# BritDopers (and nosy foreigners) - The general election 2010 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2010, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133 "2010-04-06T11:13:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 39
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/761 "2010-05-10T16:47:56Z")
_The Independent_ on possible Labour wannabe leaders: "\* David Miliband, Foreign Secretary. Powerful backing; high profile in election. - Ed Balls, Schools Secretary. Will appeal to many on the left, and probably win Brown’s support. But riles some others. - Ed Miliband, Climate Change Secretary. Telegenic and good public speaker. Could draw together both wings of the party. - Harriet Harman, deputy Labour leader. Shows dedication and energy in the job. Divides opinion. - Alan Johnson, Home Secretary. Excellent TV performer with eye-catching life story. Probably too old for the post, and not pushy enough. - Yvette Cooper, Work and Pensions Secretary. Down-to-earth style, and stock has risen. Married to Ed Balls. - Andy Burnham, Health Secretary. Youthful Blairite." ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/762 "2010-05-10T16:49:14Z")
Stick a fork in him, he’s done! Good riddance. Surprising he didn’t hold on until the bitter end. ---
**Author:** ![nicole1912](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9de0a6/32.png) [@nicole1912](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicole1912)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/763 "2010-05-10T16:50:13Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Brown now says he will resign and not stand for election as Labour leader: [Brown to step down as Labour leader - CNN.com](http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/10/uk.election.brown/index.html?hpt=T2) > > Hoo doggies! I think that was always going to happen - it makes a Lib-Lab coalition a bit more likely, since gossip has it that Clegg and Brown wouldn’t have worked together. I feel sorry for Brown, personally - it can’t have been easy being him over the last few months. However, it will make the negotiations more interesting - and faster, since they really need to have sorted something out by the time Labour decide on a new leader. Given the whole “unelected PM” crap that has dogged Brown, the new leader will have difficulty just slotting in as PM - timetable for the next election just got much shorter! (And if I hear one more journalist talk about unelected Prime Ministers, I may hit someone. Particularly if they purport to be political journalists. That sort of fundamental misunderstanding of the way our political system works ought to be grounds for firing, even if they’re just using it as verbal shorthand.) ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/764 "2010-05-10T16:55:25Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > _The Independent_ on possible Labour wannabe leaders: > > "\* David Miliband, Foreign Secretary. Powerful backing; high profile in election. > > - Ed Balls, Schools Secretary. Will appeal to many on the left, and probably win Brown’s support. But riles some others. > > - Ed Miliband, Climate Change Secretary. Telegenic and good public speaker. Could draw together both wings of the party. > > - Harriet Harman, deputy Labour leader. Shows dedication and energy in the job. Divides opinion. > > - Alan Johnson, Home Secretary. Excellent TV performer with eye-catching life story. Probably too old for the post, and not pushy enough. > > - Yvette Cooper, Work and Pensions Secretary. Down-to-earth style, and stock has risen. Married to Ed Balls. > > - Andy Burnham, Health Secretary. Youthful Blairite." There must be some black mark on the CV of Alastair Darling (current chancellor, for those not familiar) for them not to mention him. Maybe he’s the John Major of the Labour Party, and will slip through unnoticed on the inside. He was quite impressive in the Chancellor’s debates, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/765 "2010-05-10T17:05:27Z")
> [@Nancarrow](#): > > Quartz, is the lack of link between the MP and voter your only objection to PR? No. The second reason is that PR gives more power to the central parties and makes it more difficult for good local candidates to get elected. Thirdly, there is the issue that PR tends to give coalition governments. One only has to look at Italy, Germany, and Israel to see the problems that can arise because of this. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Urban\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@The\_Urban\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Urban_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/766 "2010-05-10T17:06:31Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’ve mentioned it here before, but I do not like PR, because it diminishes the link between the constituent and the MP, the elector and the elected. I go for Approval Voting. Basically you vote for as many candidates on the list as you like, and the candidate with the most votes wins. I have to disagree. Approval Voting could very easily be as disproportionate as FPTP, when looking at the share of the popular vote. No county operates this system. The degree of separation introduced by STV is a small price to pay for a system which actually reflects who people vote for. You’re also far more likely to have an MP in your constituency who you share a political affiliation with, if you need contact them. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/767 "2010-05-10T17:09:33Z")
> [@The\_Urban\_Spaceman](#): > > The degree of separation introduced by STV is a small price to pay for a system which actually reflects who people vote for. You’re also far more likely to have an MP in your constituency who you share a political affiliation with, if you need contact them. But you are also more likely to get party hacks obeying the whips like good little boys and girls, as the party controls the list. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/768 "2010-05-10T17:13:18Z")
> [@Nancarrow](#): > > One other important point you miss about the current system and the ‘ejectability’ of politicians: as things stand at the moment, lots of us voters don’t like Gordon Brown much. _But only the 80,000 in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath can do anything about it!_ I hope _that_ isn’t the idea of voter accountability that you wish to defend. Please don’t tell me what I do and don’t know. I’m not missing that about Gordon Brown at all; I stayed up and watched him be re-elected as MP. That part is up to the electors in his constituency. How the Labour Party operates is up to it. The same is true for Cameron, his constituency, and the Conservatives. And Clegg, his constituency, and the Lib Dems. And you know what? I’m rather glad we have a PM, even if it is Gordon Brown, instead of no one at the helm and chaos. The business of government must go on. Someone has to answer the phone at 03:00. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/769 "2010-05-10T17:19:35Z")
Are we mixing up two systems called “AV” here? Alternative Voting, perhaps better described by another of its names, Ranked Voting, is a mainstream idea, in use in real-life elections such as the federal elections in Australia. It’s not proportional but it does address the “wasted vote” concern, which in turn might make elections more representative. Approval Voting is quite a different thing, and I am not aware of any major elections that use it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Urban\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@The\_Urban\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Urban_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/770 "2010-05-10T17:23:23Z")
> [@villa](#): > > But you are also more likely to get party hacks obeying the whips like good little boys and girls, as the party controls the list. Plus ça change? ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/771 "2010-05-10T17:33:33Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Please don’t tell me what I do and don’t know. There’s no need to be quite so tetchy. I said you might have missed that point, on the basis that it’s a defect _you appeared to ignore_ when explaining how important the voter-MP link of FPTP is. > [@](#): > > I’m not missing that about Gordon Brown at all; I stayed up and watched him be re-elected as MP. That part is up to the electors in his constituency. So, exactly as I surmised, that _indeed is_ the idea of voter accountability that you wish to defend. Namely, that when the voters are fed up with an MP and want to be rid of them, they actually DO NOT have the power to remove them. Or to be more accurate, a _tiny_ proportion of them do, a proportion selected… _geographically_. I’m a supporter of PR reform, of one kind or another. But the problem of how to keep MPs directly accountable to voters is one that has given me some pause. I am studying various PR systems to see how they cope. But now when I read your ‘defence’ of FPTP, I realise I am doing that entirely for my benefit, not yours. The problem of accountability concerns me. It does not concern you, _as you have just said_. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/772 "2010-05-10T17:41:13Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > And you know what? I’m rather glad we have a PM, even if it is Gordon Brown, instead of no one at the helm and chaos. The business of government must go on. Someone has to answer the phone at 03:00. Er, what? The wonderful thing about FPTP is we always have a PM, whereas if we get PR, we might sometimes not have a PM, just like all those other countries with PR that have no head of government…? Seriously, what does your above paragraph have to do with _anything_ that we’re discussing? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/773 "2010-05-10T18:17:49Z")
Has anyone noticed that it’s in Brown’s interest to bollix any and all deals that don’t involve him staying on? If there’s no deal by the 26th, we get to have another General Election which means that he stays on as PM for another month or so - and presumably he wouldn’t be standing for re-election in his old seat. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/774 "2010-05-10T18:34:42Z")
Want a suggestion on how to reform Commons that would allow both PR and majorities? 1. Redistrict to 550 seats assigned to constituencies, selected by “optional” STV. (The optin is the voter’s, not the government’s or the local authority’s.) That is, you may vote Jones (Lab), period. Or you may vote Jones (Lab), but if he loses I prever Sedgwick (Green), with a third choice of Harris (LibDem) if both the others are eliminated. Then the normal instant-runoff STV proposal – eliminate the lowest-polling candidate and redistribute his votes according to the voter preferences marked., and continue doing this until a candidate is selected by an absolute majority of votes cast, either as their first or a secondary choice. 2. Divide the U.K. into twenty roughly-equal regions, allowing a little flexibility to avoid drawing lines through the middle of a city or county. Each elects a slate of five members stnding together as a party. (Maybe voters could mix-and-match between slated, or maybe not – whichever way makes more sense.) This allows regionally strong parties a chance at a decent delegation, and gives the major parties a way to bring in the guy who’s a great economist or transport chief but a lousy campaigner or debater. 3. Speaker elected from a list of elder statesmen either on a national ticket or by the newly elected House, not representing a constituency. This would allow for more minor-party presence, but also for swings to put in single-party majorities. Except for the five-man regional delegations, do not go with ‘party list’ elections. The voter deserves to have an individual who represents him and his neighbors, not some amorpohous connection to a list of 25 Labourites, one of whom you may think is terrific and to of whom you may think odious. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/775 "2010-05-10T19:15:44Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Want a suggestion on how to reform Commons that would allow both PR and majorities? Not sure I follow this. You can have PR and a majority… if the voters vote a majority. If you want a majority without the voters voting for it, then whatever you’ve got is not PR by definition. > [@](#): > > 1. Redistrict to 550 seats assigned to constituencies, selected by “optional” STV. (The optin is the voter’s, not the government’s or the local authority’s.) I’m fine with STV as a means of electing constituency MPs. You make a point of it being ‘optional’. Isn’t it optional anyway? When you vote STV, are you not allowed to rank as many candidates as you wish, including just one? Aren’t you just describing vanilla STV? > [@](#): > > 1. Speaker elected from a list of elder statesmen either on a national ticket or by the newly elected House, not representing a constituency. I’m on board with this. Never quite understood why the voters in the Speaker’s constituency enjoy being disenfranchised. (I didn’t ignore your second item, just not sure what to make of it yet) > [@](#): > > Except for the five-man regional delegations, do not go with ‘party list’ elections. The voter deserves to have an individual who represents him and his neighbors, not some amorpohous connection to a list of 25 Labourites, one of whom you may think is terrific and to of whom you may think odious. It seems to me that how bad a party-list system is, depends on how large the constituencies are. If you have a single constituency with 650 MPs you get very close proportionality but no control of the selection process. I think that would be a rather bad idea. At the other extreme, have 650 constituencies of 1 MP each, and you get… well, FPTP. There’s probably some happy medium. In another thread I noted that 650=26x25 which makes for nice round numbers. In fact my mathematical spidey-sense tells me that, these numbers being close to square roots of 650, there’ll no doubt be all sorts of psephological indicators that have some kind of ‘optimal’ value for that arrangement. But damned if I know what they might be and whether or not we should give a fuck! 🙂 Here’s a mixed-member system I thought of earlier, with an extra bit to keep the national party-list members on their toes: 1. 325 ‘constituency’ MPs for 325 constituencies, each being two of our current ones mashed together. Elections FPTP just like now. Or hell, even go STV on them. The proportionality doesn’t matter so much, cos then you have 2. 325 ‘national’ MPs. They’re allocated between parties so that the TOTAL proportion in the HoC (nationals + constituencies) matches the vote proportions. I guess this means each voter gets two votes, an MP and a national party, and they could be different parties. As for how the party lists get drawn up, this is the clever bit, and it’s not mine, I stole it from someone earlier in this thread or one of the others: the seats only go to the same people who stood as constituency MPs (but only those who didn’t win, obviously), and they go to the most popular of them (i.e. whoever got the most votes). I suppose you could also work the voters’ alternative choice in an STV system into that somehow. Now there’s still one problem with all this, and it’s the same problem I identified earlier when responding to **Quartz** : the ability to kick an MP out is given only to a tiny fraction of voters. Not sure what to do about that… ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/776 "2010-05-10T19:18:22Z")
**Polycarp** , that’s way too big a change and politically impossible. Already, the two main parties are looking to find the smallest change to the electoral system possible that will placate the Lib Dems, hence the Tory proposal of a referendum on AV, something absolutely nobody wants. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/777 "2010-05-10T19:26:33Z")
I’m not so sure that nobody wants AV. Any change to the electoral system makes people amenable to the idea that it can be changed. And it is not too far from AV to the actually quite proportional AV+. I think advocates of PR should grab AV as a bridgehead. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/778 "2010-05-10T19:54:04Z")
Having popped over to [this site](http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk), it seems I’ve confused STV with AV. D’oh. :smack: Also, their description of the method called ‘Total Representation’ seems somewhat like what I proposed a couple of posts ago. Meanwhile **Polycarp** ’s looks a bit like AV+. I’m getting all confuzzled now. ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/779 "2010-05-10T19:55:42Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > I’m not so sure that nobody wants AV. Any change to the electoral system makes people amenable to the idea that it can be changed. And it is not too far from AV to the actually quite proportional AV+. I think advocates of PR should grab AV as a bridgehead. I’m not sure about that. I think this is the last time in a while there’s a decent chance of electoral reform. Better do it properly now rather waiting decades for another chance. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133/780 "2010-05-10T20:07:31Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > I’m not sure about that. I think this is the last time in a while there’s a decent chance of electoral reform. Better do it properly now rather waiting decades for another chance. I hope you’re right, but I think that going for full PR is too ambitious. It would be an all-or-nothing gamble, and I think the risk of “nothing” is too high and could set the cause back by a generation. Maybe it doesn’t make all that much difference, my gradualist approach vs. your radical approach. Either way, I think PR is coming, within 30 years. The two-party system is dying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/britdopers-and-nosy-foreigners-the-general-election-2010/535133.md?page=40)