To think that there will be little option but to change the current First Past The Post system after this election.

[OneNight]

The prospect of change may well have been rejected in 2011 but I am reading some new figures which estimate that in this general election, under the current UK FPTP system, the average MP could be elected with less than 46% of the votes cast. (Edinburgh West could well be won with just 25% of the votes on current predictions.)

This can not be good for democracy and I have noticed even people on this board questioning whether they'll bother to vote at all under the current system. I'm sure that voter apathy with voter turnout below 70% since 2001 could well be a result of some people thinking that their vote simply could not count.

I can't see how any party could credibly reject a change although they may well wish to argue on the shape that any change might take.

The first past the post system will be changed when, and only when, Labour and the Conservatives loose any hope of such a system working in their favour any more. I hope that will be shortly after this election but not convinced tbh - it would be quitea U turn from their previous stance on proportional representation.

I agree that the majority will always have their say and that this will always be to their perceived advantage but I also think that the political landscape is changing and that pressure for reform would be difficult to resist if whoever is in government wishes to retain credibility particularly if it's a coalition. The figures will determine matters I suppose.

I think it would have meant a faster and more consolidated rise of UKIP.

What, the FPTP system which has been perfection embodied in a constitution ((c) Labour/Conservative) ?

It would be a fitting punishment if Labour and Conservative are doomed forever to be minority parties, and are unable to get support to change the electoral system from the even more minor parties. (Googles "petard") ...

I think it would have meant a faster and more consolidated rise of UKIP.

Actually, I suspect the reverse.

If we had gone to the AV system, then a lot of voters who feel "forced" to vote UKIP would have been able to vote Labour/Conservative as their first choice then UKIP as a second choice, knowing it would still be counted. End result - MPs are still Lab/Con, but UKIPpers feel represented.

But in a system where you know a vote for any party which doesn't win is wasted, you re-assess your strategy.

It's a shame the referendum on changing it happened so quickly after the last election. I think it was a protest no vote because of Nick Clegg selling his soul to the Tories. I also think the Tories knew this so rushed it through before people had time to get over it and really think about what was on offer.

If we have PR Farage will buy champagne all round on his next visit to the pub. Listening to him spouting for one campaign is bad enough, how about for ever!

hedgehogsdontbite

Don't just blame the Tories. Remember, Labour also recommended a no vote.

If the people of the UK don't smell a rat when two nominally ideologically opposed parties recommend the same thing, then they pretty much deserve all they get.

I've got a bridge for sale.

I agree with hedgehogsdontbite. The independence referendum was tooth-pullingly protracted but it gave people a real chance to understand the issues and discuss the possibilities before reaching their conclusions, and as a result people up here have become incredibly engaged with politics for the first time in ages. The AV referendum was rushed through, and offered only a compromise solution to the problem anyway. If we'd had a couple of years to discuss it properly the outcome might have been different.

AV was voted down at the referendum not because of Nick Clegg, but because it stinks. If you're going to have a bad FPP system, have this one, don't compound its failures by adding even less favourable votes!

Labour had nothing to do with the referendum taking place though, which is the point I was making.

Two ideologically opposed parties can be right about AV. They're just wrong about everything else.

hedgehogsdontbite

Yes, but if they had recommended a YES vote, it may have got through. I stand by my point: two ideologically opposed parties, not in coalition, recommending the same thing ?

So yes, the timing was deliberately unfavourable. But the fact Labour chose to cozy up to the Tories on the result they wanted doesn't cover them in glory.

I agree the AV option was also deliberately chosen to assist a NO vote. However, I really couldn't get my head around people who were saying they would vote against AV, as it wasn't "true" PR. Because (as it turned out) the moment the NO was assured, Labour and Conservative kicked PR into the next generation. (Or thought they had).

I hope we never see PR in this country and it was voted against in the referendum so I can't see it changing any time soon, fortunately.

Would you not feel uncomfortable though silveroldie2 if you lived in a country which was governed by people for whom the majority of the country had not voted? That is little better than a system of 'rotten boroughs' surely?

A lot of people don't understand proportional representation, and a lot of people see it as a Euro threat (Johnny Foreigner again).

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty certain, when the UK made various parts of the Empire independent, it insisted they use PR. Strange that ...

While we're talking electoral systems, I still can't get my head around US presidential elections.

I agree; I'd love AV and think it's true that it'd be bad for UKIP not good for them. There'd be less tactical voting.

Tactical voting is the price you pay for FPTP.

Pre internet, it was harder to tactically vote effectively - you had no idea what was going on in individual constituencies. Of course these days, with social media, it's hard not to know.

But politicians being wrong footed by technology is hardly news.

I quite like that I vote for a person, not a party list. I like that one person is responsible for representing my town in parliament, even if they aren't always the person I would chose.

I like that we got a 'Portillo' moment and that no MP, no matter how senior, isn't really every truely 'safe' (people can change their votes, just look how close it's getting in Sheffield Hallam to Nick Clegg losing his seat!).

The FPTP system has it's flaws, but it also has a lot going for it.

onenight, we almost always are living in such a country with fptp. Even if the government has an absolute majority of the seats, it's unusual for them to have over 50% of the actual vote (never, at least since WW2, as far as I know), never mind the population as a whole.

silveroldie, what is your objection to PR? I'm genuinely interested. The only argument I can see is the old one about FPTP creating stable governments, but the last couple of elections seem to have put paid to that one. Interestingly, here in Scotland, where we have PR for Holyrood elections, we have a majority SNP government, and when we haven't had one, it doesn't seem to have been terribly unstable either.

ah, dinosaurs has perhaps answered my last question . I think there are versions of PR where you still have a local MP and also a 'list' MP so that you get the best of both worlds though.

It won't be changed, because it will seriously disadvantage the major parties if we went to PR.
But on a practical level, the net result of this (FPTP) election is going to be a coalition government with horse trading going on behind the scenes.
The net result of ANY PR election is... a coalition government with horsetrading behind the scenes.

The only real difference is that we would have to entertain nutjobs like UKIP in an actual government setting.
You only have to look at how close the Feminist Party came to getting seats at the table in the last Swedish election to realise that giving extremist minority parties a sniff of power is a Bad Thing.

Ah but midnight - you then end up with "A group" and "B group" MPs - the people who are deemed important, get to go on the list (and high up it) so you do'nt get MPs with offices having to 'bother' with consituencies - I like that even David Cameron and Ed Milliband have consituencies and have to deal with "small people problems".

I like that you get backbenchers who don't always tow the party line, I like that MPs with convictions can vote against the way their party wants or ask akward questions - without fear that they would be dumped down the bottom of a party list the following election (effectively dropping them without dropping them), at the moment, local party officials have a lot of power to keep a 'locally popular but gives the party leadership a headache' MPs in their seats.

Our system has flaws, but we should be proud of what we do have!

There are several types of PR.

As a compromise, I think the open primary system the Tories flirted with could help sustain a FPTP system. This would be where the constituency electorate gets a say on the candidates and the MP.

My MP desperately tries to insist they are "their own mind". However, mysteriously, their mind seems to be to vote 100% with their party (so far ....). Leading to a rather farcical scene where said MP turned up to protest against the closure of our local post office, to be reminded that they had actually voted for it.