UK Election Results 2010

[Mise]

Don't you think that happens already, between factions of existing parties? Just look at what happened to Labour in the 80s- they were torn between their own radical Socialist and Social Democrat minorities, and ended up making too many concessions to the former and so losing the latter, along with their realistic chance at government. Or the 2008 US Presidential election, when McCain was forced to throw the far right a bone in the form of Palin. It's not as pronounced, I'll grant you, but minority positions within parties can wield influence just like minor parties, and in a manner which is entirely invisible to the general public.
What happens in continental PR is that these factions shatter into independent parties, making their wheelings and dealings all the more public. I don't see why this is a bad thing.

The concessions made to factions within their own parties happen before an election, and are already present in the manifesto. Voters know exactly what they're going to get when they vote for the Lib Dems, say, because it's all there in the manifesto. Yes, it's true that many deals between Liberal and Social Democrat factions, for example, occurred during the making of that manifesto, and that the details of these deals are hidden. However, the result -- the manifesto -- is in plain sight; we know about it beforehand and we know exactly what we're voting for.

With PR, you don't know what you're going to get. The deals all happen after the election, and there is absolutely no way of influencing them (unless you own a national news media, of course). You can't change your mind having seen the likely outcome; all you can do is watch helplessly as the party you voted for and believed in sells you down the river.

Of course, this is all happening right now, with our FPTP system. But at least at the end of it all, we have a local MP we can badger.

 

[Mise]

Funny how FPTP has caused exactly that situation.

First of all, the Lib Dems got 23% of the vote, as you yourself pointed out earlier. So no, it is nowhere near the same situation; a party with that fraction of the vote can legitimately claim a mandate for at least some of their manifesto.

Secondly, I don't know why people automatically assume that, just because I see benefits in the status quo, and disadvantages to PR, I am automatically in favour of FPTP?

 

[Arwon]

No, it's not commensurate with their proportion of the votes. In what way does 8.7% of the popular vote translate into 1 or 2 cabinet seats? In what way does 8.7% of the popular vote give that party a mandate to enact serious electoral reform? How does a party with 8.7% of the vote get to dictate, say, foreign policy? Is it right that a party with 8.7% of the vote could, in theory, dismantle our nuclear deterrent?

(Note, for those who missed the originating conversation, this is a hypothetical 8.7% of the votes, as opposed to the actual 8.7% of the seats that the Lib Dems have.)


Where did I say I was happy with that...


I'm not scared of it including third parties, I'm saying that we'll see much more of what has already happened in this country and on the continent: parties with a tiny fraction of the popular vote enjoying disproportionate power in government and disproportionate concessions from the major parties. I mean, this is what democracy has already turned into: two public school boys carving up cabinet posts in secret backroom deals.

You err in using the word "dicate". The whole point with multiple parties is that if one is too hardline, the other parties simply negotiate with each other to get elements of their agenda through. With more parties there's more negotiation and compromise and less reward for total intransigence.

In the ACT here for example, any combination of two of Labor, the Greens and the Liberals can pass legislation. If the Greens won't support something the Labor minority government can negotiate with the Liberals. The Liberals and Greens can cooperate in opposing Labor measures. And the Greens can support the Labor government or negotiate to get changes made, always cognisant that if they overstep their bounds the Liberals exist as an alternative negotiating partner.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

No, it's not commensurate with their proportion of the votes. In what way does 8.7% of the popular vote translate into 1 or 2 cabinet seats? In what way does 8.7% of the popular vote give that party a mandate to enact serious electoral reform? How does a party with 8.7% of the vote get to dictate, say, foreign policy? Is it right that a party with 8.7% of the vote could, in theory, dismantle our nuclear deterrent?

This isn't a fair description of the present situation. For a starter, this is all happening under our present system, the cabinet seats aren't going to happen and were only being offered as part of a deal that would have overtly ruled out any of your wackier solutions (you really think the Lib Dems have any hope of 'dictating foreign policy', not to mention disarmament which isn't even Lib Dem policy). The Lib Dems got a quarter of the vote, which counts for something whatever our stupid electoral system. At the end of the day, if a majority of the electorate back a coalition of parties which either advocates a particular policy, or are willing to adopt it as part of the coalition, that has way more legitimacy than a policy only backed by a 35% plurality.

Where did I say I was happy with that...

Apparently happier than in the opposing scenario.

I'm not scared of it including third parties, I'm saying that we'll see much more of what has already happened in this country and on the continent: parties with a tiny fraction of the popular vote enjoying disproportionate power in government and disproportionate concessions from the major parties. I mean, this is what democracy has already turned into: two public school boys carving up cabinet posts in secret backroom deals.

Smaller parties only have any hope of being included if they have common ground with the senior coalition party. If we had PR or some variation of it then the parties would have to be much more up front about what they would be willing to do regarding coalitions, and we'd end up with majority governments with actual majority mandates. I don't understand why you fear disproportionate representation from smaller parties, yet accept a system with vastly more skewed representation in favour of the major parties. The major parties can always enter a coalition themselves if they aren't willing to give ground to unreasonable smaller parties.

Those two public school boys you're complaining about (I'd quite like to thump one of them myself) have, between them, a democratic mandate that no British political party has had since what, Churchill's wartime coalition? You'd rather the Tories had free reign to ignore 65% of the electorate? The compromise involved in those backroom deals would, if it led to a formal coalition, be a representative majority government. With less than 20,000 extra votes in the rights places (some voters are more equal than others) Cameron would be getting on with his term of government free from backroom deals (and a representative mandate).

 

[Mise]

@Arwon: While that's a nice ideal, I don't see how it necessarily follows. It's one possible situation out of a multitude of different situations. If you look at the British electorate, you find that the Tories have ~33% and Lib and Lab have ~25% each. That hardly lends itself to the type of negotiating you're aspiring to.

 

[Brighteye]

When it comes to strong government, I'm not sure that I want a government that can push through endless proposals without challenge. I like the idea of a hung parliament ensuring that other views must be considered.

Similarly, if there were many small parties whose help was needed then they'd have to limit their demands in order to be the ones chosen to help. It is only when there are three parties that the Lib Dems have a bit more bargaining power. Under PR we typically see a flourishing of a number of smaller parties.

 

[Mise]

This isn't a fair description of the present situation.

It wasn't meant to be You deleted the part where I said it was a hypothetical...

For a starter, this is all happening under our present system, the cabinet seats aren't going to happen and were only being offered as part of a deal that would have overtly ruled out any of your wackier solutions (you really think the Lib Dems have any hope of 'dictating foreign policy', not to mention disarmament which isn't even Lib Dem policy). The Lib Dems got a quarter of the vote, which counts for something whatever our stupid electoral system. At the end of the day, if a majority of the electorate back a coalition of parties which either advocates a particular policy, or are willing to adopt it as part of the coalition, that has way more legitimacy than a policy only backed by a 35% plurality.

The point is, we don't back the coalition in PR -- we have no idea what that coalition will look like, or what policies it will decide on. With our current system, we know exactly what we're getting, because it's all there in the manifesto. It's hardly inconceivable that a Lib/Lab coalition would come up with policies that well over 65% of the population would oppose, if they ran on that manifesto beforehand.

Apparently happier than in the opposing scenario.

Where have I ever suggested that FPTP was the best system? Just because I see flaws in PR I'm "happier" under FPTP?

Smaller parties only have any hope of being included if they have common ground with the senior coalition party. If we had PR or some variation of it then the parties would have to be much more up front about what they would be willing to do regarding coalitions, and we'd end up with majority governments with actual majority mandates. I don't understand why you fear disproportionate representation from smaller parties, yet accept a system with vastly more skewed representation in favour of the major parties. The major parties can always enter a coalition themselves if they aren't willing to give ground to unreasonable smaller parties.

Again, where did I say I was happy with the current situation?

Those two public school boys you're complaining about (I'd quite like to thump one of them myself) have, between them, a democratic mandate that no British political party has had since what, Churchill's wartime coalition? You'd rather the Tories had free reign to ignore 65% of the electorate? The compromise involved in those backroom deals would, if it led to a formal coalition, be a representative majority government. With less than 20,000 extra votes in the rights places (some voters are more equal than others) Cameron would be getting on with his term of government free from backroom deals (and a representative mandate).

Except that, together, they have less of a mandate than they do individually! Cons got 36%, Libs got 23%, but a Con/Lib alliance would not get 36+23% of the vote. The manifesto that a Con/Lib alliance would come up with would most certainly not satisfy nearly as many people as their individual manifestos satisfy in sum.

 

[Traitorfish]

The concessions made to factions within their own parties happen before an election, and are already present in the manifesto. Voters know exactly what they're going to get when they vote for the Lib Dems, say, because it's all there in the manifesto. Yes, it's true that many deals between Liberal and Social Democrat factions, for example, occurred during the making of that manifesto, and that the details of these deals are hidden. However, the result -- the manifesto -- is in plain sight; we know about it beforehand and we know exactly what we're voting for.

With PR, you don't know what you're going to get. The deals all happen after the election, and there is absolutely no way of influencing them (unless you own a national news media, of course). You can't change your mind having seen the likely outcome; all you can do is watch helplessly as the party you voted for and believed in sells you down the river.

A fair point, I suppose, and one which a person with more of a brain in their head than I would have considered at the start. However, I think you may be exaggerating exactly how unexpected the results of coalition governments are. Most countries using PR have informal alliances in place, and the outcomes are typically roughly known before hand; it's simply because the British hung parliament was (not exactly) a surprise, and we're not really sure how to deal with it that it ends up this way. It's not helped by the our relatively polarised, limited number of parties
Also, I'm not sure that it's really "selling them down the river". Surely, a Labour voter under PR would rather compromise with the Lib Dems than simply hand things over to the Tories? And I'm sure that those voting for minor parties- or who would vote for minor parties under PR- would rather that their parties were even in a position to sell them out in the first place.

Anyway, given that plurality constituency voting has delivered us the very hung parliament which we fear, and all the wheeling and dealing that ensues- as you mention below- I would propose that it has been discredited as the guardian of political stability, so we may as well at least adopt something a little more representative. At least that way the deals would demand real compromise between multiple factions, rather than two grossly over-represented blocs attempting to court the favour of a single third party.

Of course, this is all happening right now, with our FPTP system. But at least at the end of it all, we have a local MP we can badger.

And how much use is that, really? If he's in a minority opposition, he has only so much influence, if he's towing the party line, he has only so much influence, and if he's rebelling against the line, he has only so much influence. The British, I always think, hang rather too much on their local cog-in-the-machines.

 

[Arwon]

@Arwon: While that's a nice ideal, I don't see how it necessarily follows. It's one possible situation out of a multitude of different situations. If you look at the British electorate, you find that the Tories have ~33% and Lib and Lab have ~25% each. That hardly lends itself to the type of negotiating you're aspiring to.

Why not? The split of vote in the Australian Capital Territory was 37%/31%/15% last time around. In Tasmania they're currently trying a similar deal with 39/37/21. The proportions don't matter, it's the dynamics of what party combinations make a majority.

If there's 3 or more parties, the dynamism of having multiple players means they're generally more productive than if there's just two dominant major parties at loggerheads who only have to worry about their single monolithic enemy. You only have to look at actual evidence of how parties relate to each other in New Zealand, Germany, Ireland, etc versus how they relate in the US, Australian federal politics or the United Kingdom.

(Although most of the time, our Senate exercises a checking function on majority governments because it's virtually equal to the lower house and the Government usually doesn't have an upper house majority - effectively the Senate is the house of minority government here)

If the Kiwis can handle minority governments and multi-party negotiations there's no reason the UK can't. You're both small dreary islands with Westminster systems and the letter "u" in your Labor Party.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Supposedly a statement is imminent. I have to get to bed for work tomorrow. Hurry up!

EDIT: BBC now streaming live on their site.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

This is the results thread, all the results are in

There's an aftermath thread for discussing the options available now.

 

[Mise]

The thing is, I agree that the only reason FPTP produces "strong" governments is because it's unfair and unrepresentative to parties that have wide support nationally but are in few individual constituencies a significant force. What I don't agree with is that PR is the answer to that problem. There are clearly flaws in FPTP, but by implementing PR (or some form of it), we at best replace one set of problems with another, different set of problems.

It's because I believe in local communities and devolved power that I cling on to MPs. Without a strong link to local communities, it's difficult to see why any MP in a MMP system would feel beholden to their constituents, rather than to their party bigwigs. My preferred "solution" is just to rethink the way we think about politics; instead of thinking about it in increasingly centralised, presidential terms, we should be thinking of it as something we all participate in, every day. In fact, hidden behind Groovy Dave's "Big Society" guff are probably some sensible suggestions...

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Nevermind, statement was a non-event. Sounds like the Lib Dem rank and file won't sign up to the Tory deal without 'clarification', and the Lib Dems are negotiating with Labour at the same time. I imagine that the subtext to this is that a Tory offer has been made but the Lib Dems want further concessions and are talking up the talks with Labour as a means of making Cameron squirm.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

The thing is, I agree that the only reason FPTP produces "strong" governments is because it's unfair and unrepresentative to parties that have wide support nationally but are in few individual constituencies a significant force. What I don't agree with is that PR is the answer to that problem. There are clearly flaws in FPTP, but by implementing PR (or some form of it), we at best replace one set of problems with another, different set of problems.

It's because I believe in local communities and devolved power that I cling on to MPs. Without a strong link to local communities, it's difficult to see why any MP in a MMP system would feel beholden to their constituents, rather than to their party bigwigs. My preferred "solution" is just to rethink the way we think about politics; instead of thinking about it in increasingly centralised, presidential terms, we should be thinking of it as something we all participate in, every day. In fact, hidden behind Groovy Dave's "Big Society" guff are probably some sensible suggestions...

I think the objections centred around the link to the local community are reasonable, though overblown, but I'm exasperated by the other concerns you've raised, since the situation seems so much worse under FPTP. Even on the local link, under FPTP significant numbers of people in significant parts of the country are left electorally irrelevant and represented by an MP who is ideologically hostile to their concerns. I can badger any MP I like, but since my local council has decided to stuff up my electoral registration none of them have any incentive to listen to a word I say.

Would several MPs per constituency be so bad? We could end up with them competing with each other to best represent their constituents (and they'd have a headstart on that fron given that they, you know, represent all of their constituents).

If the above is so terrible that you'd rather stick with FPTP, how do you feel about AV+?

 

[Mise]

I think the objections centred around the link to the local community are reasonable, though overblown, but I'm exasperated by the other concerns you've raised, since the situation seems so much worse under FPTP. Even on the local link, under FPTP significant numbers of people in significant parts of the country are left electorally irrelevant and represented by an MP who is ideologically hostile to their concerns. I can badger any MP I like, but since my local council has decided to stuff up my electoral registration none of them have any incentive to listen to a word I say.

As I said earlier, ideological hostility is irrelevant; MPs are (or are supposed to) answer to their constituents first and foremost, and to their parties second. Just an anecdote, but I wouldn't be in the country if my Labour-supporting parents hadn't got invaluable assistence from their Tory MP 23 years ago.

Again I've said this earlier, but MPs have historically not needed any incentive to listen to their constituents -- they did it because they were "local boys", who genuinely loved and cared about the communities they represented. PR variants such as MMP would sever that link between the MP and the consituencies, and make them need an incentive to care; that is, it would reward career-minded politicians who hobnob with party bigwigs over people who have an attachment to the community and a genuine desire to care for it. Far from disenfranchising voters in, say, Tory constituencies who voted for Labour, FPTP and the inherent localism gives people a reason to care about politics in the 5 years between elections, not just on polling day.

If MPs are becoming ever more careerist and self serving, and not caring enough about their constituents, the solution isn't to implement electoral reform that accelerates that. The solution is to reform government so that it is not as centralised as it has been under Labour. Assuming you agree with my premise, anyway...

Would several MPs per constituency be so bad? We could end up with them competing with each other to best represent their constituents (and they'd have a headstart on that fron given that they, you know, represent all of their constituents).

To me, it's hard to see how, say, 7 MPs in a constituency of 500,000 could have any links to the communities they serve. Certainly, the London Mayor is far from a "local man", having been appointed by the Tory top brass as little more than a gimmick. I can only see more of that sort of thing happening.

If the above is so terrible that you'd rather stick with FPTP, how do you feel about AV+?

My views on FPTP can be summed up as "better the devil you know than the devil you don't." I am very much in favour of AV, as it would solve the problem of people voting tactically with no real drawbacks; however that seems to be all it will do. I'm not sure what advantage AV+ has over either MMP or AV, though. It just looks like an arbitrary middle ground.

 

[ComradeDavo]

STV please.

Your still have 'local' MP's, instead of just one that pretends they are listening but votes along party lines your'll have like 5, and that way you can talk to the one closest to your views rather than only having one option of who to pester!

To me, it's hard to see how, say, 7 MPs in a constituency of 500,000 could have any links to the communities they serve.

Not any harder than 1 MP dealing with 60,000! Those 7 would all have linsk with different parts of the communities, thus reflecting well in the constituency's representation. At current only the parts who got their MP electred are represented, the others are not.

Given how blue large parts of Southern England are, think of all those people there with Liberal values or with Labour values who don't have representation in Parliment whilst their conservative neighbours do!

 

[Traitorfish]

The thing is, I agree that the only reason FPTP produces "strong" governments is because it's unfair and unrepresentative to parties that have wide support nationally but are in few individual constituencies a significant force. What I don't agree with is that PR is the answer to that problem. There are clearly flaws in FPTP, but by implementing PR (or some form of it), we at best replace one set of problems with another, different set of problems.

It's because I believe in local communities and devolved power that I cling on to MPs. Without a strong link to local communities, it's difficult to see why any MP in a MMP system would feel beholden to their constituents, rather than to their party bigwigs. My preferred "solution" is just to rethink the way we think about politics; instead of thinking about it in increasingly centralised, presidential terms, we should be thinking of it as something we all participate in, every day. In fact, hidden behind Groovy Dave's "Big Society" guff are probably some sensible suggestions...

But constituency-based plurality MPs don't actually produce devolved power, they just give vaguely-local representation in a centralised parliament. While an individual MP under FPTP may have more leeway in personal politics than one in PR, this has limited effect in the long run, especially given the strength of party whips in our current, centralised system. Devolved government would demand local councils and regional assemblies, and perhaps corresponding executives (which I am vaguely in favour of ).
Which means I actually quite agree that we need to rethink national politics, and that PR is not, in itself, a solution. It's a start, though, and would least encourage people to get a bit more involved- the present system really has little incentive for those outside of swing seats to actually give a crap.

 

[ComradeDavo]

BROWN IS GOING TO BE GONE BY SEPTEMBER!

Lib Dem-Labour formal talks to begin!

 

[Krill]

Conservatives must really hate everything they have learnt today. They are going to have to increase their offers by a significant amount in my mind to get the Lib Dems to agree to a straight up deal, and I have the feeling that they won't offer enough. For the obvious reasons.

 

[Darth_Pugwash]

I don't think the Cons/Libs will reach a deal, but even if a referendum on voting reform was offered I'd still be a little disappointed to see the Lib Dems throw in their lot with the Tories. I suppose it may be the best choice in the long term however. Still, a Lab-Lib rainbow coalition is looking the more likely outcome at the moment imho, though everything remains quite finely balanced.

The Sun/Mail/etc will go into meltdown if Cameron doesn't get to be PM.