Red, Yellow or Blue?
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Reform of the electoral system is on a lot of peoples minds as well, i think. With the current system (first past the post) a party can get a majority without getting the most votes, more details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_past_the_post
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Specific issues are probably a red herring in this election. There's little to choose between the parties. None of them are telling us the full story, especially on the economy. You just know that whichever party gets control, the true state of the economy is going to be revealed as much worse than any of them want us to know ahead of the election.
I'd be happy just knowing that the winning candidate had the integrity and morality to act in the best interests of the country and put those ahead of his/her own interest and ambition (and greed.)
Sadly, I suspect that would be a vain hope.
Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..
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@john.warburton said:
Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..
I hear this all the time, but every vote is important. Not too long ago we had local elections where only 16% of the electorate bothered to vote. Yet, I'm always hearing/reading the complaint that politicians aren't accountable. When 84% of the voters are apathetic, of course the politicians are gonna get the message that people don't care and they don't have to be accountable. 16% is an extreme example (our turnouts have improved since), but regardless, anytime there is a low turn out it sends the same message. It also sends our children the message that voting in a democracy is not important.
Also, voting reflects the mood of the electorate. There's a difference between winning with 51% of the vote as opposed to 75% or 90% (although, in this country some think 51% equals a mandate).
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ooh I see there's a couple more labour supporters voted!
they must be kinky! 5 more years of a government taking the piss? no thanks!
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@daniel said:
@john.warburton said:
Having never managed to vote for the winning candidate in the 38 years that I have been voting I've little hope that my vote is going to make a difference anyway..
I hear this all the time, but every vote is important. Not too long ago we had local elections where only 16% of the electorate bothered to vote. Yet, I'm always hearing/reading the complaint that politicians aren't accountable. When 84% of the voters are apathetic, of course the politicians are gonna get the message that people don't care and they don't have to be accountable. 16% is an extreme example (our turnouts have improved since), but regardless, anytime there is a low turn out it sends the same message. It also sends our children the message that voting in a democracy is not important.
Also, voting reflects the mood of the electorate. There's a difference between winning with 51% of the vote as opposed to 75% or 90% (although, in this country some think 51% equals a mandate).
...and I will vote of course. It is a safe Labour seat - I'll not be voting Labour, though.
The way it is looking, I suspect that we'll be voting again by the autumn anyway.
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@olishea said:
ooh I see there's a couple more labour supporters voted!
they must be kinky! 5 more years of a government taking the piss? no thanks!
Many peope would say very similar things aobut the conservatives
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so?....
What's the buzz?
Are the exit polls available?
Almost time to start the count, any predictions?
I say there will not be a majority, and a minority coalition will be formed.
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@solo said:
so?....
What's the buzz?
Are the exit polls available?
Almost time to start the count, any predictions?
I say there will not be a majority, and a minority coalition will be formed.The first results won't be till ~11pm [6 hours away] - the lot should be in by early Friday morning.
Exit polls will be resented this evening before the counting starts.
The poll here seems to be fairly typical - no one has a majority - any two added together does.
Currently it's either 'blue' to win by a short nose OR 'red'+'yellow' to form a coalition with 'yellow' demanding Proportional Representation [PR] for the next election, as part of any deal. The other alternative is for of 'blue'+'yellow' - but it is not so popular - if 'blue' just scrape in they might try to struggle on alone as a minority government, and then have another election early next year when they have tried to fix stuff and hope for more direct support from the voters. Of course 'blue' and 'red' will never form a coalition [unless there's a world-war/alien-invasion etc] !
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The sooner we get PR the better. It's ridiculous to think that this video by John Cleese was made a quarter of a century ago. NOTHING has changed.
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I was chatting to my daughter Shelly this morning. She is located in Brighton, UK and voted Green Party. The Greens have an increasing presence in Europe!
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Without PR the system looks silly...
Let's assume there are three main parties, each getting about a third of the vote [RBY].
We aren't a lot off this now !
One party [like the Y=Lib-Dems] are 'nationally' popular, but the other two are more 'regionally' popular [R=Labour in working-class / the north, and B=Cons in middle-class / the south areas etc].
In some constituencies the seats go 30:30:40 and Y get them, but in a disproportionate majority the vote goes 40:30:30 or 30:40:30 - the seats go to R or B.
So R or B now make the government because they got most 'seats', BUT Y might have got the same [or even more] actual votes than the final 'winner', and they'll get only handful of seats in parliament. It's possible to get fewer votes but more seats just on this statistical quirk ! -
From my limited understanding of y'all's system (we are pretty insulated from world affairs on this side) help me understand a few things....
PR as mentioned above, is this some sort of Parlimentary reform or election reform?
Are there any parties that oppose reforms?The Conservatives and labour parties have dominated historically, have the Liberals ever had a majority before?
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Itd be an electoral reform. I dont think labour (red) or the conservatives (blue) are particularly keen on it as the current system benefits them, although obviously they dont shout about it as everyones pledging to 'clean up politics.'
My history is pretty weak, but as i understand it the conservatives and liberal democrats (or more accurately, the roughly equivalent party) where the major parties before the 19th century, so they did used to be more powerful, but in the last 75 years or so theyve not been a major player.
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Proportional Representation.
Currently, the winning party can win even when more people have voted for an opposition party.
The LibDems get a lot of votes in very large constituencies, but only one member per constituency.
The Labour and Conservative parties get lots of members from smaller constituencies.
The LibDems want the number of members to be related to the number of votes. They'd get more members, but we'd end up with no party having an overall majority (a "hung" Parliament http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8427233.stm.) The current system makes a majority party more likely.
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The main 'conservative' party [small 'c'] in the 18/19th century was the 'Whig' party.
The radical party of the day was the 'Tory' party - the opposition.
Slowly the 'Tories' sometimes gained power and they were to become the 'Conservatives' - whilst the 'Whigs' became the 'Liberal' Party ! A weird twist of history...
David LLoyd George the leader of the UK in the 'Great War' was a 'Liberal'.
Churchill started as 'Liberal' in WW1 and ended up a 'Conservative' in WW2 !
With the ascent of 'socialism' in the early 20th century the 'Labour Party' started to squeezes the old parties [workers now had the vote and they were their party] - the depression and WW2 resulted in the Liberals being side-lined and the two main parties became 'Conservative' [still colloquially called the 'Tories'] and 'Labour'. During the economic mess of the 70/80s the Labour party split - the 'left-wing' continuing as it is today* and the right-wing becoming the 'Social-Democratic' Party. The SDP merged with the Liberals after a few years - neither of them had any clout separately, and became the 'Liberal-Democrats'. The Conservatives then dominated government - people were fed-up - the Labour Party re-badged itself as 'New Labour'*... and then won power by 'stealing' most of the Tories right-wing ideas with a pinch of socialism [the Tories had always been right-wing with some vague 'socialist' bits] - they had nowhere to go. The Lib-Dems were to the left of both of them ! Now we have a right-wing labour government trying to keep power; a left-wing conservative party trying to get power and a lib-dem party trying to get power by having many ideas that are more radical than either of the others... the other parties - SNP, PC, UUP, SF, The-Greens, UKIP, BNP etc - have views in line with one or other of the main parties plus some unique ideas of their own - either 'revolutionary' or 'worrying' - like 'leave Europe' or 'stop building roads' or 'send all of the immigrants home'.... -
The polls have closed, the count begins!
The exit poll suggests a hung parliament, Conservative biggest party followed by Labour, then Liberals.
Won't wait up, read about it in the morning.
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Currently looks like the exit polls where right. Looking unlikely that any party is going to get a majority. There is talk of a labour lib dem coalition, though.
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And as a demonstration of why some people think the current voting system is flawed:
Conservatives have 36% of the vote and 48% of the seats
Labour have 29% of the vote and 39% of the seats
Lib dems have 23% of the vote and 8% of the seatsThe percentage seats are out of the seats that have declared so far, so theyre not indicative of the final proportions.
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@remus said:
And as a demonstration of why some people think the current voting system is flawed:
Conservatives have 36% of the vote and 48% of the seats
Labour have 29% of the vote and 39% of the seats
Lib dems have 23% of the vote and 8% of the seatsThe percentage seats are out of the seats that have declared so far, so theyre not indicative of the final proportions.
It would still be a hung Parliament, though. Just what we need, political instability on top of an economic crisis.
We should run a sweep on how long it will be before the next election.
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It's good to know that we are not alone with our screwed up election system, I also would like to see the elimination of our Electoral college system, but alas that will never happen as if it did then the Republicans would never see the white house again.
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