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

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

Quite. On a personal level, it drives me absolutely crazy (particularly the more tax I pay) that I seem to not be of interest to any political party & am sitting in a fairly safe seat so my vote has little value.

I'm perhaps being somewhat basic, but I had thought one of the ideas behind universal suffrage was that all adults should have an equal say in the election of the government of the day. Clearly the current system doesn't deliver that.

Playing devil's advocate I can see (when things like you tax bill & public services are at stake) why it's quite easy to get behind PR when you think the current lot are a shower; rather more difficult when you're quite happy thankyouverymuch. That said, at the moment one does get the impression that the percentage holding the former view exceeds that holding the latter...but I do wonder how many of them are politically engaged.

[andrewducker]

I was in favour of PR when Labour got in. Because it was fairer. I was really annoyed that they reneged on their commitment.

[oldbaldchris.livejournal.com]

I would comment Andy, but I suspect you can guess what I would say - so in the interests of not upsetting a bunch of whining liberal PR loving tree hugging commie weirdy beardy "multi culture is a good thing" crap spouting people, I`ll just leave it. :)

[andrewducker]

Would you not have liked the Conservatives to have been getting their fair share of the vote for the last 13 years? Or weer you happy with them being horribly underweighted by the current system?

[oldbaldchris.livejournal.com]

I would prefer them to be underweighted as you put it and keep a basically two party system. I am not in favour of coalitions in the slightest and a stronger libdem/liberal or whatever the fuck they are called now party will just mean more coalitions in the future. We have one now in Germany and its a bloody waste of time.

[skington.livejournal.com]

As I recall, Tony Blair was in favour of doing a deal anyway, but most of the Old Labour lot were of the opinion that they finally had a stonking huge majority and they weren't going to share it with anybody.