OK, now it's time to complain...
May. 7th, 2010 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ffuturesApologies to everyone outside the UK - yes, it's election stuff again.
I voted, now it's time to complain about the results.
Basically, we've got more or less what I expected - a hung parliament (unless all of the remaining constituencies go the same way) where the results seem to bear even less resemblence to the number of votes cast per party than usual.
I used to be sure that the way to fix this was proportional representation, but I'm not so sure any more.
The big problem is that it would inevitably lead to party leaders getting elected - which I'm not too bothered about for the major parties, that usually happens under the current system, but it would ensure that scumbags like Nick Griffin got a seat. Most of the systems for preventing stuff like that involve disenfranchising supporters of the smaller minority party, which would mean that for example we wouldn't have finally elected a Green MP last night.
I've no experience with PR, but I assume that it also weakens the link between MPs and regions - at the moment there is a particular MP in Parliament allegedly representing my local interests.
Another problem, of course, is that all of the other systems are horribly complicated. For all the flaws that came out last night (mostly because nobody seems to have guessed how big a turnout there would be, which seems very silly given all the interest in the electoral debates, and some of the people running things seem to have failed their IQ tests), the current system has a good record for producing results quickly and apparently fairly. I'm not sure that would be true if we went over to PR.
Incidentally, I'm screening comments from non-friends on this one, for obvious reasons.
Oh, and this is one indication of how crazy the current system is
http://jonnynexus.com/2010/05/07/libdems-and-the-mad-fptp-dance/
I voted, now it's time to complain about the results.
Basically, we've got more or less what I expected - a hung parliament (unless all of the remaining constituencies go the same way) where the results seem to bear even less resemblence to the number of votes cast per party than usual.
I used to be sure that the way to fix this was proportional representation, but I'm not so sure any more.
The big problem is that it would inevitably lead to party leaders getting elected - which I'm not too bothered about for the major parties, that usually happens under the current system, but it would ensure that scumbags like Nick Griffin got a seat. Most of the systems for preventing stuff like that involve disenfranchising supporters of the smaller minority party, which would mean that for example we wouldn't have finally elected a Green MP last night.
I've no experience with PR, but I assume that it also weakens the link between MPs and regions - at the moment there is a particular MP in Parliament allegedly representing my local interests.
Another problem, of course, is that all of the other systems are horribly complicated. For all the flaws that came out last night (mostly because nobody seems to have guessed how big a turnout there would be, which seems very silly given all the interest in the electoral debates, and some of the people running things seem to have failed their IQ tests), the current system has a good record for producing results quickly and apparently fairly. I'm not sure that would be true if we went over to PR.
Incidentally, I'm screening comments from non-friends on this one, for obvious reasons.
Oh, and this is one indication of how crazy the current system is
http://jonnynexus.com/2010/05/07/libdems-and-the-mad-fptp-dance/
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 08:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 08:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 09:55 am (UTC)They can usually call the lower house from a straight up preferential vote by the end of the following day (which is Sunday, polling day is always Saturday).
The parliament is in caretaker mode from calling the election to when the new ministry is appointed (after the PM is sworn in by the Governor-General, sometimes as soon as three days later).