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UK election: Conservatives lose majority

bbc.com

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Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#121

Post by lhopki01 »

mamon wrote: post #102
lyschoening wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest projections have them at 42.4% of the vote vs Labour's 40.1%. They do have 48.5% of the seats because of an unfair system.

There's always a tension between fairness and stability. In a perfectly fair system you can end up with dozens of small parties, each having small number of people in parliament, struggling to find majority for a government (see last elections in Netherlands). That's why some voting systems are designed to give a winning party some premium over their vote percentage.

The supposedly stable system has led to 3 nation elections in 7 years (probably another one this year too) and 2 hung parliaments in the same time. Meanwhile Germany and many other countries have very stable politics with proportional representation.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#122

Post by EnderMB »

brownbat wrote: post #54

Didn't the conservatives face an impossible situation anyway? Hence all the resignations after Brexit? Is this, with the missed debates, possibly just an attempt to sit out a tough round of governing?

I'm starting to wonder whether this is a possible ploy by the Tories to sit out of what could be a disastrous spell in politics, given that Corbyn will likely pursue Brexit if he becomes PM.

I like Corbyn, and I think he's done tremendously with a great manifesto, but it still remains to be seen if he can lead a country. He's in his element in an election, as he's been a campaigner and an activist throughout his career. It might make more sense to ignore the DUP, and to allow Labour to try and form a progressive alliance, hoping that the economy will falter under Brexit and a coalition government.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#123

Post by vacri »

Freak_NL wrote: post #73
mtgx wrote: post #45

This election shows once again how terrible the FPTP voting system is. The Tories gained like 41% of the vote, but 48% of the seats. And this is a "better" outcome than it would've been in the U.S., where you also have other high arbitrary thresholds for third-parties, and the media virtually ignores them throughout the year-long election cycles. If the Tories had 41% of the seats (per the number of votes they receiv…

As someone who lives in a country with proportional representation as the basis of its electoral system the UK and US first-past-the-post voting system is really weird to observe. It doesn't seem very democratic that a party could get 20% of the popular vote nationally, but win no seats whatsoever.

This is a problem that the upper house in a bicameral system is supposed to solve.

The lower house is assigned to smaller regions, with one representative per region. If every single region has party X at 20% of the vote (and always lower than another candidate), then every region has individually voted for someone else.

The upper house is assigned to larger regions, with multiple representatives per region. You don't have to have to come first to have at least one representative in the upper house. As an example, in my state (victoria, australia) we have 12 senators. They take the total vote count and figure out how many votes you need to get a senator. They take the party with the most votes, give them a senator, and remove X votes. Rinse, repeat. The last senator (or sometimes two) is usually decided by preference flows. At 20% of the vote, you'll be looking at 2/12 senators, and possibly a third depending on preference flow.

The problems in the US and the UK are these: the fewer senators you have per region, the harder it is to be representative, so in the US with only 2 upper house members per region there's not much scope for variation; and in the UK, the upper house isn't elected anyway. Mid-sized minorities just can't get representation (mathematically, at least) in either of those two upper houses.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#124

Post by dingaling »

da_n wrote: post #4

I'm hoping this puts a dampener or even better kills the May-driven Conservative manifesto pledge to "create a new internet".

> May-driven Conservative manifesto pledge

May-driven in this instance perhaps but Intelligence-agency steered. Next PM will be under the same incessant pressure.

Doesn't really matter which captain is on the bridge, they don't have their hand on the tiller.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#125

Post by matthewmacleod »

spdy wrote: post #103
matthewmacleod wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I reckon May's decision was understandable. Great polling with a complex negotiation coming up - makes sense to establish a national convention consensus government and press on (regardless of that decision being a bad one or not). But she completely fluffed the campaign, to a ludicrous extent. She had a weak opposition and popular support, and seemed to make every possible attempt to run as poor as a campa…

Why is Corbyn a weak candidate? I don`t get it why left = communism. Corbyn is a lot like Sanders he can get the youth to vote for some degrees and has good ideas for the majority of a country. Austerity is not a good solution for the future within the new dawn of technology around the corner (ML/AI driven software)

Why is Corbyn a weak candidate?

He had consistently poor approval ratings in the run-up to the election, and was hampered by having no support from the parliamentary party. I'd argue that he also had rather muddled and inconsistent policies, but that's open to interpretation.

Austerity is not a good solution for the future

Completely agreed, but I don't think that the correct response is that kind of leftism.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#126

Post by matthewmacleod »

mamon wrote: post #102
lyschoening wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest projections have them at 42.4% of the vote vs Labour's 40.1%. They do have 48.5% of the seats because of an unfair system.

There's always a tension between fairness and stability. In a perfectly fair system you can end up with dozens of small parties, each having small number of people in parliament, struggling to find majority for a government (see last elections in Netherlands). That's why some voting systems are designed to give a winning party some premium over their vote percentage.

Unfortunately with increasingly divergent views we have now ended up with three consecutive elections with no solid majority. We've ended up in the same situation, but with less fair representation.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#128

Post by alkonaut »

jansho wrote: post #117
alkonaut wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely to be reversed but it's a big slowdown and uncertainty for the whole Brexit process which was due to start already next week I believe. But on the bright side (for us in the rest of EU) it's also more likely to result in a "softer" brexit, if the election result is seen as a vote against May's Conservative plan. That said, whoever replaces May - once she has been eaten by the Tory backbenchers - is likely to…

Just out: "May has no intentions of resigning" (!) https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/09/theresa-may...

Zebra being eaten by lions "had no intentions of being eaten"

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#129

Post by isostatic »

andygates wrote: post #107
cm2187 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know DUP. What is there view on surveillance?

I have a sinking feeling they would love it all along a new border wall with Eire. :/

DUP want an open border between north and south.

Re: UK election: Conservatives lose majority

#130

Post by chris__butters »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #119
buserror wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on the campaign, someone decided to have 'strong' and 'national' into the campaign slogan, despite the fact it actually didn't work terribly well for the UKIP last time around (nor this time!), and didn't work for the Front National either a few weeks back. To me, in both cases, it seems the ruling caste has misread the fact most people want to see some real change with some sort of isolationist/nationalist t…

Even Lib Dem failed to attract people, and I have to say that surprised me a bit, as the 'center' seems to have worked for Macron in france -- perhaps they lacked a figurehead? As a staunch centrist liberal, I'd have to agree I'm surprised :) The lack of a central figure is definitely part of it. Tim Farron is a nice guy, but not much of a political heavyweight unfortunately. I still think they're suffering from the…

I believe that Tim Farron is a great leader and the campaign went well for him, the truth is that his manifesto got lost in the campaign with the Tories and Labour party taking over all media coverage.
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