It had its moment, it missed its moment, but might the present chaos be an opportunity to have another try for it; and would it do the trick to freshen up democracy in the UK?
Thing is, PR would mean we would probably permanently have minority/coalition government. I am not sure there last few years have been a particularly good advertisement for that type of government tbh...
Democracy doesn’t need “freshening up”, at least at parliamentary level, the last few weeks has shown that it does work, to the extent that it has prevented a one eyed incapable prime minister of sacrificing the country on the alter of 70-odd gammons to the right of the Tory party. Everything that’s happening now is what should have happened before we actually served the article 30 notice.
I actually think the coalition did reasonably well as a government.
The problem with the present government is (a) it is a minority government and (b) it has been completely obsessed with internal divisions within the Tory Party.
I think the current situation is a good example of the perils of running down a two party system when "the internet" is leading to increased stratification of people.
We are currently shit at cross party / coalition stuff. But I think that's a good reason to get better at it rather than a reason to block it. Momentum / Blue Momentum are taking over the two main parties. We need politicians with balls to recognise that and do something about it before they lose the grip over the two main party machines and end up in a situation where the only valid votes are for extremist nut jobs.
PR didn't have its moment, STV had its moment which isn't much better than our current system, blatently favoured the lib dems (then everybody's second choice) who proposed it and was an all around waste of time.
We need half the parliament elected on PR from party lists and half elected FPTP from larger constituencies. Best of both worlds.
Thing is, PR would mean we would probably permanently have minority/coalition government. I am not sure there last few years have been a particularly good advertisement for that type of government tbh...
The coalition government was actually fairly competent.
The problems we are experiencing at the moment are down to the fact that we have a minority government trying to behave as though it has the majority it thought it would get when it called a snap election. They aren't willing to compromise in order to win votes on cross-party consensus and goodwill, and they don't have the numbers to strong-arm parliament into doing what they want.
A system where nobody expects to get a majority and everybody understands that compromise will be necessary in order to actually govern strikes me as a very good idea.
The biggest downside would be that fringe parties like UKIP would actually win seats (and a potentially relatively large number of seats) and could end up forming part of the governing coalition.
I have two responses to this.
The first is that the Tories have effectively become Blue-KIP since the referendum, so this threat isn't as menacing as it once might have been. A PR system might result in more UKIP MPs but there would be fewer Tories so it would balance out.
The second point is that if people are voting for UKIP in large numbers then they should be represented.
It is certainly true that the neither the Labour Party or the Conservative party are now one party in any real sense and the moderate centrist MPs of both parties are probably closer to each other than the more radical majority of their own membership. Its fvcked up.
I am in favour of PR. If we end up with ukip mps, then the people who voted for them would be fairly represented and we might not end up with a situation like we are in now again.
If you have PR, and I am in favour of it, you would have to accept some extreme parties in Parliament. Also one would have to have a threshold say 5 percent (like the Budestag) of being able to qualify for seats. In the present system the lunatic fringes have tended to be within the far right of Tories and far left of Labour, they will just be much more visible in a PR system possibly in their own parties. And if UKIP got the votes, they would deserve representation. It would mean coalition government of some sort forever, and I suspect the two big parties would fracture.
There are dozens of Tory MPs who are now indistinguishable from UKIP I would rather we had a system whereby the person you voted for reflected your views especially as we no longer in an era of majority governments where the manifesto is far more important than the individuals views.
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no
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Thing is, PR would mean we would probably permanently have minority/coalition government. I am not sure there last few years have been a particularly good advertisement for that type of government tbh...
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Democracy doesn’t need “freshening up”, at least at parliamentary level, the last few weeks has shown that it does work, to the extent that it has prevented a one eyed incapable prime minister of sacrificing the country on the alter of 70-odd gammons to the right of the Tory party. Everything that’s happening now is what should have happened before we actually served the article 30 notice.
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I actually think the coalition did reasonably well as a government.
The problem with the present government is (a) it is a minority government and (b) it has been completely obsessed with internal divisions within the Tory Party.
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I think the current situation is a good example of the perils of running down a two party system when "the internet" is leading to increased stratification of people.
We are currently shit at cross party / coalition stuff. But I think that's a good reason to get better at it rather than a reason to block it. Momentum / Blue Momentum are taking over the two main parties. We need politicians with balls to recognise that and do something about it before they lose the grip over the two main party machines and end up in a situation where the only valid votes are for extremist nut jobs.
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PR didn't have its moment, STV had its moment which isn't much better than our current system, blatently favoured the lib dems (then everybody's second choice) who proposed it and was an all around waste of time.
We need half the parliament elected on PR from party lists and half elected FPTP from larger constituencies. Best of both worlds.
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The coalition government was actually fairly competent.
The problems we are experiencing at the moment are down to the fact that we have a minority government trying to behave as though it has the majority it thought it would get when it called a snap election. They aren't willing to compromise in order to win votes on cross-party consensus and goodwill, and they don't have the numbers to strong-arm parliament into doing what they want.
A system where nobody expects to get a majority and everybody understands that compromise will be necessary in order to actually govern strikes me as a very good idea.
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Most advanced countries use one of the many forms of PR.
The UK uses various forms of PR for many elections just not parliamentary elections.
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it was the miserable tony blair who introduced PR for UK's European elections as I recall. I think it was fptp before that.
and we PR for 11 of the 25 London GLA seats
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FPTP is a terrible system.
PR would be a much better one.
Now would be a great time to bring it in for the next GE.
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I have two responses to this.
The first is that the Tories have effectively become Blue-KIP since the referendum, so this threat isn't as menacing as it once might have been. A PR system might result in more UKIP MPs but there would be fewer Tories so it would balance out.
The second point is that if people are voting for UKIP in large numbers then they should be represented.
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Will never happen of course.
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It just shows our constitution/system is like everything else - it worked until it didn't.
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Insert Winston Churchill quote about democracy here.
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The UK is not a properly functioning democracy.
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Democracy doesn’t actually work, as we have seen with brexit.
it isn’t about the uk. It’s about the fact that after a vote, 48% of the voting public end up disappointed.
That’s actually not cool, it’s divisive. PR isn’t the answer either. We need to make voting compulsory if we must pursue democracy.
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It is certainly true that the neither the Labour Party or the Conservative party are now one party in any real sense and the moderate centrist MPs of both parties are probably closer to each other than the more radical majority of their own membership. Its fvcked up.
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I am in favour of PR. If we end up with ukip mps, then the people who voted for them would be fairly represented and we might not end up with a situation like we are in now again.
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What others have said. We need to understand if there's a really large UKPI vote, so we can understand why, then solve the problem that causes it.
Some sicknesses get better on their own. Some just need the symptoms treated. Some need a genuine cure.
UKIP is one of the latter.
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If you have PR, and I am in favour of it, you would have to accept some extreme parties in Parliament. Also one would have to have a threshold say 5 percent (like the Budestag) of being able to qualify for seats. In the present system the lunatic fringes have tended to be within the far right of Tories and far left of Labour, they will just be much more visible in a PR system possibly in their own parties. And if UKIP got the votes, they would deserve representation. It would mean coalition government of some sort forever, and I suspect the two big parties would fracture.
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There are dozens of Tory MPs who are now indistinguishable from UKIP I would rather we had a system whereby the person you voted for reflected your views especially as we no longer in an era of majority governments where the manifesto is far more important than the individuals views.
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SO we all agreed then it is a good thing and we should do it.
Pretty much guaranteed it will never happen then.
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