are you going to vote yes or no in the referendum on voting systems?

maryz put it most succinctly for me:

"I find the first past the post system very archaic - it is possible to be elected with only about a third of the vote. It amazes me how often MPs are elected with the support of less than half the constituency."

I think there are still plenty of UK-wide decisions that would need all the MPs to vote, but clearly something needs to be done to hold sessions where items only affect England.

It probably needs an amendment to the Parliament Act to allow for some MPs to be excluded 'excused' admission to such sessions.

Ah, but is it 'massive duplication' ?

Scotland is in a different position (as might be Northern Ireland) with respect to law making, because the Parliament in London bring forward bills which in some cases (eg defence) affects the whole of the UK, and currently on income tax too, but when criminal law (and probably a number of other matters) is made an Act of Parliament, it generally applies only to England and Wales.

I can see some benefits of there being 'national' governments in NI, Scotland, and Wales, but the big problem (and West Lothian question) arises, in part, because there is no separation of English law from interfering non 'English' MPs.

I am far from happy that as things stand, there must be rather major differences for people if they were to move (eg to Scotland from Wales, because of a new job) and the effects on what is or isn't provided (free prescriptions, University fees, etc ?) can change quite dramatically, let alone the laws which apply.

It means one cannot compare services or opportunities on a level playing field as the re may be quite a number of unknown differences. Also, being ignorant of a law isn't enough to make you 'not guilty' and these days, once you've broken a law and had fingerprints and DNA taken, your prospects for employment could be harshly affected!

The bottom line, for me, is that the 'postcode lottery' at county level is being copied at national level, and while the politicians say it makes them more accountable and they know the national issues, it is breaking us apart and in unfair ways. Seems like the grass is bound to be greener 'over the border' in some way or other.

So the WL question could be avoided if matters affecting only England were discussed without any non England MPs in the house.

Other matters are rarely going to be duplicated as such - if the Scottish Parliament makes some regulation, can Westminster countermand it? The Welsh Government has fewer areas under its control anyway, so a bit academic. Not familiar enough with what happens at Stormont.

The other thing hearing Menzies (?really, makes a joke of teaching phonetics doesn't it!?) made me think is that there's nothing being said about the West Lothian question and the massive duplication of representation of the Scottish in particular but also the Welsh and Northern Irish constituencies. If there's talk of fundamental parliamentary reform, why isn't that being dealt with too? Menzies' constituency is in Scotland, as is Charles Kennedy so maybe that has something to do with it? And they wonder why we're cynical about individual self interest of politicians hey.

Not read thread yet but am feeling exactly like the OP "But my main reason for - probably - voting 'no' would that I'm pissed off with the Lib Dems. This is their cherished prize for giving the Tories cover for savage attacks on the poor and public services and betraying many/most of their voters (and people who were tempted to vote for them). So fuck 'em."

I'd prefer more real proportional representation, and I'm a Labour voter on my most right wing days!

If the referendum includes changing constituencies, I'm voting no. Not just because it would apparently favour the Tories, but because I don't agree with making parliamentary constituencies bigger and fiddling around with the boundaries. It seems to me that the proposal in its current form reduces representative democracy rather than increasing it.

Finally, I'm suspicious that the Lib Dems are using the chance to get PR to justify supporting the Tories and their horrible policies. PR is precious little use if we just get the same terrible policies anyway.

Did anyone else hear Ming (or however the wretched name is spelled) Campbell on R4 last night? Patronising beyond belief - he was trying to justify why it wasn't a sellout for the LDs to only have AV on the table and the first thing he said was that it was a first step and would make people more "susceptible" to further change.

Now I don't have a problem with them believing that PR is the best option, but I do mind that they think we should all be duped into going along with it by spinning us a soft version first. I mean "susceptible", what do they think we are - hypnosis victims? If they can't argue the case convincingly there's kind of a problem anyway.

Before the election someone told me to look at this

It shows that in some constituencies there was as little as 37 votes between the winning party and the second party.

The thing is would AV be any different to the tactical voting that has happened for years? Ie for the 2010 election if you lived in Crawley and were a UKIP supporter you probably wouldn't have voted UKIP cos it would have been a wasted vote. You would have voted either Tory or Labour depending on who you would rather keep out.

OK so AV means those who were too scared to waste their vote before on smaller parties can vote for who they really want, but surely the likelihood of these winning more than 50% of the vote is minimal anyway so it won't really make much difference.

I'll vote for AV as PR is not on the ballot paper.

Its really bad how a candidate can be in power when only a third (or less) actually support them. As networkguy showed, in some areas there can be even 6 candidates. That means if they are all close, that a candidate that was supported by only 17 %could get in power! How mad is that!!

what about the other 2/3 of people, or the other 5/6 of people?

I really like AV because it means that whoever is elected will have the support of at least 50 % of the people.

I agree Posie, I am so fed up with these massive swings in policy everytime the government changes between labour & tory. And only having a realistic choice of 2 parties, neither of which actually represent what I want.

It means I have to guess how everyone else is going to vote before making my own choice, which is a total nightmare! With AV, I could at least say
"This is my favourite, if enough people agree with me great! Otherwise, this would be my second choice"

I quite the coalition and would vote yes to changing our voting system. Two party politics has made this country shite.

Currently I would vote against free beer & in favour of setting fire to fluffy kittens if I thought it would piss off the Lib Dems.

Not a terribly mature attitude I know, but bollocks to them. Grrrr.

I just meant that in the past, the Lib Dems were opposed to government policies and were an active part of the opposition. For instance, the war in Iraq and tuition fees to cite recent examples. Lib Dems won a number of university towns (Bristol, Cambridge) in the 2005 election based on their tuition fee protests.

The Lib Dems used to have some really great, innovative ideas. Seem to remember in their manifesto absolutely ages ago, were proposals including a Freedom of Information Act, a British Bill of Rights and some interesting ideas about taxation.

Am not a Lib Dem, but admired a lot of their policies and their challenges to the government.

I can't see them as an alternative party anymore, which is such a shame. Bad for democracy and bad for the 2 party system as there isn't a viable 3rd way, imo.

At least FPTP is decisive (normally). I live in Belgium which seems to have an impenetrable voting system with candidates for parliament/senate, and they have different positions on the ballot papers. I will be voting no.

ilovemydogandMrObama - "The Lib Dems have shown they are not the 3rd party"

Sorry, but could you clarify for this thicko (me) just what you mean ? It should be quite clear that with the Conservatives being very strongly in favour of FPTP, the Labour party on the fence (they proposed AV but deep down many MPs prefer FPTP) and the Lib Dems the only ones who are completely against FPTP, it seemed an odd statement. Plenty of other policies where there are differences too.

GiddyPickle - "In lots of areas though a third party let alone a fourth or fifth one barely exists"

631 Conservative Party
631 Labour Party
631 Liberal Democrats
557 UK Independence Party - UKIP
341 Independent
337 British National Party
315 Green Party
107 English Democrats Party
71 Christian Party - Proclaiming Christ's Lordship
59 Scottish National Party
40 Plaid Cymru - Party of Wales
34 Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition
27 Official Monster Raving Loony Party
23 Socialist Labour Party
20 Scottish Green Party
18 Alliance - Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

Those figures were for the number of constituencies that had candidates from the different parties, shown on YourNextMP.co.uk (up to the 2nd of July, but I got error 404 today so had to view a copy from a search engine).

While some constituencies, esp in N.I., may have a tiny number of candidates, there seem quite a few hundred with not just a third but a fourth and fifth candidate may be found.

Sure, there are areas where there may be small numbers of supporters or members of a party, and no 'office' (and people complained about a candidate from a nearby county but not the local town) but there certainly were plenty of candidates even in some small constituencies (like mine in N Wales which had 6). There were over a dozen in some city areas (when you include the raving loonies).