The three main UK parties head into this general election with three different ideas of how elections should be run in the future. The tories favour maintaining with some tweaks the current first past the post (FPTP) system, Labour favour the Alternative Vote (AV) system where votes are re-allocated to second preference, etc... until one candidate has 50% or more and the Lib-Dems favour the proportional singler transferrable vote system (STV). Based on the slightly tongue-in-cheek asumption that politicians are only really interested in what works in their favour, I will now present you with a not entirely serious argument about why they've all got it wrong.
The Conservatives are clearly not benefitting from FPTP with recent predictions giving them the most votes but far fewer seats than Labour. The system doesn't work for them. However, if they were to switch to the Lib Dems STV, they would get the number of seats roughly proportionate to their vote and thus become the largest party in parliament with a clear mandate to form the government.
Labour on the other hand are clearly benefitting from a system which gives them the most seats from the lowest number of votes - hey, they could even come third in the polpular vote and have an overall majority with under 30% of the vote, so why change? You suspect AV was suggested when it looked like the tories might get an overall majority, but now? Stick to a system that works for you.
The Lib Dems are clearly the most disadvantaged by the current system and their commitment to PR stems back to the 83 election when the then Alliance got 26% of the vote to Labour's 28% and won about 20 seats to around 200 for Labour and almost 400 for the tories. The current system clearly doesn't work for them, but have they really considered Labour's AV system? They must be running second behind either Labour or the tories in much of the country now and with the supporters of the third placed party in each constituency more likely to switch to them than the hated other, they must have a good chance of changing those seconds into firsts with AV, thus gaining an overall majority.
So they should all switch policies!
No apologies for the light-hearted post - I was getting tired of the tories trying to frighten and bully votes out of people with threats of the impending apocalypse if there's a hung parliament. NOt sure its the right tactic for them - people aren't voting for them because they don't see enough of what they want there and they are turning their campaign very negative now, I'm not sure how many voters they will woo back - certainly not enough to give them an overall majority.
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2 comments:
you might actually be on to something here tony ... maybe not so lighthearted.
except, i think there is one other thing in the lib dems calculation: they are hoping their market share will increase if there was some form of PR ... as people are less likely to see a vote for LD as a wasted vote.
i do wonder if there will be some move back to the tories in the next couple of weeks as people see their votes wasted if they vote LD in many constituences. still expect them to do well, and for it to be a hung parliament ... but i don't think they will poll nearly 30%...
I'm not so sure anymore, I keep expecting it to dip, but I'm beginning to wonder. I read a comment on the BBC website (so can't verify) that there was a little reported poll by YouGov that 49% of people would vote Lib Dem if they thought they could win. Try putting that into an electoral predictor and you get something quite amazing. I don't think that will happen, but I think that they are doing well because at least half the country wants something different from what's on offer from the other two. I'm not sure the Lib-Dems are that different, but they are being seen as such. If they can keep that up for a bit longer it will gather momentum. I think everyone is predicting a dip because its what's always happened in the past, but I don't know we've ever been in a situation where both the other parties have been so unpopular. I think they might dip a bit, but just maybe there's something very different happening in this election. I think the fact that the surge in last minute voting registration was mainly amongst young people will count in the Lib-dems favour - they're doing very well in that demographic. And also, there's a lot of postal votes now and they wil be cast before May 6th, maybe from now onwards - not sure how that will effect things.
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