Tony Blair - leader of the english speaking world

[Yorick]

Originally posted by pritchke: My point is there are pros and cons of both systems and much depends on other dynamics.

And my pointr is you can keep a lower house two party preferred and have an upper house with proprtional representation and you may achieve a balance.

[Skunk]

And my pointr is you can keep a lower house two party preferred and have an upper house with proprtional representation and you may achieve a balance.

I quite agree - I got very confused when you started to got into the merits of PR - it was almost as if you needed to have PR if you were going to have two elected chambers. I'm not convinced that you do.

Turning on to the system of proportional representation - I think that you omitted to mention the most serious downside: weak government. My experience of watching the Dutch parliament at play is that very little gets done - and when a policy does become law, it has been so heavily watered down as to either not solve the problem that it was designed to solve, or it makes matter worse. (that is if the darn thing isn't delayed for several years while all the parties squabble over its merits).

No, I am definately not a fan of PR.

[Donut]

Originally posted by Yorick: There ARE big problems with proprtional representation. 1.Instability. The chances of there being no political party with a clear majority are much higher. Thus governmnets can be formed on the basis of fragile and often ideologically contradictory alliances. 2.Disproportionate voice. Minority parties end up having a dispropotionate voice in matters of government. A small party elected on a "legalise guns platform" can get a minorty view enacted a slaw, because of the necessity of dealmaking in a proprtionate rep. system. 3.Increase in influence of extremist and racist parties. The precedent in Europe speaks for itself. Exhibit A. The rise of the far right. La Penn et al. 4.You cannot vote for who you DON'T want. Under a two-party-preferred system of preferencial voting, you vote for who you want, but by listing preferences also vote for who you DON'T want. Consequently the horrifying result in France of them having to pick between tewo unsavoury characters would not have occured under a TPP preferencial system. It means three popular personalities that split a democratic vote cannot be outdone by one personality taking the extremist vote. THe three democrats can place the totalitarian LAST on their recommended preferences. This was how Pauline Hanson - the highly racist ignoramus from Australia - was defeated and wiped out of Australian politics. Every party put her last on their recommended preferences and her party was demolished. Australia, like the US has an elected Senate. An upper house that gives each state a greater voice, not as reliant on population size. THe Senate, as it turns out, has a measure of proportional representation. So minority parties do get an important voice, but it doesn't impact on the ability of a government to govern with stability.

I have never voted for a party who eventually achieved power. My vote has always been wasted. That's why I don't bother, I've been disenfranchised. BTW the party I have voted for cosistently achieved 15% - 25% of the votes and won less than 1% of the seats in the House of Commons. All wasted of course because there is no possibility of them participating in government.

1) Not instability, rather temperate government. Britain doesn't lend itself to extremist policies (except Thatcher of course)

2) This is posible - but in the past on the rare occasions that extreme candidates have been elected in local elections there has been a huge increase in voter turnout in the following elections.

3) Same as 2

4)This seems to be a point in favour of PR as this is a flaw of first past the post systems. I don't live in a two party state. There are many methods of PR. My preference is for the single transferable vote where you vote for your preferred candidate. If no one gets 50% of the vote one or more candidates with the lowest vote is eliminated and the votes for that candidate are given to the candidate that is listed second on each ballot paper.

In the landlide victory of 2001 only 40% of voters voted for Labour, so 60% of us got the Government we never wanted.