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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that the election results don't add up?

305 replies

RobynRB · 05/07/2024 12:35

How did LibDem get 70 odd seats and Reform 4 when Reform got 14% of the vote. I mean, I understand how it works... but it's hardly cause for LibDem's 'greatest result' ever is it? I bet Nigel is fuming. And rightly so.

To think that the election results don't add up?
OP posts:
paperrocksiscissors · 05/07/2024 14:40

redexrt123 · 05/07/2024 14:24

Come Sunday I think Marine le Pen will also feel hard done by. Her party received a similar vote share to Labour in the first round of the French elections on higher voter turount so would have a majority under the UK FPTP system but is still unlikely to get in as the Left and Centre are tactially pulling candidates out of the second round to prevent that from happening. So whilst the UK system does allow the largest party to have a better chance of a majority and therefore a stable government it does not necessarily preclude a more radical party from coming to power.

Not really. That's the French system and people vote accordingly knowing there is a second round. Its a bit like saying Greens got 2 million votes and its not fair because we have FPTP, The Greens were simply smarter than Farage and focused on seats they could win on the ground, the result is Greens -2 million votes- 4 seats. Reform 4 million votes, - 4 seats.

Also what you're saying doesn't make any sense as French anti Le Pen parties would adapt tactics and not run in the first round if there was only 1 round first past the post.

Jaxhog · 05/07/2024 14:40

It's pretty horrible that Labour won a landslide number of seats on such a low vote, compared to the Tories. It's ironic that the Liberals won almost exactly the number of seats their vote suggested.

SeriaMau · 05/07/2024 14:38

DreadPirateRobots · 05/07/2024 12:51

If you're genuinely interested in understanding, and not just narked because "your" preferred party didn't get the result you want, definitely do some reading around political systems and how First Past The Post compares to proportional representation (PR). (Spoiler alert, PR has some serious drawbacks too.) But the fact that the national fraction of the vote a party got doesn't equate to the seats it won has nothing to do with FPTP. Everywhere, people vote for a representative from their direct area, and the person with the most votes is elected, because you can't elect part of a representative. It wouldn't matter if there were only two candidates in every constituency and Reform got 49% of the vote in every single one, thus winning 49% of the vote nationally; they would still have won 0 seats.

A bit like not getting 52% of Brexit 😀

NightIbble · 05/07/2024 14:37

If it was under PR I'd have voted Green but I just wanted the tories out so voted Labour. I've heard a lot of people say they preferred the Greens but didn't vote for them as they eirther didn't have one standing in their constituency or they hadn't a hope in hell of winning.
I think the people voting Reform partly did so as a protest vote so that might be why they got such a high percentage.

BlondiBleach · 05/07/2024 14:36

Interested in views in a wider context.

IMO FPTP is outdated. It is only representative for mono-cultures or where 2 dominant cultures.

PR gives a variety of views which is far more reflective of the UK’s multicultural & complex society.

FPTP tends to send the 2 parties to extremes (see America) despite the majority of people being centrist.

then the 2 parties come back towards centre, but the more extreme members have nowhere to go & “upset” the vote.

i accept it is tricky to manage in government but PR gives a plurality of views far more reflective of our actual society. Surely this is a good thing for a government rather than them enacting a minority’s vision? Thoughts?

CraftyNavySeal · 05/07/2024 14:36

Eleganz · 05/07/2024 13:02

Surely it is a result of the fact that we elect a local representative and that is how our election works? Other voting systems like STV would not change that. It would have to move to a totally different system like electing off lists (by PR or similar) but that moves away from having a local MP directly elected to a constituency by the voters in that constituency.

No it doesn’t. In Portugal for example they have just made the constituencies bigger - a larger area will have say 10 representatives who will be allocated based on votes.

Eg. We could have a north London constituency, across the area Labour gets 50% of the vote so they get 5 representatives, Greens 2, Lib Dems 2 etc instead of 10 which is what has happened.

RobynRB · 05/07/2024 14:36

meandkarmavibe · 05/07/2024 14:09

Bless you, OP for just finding out about fptp - I am especially enjoying the Tories moaning about it when they've previoulsy been its most vocal defendands

I haven't 'just found out about it'.

OP posts:
Alaimo · 05/07/2024 14:26

BigBoysDontCry · 05/07/2024 14:08

We live with PR in Holyrood and tbh it's not great either as you need to contact a whole group of people if you want support with your issue or pick one who might not be the right one.

In my experience, the only responses you ever get are from the Tories...

?

Under the AMS you still have a constituency MSP (as well as 7 regional list MSPs).

I quite like the AMS - I think it's a good compromise between local representation and an overall parliament that more closely reflects the total vote distribution.

redexrt123 · 05/07/2024 14:24

Come Sunday I think Marine le Pen will also feel hard done by. Her party received a similar vote share to Labour in the first round of the French elections on higher voter turount so would have a majority under the UK FPTP system but is still unlikely to get in as the Left and Centre are tactially pulling candidates out of the second round to prevent that from happening. So whilst the UK system does allow the largest party to have a better chance of a majority and therefore a stable government it does not necessarily preclude a more radical party from coming to power.

greenpolarbear · 05/07/2024 14:20

RobynRB · 05/07/2024 13:54

Okay, leaving Reform out of it since that's clearly a red rag to a load of bulls, is it right that 34% of the vote gives you 64% of the seats?

I find it hard to believe anyone can justify that other than just parroting 'that's how it's always been and you never moaned before' over and over again.

It's a safe way to have a system because otherwise you get fringe maniacs on both sides running riot and doing dodgy deals with people forced to deal with them to get anything done.

Or worse, you end up with what happened in Germany that led to the Nazi party rule.

They don't know what they're doing, they have some ideas that sound good to some people but don't actually work in practice. As you saw when Liz Truss (who is right enough for reform) decided to do whatever she wanted and tanked the economy in five minutes.

It's best to let the moderates control and have enough democracy so that the crazies (Piers Corbyn, Nigel Farage) are allowed to have opinions but can't do any damage.

SlothOnARope · 05/07/2024 14:19

DreadPirateRobots · 05/07/2024 13:44

FPTP is winner takes all. Whatever party gets past x number of seats gets to form a government all by themselves, with no input from the other parties.

PR means the government is formed proportionally to the number of seats held. Depending on the parameters, the holders of power positions come from parties proportional to how many seats a party won. So the government might be a coalition between two, three, or more parties.

Both systems are based on a candidate for a party winning a seat outright. It doesn't matter whether 49% of the voters in every constituency voted for Party 2 and thus Party 2 got 49% of the vote nationally. If Party 1 got 51% of the vote in every seat, they win 100% of the seats with 51% of the vote.

Be careful what you wish for when you want a Parliament constituted based on the national share of the vote. That would mean every election would be decided by English cities. Because that is where by far the highest proportion of voters are. No voice for Scotland, Wales, or NI; no representation of rural affairs. You up for that?

Thanks, but I know what fptp and pr are. Your first paragraph seemed to imply there would be no difference in the two. Perhaps I read it wrong.

Scotland, Wales and NI have their own assemblies and their representation must remain fair. I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise.

I think England, specifically, needs to have an honest conversation with itself about what "fair representation" is and what type of PR/alternative voting system would be better suited to the 21st century. Then it needs to have another conversation with the regional assemblies. Because a landslide majority govt that only 1 in 3 people voted for, with 40% electoral disengagement, is undemocratic. In my view also unsustainable. Voters will express themselves in strange ways if they are given strange and unfair systems to vote in.

Tiswa · 05/07/2024 14:19

And agree with @BeyondMyWits i voted Green in the last election when it was clear my safe Tory seat would remain a safe Tory seat.
this time it was clear that the Lib Dem could (and did) win so I along with the rest of my family voted for them it is not a straightforward to extropolate this data into PR as voting would change

Bromptotoo · 05/07/2024 14:19

Melisha · 05/07/2024 14:08

Yes it is, You vote for your local MP to represent your constituency.
Proportional representation means MPs are distributed to other constituencies that did not vote for them. So an area that voted Labour overall could get a Reform MP.

Depends on the form of PR that's used. Scots Parliament and the Senned both have constituency members, the numbers are evened up by additional members.

Tiswa · 05/07/2024 14:16

I actually like voting for a local candidate someone who can represent me and it is used in the US/Canada and roughly a 1/3 of the world and no system really can replace it

Brexit for example a simple yes or no was always going to force 50%to accept something and that was never questionned

reform votes I think were pretty evenly spread across the UK whereas the Lib Dem went in hard and fast in areas they could win in and would do tactical voting

Payattentioninclass · 05/07/2024 14:16

RayonSunrise · 05/07/2024 14:11

I have been a fan of evolving towards a more Proportional Representation model like the have in Germany, but it would require quite a big change in U.K. political culture. More proportional representation would mean all the parties would have to get used to compromising and working towards consensus on legislation. At the moment everyone expects to be able to govern (and oppose) as My Way Or The Highway.

I don't actually think Farage REALLY wants governing reform, though - it sounds like too much responsibility for the man who took a fisheries committee role at the EU, never turned up to meetings and THEN complained that they didn't do what he wanted.

Farage is not the type to get down and to any hard work. He is suited only to pontificating loudly and in a rabble-rousing sort of way. He breaks and does not build.

Bromptotoo · 05/07/2024 14:15

RobynRB · 05/07/2024 13:52

The funny thing is I thought Labour always moaned about how the boundaries always favoured the Conservatives, so will they continue moaning about that now or will they quietly put it behind them?

The changes to boundaries since 2015, which with a few exceptions for islands, required all constituencies to have broadly the same number of electors, was thought to be worth quite a significant gain to the Tories.

Labour have gained their victory in spite of that; it's not turned in their favour all of a sudden.

I suspect they've got bigger fish to fry then start messing with the boundaries again in the next few years. Unless they embrace electoral reform more widely.

Payattentioninclass · 05/07/2024 14:14

Mycatsmudge · 05/07/2024 13:36

FPTP supposedly produces strong governments because there is no need for horse trading that happens with PR and winner takes all, but it can make voters feel and believe their votes are meaningless if you are in a Tory or labour stronghold and turns the political system into a 2 party state.

Ironically the LDs who as the 3rd small party use to bang the drum relentlessly about changing from FPTPto a PR system would not have got so many seats today if we had that in place.

One oddity that struck me yesterday when I was voting was why do we use pencils instead of pens to mark the ballot paper wouldn’t the risk of fraud be high as a result?

Wrong on the irony. The Lib Dems got 12% of the vote share so in a proportional vote system would have got slightly more seats than they got through FPTP

BeyondMyWits · 05/07/2024 14:13

The voting system determines the way people vote.

Under FPTP I voted for change.

I didn't vote Labour as my local constituency is a Tory/lib dem 50/50 one. I did not vote Green as my preferred party takes a miniscule share of the vote and would not contribute to affecting change.

I would not choose to vote Lib dem in a PR election.

So whatever people say about FPTP being unfair, people may not vote the way you think under PR, so you cannot use stats from FPTP to predict any particular outcome under PR.

BlondiBleach · 05/07/2024 14:12

Melisha · 05/07/2024 14:10

In that scenario you get a local MP that does not have a majority in the area they represent.

How?

PR has a larger constituency size that returns a number of candidates based on the proportion of the vote they receive.

it would be impossible for someone with a majority not to win.

RayonSunrise · 05/07/2024 14:11

I have been a fan of evolving towards a more Proportional Representation model like the have in Germany, but it would require quite a big change in U.K. political culture. More proportional representation would mean all the parties would have to get used to compromising and working towards consensus on legislation. At the moment everyone expects to be able to govern (and oppose) as My Way Or The Highway.

I don't actually think Farage REALLY wants governing reform, though - it sounds like too much responsibility for the man who took a fisheries committee role at the EU, never turned up to meetings and THEN complained that they didn't do what he wanted.

Melisha · 05/07/2024 14:10

Stealthmodemama · 05/07/2024 14:09

I think if we didn't have FPTP - the outcome would be quite different - no one would need to tactically vote..

In that scenario the votes would be far more split...

In that scenario you get a local MP that does not have a majority in the area they represent.

Stealthmodemama · 05/07/2024 14:09

I think if we didn't have FPTP - the outcome would be quite different - no one would need to tactically vote..

In that scenario the votes would be far more split...

meandkarmavibe · 05/07/2024 14:09

Bless you, OP for just finding out about fptp - I am especially enjoying the Tories moaning about it when they've previoulsy been its most vocal defendands

fishonabicycle · 05/07/2024 14:09

Thank God that is the case. Farage has already done so much damage - he is only interested in self aggrandisement, and how much chaos he can cause. A truly dangerous man.

Melisha · 05/07/2024 14:08

RobynRB · 05/07/2024 13:54

Okay, leaving Reform out of it since that's clearly a red rag to a load of bulls, is it right that 34% of the vote gives you 64% of the seats?

I find it hard to believe anyone can justify that other than just parroting 'that's how it's always been and you never moaned before' over and over again.

Yes it is, You vote for your local MP to represent your constituency.
Proportional representation means MPs are distributed to other constituencies that did not vote for them. So an area that voted Labour overall could get a Reform MP.