A modest proposal

[andrewducker]

The Conservatives believe that a hung parliament would be bad for Britain.

There's a simple solution to that.

If they removed themselves from the race then the chances of the result not being clear-cut would drop to near-zero.

Comments

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Lots of politicians (mainly Labour and Conservative) have been issuing dire warnings of the drawbacks and dangers of a hung parliament recently. I find myself wondering what the hell they expect us to do about it. There's precious little that an individual voter can do to affect the electoral outcome in a single constituency, much less the entire country. Do they want us, the electorate, to have a big chat about it beforehand, decide between us who's going to actually win, and then vote accordingly?

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It's just an electoral tactic to try and scare people away from voting Lib-Dem. It would require a surprisingly small percentage of voters who are considering voting Lib-Dem to not do so to have a big effect on the outcome of the election.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

By the same logic it would only take a small percentage of voters who are considering not voting Lib-Dem to vote Lib-Dem to have a big effect?

Oh wait, it won't. That's the whole reason why the Lib Dems want proportional representation.

See also

http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/2026125.html

for an explanation of why this comment is wrong in almost every possible way about the significance of an individual Lib-Dem vote.

[matgb]

No, not really. Once the LDs break past 36% of the vote, they start gaining seats rapidly, at 38% they're probably at a majority.

Depending on where the breaks lies, best analysis I can do shows they need less votes than the Tories to get an overall majority; but it does depend far too much on individual constituencies.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Ignoring Mori who have the lib dems at ~ 24%, the other polls have them between 29% and 33%. Taking an average of 31% we discover that we're after 5% of the voters to change to lib dem to make a substantial change to the number of seats.

27 million votes were cast at the last election, so that's approximately 1.4million more voters than we're expecting based on the present poll.

1.4million is a new and interesting definition of 'surprisingly small'.

[matgb]

Firstly, turnout's likely to be up, from what I've seen, registration is certainly way up. So it's more than 1.4 million.

However; the polls seem to indicate that a lot of those new registrants, and a lot of those that formerly haven't been voting. There's evidence from Canada that the biggest swings aren't normally from one party to another, but from voting to non-voting and vice versa.

So, while you're right to say 1.4+million is a large total number, it is actually a small proportion of those that didn't vote last time and are indicating they plan to vote this time.

Plus, the LDs normally get a poll bounce in the campaign in the last ten days of it. It's uncertain right now as to whether that bounce has happened early this year, or is still to happen.

There's also a chance that this "hung parliament party" nonsense will play into their hands, voters might decide that if a hung Parliament is bad, then it's best to vote LD in even bigger numbers, etc etc.

However, Aaron's point was that of those currently planning to vote LD, it doesn't take many of them to be scared away for the LD # of seats to collapse; that's very true. If htey lose 4 points in the opinion polls, they're in definite 3rd party status territory.

If they gain 4%, they're in distinct first party status territory. At 32%, they're already 13-15% up on the start of the campaign, with polls this volatile, further increases are just as possible as further decreases.

Interesting times, regardless.

[matgb]

And having now followed that link in your name, I remember why I knew the domain; I really miss having Chris's analysis of this sort of thing, didn't always agree with him, but he really could crunch those numbers.

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

Or they could elect all woman so no one in Parliament would be hung at all. (It's a bad joke but I couldn't resist.)

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

It sounds like they're taking a tactic from the USian Rethuglicans: obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, and blame the other people.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It's completely loathsome the way the Conservatives and right-wing media are scaremongering this. Particularly given that they are actually having the cheek to advise tactical voting to avoid it happening when the reason people want to see a hung parliament is to see electoral reform and with a different electoral system this, er, wouldn't happen.

The base fact that no one seems to be saying (and I've been watching a lot of news programmes) is that in popular terms we are now a three-party country, and FPTP bipartianism doesn't work for a three party country. Surely this is childsplay to understand? I can only assume that, like the Media Giants whose pockets the Big Two reside, they've decided to stick their heads in the sand and try to stop the tide from coming in.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the Big Two parties have an awful lot to gain by not understanding that this is a three party country, and by making sure that as few people as possible believe it, so it's not unsurprising that they don't seem to understand it or be making scrupulous efforts to educate the wider public along those lines.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

To be fair, that's not fair at all.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Fair no, but it's not about being fair, it's a competition.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

You don't think a competition should be fair?

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

That depends on the definition of "fair". All competitions have rules, but usually the boundary of those rules is different to what is considered "fair".

Ideally, I would like everyone who votes to consider the options and make an informed choice, but that is sadly far from the reality of the situation. The Tories are simply seizing a means to gain more votes. What they are doing is within the rules of the contest, but not what I would call fair.

[matgb]

Personally, I've always thought the "fair votes" demand wouldn't play well with voters, didn't think people wanted fairness for parties, etc.

Appears from polling evidence I was very very wrong.

However, the Westminster system as currently applied to Westminster isn'y fair; it's the main reason I got involved to try and change it.

The Big Two benefit from the unfairness (Labour created the current system and have benefitted substantially overall), ergo they want to play that up.

IF you think that's wrong, y'know, campaigning against it is a good plan.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I'm not an active campaigner, but I'm on the lists for the 38 Degrees and Vote For A Change campaign sites, and I do sign all the petitions and write all the letters. I also make a point of loudly decrying right-wing myths when with friends on the bus.

I'm not exactly a mover or shaker but I'm no layabout either. We do what we can.

[matgb]

Heh, let me rephrae that for you ;-)
I'm not an active campaigner, but ... I do [actively campaign]

Which, y'know, suits me. I only work part time partially in order to have more time for active campaigning, but that's not possible for most, etc.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I do wish I had the time to do more right now - it'd be nice to know I did everything I could whatever happens.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Fair cop.

Am I the only person who...

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

...when I hear the term "hung parliament" think; that's a bit drastic, but I guess they had it coming after the expenses scandal?

Re: Am I the only person who...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Hung, not hanged. Honestly. The only reasonable response is to raise the ghastly spectre of a well-hung parliament.

It's as bad as that terrible English teacher who confused capital and corporal punishment. Mind you, they never had trouble with misbehaviour in their class after word got round: "You really don't want to mess around in Jeffries' English lessons - you know a kid got killed for talking out of turn?".

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

But your suggestion would call for Statesmen (more interested in the commonweal than in Political Dominance), who seem to be (sadly) lacking, in the modern world.

I rather like the idea of a hanged Parliament -- but then, I've always felt a certain sympathy/empathy with Guy Fawkes. Failing that, I'd go for electing all-women -- who are generally, in my experience, far more Practical than men.