Eton Mess (or, What a Difference a Day Makes)
We have just come through a general election and currently the Conservatives (Tories) and the Liberal Democrats are in talks over a deal to decide who can run the country. Given the lively election campaign most people were expecting a hung parliament, given the Clegg effect after the debates and a lack of faith in Gordon Brown.
When the exit polls were published the political commentators frankly didn't believe them. But with all but one of the seat declared the poll has shown itself to be fairly accurate. The Tories have taken many seats, mainly in England, but are likely to be 19 shy of an overall majority.
Now assuming that the Sinn Fein MPs do not vote, and discounting the speaker and his three deputies, there are (or will be) 641 voting MPs. This means a majority is, in practice, 321 rather than 326. This is complicated somewhat as the speaker is counted as one of the Tory MPs and the deputies could come from any party.
Nick Clegg is talking to the Tories first because the have the largest number of seats and the largest proportion of the popular vote. Gordon Brown is patiently waiting for the talks to break down, a likely outcome as electoral reform, the one thing the LibDems absolutely need, will be hard for many in the Tory party to concede.
Everyone seems to agree that how we elect the commons needs reexamining, and it may actually benefit the Tories, but what change to make is an enormous question. Currently a candidate needs to have more votes than their opponents, but they could have a small percentage of the overall vote. Effectively votes for other candidates are wasted.
But what alternatives are there? An easy change to make would be to replace the current first-past-the-post method with a single transferable vote. In this method voters rank the candidates in order of preference. The votes are counted in a series of rounds. In initially, the votes are sorted by first preference, just as now. Then the candidate with the least votes is then removed and their votes are redistributed according to the voters' second preferences. This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% (+1) of all the votes. This method will not find favour as it is likely Labour voters would choose LibDems as second choice and vice-versa, meaning in all but the safest Tory seats they would have no chance.
The proportional representation (PR) method is a bit of a mixed bag. Currently it takes more votes for the Tories to gain a majority than it does for Labour, meaning a in proportional Commons they would probably benefit. The big problem with PR is, if it is national, the MPs would not have constituencies, therefore they would not really represent voters or be able to deal with their issues.
We would need to use a regional system similar to that used in the European elections, but how big should the regions be. They would have to have (as near as possible) the same number of voters in each region. A workable size may be the equivalent of 10 current constituencies. The smaller parties would only need about 10% of the regional vote if we have a similar number of MPs.
One reform the Tories probably will stomach is having fixed term parliaments. This would stop parties avoiding the voters when they has messed up. If they go for this, they should hold the elections in the summer recess. Not only will this mean that all the MPs are free from dealing with bills anyway, the weather will be nicer (hopefully) for campaigning and voting.
When the exit polls were published the political commentators frankly didn't believe them. But with all but one of the seat declared the poll has shown itself to be fairly accurate. The Tories have taken many seats, mainly in England, but are likely to be 19 shy of an overall majority.
Now assuming that the Sinn Fein MPs do not vote, and discounting the speaker and his three deputies, there are (or will be) 641 voting MPs. This means a majority is, in practice, 321 rather than 326. This is complicated somewhat as the speaker is counted as one of the Tory MPs and the deputies could come from any party.
Nick Clegg is talking to the Tories first because the have the largest number of seats and the largest proportion of the popular vote. Gordon Brown is patiently waiting for the talks to break down, a likely outcome as electoral reform, the one thing the LibDems absolutely need, will be hard for many in the Tory party to concede.
Everyone seems to agree that how we elect the commons needs reexamining, and it may actually benefit the Tories, but what change to make is an enormous question. Currently a candidate needs to have more votes than their opponents, but they could have a small percentage of the overall vote. Effectively votes for other candidates are wasted.
But what alternatives are there? An easy change to make would be to replace the current first-past-the-post method with a single transferable vote. In this method voters rank the candidates in order of preference. The votes are counted in a series of rounds. In initially, the votes are sorted by first preference, just as now. Then the candidate with the least votes is then removed and their votes are redistributed according to the voters' second preferences. This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% (+1) of all the votes. This method will not find favour as it is likely Labour voters would choose LibDems as second choice and vice-versa, meaning in all but the safest Tory seats they would have no chance.
The proportional representation (PR) method is a bit of a mixed bag. Currently it takes more votes for the Tories to gain a majority than it does for Labour, meaning a in proportional Commons they would probably benefit. The big problem with PR is, if it is national, the MPs would not have constituencies, therefore they would not really represent voters or be able to deal with their issues.
We would need to use a regional system similar to that used in the European elections, but how big should the regions be. They would have to have (as near as possible) the same number of voters in each region. A workable size may be the equivalent of 10 current constituencies. The smaller parties would only need about 10% of the regional vote if we have a similar number of MPs.
One reform the Tories probably will stomach is having fixed term parliaments. This would stop parties avoiding the voters when they has messed up. If they go for this, they should hold the elections in the summer recess. Not only will this mean that all the MPs are free from dealing with bills anyway, the weather will be nicer (hopefully) for campaigning and voting.
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