After Election Stalemate

torontoboy45

any party in mind?

I read a laughable piece in today's express that the pr opens the door for the bnp, which could lead to them eventually holding the balance of power. really?
a weak, scaremongering tactic that some have fallen for for yrs.

just to add: germany has its own version of our beloved bnp - the npd, which at last deutsches GE registered IIRC 1.7% of the national vote.

the spectre of pr really has got me worried!

StevieJ

kennyboy66 wrote: »

As an antidote to Bootle, 7 miles east and you have a marginal constituency of Liverpool Wavertree (despite Labour winning in 1997 with a 19k majority) and the battle is more intense than I have known in any election in my lifetime.
.

Chester is supposed to be a marginal but I not seen hardly any electioneering, the Tories are 1.02 on Betfair against a three times winning Labour tenant, I can only assume that they expect the LibDems to split the Labour vote because the Tory council that was elected a couple of years ago is now not very popular.

A._Badger

torontoboy45 wrote: »

any party in mind?

I read a laughable piece in today's express that the pr opens the door for the bnp, which could lead to them eventually holding the balance of power. really?
a weak, scaremongering tactic that some have fallen for for yrs.

Any of them. Anything that upsets the cosy, complacent, political class is fine by me. Minority parties won't gain power, but they will shake the place up.

dealsearcher

What we need is PR but with an MP, of a party you voted for, who represents your area who you can turn to with your problems. The main argument against PR is that you don't get an MP, of a party you voted for, who represents your area. Work that one out!

StevieJ

dealsearcher wrote: »

What we need is PR but with an MP, of a party you voted for, who represents your area who you can turn to with your problems. The main argument against PR is that you don't get an MP, of a party you voted for, who represents your area. Work that one out!

PR is used in the Euro elections with votable candidates.

MEPs are elected under a proportional representation system. In Britain, you have one vote to elect all of your MEPs. Each party puts forward a list of candidates, called a regional list, and you vote for one of these lists or for an independent candidate. The parties are then allocated a number of MEPs according to their share of the vote.
In Northern Ireland there is a different voting method, the 'single transferable vote'. You vote by ranking the candidates in order of preference.

Kohoutek

dealsearcher wrote: »

What we need is PR but with an MP, of a party you voted for, who represents your area who you can turn to with your problems. The main argument against PR is that you don't get an MP, of a party you voted for, who represents your area. Work that one out!

This is probably the closest to that:

Under AV+, most candidates are elected from single-member constituencies under the Alternative Vote (AV) (or instant-runoff) system. An additional 15–20% of candidates are elected under the regional party lists. Like the Additional Member System (AMS), AV+ list seats are allocated to offset the disproportionality created by the single-member constituencies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_vote_top-up

torontoboy45 wrote: »

I read a laughable piece in today's express that the pr opens the door for the bnp, which could lead to them eventually holding the balance of power. really? a weak, scaremongering tactic that some have fallen for for yrs.

The problem I have with that commonly used argument is that it's arguing against the idea of democracy itself. If enough people vote BNP, Monster Raving Looney, Jedi or whatever why shouldn't they be represented, just because members of the condescending political elite like Harriet Harman say it would be 'dangerous'?

If one of those small parties starting getting 'too powerful', the mainstream media would simply step up their campaigns to discredit them anyway.

torontoboy45

Kohoutek wrote: »

This is probably the closest to that:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_vote_top-up



The problem I have with that commonly used argument is that it's arguing against the idea of democracy itself. If enough people vote BNP, Monster Raving Looney, Jedi or whatever why shouldn't they be represented, just because members of the condescending political elite like Harriet Harman say it would be 'dangerous'?

If one of those small parties starting getting 'too powerful', the mainstream media would simply step up their campaigns to discredit them anyway.

and of course, the electorate would smell the looney toon rat long before it left its hole; a shame the establishment can never trust to the judgement of the voter.

I'd be wary of letting the press take a lead on this one, though; the good ol' daily mail was bigging up a bloke in a black shirt back in the 30's.

Sir_Humphrey

A system of PR has a voting % threshold to stop tiny loony-tunes parties getting in. It is usually around 5% of the popular vote or so. So any party polling below that level would not get any MPs.