Vocal Voices

... First Past The Post election?

In an interview the other day, Gus O'Donnell, the former Civil Service Head and architect of the way the coalition government was formed, seemed to suggest that FPTP elections are on the way out.

This time around we could have the second largest party forming a government on the back of getting only 30% of votes cast or 20% of the possible vote. It would have to do deals, possibly with multiple minor parties, yet leaving others out.

We are looking at the possibility where parties with about 30% of the vote gets 270+ seats; one with 15% of the vote ends up with only 2-3 seats, another with 8% of the vote gets 30+ seats and another with 8% only gets 1 seat. There could be a mood within the parties, and more importantly, the electorate, for change.

I know that we had a referendum on Proportional Representation, but it was fiddled by the politicians to offer only the Alternative Vote system. The referendum should have been a two part operation. The first should have been to ask if we wanted Proportional Representation. If that was carried we should have been given a choice between different types of PR.

If we were asked today my guess is that a majority of us would opt for PR in some form.

I have been thinking about this for a while now. I wonder if we will ever witness 'landslides' by one Party again. I think there should be reform of some sort which will ensure that votes are not 'wasted'.

I'm sure we'll see landslides by one party in the future. We are seeing it in Scotland today. First a minority government on PR in the Scottish assembly. Then an outright majority on pr in the Scottish assembly, then a total landslide (projected), in the Westminster elections.

The key point for me is that PR tends to produce coalitions and FPTP tends to give single governments. If we had PR in the current environment, we would not just have a coalition but a grand coalition of at least 3 parties, in order to form a government.

If you ask me, FPTP is the only system I'd like to see in the UK. It may be flawed, but the others are more flawed in my mind.

For me FPTP only works in two party states, and in those cases it is very good.

But when there are many parties, as there now are in the UK, we need some sort of PR to make the system fair to all voters - and that is the main thing.

How it will work is another thing, but I really do think that there will be a call for it.

FPTP may have had it's day. The argument for it has always been that it produces "strong governments". Well not last time it didn't, and all the predictions are that it won't this time either.

As the Conservatives become less like the old Conservative party, UKIP rises. The SNP grow in Scotland, and so on. It isn't just about two massive parties and a few tiddlers anymore.

Somebody give WM a chair, because I reckon the EU elections are fairer. The electoral boundaries are bigger, so less chance of gerrymandering.

Where I live I'm in the constituency of Hemsworth, a place I've been maybe twice in ten years. My "natural" constituency is Wakefield, just 3 miles down the road. All the villages around mine are "Wakefield" villages. Most of them are in the Hemsworth constituency too! Even part of the City of Wakefield itself is in the blinking Hemsworth constituency! It is an absolute farce.

They also say that the smaller constituencies are important because you have an MP for your immediate local area. It used to be the case, but not any more. Of the four local MP's, none are local people. Three of them are parachutes from London, three of them don't live in their constituencies at all. The local connection has gone.

So for me bigger constituencies and proportional representation is the way to go. If you get 33% of the vote you get 33% of the MP's, that's fair.

Around here we have gerrymandered constituencies designed to give one party the best chance of winning. It's a corrupt, dishonest farce. No wonder so many people don't bother voting.

FPTP has had it's day.

The idea of a local MP for local people is certainly not the case in West and South Yorkshire, as Cromwell points out. There is a line of Labour parachutists up here and many of them are big-hitters in Labour's shadow cabinet - Reeves, Cooper, Balls, Benn, Miliband..... Mostly safe seats, you see. Mind you, all parties do it, not only Labour.

Cromwell wrote:If you get 33% of the vote you get 33% of the MP's, that's fair.

Holy Moses, they will never go for that, it is far too democratic!

Ah, everyone thinks that PR will mean they get the "candidate" they want.

What PR really means is the party who gets x% of the vote gets x MP's. Then the MP location is decided by committee and then the Party decides which MP will fill the seat allocated by that %of the vote.

FPTP gives the candidate to the area who voted on it. In reality, PR in England would mean that everyone got MP's allocated by the 26million people who live in the south east.

Sounding fairer?

Just go look up how the "list" works in Scotland. It's not full PR by any means but a hybrid which means people actually get MP's they did not vote for.

After all, today, MP's are allocated by ward. If the ward has 1m voters, then they get one MP for that 1M votes. If those 1M votes are to count somewhere else, by PR say, then another ward must have it's local vote overruled and they will get an MP based on a "decision" at committee.

If anyone thinks this will be fair, think again. The Scottish Socialist party in Scotland was a hinterland party with no vote and no real mandate. Now it has MSP's. No area was so rabidly communist that they wanted a SCP MP in Scotland, but because of the "list" they have to take one.

Nice. I don't think....

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

But the vast majority of us do not get the MP of our choice. Party HQs, not the local constituency parties, decide which candidates will stand, and where. Effectively there is no local representation across vast swathes of the country.

There are many different forms of PR, you mentioned 'List' I earlier mentioned 'AV'. The debate, when it eventually happens, will have to cover the workable options and then give us the choice of which we, not the political classes, prefer.

It might not be for a few elections yet, but I do think it will happen.

Suff wrote: PR tends to produce coalitions

True, particularly when the main parties are broadly similar as they are here in Ireland. We have PR and have had coalition governments for many years. I think this will continue to be the case as none of our parties is big enough to produce an overall majority. PR has plusses and minuses, we are increasingly seeing independent single-issue candidates who do tend to skew the numbers, but overall I prefer it.