The Tories say thank you to the Lib Dems

[al_yrpal]

The 2015 election results from the votes cast on Thursday under a PR voting system:

CON 244
LAB 201
UKIP 83
LD 52
SNP 31
Greens 25
DUP 3
PC 3
SF 3
UUP 2
SDLP 2
Alliance 1

Source - electoral reform society.

So, the Tories plus ukip plus the ulster unionists would have had an overall majority over all the rest put together. 332 versus 315 had they gone into coalition. And, the resulting coalition would have been much more Eurosceptic and right wing than what we have got.

The SNP won it for the Tories, everyone says so. The sight of Nationalist thugs attacking all and sundry and Nicolas statements about locking the Tories out of Westminster have diminished the image of Scotland somewhat too.

High on the Tories priority list is implimenting equal size constituency boundary changes that could give them up to 40 extra seats.

Al

[beardy]

The sight of Nationalist thugs attacking all and sundry

So it was the power of the press misrepresentation again. Highlighting a tiny insignificant act by one group merely associated with a party and portraying it as being that party's doing.

While showing nothing of the main parties' actual offences. It wasnt just the Nationalists who I may have sympathy for as being on my side, the same tactics were used against UKIP who I only have sympathy for in respect of their being a challenge to the establishment.

[bovlomov]

So, the Tories plus ukip plus the ulster unionists would have had an overall majority over all the rest put together. 332 versus 315 had they gone into coalition. And, the resulting coalition would have been much more Eurosceptic and right wing than what we have got.

But that assumes people would have voted the same way under a PR system. Hardly likely. One of the main arguments made for PR is that under FPTP people are voting against their own beliefs because 1) their favoured party doesn't stand a chance, and 2) they want to keep out the party they like least.

[Tangled Metal]

The house of commons will never vote for a fully elected second house since it will give them as much credibility as they have. Or rather it would give the upper house as much right to exist as the lower house since both have the same method of selection by election. The upper house will never vote themselves out of a cushy retirement home for ex civil servants, party supporters, party activists and their MPs, It is a loading process where the longer a party is in power the more they can load their own people into it through the Patronage system. If you dislike the house of commons because they do not represent you then you should be apoplectic over the upper house.

Someone talks about MPs being experts or rather not being experts but that shows a misunderstanding of the way the elected house and the civil service work together. if you want experts you need to have the US administration approach where the president brings in unelected experts into government positions. Here we employ the experts from within the civil service who basically provide the MPs with information when in government so that the decisions can be made. There are experts in some fields within government and some ministers have developed experience and knowledge in an area they have had ministry of but they still rely on briefings from the civil service experts. In some ways boards on PLCs are similar with the board members being experts in decisions with some experts in certain positions. They rely on the executive and lower levels to provide the expert advise and information to support the decisions they make. It is why you get non-execs from other fields sitting on PLCs to provide cross fertilization in the decision making process. An exec from a hotel PLC is not likely to now much about an insurance PLC but you get that sort of cross fertilization. Same way you get a union rep becoming deputy prime minister under Blair (Prescott).

Our lord bishops are a bit of a disgrace if you ask me irrespective of their voting record. To think that just because you approve of their voting they are ok to stay is wrong. They should not be there. Are you going to give the same recognition to all religions? how many lord bishops are there? Are you going to give Muslim Immams, jewish rabbis, Sikhs, buddhists, jainists, jehovah witnesses, Scientologists, pagans, etc the same number of representatives?

[bovlomov]

About experts. My point was that expert advice is routinely ignored and that MPs often vote without having attended the debate or taken any interest in it. Failure to scrutinise legislation and votes cast according to party loyalty make for bad government.

[Tangled Metal]

One of the main arguments made for PR is that under FPTP people are voting against their own beliefs because 1) their favoured party doesn't stand a chance, and 2) they want to keep out the party they like least.

The way I see things about first past the post there are a few reasons for voting the way people do.
1) vote for your party because they have a chance, 2) vote for your party irrespective of their chances or 3) Vote against a party because your party has no chance and you want to keep one of the two competing parties out.
to say that FPTP only results in the last option is blatantly not true. For one I have never even looked who had the best chance where I have been on the electoral rolls. I always voted for the party I want. I seem to have been lucky all my life in that I end up in the constituencies where my favoured party is either in power or a close second. Either way i vote with my conscience and so many others must be doing that too. Having said that if I did live in a constituency where my party had no chance I would consider it only if the party I was considering voting tactically against was a nightmare I could never be happy with getting into power.

It does suit some people to argue that FPTP means voting against rather than for. If they were honest a lot of other election methods would allow a degree of tactical voting. The only method that favours voting with your conscience would be a system where there are not constituencies only a list of party candidates which get selected into parliament in order based on the proportion of direct votes, i.e. no second preference or anything like that. If a party gets 1/3rd of the votes then they get 1/3rd of the total number of MPs. Or at least that is my opinion. Although you could say that could be tactical too. If you want to vote for say green who have no chance of being the government but want to keep tory out even under this system you could vote labour to give them more votes since they are at least more acceptable to the left leaning green voters. So no electoral system is free of scope for tactics. It is basically what system do people prefer? If FPTP works for your party then you are happy with it, if not you want change.

[bovlomov]

The way I see things about first past the post there are a few reasons for voting the way people do.
1) vote for your party because they have a chance, 2) vote for your party irrespective of their chances or 3) Vote against a party because your party has no chance and you want to keep one of the two competing parties out.
to say that FPTP only results in the last option is blatantly not true.

I didn't say, or want to imply, that. I said that it is a decision that people (not all people) make.

The only method that favours voting with your conscience would be a system where there are not constituencies only a list of party candidates which get selected into parliament in order based on the proportion of direct votes, i.e. no second preference or anything like that.

My main objection to most (all?) PR systems is the Party List. It gives too much power to party managers and removes the local/personal link.

If FPTP works for your party then you are happy with it, if not you want change.

I hope that attitude is not universal. Some of us have no party, by the way.

[Psamathe]

....
Someone talks about MPs being experts or rather not being experts but that shows a misunderstanding of the way the elected house and the civil service work together. if you want experts you need to have the US administration approach where the president brings in unelected experts into government positions. Here we employ the experts from within the civil service who basically provide the MPs with information when in government so that the decisions can be made. There are experts in some fields within government and some ministers have developed experience and knowledge in an area they have had ministry of but they still rely on briefings from the civil service experts. In some ways boards on PLCs are similar with the board members being experts in decisions with some experts in certain positions. They rely on the executive and lower levels to provide the expert advise and information to support the decisions they make. It is why you get non-execs from other fields sitting on PLCs to provide cross fertilization in the decision making process. An exec from a hotel PLC is not likely to now much about an insurance PLC but you get that sort of cross fertilization....

The trouble is that many ministers will happily accept expert advice provided it agrees with their ideology or self-interest but will ignore expert advice when it does not agree with their ideology/self-interest. So "expert opinion" is used selectively to support what they are going to do anyway. Sometimes if they can't get the "expert opinion" from the real experts they will find somebody who is "expert" in a different field but "wants to keep their job" so they pass judgement outside their expertise to support their minister. It's a mis-used mess of a system.

Ian

[Tangled Metal]

+1 to above. All parties adapt the advice of the civil service supplied expert advice (some is commissioned research from university experts) to their ideologies but they still have the advice to help decide should they wish. To use only experts as MPs would mean you would need a committee to decide on each area of legislation staffed with experts in that area. unfeasible to say the least.

Ideology is the anathema to good decisions IMHO but it is the system we live with no matter whether you are red or blue or right or left in politics, it is all ideology in the end.