Red, Yellow or Blue?
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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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If its hung, the queen doesn't just get to choose who takes over?
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@chris fullmer said:
If its hung, the queen doesn't just get to choose who takes over?
No, under the UK constitution [for what it's worth] when ther is no party with a clear majority of seats [currently 326] the incumbent prime-minister must first try to form a government by agreement [or coalition] with other parties = Labour+LibDems - which would give them a working majority in parliament > the Conservatives.
If he fails [and he doesn't resign earlier] then there is the 'Queen's Speech' on 25 May which could effectively be a vote of no confidence and he then must resign.
When he resigns the party with the most seats otherwise must try to make a government - this would mean the Conservative leader becoming prime-minister, he has a minority of seats. He could try to make a 'minority government', where he would have to cut back his plans and/or make deals with other parties on a one-off basis to get legislation passed. Or he could also seek to make a deal with other parties - LibDems or perhaps DUP from Ulster to give him a small majority too...
All in all a mess !Also I don't know if you heard that there's going to be an inquiry - about hundreds of people being denied a vote - in several big cities polling stations had queues over one and a half-hours long and at 10pm if you are not inside they must lock the doors, if you are inside and haven't been handed a ballot-paper before the deadline you can't vote and you must leave ! This was despite the fact that the turn-out was typically only 60%. This system is over 130 years old and has never broken before ! Some polling stations even ran out of ballot-papers or had out of date voters' lists. UK=third-world soonest !!!
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I don't think a Labour + LibDem coalition would have a majority either!
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Been following the fallout on Sky on and off today. Looks to me that we will see a ConLib deal being struck. Also the bookies think this is what will happen and those guys are normally right.
PR is a fair system and it looks like the British public will have to vote on it fairly soon. Hey, join the club! Most of Europe operates this system and it works most of the time.
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.... just watching Cameron talking on Sky. No mention of a PR referendum on the table ... yet! He will have to put this on the table if he wants to live in No.10
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I'd love to be a fly on the wall while they negotiate in some back room.
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As it turned out by the time all of the results were in this afternoon Lab+Lib-Dems still doesn't give Gordon Brown a full majority - but with a few minority parties added in and some NI parties never attending Westminster it might just work... BUT in a twist the Conservatives are courting the Lib-Dems first, with Labour saying they'll speak with anyone to try and resolve this impasse [please!].
We live in interesting times... -
This may require a new poll with only two choices: orange or green
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go blue wooooooooooo!
lol did anyone else see the value of the £ instantly drop as soon as gordon brown announced he was going to stay in power? (within a minute it dropped by a cent)
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david cameron is now officially prime minister!
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Was watching BBC last night, looks like a love fest over there, the Lib-cons are lovey-dovey, optimistic and giddy with each other...wonder how long this will last?
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