Proportional representation - is there a case for it?

With the election results done and dusted we've heard a lot about Proportional Representation over the past few days in the furnace of the disproportionate disparity in votes and seats for the SNP compared to the likes of UKIP and The Greens. Seems to be a growing voice suggesting that first past the post voting wasn't a bad fit in the days of a Labour-Conservative duopoly (apologies to any Lib Dem supporters out there) but that, in an era where parties formerly considered fringe ones such as UKIP and The Greens are growing in popularity, it's an outdated system which leaves too many British voters ultimately counting for nothing.

Can supporters of first past the post really justify one party taking 56 seats from a total of 1.4 million votes compared to another taking a single solitary seat despite taking 3.9 million votes? Do those championing PR have a case, or is it just a convenient fit, something that just happens to be around now for those outside of the big two to airbrush their own shortcomings with?

Be interested to see how many on here feel the system needs a shake up and those who'd like to see it remain the same.

Alternative vote would be a better system. Or instant run off as Wikipedia describes it.

Thats what the Scottish Holyrood election is based on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

In Ireland we have proportional representation by means of a single transferable vote, and while it's more democratic than the British "First past the post" model, it does tend to create a monster whereby elected representatives spend huge amounts of time on constitutency work, to the detriment of their responsibilities in parliament.

Many commentators advocate a list system based on the German model as being the most balanced electoral system.

If ever there was a case for it (I've always stood by FPTP and voted against its removal) then it's 1.5m Sweaties voting and getting 50+ seats in Westminster whereas 4m+ English voting and getting 1 or 2 seats (UKIP+Green).

That said, it wouldn't be an issue if you kept FPTP but re-drew all the voting boundaries so it was more relevant to electoral headcount (i.e. make a dozen or so seats in Scotland for Westminster, no more).

TopHat24/7 wrote:If ever there was a case for it (I've always stood by FPTP and voted against its removal) then it's 1.5m Sweaties voting and getting 50+ seats in Westminster whereas 4m+ English voting and getting 1 or 2 seats (UKIP+Green).

That said, it wouldn't be an issue if you kept FPTP but re-drew all the voting boundaries so it was more relevant to electoral headcount (i.e. make a dozen or so seats in Scotland for Westminster, no more).

It is flippant comments like this that fuel nationalism in Scotland.

All the while people in Scotland (rightly or wrongly) see their power and influence eroding in Westminster they will pursue independence. Which is a determent to the whole of the UK when taking into account the fact that money flows over the border to Scotland whilst resources flow the other way.

I'm a firm believer in the Union however when comments like this get made I question whether or not we as a nation are welcome any more and this makes me sad. Not everyone in Scotland wanted so many SNP MPs.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:If ever there was a case for it (I've always stood by FPTP and voted against its removal) then it's 1.5m Sweaties voting and getting 50+ seats in Westminster whereas 4m+ English voting and getting 1 or 2 seats (UKIP+Green).

That said, it wouldn't be an issue if you kept FPTP but re-drew all the voting boundaries so it was more relevant to electoral headcount (i.e. make a dozen or so seats in Scotland for Westminster, no more).

It is flippant comments like this that fuel nationalism in Scotland.

All the while people in Scotland (rightly or wrongly) see their power and influence eroding in Westminster they will pursue independence. Which is a determent to the whole of the UK when taking into account the fact that money flows over the border to Scotland whilst resources flow the other way.

I'm a firm believer in the Union however when comments like this get made I question whether or not we as a nation are welcome any more and this makes me sad. Not everyone in Scotland wanted so many SNP MPs.

Wouldn't worry about the union, read enough of top hats posts and you'll want to opt out of the human race eventually

All will be fine when the manatees take Toppy back to his underwater lair.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Alternative vote would be a better system. Or instant run off as Wikipedia describes it.

Thats what the Scottish Holyrood election is based on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Wasn't this rejected by the UK in a referendum after the 2010 election?

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:If ever there was a case for it (I've always stood by FPTP and voted against its removal) then it's 1.5m Sweaties voting and getting 50+ seats in Westminster whereas 4m+ English voting and getting 1 or 2 seats (UKIP+Green).

That said, it wouldn't be an issue if you kept FPTP but re-drew all the voting boundaries so it was more relevant to electoral headcount (i.e. make a dozen or so seats in Scotland for Westminster, no more).

It is flippant comments like this that fuel nationalism in Scotland.

All the while people in Scotland (rightly or wrongly) see their power and influence eroding in Westminster they will pursue independence. Which is a determent to the whole of the UK when taking into account the fact that money flows over the border to Scotland whilst resources flow the other way.

I'm a firm believer in the Union however when comments like this get made I question whether or not we as a nation are welcome any more and this makes me sad. Not everyone in Scotland wanted so many SNP MPs.

Tbh, it was a slightly reactive post, ironically one borne out of the frustrations of reading posts like Caledonian Craigs and worse knuckledraggers. I've always been a believer in the Union and wanted it maintained when the last referendum was ongoing, but the same as you get frustrated by posts like mine, don't you think rUK Brits (being 90%+) having to listen to tripe like "300 years of slavery" and "we don't need rUK, we can go it alone easy, we can take your pound, we'll keep all the oil blah blah blah" is equally annoying for us?

Still, can you not see any absurdity in a ratio of 1 seat for every 25,000 Scottish votes versus 1 seat for 3,9000,000 English votes? Who're the ones being marginalised there...??

650 seats odd seats.............563 of them attributed to the two main parties who have a vested interest in FPTP..........

Only time it's ever going to happen is if we have another coalition..........

However seeing as the SNP have close to 9% of the seats in the commons with 4% of the vote and the Lib dems would rather swim in shark infested waters than sell out again....

Don't expect PR anytime soon...........

The questions shouldn't be is FPTP correct but rather should Scotland have so many seats based on their population then. There would be no talk of any changes to FPTP system had Labour continued their dominance in General Elections in Scotland and won the majority of seats.

If it isn't about the seats allocated in Scotland then there's really no argument for the UKIP having more seats despite there number of votes received. UKIP had the chance to contest all the seats in Scotland as well as all the other seats in the UK, essentially they had over 10x the voter pull to get there votes from. Its hardly a surprise they would then have more votes than the SNP.

I don't like FPTP but we have a slightly different setup to most countries in that we are made up of 4 nations which all want a fair say in how the Kingdom is governed. The only problem with PR is you have one nation that dwarf's the rest in size and thus would gain a huge advantage, greater than it already does. Any move would seriously hinder national parties and for me would be extremely unfair.

Considering we are made of of four different nations of various population size the seats are dived up reasonable well to give a voice to each country based on their population.

Northern Ireland = 100k per seat
Wales = 75k per seat
Scotland = 90k per seat
England = 100k per seat.

The above is a very rough look at how population compares to number of seats each nation gets. Obviously the lower the better as your getting more seats per head of population but as the above shows its split pretty fairly.

Brys wrote:The questions shouldn't be is FPTP correct but rather should Scotland have so many seats based on their population then. There would be no talk of any changes to FPTP system had Labour continued their dominance in General Elections in Scotland and won the majority of seats.

If it isn't about the seats allocated in Scotland then there's really no argument for the UKIP having more seats despite there number of votes received. UKIP had the chance to contest all the seats in Scotland as well as all the other seats in the UK, essentially they had over 10x the voter pull to get there votes from. Its hardly a surprise they would then have more votes than the SNP.

I don't like FPTP but we have a slightly different setup to most countries in that we are made up of 4 nations which all want a fair say in how the Kingdom is governed. The only problem with PR is you have one nation that dwarf's the rest in size and thus would gain a huge advantage, greater than it already does. Any move would seriously hinder national parties and for me would be extremely unfair.

Considering we are made of of four different nations of various population size the seats are dived up reasonable well to give a voice to each country based on their population.

Northern Ireland = 100k per seat
Wales = 75k per seat
Scotland = 90k per seat
England = 100k per seat.

The above is a very rough look at how population compares to number of seats each nation gets. Obviously the lower the better as your getting more seats per head of population but as the above shows its split pretty fairly.

But this is a election covering the entirety of the United Kingdom. Yes UKIP do have the chance to contest more seats, and they do have a greater voter pull than the SNP or DUP, but so what? That's just evidence for why UKIP deserve greater representation in the House of Commons.

And the United Kingdom is not comprised of four nations, it is comprised of four regions, three of which have some level of devolved powers.

The United Kingdom is the country; England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are no longer countries.

FPTP and one party rule are deeply entrenched in the UK psyche, I can't see it changing any time soon.

PR is fairer but then you end up with rainbow coalitions made up of parties often of disparate politics. In saying that sometimes coalitions can serve to keep all the members parties more 'honest'. 'Honest' in a political sense. The next few years of one party rule will tell us how nasty Dave Boy really is.

Hopefully he continues on the same vein, a party for people that work or want to work, not for those that shirk.

TopHat24/7 wrote:Hopefully he continues on the same vein, a party for people that work or want to work, not for those that shirk.

What about people who like to pretend they're working when they're really p1ssing about on the internet?  I'm sick of the way politicians and the media categorise people.

Galted wrote: What about people who like to pretend they're working when they're really p1ssing about on the internet?  I'm sick of the way politicians and the media categorise people.

Well there's now been 3 million + posts on this site.  Wonder how many of them have been made during work time by members of hard working families!

Speaking of nastiness, looks like the far-left have been having a day out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32907508
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/603612623825960960

Galted wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:Hopefully he continues on the same vein, a party for people that work or want to work, not for those that shirk.

What about people who like to pretend they're working when they're really p1ssing about on the internet?  I'm sick of the way politicians and the media categorise people.

As long as they're productive enough to stay employed, continue paying tax and consuming goods, that's fine by me.

And yes, overly-vocal minority left scum at it again.

No doubt all the blame will be placed at the feet of the hard-working tax-paying police officers when milk gets spilt....

Galted wrote:

TopHat24/7 wrote:Hopefully he continues on the same vein, a party for people that work or want to work, not for those that shirk.

What about people who like to pretend they're working when they're really p1ssing about on the internet?  I'm sick of the way politicians and the media categorise people.

Guilty as charged....

incontinentia wrote:Many commentators advocate a list system based on the German model as being the most balanced electoral system.

Including the seat threshold to keep small parties out? Obviously people might have voted differently in a different system, but based on the GE results I'm pretty sure the Greens wouldn't have had any seats under the German model (and the SNP would only have got in because of their constituency results).

Labour should have campaigned with the Libs for AV in the last parliament....

They are both screwed now..

Don't think anyone saw the SNP coming.....

Give it five years and Scotland will probably be an independent Country..

Give it ten and they'll be wishing they weren't..

The economic case that was barely there in the first place collapsed as quick as the oil price.

Duty281 wrote:Speaking of nastiness, looks like the far-left have been having a day out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32907508
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/603612623825960960

The far-left victorious again.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/pride-in-london-organisers-spark-row-with-decision-to-ban-ukip-from-summer-festival-10301404.html

After all, UKIP are xenophobic (despite being pro-immigration!), racist (despite being more ethnically diverse than the Greens!) and homophobic (just ask David Coburn).

You said it..

There will never be PR in the UK - at least not in my lifetime. No political party with the power to push it through would have any reason to do so.

The very best we might get is a referendum. In that eventuality, the press would simply close ranks and preserve the status quo. At the moment, the press has massive influence over who forms the government, and first past the post would lessen that.