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

[RobynRB]

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 clarify, the point is there’s more than one candidate returned to give a proportional result for the constituency

No one is saying it’s morally right though. The political system is what we have and that’s what we have to consider when voting.

People also forget that back in 2011 (I think!) we had the opportunity to implement the Alternative Vote method and people voted that down. I was 18 at the time and I voted for it as although not perfect it was a step in the right direction to a more proportional voting system.

The Labour Party members recently Voted for PR (again) but leaders aren't currently on board with that.

People didn’t get the opposite of what they wanted though, and most people didn’t want right of centre parties. Conservative and Reform together got 38% of the vote. Yes, more than Labour - but Lib Dem, Green, Plaid and SNP plus several smaller parties/independents are left of centre. Most people wanted left wing politics. As is always the case. Until now Tories have benefitted from no vote splitting as the only right wing party. That’s ended (for now).

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...

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

?

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.

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

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.