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

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm slightly in favour of hereditary peers.

People who are trained from an early age in logic, rhetoric etc. and aren't at the whim of "bread and circuses" mob rule.

It's not ideal, and the current system allows elected government to override the House of Lords (as they have done recently) so it's not "undemocratic", but it puts a sensible brake on knee-jerk legislation. Or does when it works properly.

And the nice thing about it is, most of the "hereditary peers" never showed up anyway, so they had no effect, but the ones that cared about people and law *did* along with the life peers, and other Lords that covered the legal and religious sides of things.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

hereditary peers. People who are trained from an early age in logic, rhetoric etc

Er, what? I mean, some of them are/were, but SFAIK the rough correlation between class and educational achievement fails utterly at the 'actual nobility' end of the social scale.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

just because you're trained in Logic doesn't mean you're good at it :-)

But there does seem to be a correlation between "class" and going to public schools (or is that a media myth?) and public schools are known for getting better educational results than non-public schools (or is that another myth?)

I have no easy way of determining the average set of educational qualifications of hereditary peers who actively participated in the House of Lords, nor of the appointed Lords ... I'd imagine that the legal Lords all had law degrees, and most of the political Lords had either suitable university backgrounds or on the job training(!) (not all obviously).

I guess the "myth" is how many of the hereditary Lords have Eton/Harrow/St.Pauls/whatever then Oxbridge educations ... and that's where I've made a total assumption and am willing to admit I don't know.

Again it would be interesting to see how many Lords voted (on average) before the recent changes, and what the proportions were between hereditary nobility and political/legal/religious appointees

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

But there does seem to be a correlation between "class" and going to public schools (or is that a media myth?) and public schools are known for getting better educational results than non-public schools (or is that another myth?)

Yes, those correlations are broadly correct, but it gets terribly complex, and depends on what you mean by 'class' (many anciently-aristocratic families are more or less broke) and what you mean by 'results' (many public schools famously do very badly on 'value added' measures of results). My understanding - admittedly somewhat anecdotal and stereotypical - is that your actual nobs tend to be different to your aspirant upper-middle-class types, in that they're a lot more relaxed about whether you actually get any qualifications or any of that new-fangled book larned.

My (educated but unfounded) guess is that a very large percentage of hereditary peers will have gone to a public school, but on average won't have done terribly well (particularly given that they went to a Good School). The percentage who have a degree (never mind one from Oxbridge) might be a little higher than the population background (since pretty much all with the ability will have gone through) but will be substantially lower than, say, the membership of the House of Commons.

The Law Lords were a bit different - all a bit old hat now (it's Supreme Court these days), and it was a bit confusing (i.e. I never properly understood it) but basically being a Law Lord was a special sort of life peerage which you got by first being a Very Senior Judge. And to do that you needed to first be a Judge, which required earlier being a barrister. Obviously, family connections would help you come to the attention of the Lord Chancellor and speed promotion, but if you were a complete shower at any level you wouldn't make it.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

So it's really hard to make any good guesses about the qualifications of the Lords who showed up at the House of Lords, debated and voted. But I have a strong suspicion that you'd find them better educated (whether with a piece of paper to show for it or not) than the general populace. Far too many of the current House of Commons are career politicians, funded by corporate interests and at the mercy of the "bread and circuses" mob for me to be sure they will pass "good" law ... so having a second chamber that has a different spread of backgrounds and isn't directly answerable to the populace through an election, gives a chance for law to be made better ... and if the House of Commons doesn't agree, then they have the power to overrule the House of Lords and pass the law anyway.