General Election Thread

Funnily enough Sky News are running a report about that very thing now. As I say I've never experienced one so don't really know how they work in practice. Would it necessarily have that much effect on market confidence or would it depend on who has the upper hand in the coalition?

Am I right in thinking that hung parliaments don't tend to last long?

Personally I would rather we were a democracy and that parliament reflected the way people voted. If that means that politicians have to shock/horror work together then so be it.

Unfortunately it doesn't involve the hanging of politicians!

Liberals are the key here - not so much in who they would side with should there be a hung parliament, but whether tactical liberal democrats will vote Tory to oust Gordon or vote Labour to keep the Tories out

In European countries with proportional representation (most of them), virtually all governments are coalition governments, with no single party having the majority.

Ahh PR, work of the devil, nobody gets what they want then. At least with FPTP a significant minority do.

Meanwhile I have a feeling that this Election isn't over by a long way. I very much hope, and think, that there'll be a majority Government either one way or the other. This one has third and fourth party vote collapse written all over it.

and with facts like that who needs opinion.

The one resulting from the Feb 1974 election didn't-- another had to be held in October that year!

I think for a hung parliament is to be avoided, the Tories will have to start substantively showing to voters at large there is a difference between them and Labour-- especially since constituencies are slightly skewed towards Labour (in terms of populace).

The other problem with PR is that you don't get to choose 'whom' you vote for, just 'what'. FPTP does have its benefits, it can give disproportionate power... the current government has over half the seats in the Commons-- with just 35% of the vote!

Personally I think mixed-member proportional is the best; combines the best of FPTP and PR via two votes for each elector-- you vote for a party and then a local constituency representative. It does lead to minor co-alitions in New Zealand, but they only have 120 seats (we have around 650 in our Commons-- much wider numerical margins) and the proportionality is almost exact to votes cast.

New Zealand ditched FFPT for this in 1996, and 75% of the electorate voted for FPTP to take its place instead.

Ah, I personally think STV is best, no two votes, no party lists, just choices you make between who gets your first preference, while also being broadly proportional. It's used in Ireland, but in support of FPTP, to use a quote from Father Ted:

It's banned in Most European Countries, which makes it very good

I think STV is an improvement on pure PR or FPTP. My problem with STV is two-fold. Firstly people who lose at constituency level can get it in through the back door on the party-list can't they: AIUI for STV in the Welsh Assembly, half the seats are consituency ones, the other half are party-list ones-- so party-lists do exist in STV?

My main gripe is that it doesn't eliminate the problem of party loyalty vs quality of candidate (also present with FPTP). If you normally vote for Party Z, but the local candidate for Party Z is rubbish; then you could end up with a useless MP at the expense of maintaining loyalty to Party Z. Conversely you may have a superb sitting consistuency MP, who you'd want to continue in the job-- but he may represent a party you loathe.

I see no problem with each voter having two votes, as with the New Zealand system. The beauty of it (in my opinion) is that takes in to account separately two things voters consider with STV or FPTP; quality of the candidates and then party loyalty.

So you could vote for that superb sitting MP to represent your town, but then vote for another party with your party vote. Or you could vote for your party of choice, but snub the local candidate for that party if he's rubbish (voting for an independent instead perhaps).

More details
[url] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_New_Zealand [/url]

Anyway, I'm going off-piste here http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z77/demaine_d/Emoticon/offtopic.gif

The New Zealand system is very similar to the one used in Scottish Parliament elections where there is a mix of FPTP and AMS. Having said that, isn't this more of a metropol discussion?

Another Problem I have with AMS is the over hang - in Germany, there is meant to be 599 seats, but often there is over 620, due to overhangs. Also, STV hasn't got party lists, there's no Top-Up. It's just constituency seats. In Ireland, over here, it make everyone have there TD, like, in Louth, there's one Shinner, two ff, and one fg, but one ff lives in dundalk, and one lives in drogheda. With AMS, fair enough, you have the Constituency and the Party MP's but you don't have more than one to go upto that knows your local problems, and is assigned to that. That's why I love STV.