French Election - Is it a good model?

[FairytalesAreBullshit]

I was wondering if the model the French use for elections, so ok not ideal the final two include the NF, but that's what was voted for.

Thinking about the UK system, how you can have constituencies with few people and opposite thousands.

Surely a system that is based on the most votes of the final parties, over seats acquired is a good model.

So assuming we did the same thing, it would be a Tories verses Labour contest in the final. The people who got their seats as MP's keep them, but for overall government power, it's done the French way, so the overall party with the most votes gets overall power of the Government.

If you consider semantics that dilute things like Scotland, Wales and N.I. where you have oppositional parties like the SNP, PC, DUP, SF, it dilutes the overall votes. It's a terrible example, but UKIP (shudder) got a large amount of votes but only one seat. That's an example of why the French system, with knock out rounds would be good.

So say you have Tories verses Labour, then people can decide on which they would ultimately prefer.

I don't think Corbyn has been that bad, ensuring the triple lock, this morning something was announced about keeping Trident, even though JC has been vocal against it, he's going with a party mandate based on what his MP's feel is important. Health/Schooling etc will be announced in the coming days/weeks.

I don't think a Labour government would be that bad. I think the Tories weren't expecting us to vote for Brexit, so now they're going shit, need to get a term in that allows us to achieve our goals. A lot of Brexit promises have been broken, like the magic pot of money that was meant to be dedicated to the NHS, likely won't materialise.

It seemed weird one of the first things May promised was a commitment to International Aid. I think that's the least of our problems when you have citizens in the country who can't put a basic meal on the table.

I'm sorry for splitting it into a double barrelled post, about why the French system looks good, plus my opinions politically. If we focus on the job cuts under the Tory government verses job growth. Ok there's less unemployed, but you have say civil servants, do from soldiers to police officers who have been made redundant now working in jobs that don't allow the same wage, pension and other benefits.

This was a French presidential election, not a parliamentary one.

Was/is

It would be much more interesting if we had 2 rounds in our elections.

In the first round, the 2 people with the highest vote go to the second round. Then we have round 2.

In our elections, people win with less than half the vote. I'm not sure if that's fair.

Don't you think it would be a good way to elect a governing party into power though?

Research has shown that in France it produces the most disproportional results of any Western democracy
from Link

It is highly disproportional and favours large parties
from Link

I do like the idea that you can vote with your conscience first time round, then tactically on the second round.

You're comparing apples with oranges. The French are voting for a single position and their way of doing it seems pretty good (a million times better than the US's system). It ensures that the winning candidate has to persuade over half the voters to vote for them.

Our electoral system is about the worst for voting in a parliament. It gives the most unfair results of any system.

Our electoral system is about the worst for voting in a parliament

Indeed.

I think all electoral systems have their drawbacks. First past the post ensures that you generally have strong majority governments however also means that if you live in a Conservative or Labour monkey seat and you don't vote for that party your vote is essentially wasted. It also keeps dangerous fringe parties like UKIP out of parliament and potentially government (a tory UKIP coalition government anyone.

The French presidential system is also designed to keep extremists out of office. Once the field is whittled down to two then people have a clear idea of the choices they face and can vote for the candidate they hate least. The bad thing of course is that it means that nothing will ever change.

I just think more weight should be given to the total number of votes. So if you look at a small constituency verses a large one, something I've said up post, there's a huge disparity when it comes to votes, which makes you wonder if there has been gerrymandering.

For example David Cameron's constituency of Whitney, pretty much a safe Tory seat.

Hopefully Labour can win back some Tory and SNP seats in Scotland.

I think it depends whither you mean large or small by population or by area. For example you might get a geographically small but population heavy inner city constituency versus a large rural one with a lower population.

Just last week, I was chatting with a French colleague about various voting systems. I've always thought PR a good thing, save for the potential lack of link with local issues in a constituency. He suggested PR with a spokesperson for each constituency - sounded intriguing. That spokesperson would be independent maybe, with a civic duty to highlight local problems/hospitals closing/etc etc? Essentially reporting to a committee of MPs representing the distribution of votes around the country. Would have seats to UKIP, although perhaps that's less likely these days in light of Brexit?

Every time there's an election people mention how the system doesn't work, the system isn't fair, but nothing is ever done about it.

The suggestion of a PR with independent persons dealing with local issues would be good.