I'm aware of the serious flas of FPTP and similar systems. I'm more pro AMS (Additional Member System) rather than pure PR (thus keeping the local level representation but reddressing the balance) or using the House of Lords as a pure PR system. Local representation is very good for accountability in national parliaments, and an undervalued aspect of FPTP. FPTP remains a form of electing representatives and to call it undemocratic is silly really.
I think the AMS system (as used in the Scottish Parliament) works reasonably well in that even if your constituency representative is from a party you didn't vote for, the chances are that the party you do favour will be represented among the regional candidates. In my case the constituency MSP is SNP, but as a Green voter I am also represented by a regional MSP from that party. The same could be said for anyone whose preference is Labour, LibDem or Conservative.
Would it be better if the "regional" winners were the closest losers from the individual constituencies, rather than a separate party list? Particularly in today's political climate there are lots of people who may feel their views are best represented by a faction within a party or even factions within several parties, rather than any one party manifesto. For example I would never ever vote for a Tory Brexiter but might do so if the candidate was a Remainer (if there are any left who admit to such).
Actually I think it is. It quite nicely demonstrates the inherent advantage that a party has when it's supporters are almost entirely focused in one geographic area. If UKIPs 3.8m voters were all concentrated in one area then they would perform better but because they're a national party with supporters everywhere they're at a massive disadvantage to the SNP. See also the Lib Dems/Greens versus the DUP. Two national parties versus yet another very concentrated party.
Could have fooled me. Maybe some of them should stand up for what they believe.
That's surely why May's deal hasn't been passed.
Absolutely! I think one of the things that the 2015 General Election demonstrated was just how broken our current method of electing MPs is!
Compare the results of UKIP and the SNP. UKIP received 3.8m votes or 12.6% of the total vote and gained a single seat. The SNP got 1.4m votes or 4.7% of the total vote and ended up with 56 seats. 56! Now like them or loathe them (either of them) that just cannot be fair to anyone. But because of the way our current system works because the SNP voters are extremely concentrated whilst UKIP are spread out the SNP get lots of seats and UKIP get hardly any. The Greens have similar problems, 1.1m votes or 3.8% of the total and just a single seat. They only got 300,000 less votes than the SNP but end up with 55 fewer seats! 55!
The Lib Dems got 2.4m votes or 7.9% of the total and had 8 seats. The DUP got only 184,000 votes or just 0.6% of the vote and also got 8 seats. They have eight times as many seats as UKIP after that election but UKIP got 21 times as many votes!
That just isn't healthy for democracy in any way shape or form! Is it any wonder that people feel utterly disenfranchised and ignored when FPTP produces such awful results?
But of course it is in neither the Conservative nor Labour parties interests to change the system because after all they are still the largest parties and, at the time of writing this post(!), still the most likely to win enough seats to form a Government (even if they require propping up to get there).
Elections to Westminster are just so completely and utterly broken
I think it may be more accurate to say that FPTP is democratic, but not in a particularly representative way.
I've often thought of a system where it's one MP per constituency that you vote for, but every MP in parliament has a vote to the power of the overall vote;
It's not insane. The main issues I can see would be that several parties don't get any representation at all because they didn't get a single MP, and parties that only get one MP but a decent number of votes could result in one lunatic having a totally disproportionate vote share. Beyond keeping the consitituencies to a decent size there's a reason why they have more than 500 MPs
It is clear that Mr. Benjamin has no future as a comedian either. According to him, the alternative to him making awful rape jokes (and I use that word in its loosest possible form) is "a world devoid of humour". Rubbish.
The problem is, they don't even realise how fantiastically ironic they're being.
