Why I'm in favour of Proportional Representation

[andrewducker]

According to the BBC, the current polls show Lib Dems on 33%, Conservatives on 32%, Labour on 26%.
Which would give a seat allocation of Conservatives: 246, Labour 241, Lib Dems: 134.
Or, in a more easily digestible table format:

Party	Percentage	Seats
Lib Dems	33%	134
Conservatives	32%	246
Labour	26%	241

It should be pretty fucking obvious that this is an electoral system that is fucked in the head.

Comments

Re: for the slow american in the room

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Our Conservative Party are what you would call liberal Democrats.

Our Labour Party is a mixture of people from liberal Democrats to what you would term Godless Communists (fewer of the latter these days).

The actual Liberal Democrat Party is composed of people who would definitely be classed as Godless Communists in the US.

Put it this way: all major parties, including the major right-wing one, make comprehensive free-at-delivery socialised medicine a central plank of their policies. To suggest doing anything else in the UK is electoral suicide.

Re: for the slow american in the room

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I remember having a similar disconnect looking at dutch politics: despite a broad range of parties, some left, some right, some that sound nice to me, some that don't, ALL the major parties (with a few exceptions) from the socialist party, the central christian democratic alliance, the major left, middle and right parties, to the extreme right-wing anti-immigration party, have socially liberal leanings, and are in favour of gay rights, etc (or at least of not rolling them back!)