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What started as one of the most boring campaigns ever, finished as one of the most exciting. I agree with other posters that the Lib Dems sold out, achieved nothing and the power of democracy spoke almost unilaterally - I was proud of our electoral system.
As for UKIP I feel they had the pulse of a couple of key sensitive issues but Farage fail do develop an electable culture within his party, failed to control his party members, failed to get to the root of the racism in his party and in doing so presented himself as unfit for political office.
Milliband is not trusted with the economy and frankly not trusted as a person in my opinion. He was naive to the dangers inherent within Scottish public opinion and got rightly wiped out up there.
Cameron just slalomed through the car wrecks and cleaned up.
In fairness to Farage and UKIP (although I don't support them) he/they garnered around 13% of the vote, ie, 1 in 8 voters voted UKIP, yet they get 1 seat! (1 in 8 would be around 80!!)
More votes than SNP.
With our system, parties are much better served having their voters concentrated in certain areas. It is unfair, and influences the way people vote for, say, the Green Party (ie, may wish to, but don't, as know it will almost always be a wasted vote)
Originally posted by st dominics previewHow can that happen? What kind of system allows that?
In fairness to Farage and UKIP (although I don't support them) he/they garnered around 13% of the vote, ie, 1 in 8 voters voted UKIP, yet they get 1 seat! (1 in 8 would be around 80!!)
More votes than SNP.
With our system, parties are much better served having their voters concentrated in certain areas. It is unfair, and influences the way peo ...[text shortened]... ay, the Green Party (ie, may wish to, but don't, as know it will almost always be a wasted vote)
Originally posted by sonhouseAs I posted earlier, Britain uses a first past the post system of election.
How can that happen? What kind of system allows that?
This means whoever wins the most votes, wins the seat in the parliament
and all the rest are screwed.
Ireland on the other hand uses Proportional Representation (PR)
This means that the person with the most votes gets elected
and the guy with the least votes gets eliminated.
The people vote in order of preference, 1,2,3,4 and so on.
The second preferences and third preferences and subsequent preferences
of the guy who got eliminated are then distributed among the rest of the
candidates who the public chose to represent them in order of preference.
This is a more democratic system although it can take longer to
count all the votes.
If they had this system in Britain then you may have seen more UKIP in the parliament.
Originally posted by johnnylongwoodyThey use this system in Austrailia and fine you for not voting. Maybe fining people in the UK would be a good Idea.
As I posted earlier, Britain uses a first past the post system of election.
This means whoever wins the most votes, wins the seat in the parliament
and all the rest are screwed.
Ireland on the other hand uses Proportional Representation (PR)
This means that the person with the most votes gets elected
and the guy with the least votes gets eli ...[text shortened]... votes.
If they had this system in Britain then you may have seen more UKIP in the parliament.
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Originally posted by johnnylongwoodyThat's not PR, that's Single Transferable Vote, which is an abomination designed to scare the Limeys off real democracy once and for all. If it were real Proportional Representation, then you'd get in exactly according to the number of votes you or your party got, no elimination until all seats are accounted for. That's much simpler, much more honest, and therefore completely unacceptable to the Etonian classes and their willing subjects.
Ireland on the other hand uses Proportional Representation (PR)
This means that the person with the most votes gets elected
and the guy with the least votes gets eliminated.
Originally posted by divegeesterProportional Representation means coalitions. And in
How on practical terms, would PR be better? Or is there another system?
coalitions the small parties have way to much power.
A simple example:
Party A gets 49%
Party B gets 48%
Party C gets 3 %.
Any two parties can pass anything.
All three parties have the same power.
I favour Single Transferable Vote.
If nothing else it means that 50% of the electorate have votes that counted.
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Originally posted by wolfgang59Well... except that under a typical PR system - real PR, not the abominations such as STV that most Britons think of when they hear the words "Proportional Representation" - you'd have rather more than three parties. It'd be more like 34%/28%/24%/9%/4%/1%.
Proportional Representation means coalitions. And in
coalitions the small parties have way to much power.
A simple example:
Party A gets 49%
Party B gets 48%
Party C gets 3 %.
[b]Any two parties can pass anything.
All three parties have the same power.
I favour Single Transferable Vote.
If nothing else it means that 50% of the electorate have votes that counted.[/b]