So, this hung parliament coalition

[Silver]

I guess this has probably been covered, but... Does anyone else find it mildly absurd that the political party with most of the nation's votes could be the only (major) party with no part in running the country?

Let's say that the Lib Dems end up in a coaltion with Labour - it still doesn't provide them with an overall majority. They'd need to find another 11 seats by sucking up to at least another two parties. Ridiculous. You could end up with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th parties 'running' the country at the expense of the party that the nation effectively voted in...

[Ichy]

Totally agree. In virtually any other vote/poll/game the person with the highest number wins, end of. Probably a good reason for Parliamentary reform.

[Itchy]

Yup t is pretty dumb.

I remember seeing last night Gordon begging for Lib dem coalition.


But actually the tories HAVE won, as the majority target isn't 326 as often said as you get Sinn Fein types and also northern Ireland types (I forget which ones exactly) who do not sit in their seats in westminster anyway as a protest (but do take the pay cheques of course).
____________________
Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[LeeR]

It is odd, but then we are a rather odd nation.

The problem is that the incumbent party hasn't been conclusively voted out, and although the Conservatives have the largest share of the vote/number of MPs the combined opposition is still larger.

Having, said that I personally don't want Brown to remain as PM or the Labour party to remain in government.

But, I also don't want the Liberals to join a coalition with either the Conservatives or Labour.

I reckon the "best" thing that could happen is for the Tories to form a minority government and in return for a referendum on electoral reform and a postponement of Trident, the Liberals guarantee not to press for a vote of no confidence or vote against agreed bills for at least two years to give the country some stability, and keep the Tories under some restraint.

Back to the OP though, if the current results had been received under a pure PR system then UKIP would be the 4th largest party* in the UK and the BNP would have seats in parliament. Regional minority parties such as Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein would have no seats at all, so clearly constituency representation wouldn't exist as we now know it.

As Prof. Butler said on the BBC on Friday, the rarity of a hung parliament happens very infrequently (something like 3 times in the last 100 years) but under PR it'd probably happen at every election.

I don't think there's an easy answer and though I think the current system "unfair" we do have to be careful what we ask for as a revised system may give us bigger problems.


*Say we had a system where the 650 seats of parliament were divided up equally based on a proportion of the vote equal to or greater than 1% the political split would look like this (rounding seats up only where part percentages > 0.5:

Conservative 36.1% 235 seats
Labour 29% 188 seats
Liberal 23% 149 seats
UKIP 3.1% 20 seats
BNP 1.9% 12 seats
SNP 1.7% 11 seats
Green 1% 6 seats

The remaining 29 seats could be divided up via a second weighting or regional assembly representatives.
____________________
My claim to fame: Austin Vince nicked my pen...

[temeluchus]

Technically the tories do NOT have a majority. More people voted for parties other than the tories.

A majority is defined as being greater than half of the vote. A party with the most votes but less than half has a PLURALITY not majority. Regardless of what politicians or news agencies have said in the press, this is the correct definition of majority.

It would be interesting to see how the public would vote if we switched to proportional representation. There would be little or no incentive to vote tactically.

Using the current percentages (these are for the votes, not seats) how would the parties fair?:
36.1% Tory
29% Labour
23% libdem

Could swing either way with a coalition.

Using 2005 percentages:
37% Labour
33% Tory (interesting to note they have only done marginally better in the 2010 election)
22% Lib dem

Again coalition.

1997:
43.2% Labour
30.7% Tory
16.8% Lib Dem

guess what! Coalition.

Last but not least...... 1979. When Maggie Thatcher(love her or loath her) got in.

43.9% Tory
36.9% Labour
13.8% Liberal Party (predecessor of the Lib Dems)

Coalition.....

We havent been ruled by a genuine majority in some time it seems. The last true majority government were the tories in 1931, with 55% of the votes.
____________________
Some shite cruiser. Now with guns and FREEDOM!

[Pete.]

[Frost]

Our way of doing things is very outdated and stupid.
Labour: 29% = 250 seats
Lid dems: 23% = 57 seats

So labour together with the lib dems got 52% of the vote, a majority, but when you add their seats together they are still the minority. There is talk of the lib dems and the tories forming a coalition and the basis of a referendum on political reform. Even if this lost the lib dems a load of votes, they would get an extra hundred of so seats next time around.

[Kickstart]

Hi

Seems ironic that loads of labour supporters claim that the tories have no mandate as more people voted against them than for them when the tories actually got a higher percentage of the vote than labour did at the 2005 election (tories got 36.1% this time for 306 seats, labour got 35.3% last time for 356 seats).

All the best

Keith
____________________
Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Itchy]

[temeluchus]

[Kickstart]

[temeluchus]

[Itchy]

[Kickstart]

[D O G]

[Silver]

Hmmmm. So (in football for those that don't have any interest) the Premier League finished as follows (stick with me here):

Chelsea, 86 points
Manchester United, 85 points
Arsenal, 75 points

I wonder if anyone at Man Utd or Arsenal have considered forming a coalition and snatching the title from Chelsea. After all, Chelsea don't have a big enough majority!

[smegballs]

[D O G]

[Ste]

I wonder when America are going to invade this country to install a functioning democracy.

[smegballs]

[Kickstart]

Hi

. The US system is even more screwed up and buried in the past than ours. And that is some achievement.

All the best

Keith
____________________
Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing