UK Election Results 2010

[Takhisis]

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

Nonsense. Those scum are indestructible.

 

[lovett]

But democracy doesn't start and end on polling day. How many people in, say, Germany write to their MPs now, compared with before MMP was implemented? I would certainly feel more disenfranchised if I no longer had an MP I could write to. Saying that you have 7 people representing you doesn't make me feel any less disenfranchised. It would be like having 7 different complaints departments at the electricity company. If the constituencies are enlarged, that makes my voice even more diluted; if they're topped up with party lists, then it makes my MP's voice more diluted.

To me, bigger constituencies, more MPs per constituency, or reduced power of constituency MPs in parliament is just going to increase the number of politicians who just care about votes, and reduce the number of politicians who care about people. It removes power from local people and places more and more power in government and centralised party lists.

At least at the end of it all, we have a local MP we can badger.

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.

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.

You raise a very good point here; larger multi-member constituencies could sever the constituency link. That multiple MPs elected in constituencies of hundred of thousands might each spend significantly less time caring about what their constituents think and significantly more time caring about what their party thinks. That they will favour Westminster over their constituency.

Fortunately, that's simply wrong. The point is plausible, but it is quite plainly refuted by the facts.

As it turns out, MPs elected by largish multi-member constituencies pay more rather than less attention to their constituents. In fact the issue is entirely turned on it's head; many politicians claim resent the extra constituency work they have to do and claim it to be detrimental to good governance (the public disagree, incidentally).

This is simply because STV constituencies are so much more competitive than FPTP constituencies. There are no real safe seats. In our current system there are about about 400 hundred safe seats. On May the 6th, one of the most unpredictable elections in our history, only 114 seats changed hands. That's 17%. As I'm sure you noticed, the election was only really fought in 150-200 marginal constituencies.

The upshot of that is that there's a dire lack of competition in a lot of constituencies, which means there's very little chance the incumbent will be defeated. And that includes 'incumbents' who the party have parachuted in as a kick start to their political career. Consequently there's limited incentive to put all that much effort into your constituency. Certainly many MPs do and for that the Commons should be complimented, but one can quite easily get into national politics without. This is especially considering that the vast majority of voters vote according to party rather than MP; let's make no mistake about that.

In contrast, STV constituencies are genuinely competitive. Candidates standing for election in such constituencies compete against a ferocious school of opposition, and one which they they must compete with on a borad basis in order to gain secondary preferences votes. They compete with members of their own party as well as members of the opposition, and many more besides. Thus, they face a very real reason to pay attention to constituency issues; if they don't they might lose their seat.

You don't need to listen to me, read the Jenkins report which takes Ireland as a specific example:

Nor have they (STV constituencies) led to any divorce between TDs (Irish MPs) and localities. If anything the complaint has been reversed, that TDs are too locally and not enough nationally orientated. Members of the same party are fighting as much or more against each other (in their constituency) as they are against their opponents.

The was also a point critical of STV which was put to us by a number of leading politicians - although with one or two voices the other way - whom we saw on our trip to Dublin and left us with the impression that STV in Ireland is perhaps more popular with the public than with politicians. If this be so it is difficult to know whether to score this in the favourable or adverse list.

The point, for what it is worth, is that multi-member constituencies with MPs and candidates competing in them not merely against other parties but against members of their own party too, so far from producing remote representatives, produced excessively parochial ones. They are much keener on being in their constituency pursuing local issues than they are to attending their legislative and national duties in the Dail.

Sorry Lovett we must have X-posted, didn't notice this until just now!

Would this not still create the issue of merely polarising opinion more though? For instance, if i understand you correctly anyway, a 'Tory' voter is unlikely to place a 'labour' candidate in their people they want to vote for list, presumably then it would simply encourage two stronger parties, which i assumed was the whole reason people wanted PR to avoid.

Simply put, no. Here is a Guardian article on how this past election would have worked out under STV. Here are the original numbers which said articles sources. As you can see STV would have produced a vastly more proportional result. Actually the results are almost directly proportional in that the Lib Dems with 23% of the vote pick up 24% of the seats, Labour with 29% of the vote pick up 31% of the seats and the Tories with 36% of the vote pick up 37% of the seats. The contrast with the FPTP results couldn't be more painful. There's also non-negligibly better representation of smaller parties, although we can't expect this to be modeled accurately; their support is probably underestimated due to the fact that FPTP makes voting for them a 'waste'.

As to why this greater proportionality, it's mainly because of the larger constituencies all returning multiple MPs. That's means if there's a five member constituency in which roughly 40% of people vote first preference Conservative, 40% Labour and 20% Lib Dem your probably going to get two labour, two Tory and one Lib Dem MPs. The nature of the vote being transferable (I.e it being alternative vote) helps this in that we simply get a more accurate purview of voters preferences. Such a voting system is generally antithetical towards polarised parties because it allows people to express preferences for third parties without penalization.

 

[Mise]

@lovett: Ireland has, what, 4 million people? I'm not sure how much you can take from the Irish experience, especially when we're talking about disenfranchisement and local democracy, given that Ireland is so tiny compared with the UK.

Someone raised the idea of competition before; I must say I am sympathetic to this argument; it goes some way towards quelling some of my fears over increased centralisation.

I'll have to read the Jenkins report, or at least the summaries, though.

 

[Traitorfish]

@lovett: Ireland has, what, 4 million people? I'm not sure how much you can take from the Irish experience, especially when we're talking about disenfranchisement and local democracy, given that Ireland is so tiny compared with the UK.

Someone raised the idea of competition before; I must say I am sympathetic to this argument; it goes some way towards quelling some of my fears over increased centralisation.

Then the obvious step is to federalise Britain, giving us 12 states of roughly 4 - 8 million. That's a step towards local self-governance, isn't it? After all, the only way to create a bottom-up system of government is to actually do it, not to put a tourniquet on the centre-wards flow of power.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

We voted against that with the Regional Assemblies (well, the Geordies did).

It was just more political gubbins/cost with little tangible perceived benefit. And a chance to stick it to Prescott for the Top Gear watchers.

 

[Mise]

@Traitorfish: 4-8m people isn't my idea of "local" or "community" though!

Going back to what Lovett said, it's true that people don't live the way they did when constituencies were set up, but it's not true that people don't care about the community in which they live, whether that community be Lewisham or Lewes. Devolving power to local communities doesn't mean setting up a new layar of administration above councils, it means allowing local communities to solve problems locally, and giving them the tools and the freedom to do that. The Tories' idea about parents and charities setting up schools if there is sufficient demand, and providing them with the funding and staff to do that, is a great idea, and could easily have been something Tony Blair dreamt up. They also co-opted the co-operative idea from the left, too. As I said, I'm not a fan of Tory guff about "Big Society", but some of their ideas make a startling amount of sense...

 

[Traitorfish]

@Traitorfish: 4-8m people isn't my idea of "local" or "community" though!

Well, I know, yes, but it's a step in the right direction. I suppose it's probably not that relevant- it's a bit of a pet cause of mine- but it could help to draw power away from Westminster and gradually invest it in the individual voter, more so than the current farce of nominally-representative partisans.

We voted against that with the Regional Assemblies (well, the Geordies did).

It was just more political gubbins/cost with little tangible perceived benefit. And a chance to stick it to Prescott for the Top Gear watchers.

That's because the proposed system was, to be blunt, a load of bollocks. Genuine reform, as unlikely as that ever is and as conveniently ill-defined as I shall keep it, could actually produce some fairly positive ends.

And regional assemblies aren't necessarily that bad. Hasn't done Scotland any harm that I can see, and it's kept the unis free(ish).

 

[lithium30]

I will never accept rule from Birmingham i would fight it with every breath in my body.

 

[Traitorfish]

And I would never accept rule from London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Galston, the Bottom End of Town, the Bit Near the Playing Fields, Across the Street, Mr. Tam Next Door, My Mum's Room or the Side of My Bookshelves I Keep The Books Which I Don't Read Very Often (It's a Bit of a Mess). The idea, in my head, at least, is one of individual autonomy, contributing, through a subsidiaritarian, bottom-up system of government, to a larger whole. That's the only way democracy can ever work, and, in theory, it's how it works now. It would just be nice if this was a reality, rather than just a sort of polite lie.

But, then, I'm an anarcho-socialist republican. Ahm reet full o' ald pish, as they say.

 

[Takhisis]

Heh-heh-heh. Vote SNP then! (Dinna worry, I'd reconsider my vote for them once independence -or fully separate parliaments- was achieved)

 

[Traitorfish]

Heh-heh-heh. Vote SNP then! (Dinna worry, I'd reconsider my vote for them once independence -or fully separate parliaments- was achieved)

If you switch that "N" out for another "S", I may just be tempted.

 

[lovett]

@lovett: Ireland has, what, 4 million people? I'm not sure how much you can take from the Irish experience, especially when we're talking about disenfranchisement and local democracy, given that Ireland is so tiny compared with the UK.

Someone raised the idea of competition before; I must say I am sympathetic to this argument; it goes some way towards quelling some of my fears over increased centralisation.

I'll have to read the Jenkins report, or at least the summaries, though.

I'd recommend you do so, if only because it destroys the case for FPTP. It shows the deficiencies of the system in convincing detail. It's also easy reading and clearly well researched. It doesn't eventually support STV incidentally, although I feel that their reasons for bypassing it are more political than fundamental.

And the point you make about Ireland is a valid one; it's far smaller than the UK. As is Malta, Scotland and Australia, all of which use STV for all or some of their elections. My position is that we have two rational arguments about the affect of STV on the constituency link, one which contends it erodes the constituency link by increasing the size of constituencies and the other which contends it improves the constituency link by making it an indispensable part of a representatives political life.

I'm more sympathetic to the latter one in that competition does have an incredibly salutary affect on most areas of society and our FPTP system is painfully lacking in competition. But it is perhaps difficult to decide between these arguments completely a priori; that's why empirical evidence is useful here. What the examples here show is that the nature of STV constituencies as areas electing multiple MPs campaigning in opposition is completely compatible, and indeed conducive, to a strong constituency link.

This pares down the argument that STV severs the link to one purely about size; the argument that one cannot form a meaningful relationship with 500,000 electors but can with 90,000. I don't personally find this credible; both are well beyond the ability of a single individual to form constructive personal relationship. Both are well within the ability of a single individual to form an impersonal political relationship (otherwise we would be well to do away with national politics). I would also reiterate my issues about the arbitrariness of most current constituencies; simply put, they don't represent communities. It is the rare individual who identifies with Leeds Central or Leeds North West instead of Leeds as a whole. The link between representatives and an STV constituency seems more meaningful and consequently more potent than that between most MPs and their constituencies (and I stress most, not all). In comparison that actually seems rather empty.

 

[Krill]

2247

Tuesday's newspapers are starting to come in and the Daily Mail has a bleak view of Monday's proceedings. It proclaims a "Squalid Day for Democracy", calling Nick Clegg "two-faced". The Daily Telegraph calls Mr Brown's decision to quit a "sordid" attempt to keep Labour in power.

Two faced? Coming close to libel there surely?

 

[Krill]

2247

Tuesday's newspapers are starting to come in and the Daily Mail has a bleak view of Monday's proceedings. It proclaims a "Squalid Day for Democracy", calling Nick Clegg "two-faced". The Daily Telegraph calls Mr Brown's decision to quit a "sordid" attempt to keep Labour in power.

Two faced? Coming close to libel there surely?

 

[Takhisis]

If you switch that "N" out for another "S", I may just be tempted.

Maybe, maybe... but SNP's the only one landing seats in Parliament.

Two faced? Coming close to libel there surely?

And why should Brown helping his party be sordid?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Terrible stammer you have there Krill.
They already called him a Nazi

 

[Krill]

I didn't see the Nazi comment, but wow, now we know why there is a hung parliament. the Media Godwyned the election!

 

[Traitorfish]

Maybe, maybe... but SNP's the only one landing seats in Parliament.

Certainly these days, after that whole Sherridan-related meltdown thing. Stupid buggers, didn't even last long enough for me to waste a vote on them.

 

[Takhisis]

I straddle the middle ground between SSP and SNP, but neither really convinces me. We should found the Takhisian party which would petition for me to be crowned as absolute ruler of Scotland. Everyone would have to wear a kilt, for starters.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, it worked for the Bruce, I suppose. You find a church, I'll bring you some political enemies to knife, we're well on our way.