to think that FPTP is a bit crap

[DamnBamboo]

The SNP have the best part of 60 seats based on just shy of 1.5 million votes. UKIP have over 3.5 million votes and only one seat.

Political preferences aside, that is just wrong.

THE SNP will be disproportionately and rather unfairly represented in the house, or have I got this all wrong?

p.s. am not anti-Scottish and didn't vote UKIP either btw so no mud-slinging required

It's a crap system. I'm in a very safe Tory seat, feel like my vote doesn't count. Local MP does bugger all locally. PR would be much fairer.

I so agree - and campaigned for PRep - was surprised that people didn't vote for it.

It allows for "divide and rule" - fear of "letting someone in" leads people to vote tactically. It leads to huge inconsistencies in the representation of people.

I was just about to post this- totally agree.

Stats like this show just how distorting this system is.

I am anti ftptp. Very strongly. My vote tracks that. But it would seem a large swathe of the UK are very happy with fptp.

I would be interested to see Nicola Sturgeon justify this, given her questionig of the legitimacy of a government without a majority (which isn't likely to be the case anyway as Tories predicted 329 seats).

56 seats based on 1.5 million votes!!! Unbelievable.

Greens have a million and one seat This needs addressing now as it's ridiculous

The SNP have the best part of 60 seats based on just shy of 1.5 million votes.

I agree; I voted in a Scottish constituency, and despite having an MP, an MSP, an MEP and a local councillor, none of them represent my interests, and I wouldn't want to have contact with any of them if I did need help. Prior to that it was Labour, and, like the SNP are becoming, they were so smug, they knew they didn't need to do a lot for individual constituents if they wanted to be voted back in.

Conservatives actually have a reasonable amount of votes in Scotland - I would be interested in the actual figure when it comes out. But because it is spread all over Scotland, it tends to result in hardly any seats.

I wonder how many votes UKIP had?

I wonder how many votes UKIP had

3.5 million as it stands

Correction - 3.8 million and 12.7% of the vote.

SNP 1.45 million and 4.9% of the vote and yet they are now the third biggest party in the house in terms of seats.

Bullshit quite frankly.

On many counts.

YANBU. FPTP needs to go.

Well it's 2 main parties that have kept the system in.

There was a referendum in 2011 on FPTP vs AV.

The public overwhelmingly voted to keep it!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011

Completely agree esp re Green and snp seats given not that different a share of the vote.

The AV referendum was one of the most incompetent political campaigns ever fought in this country. So to pander to the egos of some incompetent parish councillors Lib Dem MPs, electoral reform is off the table for a generation. Another thing to thank the well-intentioned amateurs of Lib Dems for.

Scotland has weird constituencies due to population.

I like fptp, it's easy to understand, it prevents extremists getting in and its usually stable. I'm glad ukip are not proportionally represented.

I'm glad ukip are not proportionally represented

Why? Either a system is fair or it's not! If the electorate vote in their droves for UKIP, whether or not you like their policies is neither here nor there. It should translate into seats.

FPTP doesn't seem truly democratic.

I would be in favour of PR, but not the AV.

PR would be a much better and fairer system.

Thing with PR is, all too often smaller parties end up holding the balance of power. Which doesn't seem any more democratic to me.

The SNP numbers partly reflects the fact that we have MPs who are meant to represent a particular constituency.

The high numbers of MPs compared to votes is because the low population density in many areas leads to vast constituencies.
Six hour drives from one end to the other, or ferries or even planes.
So the argument is that one person can't represent too big an area of varying interests etc.

If you have a list type system, the MPs are representing a party, on behalf of X number of voters. Numerically much fairer, you'd have say 8 UKIP, 2 green, 3 SNP. But then you wouldn't have an MP who was 'yours'

And we voted the AV system down recently. People seem attached to FPTP.

The problem with PR is that a back-room party goon selects who will be in parliament, not the voters.

AV would have been a perfectly decent alternative. It would have ensured that every MP had at least 50% support in their constituency.

It would probably also have crucified the Lib Dems.

Can someone explain in how FPTP, PR and AV (not sure what that stands for?) all work please?

But the 2011 referendum wasn't asking whether people wanted to get rid of fptp, it was asking whether they wanted to change to AV.

I would have voted yes to getting rid of fptp (p rep preferably)

I voted no to AV.

I agree. The benefits of FPTP have been that we have tended towards much more stable governments, seeing how it helps one party actually "win" the government. I remember studying at A-level and being told how much better for a country this was than an unstable, PR coalition government.

But as the years do by it just seems to be increasingly unrepresentative. Someone needs to look into it. Unfortunately as the FPTP system does so much to bolster both the Conservatives and Labour, it is hard to see how either of those parties will push too hard to make a change.

Its been crap for as long as we've had more than two party politics. Nobody will do anything about it, because it benefits the two main parties disproportionately. Nobody bothered to vote to change the system.
FPTP=first past the post-most votes wins. Simplest system
AV- alternative vote- vote in order of preference. Lowest preference gets knocked out, second, then third preferences counted.
PR-All votes counted and MPs selected on percentage of the vote.

That is simplified and I stand to be corrected as its been many, many years since I studied politics, but we were talking about it then too. Its nothing new.