[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[Bob!]

Short answer - I don't care if people vote tactically. I have done on occasion. And I would do so again, even if we have a preferential system.

Also, to think that every voter has a right to get 'represented' is also wrong. We are voting for one MP. If we don't get what we want, tough. There is no chance of me getting a labour MP here in 'Medway', but that's life. If the majority here are tories, I just have to suck it up. I am more than happy to think that there will be lots of labour MPs elected elsewhere. And I will campaign for labour.

Yes, but if you were voting in let's say 'Kent' rather than Medway you'd maybe have a few Labour MP's representing you, maybe even a Green.

 

[Simster]

Also, the arguments in favour of electoral reform are entirely simple. The system should ensure more people's vote actually count for something. It's you who wraps the debate up in long winded "weft" to justify supporting a system that effectively dumps most people's votes in a skip.

Spot on! FPTP is decidedly undemocratic.

 

[medwayseagull reborn]

That's a very reductionist way of boiling down my position that actually grossly misrepresents it.

More accurately:

Under a political system that has constituency seats (UK, Australia lower house, etc) I am *not* happy with a candidate winning a seat if they do not have the support of at least 50% of voters. A FPTP system cannot guarantee this. And while preferential voting isn't perfect either, it does give us a better idea of which candidates actually have the highest level of support.


It's a different sort of tactical voting, though. Under PV you would still put your 1st preference down first. You then vote tactically to minimise the chances of a Tory by putting non-Tory candidates ahead of the Tory. But I would suggest that you would do that again by preference. Say, for example, you have the following candidates in a seat where polling suggests Labour, Lib Dems, and Conservatives are neck-and-neck:

Labour
Tory
Lib Dem
Green
Reform
Loony

If you want Labour to win, you put Labour first. If you under no circumstances want the Tory, you put them last, so you then have:

1 Labour
2
3
4
5
6 Tory

The tactical part then comes into play - how do you expect preferences to flow from other candidates? I'd expect anyone who votes Reform to have Tory 2nd, so I'll put them 5th. Loony votes could go anywhere, and really wouldn't want them winning by mistake, so they get 4th. It then becomes a straight choice between Green or Lib Dem for 2nd / 3rd. Under the scenario of wanting Labour to win but knowing that Lib Dems are in with a shout as well, you want to minimise Lib Dem - so stick them 3rd:

1 Labour
2 Green
3 Lib Dem
4 Loony
5 Reform
6 Tory

Easy.

If, however, I was a staunch Green supporter ... well, just put Greens 1st, then Labour, then Lib Dem. Most Greens backers would probably prefer a Labour candidate wins than a Tory or Lib Dem (especially with the Tories seemingly hell bent on setting pro-environment policies on fire).

Faced with the same choice under FPTP, you've then got a big choice to make. Say, for example, the polls for your seat are suggesting that Tory have 35%, Lib Dem have 34%, and Labour 30%. As a Labour supporter who under no circumstances wants a Tory to win, what do you do? Do you vote Labour and risk letting the Tory in by a whisker, or do you bite your tongue, vote Lib Dem, and hope they snatch it?

UK politics under FPTP is showing stronger and stronger signs of the "biting the tongue" type tactical voting happening. That's why multiple tactical voting sites exist in the UK, but there are none in Australia. Australians don't need a website to tell them how to avoid getting the candidate they don't want. They just order their preferences and the system handles it.

I thought Tory and Loony were the same thing now.

 

[beorhthelm]

It's an (I'm guessing Labour supporter) writing to a Labour party member. Both of whom live in what are currently heavily Conservative constituencies. They're going to frame the example that way.
You could do exactly the same exercise with the Conservatives as first preference, Reform or whatever they're called nowadays at 2, etc. down to the Socialist Workers Party at the bottom.
The problems with FPTP exist as much for a Conservative living in Liverpool as for a Labour voter in Wealden. Actually they exist for most people but those are just about the extreme cases.

maybe, you dont hear Conservatives ever making the case.

under any single seat system Wealden will return Conservative, just as Knowsley will return Labour. to address the under representation that arises from current system needs change to regional system, ending the links with constituency seats. btw that returned UKIP/Conservative majority in last national vote under PR. we'd have a very different political landscape under proper PR.

 

[medwayseagull reborn]

Short answer - I don't care if people vote tactically. I have done on occasion. And I would do so again, even if we have a preferential system.

Also, to think that every voter has a right to get 'represented' is also wrong. We are voting for one MP. If we don't get what we want, tough. There is no chance of me getting a labour MP here in 'Medway', but that's life. If the majority here are tories, I just have to suck it up. I am more than happy to think that there will be lots of labour MPs elected elsewhere. And I will campaign for labour.

Medway had three Labour MPs in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Labour took control of Medway council in May this year so it is not impossible although still unlikely. Anyway I thought you lived in Swale ! In any case Sittingbourne and Sheppey also had a Labour MP during the Blair years.

 

[Audax]

that's an awful lot of writing to say you want change the system just to vote out Tories. i've come round to PR on it's merits, arguments i've seen here today are all about trying to bias the result.

I could just as easily have used a Tory-favourable example. In fact, I have done on NSC in the past (in relation to the Hartlepool by-election result and how the press were pushing it as some seismic loss for Labour when the reality is that Labour only held it at the previous election due to the Tory vote being split by Reform and that a PV system would have seen a Tory win in 2019).

It's an (I'm guessing Labour supporter) writing to a Labour party member. Both of whom live in what are currently heavily Conservative constituencies. They're going to frame the example that way.
You could do exactly the same exercise with the Conservatives as first preference, Reform or whatever they're called nowadays at 2, etc. down to the Socialist Workers Party at the bottom.
The problems with FPTP exist as much for a Conservative living in Liverpool as for a Labour voter in Wealden. Actually they exist for most people but those are just about the extreme cases.

Less Labour supporter and more sick-and-tired-of-the-Conservatives voter. I've voted both Labour and Lib Dem in recent GE's in an effort to try to back whoever I thought would be most likely to win. Last time I voted in Australia (2004?) my vote went to the Liberal Party, which is equivalent to voting Tory here. I would more accurately describe myself as a swing/floating voter. I'll happily back whichever party is offering the strongest set of policies. For me, that's slightly right economics and slightly left social policy. Corbyn's Labour was too far left for me. Brexit-dominated Tory is way too far right. In the grand scheme of things in the UK, if we had PV for the 2024 GE I'd probably vote Lib Dem first and then Labour. After that is a toss up depending on candidates.

But in 10 years time? If the Tory's move back more central and Labour have drifted left after Starmer, could easily see myself voting Tory ahead of Labour.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

maybe, you dont hear Conservatives ever making the case.

under any single seat system Wealden will return Conservative, just as Knowsley will return Labour. to address the under representation that arises from current system needs change to regional system, ending the links with constituency seats. btw that returned UKIP/Conservative majority in last national vote under PR. we'd have a very different political landscape under proper PR.

I wouldn't consider the European elections to be particularly representative, I think they tended to be used as a protest vote. But you're right, the whole landscape would be radically different. And frankly, if that's the way the majority of people vote in an election, so be it. At least nobody can complain we haven't got what we voted for.
Strictly speaking it was 2014 when UKIP and the Conservatives combined for a majority of the seats. In 2019 the Brexit Party and Conservatives combined total fell short of 50%.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Less Labour supporter and more sick-and-tired-of-the-Conservatives voter. I've voted both Labour and Lib Dem in recent GE's in an effort to try to back whoever I thought would be most likely to win. Last time I voted in Australia (2004?) my vote went to the Liberal Party, which is equivalent to voting Tory here. I would more accurately describe myself as a swing/floating voter. I'll happily back whichever party is offering the strongest set of policies. For me, that's slightly right economics and slightly left social policy. Corbyn's Labour was too far left for me. Brexit-dominated Tory is way too far right. In the grand scheme of things in the UK, if we had PV for the 2024 GE I'd probably vote Lib Dem first and then Labour. After that is a toss up depending on candidates.

But in 10 years time? If the Tory's move back more central and Labour have drifted left after Starmer, could easily see myself voting Tory ahead of Labour.

Fair enough, I was just going by your earlier reference to voting tactically against the Tories in Wealdon in the last few elections.

 

[WATFORD zero]

maybe, you dont hear Conservatives ever making the case.

under any single seat system Wealden will return Conservative, just as Knowsley will return Labour. to address the under representation that arises from current system needs change to regional system, ending the links with constituency seats. btw that returned UKIP/Conservative majority in last national vote under PR. we'd have a very different political landscape under proper PR.

Genuinely interested how you have interpreted this

As a UKIP/Conservative majority under PR ?

Unless you are talking about the last EU elections which is some incredible leap But yes, it would be every different political landscape under any of the various voting systems including 'proper' ones, whatever that means. That's the whole point

 

[beorhthelm]

Unless you are talking about the last EU elections which is some incredible leap

yes, that was the last national vote under PR. also 2015 GE would have been a Conservative/UKIP/Unionist majority narrowly by % of vote. it was a pretty popular thing those days.

 

[Pavilionaire]

It is interesting to note that in the 2 years since the Partygate story broke and the Tories have been in meltdown the polls indicate that share of the vote for the Lib Dems and the Greens has flatlined.

This is an indicator that the majority of voters see English politics as binary. Only FPTP explains why many voters exasperated with the Tories will move directly through the middle ground and settle on the left to support Starmer's Labour.

This is even more bizarre when you consider pre-2015 the majority of the Conservative vote used to be pro-European and so the natural home for a disaffected One Nation Tories would be the Lib Dems. However, they have remained constant on 10% while Brexit has floundered and we've chewed our way through 5 Prime Ministers.

 

[WATFORD zero]

yes, that was the last national vote under PR. also 2015 GE would have been a Conservative/UKIP/Unionist majority narrowly by % of vote. it was a pretty popular thing those days.

Just a minor point, but how are you managing to tell us what the 'result of previous GE elections under PR' would be without any definition of which PR you mean and how it would work.

What sort of PR are we talking about Party List PR/Mixed member PR/Single Transferrable vote ?
What would be the constituencies ?
How many seats would each have ?

And the whole point is that changing the voting system would change the way people vote significantly. As you said 'the whole political landscape' would change

 

[nicko31]

It is interesting to note that in the 2 years since the Partygate story broke and the Tories have been in meltdown the polls indicate that share of the vote for the Lib Dems and the Greens has flatlined.

This is an indicator that the majority of voters see English politics as binary. Only FPTP explains why many voters exasperated with the Tories will move directly through the middle ground and settle on the left to support Starmer's Labour.

This is even more bizarre when you consider pre-2015 the majority of the Conservative vote used to be pro-European and so the natural home for a disaffected One Nation Tories would be the Lib Dems. However, they have remained constant on 10% while Brexit has floundered and we've chewed our way through 5 Prime Ministers.

The thing is the LD's aren't differentiating themselves enough from Labour.

On Europe they have nothing to fear, FFS be bold, what is there to lose? Call out the Brexit shitshow and explain how to fix it....

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Compulsory voting works fine in Oz with a preference system.

Indeed. And I like it lots. But they have had more than 100 years to get used to it.

"Compulsory voting has a century-long history in this nation. Not only is it a durable feature of Australian democracy, but it is universally applied. Whenever an election is called, whether it be at the national, state or territory level, voters are obliged to turn out at pain of being fined or, in the last resort, being gaoled for failure to comply."

And even so there have been moves to bin it.

"The previous December, the Coalition-controlled Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) handed down its report on the 2019 federal election. It contained a slew of recommendations for electoral reform — among the most controversial was the replacement of compulsory preferential voting with optional preferential voting. That recommendation was condemned by both the Labor Party and Greens in their minority JSCEM reports. Labor described the recommendation for optional preferential voting as an “attack on compulsory voting”, which was “the cornerstone of Australian democracy”."

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Medway had three Labour MPs in 1997, 2001 and 2005. Labour took control of Medway council in May this year so it is not impossible although still unlikely. Anyway I thought you lived in Swale ! In any case Sittingbourne and Sheppey also had a Labour MP during the Blair years.

Apologies. I'm in Maidstone and the Weald. The indelicious Helen Whately. It always seems so bizarre my constituency is named after a town I have visited only 5 times in the last 30 years.

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Apologies. I'm in Maidstone and the Weald. The indelicious Helen Whately. It always seems so bizarre my constituency is named after a town I have visited only 5 times in the last 30 years.

View attachment 171075

Erm, you know Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) and Helen Grant (Maidstone and the Weald) are different people don't you?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The thing is the LD's aren't differentiating themselves enough from Labour.

On Europe they have nothing to fear, FFS be bold, what is there to lose? Call out the Brexit shitshow and explain how to fix it....

I would say they aren't differentiating themselves from labour either. Partly because they are completely invisible. I couldn't name their leader, let alone any front benchers.

 

[Pevenseagull]

Apologies. I'm in Maidstone and the Weald. The indelicious Helen Whately. It always seems so bizarre my constituency is named after a town I have visited only 5 times in the last 30 years.

View attachment 171075

Whately is Faversham

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

you know Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) and Helen Grant (Maidstone and the Weald) are different people don't you?

OOPS!

"In 1997, the Faversham and Mid Kent constituency was formed when the previous Faversham seat was abolished and split into Sittingbourne and Sheppey and the town of Faversham which was then merged with Mid Kent to form this constituency."

If you look at the Maidstone outcome and the Faversham outcome (below) it is easy to see how the mistake is made.

I once tried tactically voting liberal but my own party came second. Never mind. I'll keep voting and hoping.

Still, with second preference voting We could get a labour MP! I'm now convinced. PR, rah rah - I'm IN!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Whately is Faversham

I got the name of my constituency wrong. Whately is my MP