U.K. General Election, 4 Jul 2024

[Kirkhill]

All that said....

In 2019, 14 million people voted Conservative. On Thursday, 6.8 million did. Over half our vote melted away. Even in the previous disaster of 1997, that didn’t happen: we still had 9.5 million voters out of the 14 million of 1992. That difference between now and 1997 is what happens when you have a competing party on the Right and when many of your own supporters are so demotivated that they don’t turn out.

Any analysis of what next for the Conservative Party, or indeed the Right more broadly, that doesn’t deal with this reality isn’t worth listening to. And there is, I’m afraid, already too much such analysis around. Yes, Labour’s final vote tally was unimpressive. Yes, the party has problems to its Left with the Gaza independents and the Greens. But Labour has 400-plus seats and all the instruments of government. There is plenty it wants to do and will do. The idea that the party’s majority is built on sand is just a coping mechanism, the purest wishful thinking.

Of course I don’t think that Labour’s ideas are good or will fix the country’s problems. Living under socialism is always bad. But when so many voters live off public funds and have got used to looking to the government to solve every problem, it doesn’t follow that it leads to electoral problems for Labour in the short run.

There’s no shortcut for the Tories. A divided Right will never win an election again

Pretending that Labour’s majority is built on sand is a pure coping mechanism. Rebuilding will be a difficult job

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[FJAG]

As I have been soundly told many times on this forum, that has absolutely nothing to do with fair and equitable elections, FPTP is the supreme electoral system.

Reform UK received 4,114,287 votes (3rd Most Votes) and received 5 seats. Lib Dems Received 3,501,040 and received 72 seats.

2024 United Kingdom general election - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I appreciate the fact that the elections are "fair and equitable" but only within the construct of a first-past-the-post (FPP) election system. That's not to say that the FPP election system is in and of itself a fair and equitable way of deciding who makes up a truly representative government.

FPP a simple system but most often creates results where the party in power is generally not elected by the majority of the people. It's also susceptible to gerrymandering.

In Canada we have looked on occasion into adopting a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system where only a set amount of members of whatever legislature are elected by way of a FPP method while the rest of the members are allocated by some form or other of the proportion of votes each particular party received in the aggregate.

The NDP and Greens support the MMP initiative as it would greatly increase their level of representation in the federal or provincial legislatures. For the same reason the two major parties are reluctant to move to such a system.

Germany uses an MMP system and I think it is one of the main reasons that Germany is often reluctant to make hard choices on national security issues. Governments there are often coalition ones which have to keep their more left-leaning members happy. That often results in sticking-their-heads-in-the-sand when tough choices need to be made.

Australia has an interesting system whereby there is ranked voting for selecting the members of the lower house and proportional voting for the upper. I kind of like it but it also depends on the power division between upper and lower houses. Using the Canadian example, the upper house would still remain ineffective regardless how the members are assigned. @dimsum might have some thoughts on the Oz system.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Britain was in deep trouble. This election seems like the suicide shot just to end the misery.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Britain was in deep trouble. This election seems like the suicide shot just to end the misery.

Interestingly enough, although economically troubled, it was the Labour Governments under Wilson and Callaghan that helped build the military that won the Falklands War, and set the foundations for the eventual resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

 

[Cloud Cover]

It’s more than just the military, although I think British foreign policy is about to become distinctly anti-Israel and probably anti-semitic especially in trade. “Eurarabic” as the theory calls it.

 

[dimsum]

Australia has an interesting system whereby there is ranked voting for selecting the members of the lower house and proportional voting for the upper. I kind of like it but it also depends on the power division between upper and lower houses. Using the Canadian example, the upper house would still remain ineffective regardless how the members are assigned. @dimsum might have some thoughts on the Oz system.

I don’t know enough about it to definitively say, but their system gets funny outcomes like this:

Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[KevinB]

It’s more than just the military, although I think British foreign policy is about to become distinctly anti-Israel and probably anti-semitic especially in trade. “Eurarabic” as the theory calls it.

Starmer was pretty clear he doesn’t plan to change the pro Israeli lean, or the support for Ukraine, he drifted the party further right than many Labour members liked, but it did win them an election, and he was also clear that there will not be any major changes due to their debt and unlike previous labour governments doesn’t plan on spending blitzes.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Starmer was pretty clear he doesn’t plan to change the pro Israeli lean,

Or his wife will have something to say about that...

Victoria Starmer: The Jewish, low-profile wife of the new UK prime minister​

An ex-lawyer who intends to keep working for the NHS, she has largely shunned the spotlight and given no interviews since her husband became Labour leader​

https://www.timesofisrael.com/victoria-starmer-the-jewish-low-profile-wife-of-the-new-uk-prime-minister/

 

[Halifax Tar]

I appreciate the fact that the elections are "fair and equitable" but only within the construct of a first-past-the-post (FPP) election system. That's not to say that the FPP election system is in and of itself a fair and equitable way of deciding who makes up a truly representative government.

FPP a simple system but most often creates results where the party in power is generally not elected by the majority of the people. It's also susceptible to gerrymandering.

In Canada we have looked on occasion into adopting a mixed-member proportional (MMP) system where only a set amount of members of whatever legislature are elected by way of a FPP method while the rest of the members are allocated by some form or other of the proportion of votes each particular party received in the aggregate.

The NDP and Greens support the MMP initiative as it would greatly increase their level of representation in the federal or provincial legislatures. For the same reason the two major parties are reluctant to move to such a system.

Germany uses an MMP system and I think it is one of the main reasons that Germany is often reluctant to make hard choices on national security issues. Governments there are often coalition ones which have to keep their more left-leaning members happy. That often results in sticking-their-heads-in-the-sand when tough choices need to be made.

Australia has an interesting system whereby there is ranked voting for selecting the members of the lower house and proportional voting for the upper. I kind of like it but it also depends on the power division between upper and lower houses. Using the Canadian example, the upper house would still remain ineffective regardless how the members are assigned. @dimsum might have some thoughts on the Oz system.

When I see lopsided votes to seats equations like I provided on the UK election I cant help but understand why people say the system doesn't work.

People obviously are not being represented accurately, I think its the same for Canada. And the accurate representation of the population is what I want out of an electoral system.

 

[Brad Sallows]

When I see lopsided votes to seats equations like I provided on the UK election I cant help but understand why people say the system doesn't work.

People obviously are not being represented accurately, I think its the same for Canada. And the accurate representation of the population is what I want out of an electoral system.

Short of allowing everyone to vote on everything, we can never achieve accurate representation. With a finite menu of parties (platforms, policies) from which to select, everyone is forced to shoehorn himself into an available option. All we can achieve is approximate representation. FPTP has the advantage of allowing concentrated representation (majority governments) at different points in time.

The prices of the deal between the NDP and LPC to forestall an election are evidence of what the costs of any system of proportionate representation are likely to be. The easiest compromise for politicians is to agree to tax or borrow enough (from people not at the table) to spend on the top wish-list items of everyone at the table. In the worst cases they just create new commitments and leave the funding problem for someone else to correct long after the originators have left the field to pursue other interests and collection pension payments. In the very worst cases, the programs just collapse.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Short of allowing everyone to vote on everything, we can never achieve accurate representation. With a finite menu of parties (platforms, policies) from which to select, everyone is forced to shoehorn himself into an available option. All we can achieve is approximate representation. FPTP has the advantage of allowing concentrated representation (majority governments) at different points in time.

The prices of the deal between the NDP and LPC to forestall an election are evidence of what the costs of any system of proportionate representation are likely to be. The easiest compromise for politicians is to agree to tax or borrow enough (from people not at the table) to spend on the top wish-list items of everyone at the table. In the worst cases they just create new commitments and leave the funding problem for someone else to correct long after the originators have left the field to pursue other interests and collection pension payments. In the very worst cases, the programs just collapse.

The example I provided is a wild imbalance.

Our NDP v BQ results are in th same vein.

We need a better system. Maybe it is some form of propositional representation. Maybe it's some of their method. I'm not claiming to have the answer, I'm just pointing at the problem and saying, that's fucked up.

And I also think its a reason people are so apathetic about voting.

 

[Navy_Pete]

The example I provided is a wild imbalance.

Our NDP v BQ results are in th same vein.

We need a better system. Maybe it is some form of propositional representation. Maybe it's some of their method. I'm not claiming to have the answer, I'm just pointing at the problem and saying, that's fucked up.

And I also think its a reason people are so apathetic about voting.

I think if politicians looked at serving the best outcomes for their constituents and Canadians instead of their election chances it would be a moot point; a lot of the disatisfaction is the pandering to special interest groups or putting local interests over national (like the pork barreling grants).

I think with social media and 24 news there is also a trend to get 15 second soundbites or otherwise stupid gotcha moments, so the tone is dumbed down to idiocracy levels and almost completely adversarial; in the real world they would have to compromise like adults.

I don't think proportional representation would do much other than get other niche parties and special interest groups some kind of representation, and also make the governing of the country even more ineffective by making weird coalitions absolutely the norm.

Don't really see much difference either in outcomes from the different stripes of government anyway; so not sure there is a significant difference in real terms outside of rhetoric. One of the most fiscally conservative federal governments I've seen in my lifetime was the Martin Liberals, and so far looks like PP would just shift spending to different things, vice reduce the massive deficit spending.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The example I provided is a wild imbalance.

Our NDP v BQ results are in th same vein.

We need a better system. Maybe it is some form of propositional representation. Maybe it's some of their method. I'm not claiming to have the answer, I'm just pointing at the problem and saying, that's fucked up.

And I also think its a reason people are so apathetic about voting.

We had decades of pretty good parliamentary government. That suggests the voting system isn't the cause. What has evolved is the way the PMO functions. A useful exercise is to compare the exercise of powers between British parliamentarians and Canadian ones. I can guess that the fingers of dysfunction and incapacity will be pointed at the ways our politicians allow themselves to conduct business, and not the system that puts them there.

 

[FJAG]

I remember reading a book once about Wellington when he entered politics in the early 1800s and his belief that party politics would be the death of representative parliamentary government. Members would stop advocating on behalf of what is good for their constituents in favour of implementing what is good for their party.

I think that has happened, in spades. Many democracies are run by the unelected party functionaries that work in the parties' boiler room formulating policies that will advance their agendas and keep themselves in power in the next election.

"... democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other ones that have been tried from time to time," Churchill, 1947.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I remember reading a book once about Wellington when he entered politics in the early 1800s and his belief that party politics would be the death of representative parliamentary government. Members would stop advocating on behalf of what is good for their constituents in favour of implementing what is good for their party.

I think that has happened, in spades. Many democracies are run by the unelected party functionaries that work in the parties' boiler room formulating policies that will advance their agendas and keep themselves in power in the next election.

"... democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other ones that have been tried from time to time," Churchill, 1947.

I agree it is. More and more I have come to think that every once in a while it needs to be reset, because it gets out of whack. Perhaps we are there now.

Democracies are supposed to be representative. Less and less do I believe that is the case anymore.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I agree it is. More and more I have come to think that every once in a while it needs to be reset, because it gets out of whack. Perhaps we are there now.

Democracies are supposed to be representative. Less and less do I believe that is the case anymore.

It depends on what you mean by representative.

Our idea of democracy is considerably more representative than it was in 1950, or 1900, or 1850, just based on who is allowed to vote.

 

[KevinB]

It depends on what you mean by representative.

Our idea of democracy is considerably more representative than it was in 1950, or 1900, or 1850, just based on who is allowed to vote.

The illusion of representation…

 

[Remius]

It depends on what you mean by representative.

Our idea of democracy is considerably more representative than it was in 1950, or 1900, or 1850, just based on who is allowed to vote.

And who is allowed to or can/could afford to run.

 

[Kirkhill]

The First Past the Post system is conservative in nature. It produces a drag on dramatic swings in the government and policy. It ensures that single issue parties are going to struggle to get seats. At the same time it does give voice to single issue voters and cause the dominant parties to take note of popular policies.

The Tories were forced to turn Brexiteers and even Labour has had to modify its anti-Brexit, pro-Europe rhetoric. Both parties have had to slide back from their Green policies (although Labour is hell bent on building windmills and pylons on England's green and pleasant land instead of dark, satanic mills).

I would note that Labour started as a single issue protest party with one seat held by a xenophobic Scot in Wales.

Change happens but it happens slowly.

The official name for the Tories is the Conservative and Unionist Party of the UK - originally united against the Liberal and Labour.
The Canadian Progressive Conservative party united left wingers and right wingers against the Liberals.

 

[Halifax Tar]

It depends on what you mean by representative.

Our idea of democracy is considerably more representative than it was in 1950, or 1900, or 1850, just based on who is allowed to vote.

I mean by people being properly represented in their elected Gov.

I take issue with these wild imbalances in votes V seats. Its simply wrong and I think weakens our system. Im not claiming to have the answer, but I can definitely see a problem.