>> #39: Yes BB, that's what happens with our totally insane voting system of first past the post. Were it Proportional Representation (PR), things would be different.
Hi electric: Actually I am rather torn on this. On the one hand I feel that first past the post has nearly always produced a stable majority government (last time was probably an aberration), but on the other hand it seems unfair that smaller parties find it so difficult to break through. But one must remember that the British Labour party started out as a fringe party, but eventually broke through to government. It can be done if the support is there (particularly if concentrated around certain seats). On balance I lean towards first past the post, unless the politicians are prepared to come up with a sensible Proportional Representation (PR) system that sets the bar high enough to keep out lots of small parties.
There is a phrase from Gilbert & Sullivan which sums it up well: "When everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody" .
Another disadvantage of PR is that in order to be able to parcel out the parliamentary seats to the number to accurately reflect the percentage of the vote a party gains, one needs to introduce a party list system, which means that the link between an MP and the constituency is broken - no more the concept of "I'm going to write to my MP". The party leaders go on the top of the PR list (and are almost assured of election), while the rest of the list is filled with appointed party hacks in order of their popularity with the party leadership. You can see the kind of situation which can result in Greece and just recently in Israel.
Israel PR:
>> Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud Party celebrated a surprisingly strong victory in the March 17 elections after a divisive campaign, but ended up scrambling to scrape together 61 of Parliament’s 120 members into a coalition - and hold on to his premiership. He... emerged weakened to lead a government that Israeli experts said was unlikely to last long or do much. “What you see here is a big political mess..." Analysts said the last-minute deal-making and the narrow government it produced pointed to problems in Israel’s fractured political system. Ten parties split the seats in Parliament... “It’s more like a soap opera than serious politics...”
www.nytimes.com/2015/05/07/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-coalition
Greece PR:
>> Greece demonstrates risks of proportional representation...
www.nationalpost.com/greece-demonstrates-risks-of-proportional-representation
hgTs0BSOpO7BeQ!~~60_7.JPG "baybizz"){kind=avatar}
