud ), does the UK really need to be the No. 2 World's Policeman after the US ? Green issues, frankly most voters aren't bothered, it's just an excuse to stealth tax the populace. Whilst the Greens have had some success abroad, in the UK, they cannot "sell" themselves, and until they learn how to do it, they will continue to flounder, and keep harping on about PR. Finally, I won't be voting Labour, I'm inclined towards Tory (Council Tax Freeze and possible reduction thereafter), I was interested in Lib Dems, despite Vince Cable's slip of the tongue re: Council Tax surcharge, but so far, I haven't heard how the Lib Dems are going to put more money in my pocket, instead of removing it. I and millions of other OAP's ( a clue there Parties) have limited and fixed incomes, we can't work an extra Saturday or Sunday to pay the bills.     Report

10/02/2010, 5:07 AM Sean Miller Joined on 02/10/2008 Weston-super-Mare Posts 681 Re: General Election 2010  Flyer wrote: I and millions of other OAP's ( a clue there Parties) have limited and fixed incomes, we can't work an extra Saturday or Sunday to pay the bills.  Well, you could... you clearly never go to supermarkets, otherwise you'd see plenty of OAPs who are doing precisely that. But returning to the topic, I am not convinced about this concept that when it comes to an election (to use your words) the primary motivation should be "put more money in my pocket, instead of removing it" -- if everybody worked on that basis then we'd never get anywhere.   The world improves when we work on the basis of protecting the most vulnerable and accept that (to be honest) a large percentage of the UK population currently have TOO MUCH money in their pockets, compared to those in the third world and - indeed - compared to "the norm" 40 or 50 years ago in this country.  Granted, there are many OAPs who are now unable to work - but there are (equally) many who could but don't.  With the average life expectancy rising year-on-year perhaps some should consider a return to work -- when I get to retirement age, it seems, the "retirement age" may be 70 or greater.  The days of "leave University at 23 and retire at 52" appear to be well and truly over.  We're looking at a "50 year working life", rather than "29 years" as many felt to be the case only a generation ago. Anyway - perhaps "getting expectations closer to reality" would be a good start -- where exactly does poverty end and prosperity begin??  A hell of a lot lower down the income scale, I'd suggest, than many appear to have become used to. Sean    Report

10/02/2010, 8:04 AM Howard JG Joined on 06/07/2008 Kettering Northants Posts 117 Re: General Election 2010 Our esteemed Parliament has voted in favour of a referendum to decide if we have a system of PR but I can see that coming to nought as I don't expect there to be a Labour Government after May.    Report

10/02/2010, 9:27 AM Sean Miller Joined on 02/10/2008 Weston-super-Mare Posts 681 Re: General Election 2010 Jack Straw is pushing to save the "Traditional Election Night", something I have to admit to agreeing with... the last two Local Elections in Glastonbury and Shepton Mallet (in both of which I was a candidate) ended up counting the next afternoon in Frome, rather than the traditional local count with its associated buzz and the results coming around Midnight. See here The arguments for counting later will, of course, become even more compelling should any system of PR (Staw's version of which is very similar to the situation with the Polish President that we discussed a few days ago) come into force, as obviously if candidates 3-xx get eliminated and the second preferences considered counting will take longer, but this really does bring up the question WHY are we still using a totally MANUAL SYSTEM in 2010??? If you can enter the National Lottery using an automated system why can the same not happen with elections?? Consider it -- how difficult, really, would it be to scan a ballot paper and work out where the "X" is?  In cases where it was unclear then manual intervention would be required, but what percentage of ballot papers would that actually be??  And once the data was on the system it wouldn't matter if there were 2, 3 or 4 "rounds" of voting as the information would be there. Think -- you walk into the Polling Station.  You're given a computerised slip which you complete and then put into a machine.  The machine either says "Thank you - your vote has been counted" or "Sorry, the system has been unable to read your vote.  Please check and re-enter.".  Should it fail a second time there would be an option to post your paper into a box (as at present). There are many advantages, one of which would be that preliminary results would be available 5-10 minutes after the polls closed. I do not see why this could not happen.   There could also be an option to register Postal Votes anywhere in the country as the machines could be configured to accept ANY voting papers, rather than simply local ones, and transfer the votes to wherever is appropriate.  Not to mention the possibility of "voting over the web". Sean    Report

Page 9 of 10 (142 items) « First ... < 6 7 8 9 10 >

The Weston Merc...GeneralHot News and Po...Re: General Election 2010

(please select) Forums Home |- Search Forums |- Active Topics |- Unanswered Posts User Options |- Sign In |- Join this community |- Forgot Password Announcements |- How to post, how to complain and other FAQs General |- Weston's Grand Pier - the fire and the future |- Hot News and Poll Topic |- News |- ExPats |- T4 On The Beach |- General chat |- Sport |- Reunion: School or Friends & Family |- Trying to trace family or friends? |- The Green Knight's gardening answers |- Weird Weston and Strange Somerset.... |- Money saving tips |- Lost and Found |- Poetry Corner