A positive election post

If that's what *Cameron* wants, then fine. The point is that as he got
the biggest mandate, it should be him who decides who he wants to join
him. It shouldn't be up to the party who came a distant third.

If he makes a reasonable offer (apportioned cabinet seats etc), & the
other parties tell him to **** off, he should be allowed to form a
minority government but with a maximum term of say two years imo. Note
I haven't thought that last bit through at all so it may well be full
of holes.

 

****!

--


Nige,

Land Rover 90
Yamaha R1
Range Rover Vogue

 

No. PR (or other reform such as STV or AV) would require parties to pay
more attention to the electorate as a whole rather than just pusuing the
special interests of their own backers. All parties would have to change.
However, I am very confident that the tories in their current incarnation
would never get enough support under most of these other kinds of voting
systems to gain overall power.

 

I am not advocating orthodox PR as the only approach, I referred to "some
kind of PR", by which I meant to include things such as STV and AV.
However, I don't think we have anything to fear from coalition governments -
they may be messy but plenty of other countries seem to manage OK with such
governments. They also reduce the risk of parties with less than 40% of the
votes cast (representing the support of less than 30% of the electorate)
claiming to have a mandate to introduce fundamental and sweeping changes.

 

I must have misunderstood the part where the tories just received the
most votes and seats, but not enough seats to gain majority then.

Or are you suggesting that in a such a short space of time, people will
change the party they vote for?

 

I think the latter is quite likely. There was a lot of tactical voting
which would be done differently under PR.

 

True, although I think that somewhat assumes that the general public a)
know and b) care about the difference between FPTP and PR(of any kind),
and would understand how it should (or not) affect their voting
decisions.

 

Under PR there would be a centre-left coalition. I am absolutely certain
that the bulk of Lib-Dems would rather work with Labour than with the
current Tory Party. Under a transferrable vote system, I am also confident
that generally speaking Labour suporter would put Lib Dems as second
preference and most Lib Dems would have Labour as second preference.
Basically there may be 36% or so support for the Tories in their curent form
but they would really struggle to get much more than this. They got close
(but no cigar) under the first past the post but they would fare less well
under any alternative system.

 

Perhaps the time has come where the UK simply can't sustain a majority
party and will end up with coalition government for the foreseeable
future (as happened here).

 

Under the current system it has nothing to do with a "mandate" and
everything to do with who can command a majority in the House of Commons.
If a political party can't get its legislation through the House of Commons
it doesn't matter how many people voted for it or how many seats it has in
the HoC. It is for reasons like this that we REALLY need political reform.
As for Cameron being "allowed" to form a minority government - why on earth
should his political opponents "allow" him to do this? If the Lib Dems and
Labour can jointly out-vote the Tories in the HoC and they decide to do so
then there is no reason why they shouldn't. With a combined total of 52% of
the votes and with more seats than the Tories they could even claim to have
a "mandate" to do this.

 

I think the current Tories would struggle to get enough support to form a
government or to be in coalition under any alternative system, PR, STV or
AV.

 

My instinct says this is wrong - that under PR it becomes even more
important for a given party to attract as big a percentage of the
total votes as it can, and these are (I guess) to be found
concentrated in the centre.

 

Who the PM is has everything to do with a mandate from the electorate.
At least it should do.

Obviously, although the PM can always use the parliament act.

Because using the current system we, the public, voted for a Tory
government above any other. Both in numbers & in seats.

No, as long as their votes are consistent with their manifestos.

No they can't, because neither 'Labour & Lib Dem' or 'Not Tory' were
options on the ballot paper.

Afaic it's very, very simple. More people wanted the Tories to form a
government than any other party, therefore it should be up to the
Tories to form a government. If the other parties decide to form an
anti-Tory opposition & block every bit of legislation, that's fine,
it'll just force another election in a few months time.

 

At this point, I'm not convinced.

An email from the party last night left me feeling slightly queasy, if
only by interpretation rather than clear statement.

I've just been discussing on Twitter the speech Clegg gave to the PR
protesters earlier. He seemed to distance himself from the protests in
that despite agreeing with their goals, and saying political reform was
the reason he got into politics, he underlined that it was their
protest, not his.

At this point I think the head's going to overrule the heart and they'll
find a pragmatic option to form a majority government to tackle the
economic issues. Electoral reform will go on the back-burner for the
time being but they'll rely on grassroots support for the clamour for
reform to be amplified between now and the next election.

The upshot? Senior positions in the cabinet, possibly a spot for Vince
in the treasury though not as chancellor. Also a firm grip on the shitty
stick: transport, justice, anything that can go to shit and the Tories
can blame on the Lib Dems.

The LD party membership is going to fucking hate it.

 

Who the PM is has everything to do with who is the leader of the party
that got the most votes/seats (whichever is applicable under the
electoral system in place at the time).

It has little or nothing to do with anything else.

 

Same difference at election time. You can't vote for one party but say
you want another party's leader as PM. But yeah, I get your point.

 

I don't see that he's got much choice if he doesn't want to lose a lot
of credibility. Better to fight from the inside than appear a hypocrite
or lose more seats (which is what I suspect would happen if a
re-election was forced now).

 

I really hope that doesn't happen. AFAIAMC NG can give the Tories
anything they want but that. The economy, Trident - in a decade or
three it'll all be past history. A fairer voting system, however,
should pretty much last for ever, and this could well be the best
chance of ever achieving it.

 

Bugger - AFAIAC.