On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 9:53 PM, David Bircumshaw
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> It's certainly an uncertain outcome, for sure. Gordon Brown is putting out
> confident sounds, but a hung parliament with the Tories as the largest
> single party with the Liberal-Democrats or - God help us - the various
> Ulster Unionist parties - as power brokers seems likely but there are an
> awful lot of marginal seats, especially from London, still as I write, Live
> on Google UK, 4.53 hrs local time, to come. Cons 212 Lab 153 Lib-Dem 33
> Others 25 and Morley & Outwood Labour Hold (incl. Ed Balls) just in.
>
I won't bang on about the particular politics, but structurally this day
absolutely shrieks for electoral reform. Lib Dems on 23% of the popular
vote, but just 56 seats (4 seat loss) or 8.5% of the seat count! Even more
amazing is that despite that overall capture of votes, Clegg doesn't feel he
has a mandate to enter government formation talks according to his politics,
rather than according to pressure from a completely unrepresentative seat
count. Now it might be a feint to avoid a cloud over the eventual
government if he does ultimately throw his seats behind Labour, but if he
does ally with the conservatives, and the Queen does her bit, the result
could be a government unwanted by 64% of those who voted. True, the
Electoral College in the US leads to similar distortions (e.g. Bush-Gore and
Bush-Kerry), but by far smaller margins.
Surely "first past the post" has to go? In the much-discussed "alternative
vote" system, those 64% of ballots would actually have had their intended
effect.
--
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