Time for PR, surely?

[sjamesb3466]

Personally I would go for the 'Additional Member System' electoral system as in my opinion it gives the best compromise between FPTP and PR (or party list).

Basically 50% of MP would be granted through the current system and 50% through PR. At an election you would vote for both a representative in parliament and a party which would give greater PR without losing the constituency representative in parliament as you do with full PR. Its explained better on here! http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=53

 

[Juan Albion]

So a party that gets 10,706,647 votes gets 234 MPs, yet a party with just 26,300 votes gets an MP - if each seat was worth the same number of votes, so dividing the Tory figure by the 26,300 votes the Trade Unionist Voice polled the Tories would have 407 seats - so the TUV condidate would get in ahead of a (more worthy?) Tory based on average votes per seat.

So is PR a fairer system, or just one that leads to continual coalition Governments which suits a party like the Lib Dems who are never going to win outright but this gives them more power and more say in running the country.

Good grief, I said I rounded up because I couldn't be bothered to go further. As it happens, each seat cost just under 46000 seats. The party with 26,300 got one in my calculation because it was slightly more than half a seat, so got rounded up. Those just under half got rounded down. Big deal.

Believe it or not, I did not sit down and calculate a perfect PR system, I just put up rough numbers. Difficult to grasp?

And this was the most basic PR system. I don't think too many think that is necessarily the exact way to go.

 

[The Phoenix]

Most likely to be the AV+ system as recommended by the Jenkins commission if anything.

 

[Return of the Rev]

Hang them all

Great, never having one party in charge and running the country on its own ever again and having to rely on coalitions is a much better option because weve been left with a situation where we need a coalition in place to form a Government

The fact that the results for the elections since at least the 1950s show no party has gained at least 50% of the vote needed to have a clear majority, and possibly leading to politicians being able to endlessly "haggle and bicker and scheme" delaying decision-making and leading to paralysis.

IT SEEMS TO WORK IN ITALY

 

[KZNSeagull]

Just for fun, this would have been the seat distribution using a straight PR system with no tweaks. (Yeah, I know the numbers don't quite add up, but I have rounded numbers because I couldn't be bothered).
First number is seats won this election, second is number of votes, third is number of seats under basic PR.

Conservative 306 10,706,647 234
Labour 258 8,604,358 188
Liberal Democrat 57 6,827,938 149
Democratic Unionist Party 8 168,216 4
Scottish National Party 6 491,386 11
Sinn Fein 5 171,942 4
Plaid Cymru 3 165,394 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party 3 110,970 2
Green 1 285,616 6
Alliance Party 1 42,762 1
UK Independence Party 0 917,832 20
British National Party 0 563,743 12
Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force 0 102,361 2
English Democrats 0 64,826 1
Respect-Unity Coalition 0 33,251 1
Traditional Unionist Voice 0 26,300 1
Christian Party 0 18,623 0
Independent Community and Health Concern 0 16,150 0
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition 0 12,275 0
Scottish Socialist Party 0 3,157 0
Others 1 319,891 7

Under the above scenario, who would get first dibs at forming a government? What would happen if they could not form one?

 

[dougdeep]

IT SEEMS TO WORK IN ITALY

Is this a joke?

 

[Notters]

IT SEEMS TO WORK IN ITALY

Meanwhile, first past the post has been brilliant for Greece.

 

[Return of the Rev]

I offer hope

WHAT ABOUT SORTING IT OUT IN HUGE BEER HALLS UP AND DOWN THE LAND

 

[KneeOn]

My only gripe with PR is the lack of local representation