Login is disabled. This forum is read-only.
Imperial Forum → Politics → UK Election
![[TI] Primo](https://imperialconflict.com/forum/img/avatars/711.jpg)
I read a lot of bullshit in this thread 
What is the point in a LibLab coalition if they still don't have a majority together.
They have 315 seats combined, which leaves 11 for a majority. They would also need to get some local parties in on this, and that just seems like a very poor plan alltogether.
The other option is to go into a minority government with a coalition...but that will lead to all kinds of problems as well.
Still hating on our 2.05 party system?
*tralalalala's out of the room*
Fint, UK has always had a two party system as well.
I think this could happen in the USA too, there are smaller parties, they could grow bigger.
Anyway, what's happening isn't bad at all, this is democracy. It's up to the polticians to find a way to do what the people want now.
Primo is right, Lib Dems and Labour together are still short of a majority and even if they scraped together a majority by recruiting a few minor parties and independents then they could only ever hope for a majority of literally one or two. A Labour/Lib Dem coalition would never be able to get anything done because it would only take one or two rebels to screw over anything they tried to pass.
Flint, this is the first hung parliament in the UK for 35 years.
I would disagree with Primo that this is democracy though. This is back room negotiation and secret dealing. It is also not democratic because....
Conservative seats: 306 (47% of seats) Vote share: 36.1%
Labour seats: 258 (40% of seats) Vote share: 29.0%
Liberal Democrat seats: 57 (9% of seats) Vote share: 23.0%
-Seat percentages based on 649 seats because Thirsk has delayed election due to the death of a candidate.
-Proportional representation would leave a workable coalition between Lib Dem and Labour who have a lot of common ground with a small majority of 2% or 13 seats and parliament would reflect what people actually voted for.
Is it win per district then tally natiomwide votes for a party?
Each seat represents a constituency which is a geographical area containing approximately 100,000 population (or some other number, I don't think it really matters here). Each constituency returns it's own MP depending on the number of votes in the constituency. However an MP does not need a majority within their own constituency, they just have to be the candidate with more votes than any other.
The advantage is obviously that an MP is directly accountable to his/her constituents and has to act in the best interests of his/her constituents. MPs who have been tainted by scandal can be directly voted out by the people e.g. Jacqui Smith, whereas in a PR system Jacqui Smith may have retained her seat if she was high enough up Labour's candidate list. However the distribution of seats does not represent the feelings of the British people.
The majority of people voted centre left (Labour and Lib Dem) yet it looks like we are going to get a government led by the centre right Conservative party. That isn't democratic.
It is a Republic however, which is a system designed to help keep localism versus nationalism alive.
I endorse that system
> Walking_Corpse wrote:
> Lib Dems won't form a coalition with Labour as long as Brown's leading them (least that's what I make of what I've >read). I do so hope they don't sacrifice their morals (and potentially their souls) by throwing their lot in with the >Conservatives. Would be nice to see all the minority parties make their own coalition (BNP excluded) though. <
Actually, in a strange way, I'd like to see the BNP achieve a position of real power, just because the ensuing chaos and collapse for Great Britain would force the BNP to finally accept that they don't know what they're doing, and force their voters accept that they don't know what they're doing and so voted for a party based on old/solved issues from six months ago....
SD, negotiations between parties to form a coalition do not mean there is no democracy.
What I am saying is that people are free to vote whatever they want. If that means there is no party with an absolute majority, that's the way it is.
In the Netherlands, and many other countries, there is a multi-party system. There will always have to be coalitions, and therefor negotiations. Doesn't mean we're not democracies.
We do have proportial representation though.
Also, how funny is it that the UKIP leader was in a plane crash the day of the elections. God's way of saying "Your ideas are stupid!"
Oh they've figured out the cause of the UKIP plane crash - It had 2 right wings!
^
First past the post is undemocratic. In many cases voting for who you want is a wasted vote because the party you want to vote for have no chance of winning in your constituency. Taking the example of Huddersfield, my home town, which is one of Labour's safest seats. It has been Labour since the seat was created in 1950.
Even with a 6.7% swing from Labour to Conservative this time the Labour MP still won by over 4000 votes. The 15,000 people who voted Labour in Huddersfield got the MP they wanted but the 25,000 people who voted for other candidates are stuck with a Labour MP they don't want, and frankly they never had a chance of getting anything other than a Labour MP.
That is undemocratic.
It is Democratixc. You could have voted a different party than yours to help make sure they sdid not win it. Your greediness was their win.
Well I don't actually live in Huddersfield anymore but it doesn't matter who any individual in Huddersfield voted for because the result would always be Labour in Huddersfield. So Labour have "wasted" votes in Huddersfield because once you have enough to win the seat, the rest of your votes in that constituency count for nothing, and votes for all the other parties are wasted because they would never win that seat. No one's vote matters. The effects of seats such as Huddersfield on the national picture can be seen in the disparity between percentage of votes received and percentage of seats won.
The UK parliament does not effectively represent the UK population or the voting intentions of the population and is therefore undemocratic.
I would imagine that we will end up with a conservative lib dem coalition. Labour need to get out, and clegg recognised this by talking to the conservatives first due to the fact they got the most votes. The main problem in the lib tory alliance is going to be electoral reform. Under proportionate representation, I.E each group getting the same percentage of seats to votes, it would have been an even more tightly formed vote. which the conservatives want to avoid.
it's the problem the tories have at the moment yea...
if they agree to electoral reform, they shoot themselves in the foot, at best. cause who says lib dems will not drop the coalition as soon as that happens, forcing new elections.
another interesting thing is that the party in power is always less popular than the oposition party.
therefor, whoever decides to take power now, is more than likely to lose it in the next elections, and seeing as it will never be a very stable government, that may be sooner than expected.
But i supposed that perhaps if the country went to the system of PR, I.E you vote for brown, cameron, clegg not for your constituency, and then the proportionate amount of seat is handed out, then the voting public would probably vote differently than they had done in this past election. Because if those people who did not vote, thought that their vote would directly influence the overall result, rather than just in their area, then most people would have voted just to get brown out. Though if they were to use this system, how would they fairly establish who would control which constituency in the commons.
why would you have a constituency represented in the house of commons?
Because the person who wins the most vote in each constituency takes that seat in the house of commons for his party and his constituency...
yea, but why does every constituency need one person in the house of commons?
as in, what if one constituency only has idiots, and another one has two brilliant ones, why not have two from another constituency?
because the idea of the house of commons has always been that it represents different areas. im not saying its a good way of doing things, im just saying its going to take alot of thought to change it in a way that makes sense.
In my opinion it's not specifically needed to have representatives from every constituency in the house of commons.
Imperial Forum → Politics → UK Election
Powered by PunBB, supported by Informer Technologies, Inc.