Well there’s always the chance of politicians doing something really unheard-of such as “promise” then fail to deliver, isn’t there? Oh, cynical me. 
I don’t think we ever did get that referendum on proportional representation that Labour promised in 1997, did we?
Well, obviously. It’s interesting to see how things would have turned out under a different system.
I think PR, apart from the obvious reduction in accountability of individuals rather than party machines, would massively strengthen the two main parties and lead to the extinction of the LibDems. After all, the main policy their supporters support is PR. That and being not-the-other-two. As, for appearances sake, the two main parties couldn’t form a coalition, the LibDems would be eternally the minor partner, always in government (rarely an electoral success) and always associated with the hated government just got rid of. I refer you to Germany. True, they have four mainish parties, the SDP, CDU, Greens and FDP. However a vote for the FDP is really a vote for a CDU government with a few FDPers in it, a vote for the Greens a vote for the SDP with a few Greens on board. In twenty years time there will be no Lib Dems under PR. If we have PR we will have a de facto two way choice between Tories and Labour with their various camp followers, possibly the Greens or a rump LibDem party as the Labour auxiliaries and maybe UKIP backing the Tories and poaching some of their eurosceptic votes.
I am habitually and completely against electoral reform, and the yellow party. I could reconcile myself to a redrawing of constitutency boundaries to properly equalise populations and the introduction of single transferable vote, but that’s it.
Fascinating stuff. I was up until 1am EST following the returns on the BBC, Guarniad and Times websites. The people have spoken… but what did they say?
Nancarrow, I lived in Hammersmith while I was on a semester abroad in London 'way back in 1985 - on Soldern Road, if memory serves. Glad you liked the election result there.
I suspect you’ll end up with a creaky Labour-LibDem-Others coalition. And not get two more aircraft carriers: Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier - Wikipedia
I’ve always said I’ll be surprised if those vessels are ever built.
I tend to favour this viewpoint. Cameron and Clegg are currently sniffing each others arses, but Cameron knows that Clegg will demand that he raise his leg against an enemy lamppost, which his pack will object to. Meanwhile, over there, Brown is hitching his skirts, and showing a bit of upper thigh.*
The pair are currently under construction in various important constituences. The question is what on earth are we going to fly off them.
- anyone able to beat this as worst analogy ever? Go on, give it a go.
d’Hondt for Northern Ireland. What a mess, and it points out one of the problems of PR for the UK. First the numbers.
Actual:
DUP 8 (25% of the vote)
Sinn Fein 5 (26%)
SDLP 3 (17%)
Alliance 1 (6%)
UCU 0 (15%)
TUV 0 (4%)
Independents 1 (7%)
The fact that six parties and two independent candidates made serious runs at seats in Northern Ireland obviously points to the fractured nature of the electorate, but it also points to something else which I’ll get to in a minute. And under d’Hondt:
Sinn Fein 5
DUP 5
SDLP 3
UCU 3
Independents 1
Alliance 1
TUV 0
First off, there was almost no change here in the seat allocation; all that happened is that three seats were transferred from DUP to UCU. That’s not so bad for anyone involved (except maybe the DUP)–but what would the reaction be if those three seats were transferred from unionists to republicans or vice versa?
Secondly, what about the performance of the independents? We can’t lump all the independents under the same party, but what happens to them under PR? In the NI election this system benefited from a huge Independent majority in Down North. Had that election had been won by a more typical majority of, say, 5,000 instead of 16,000, under d’Hondt Sinn Fein would have taken that seat. Does that mean that independent candidates are out the door in PR?
Total for UK except England under d’Hondt:
Labour 42
Conservative/UCU 24
LibDem 19
SNP 12
DUP 5
Sinn Fein 5
Plaid Cymru 4
SDLP 3
Alliance 1
UKIP 1
Independents 1
Last up, England. Fortunately, I have one more big report to run for work.
In local election news, Labour just took out the swivel-eyed fascist scum in Barking. And the BNP too.
And I beat you to that story by 11 hours. 
I think you were talking about the Parliamentary candidate, not the local council. But fantastic news.
Ah, I was. I was talking about Old Nick himself. Sorry.
Like the BBC pointed out, that exit poll was strangely accurate.
“It put the Conservatives on 305, Labour on 255, the Lib Dems on 61 and others on 29. With all 649 results now in, the Conservatives are on 306, Labour on 258, the Lib Dems on 57 and others on 28.”
I thought, I’ll split up England into the eight regions the BBC lists. How hard could it be?
Actually, it’s not so difficult as I’d imagined. A lot of data, so I’ll just list the actual and d’Hondt seats for the first four regions.
London
Labour 38 - 28
Conservative 28 - 26
LibDem 7 - 16
Green 0 - 1
UKIP 0 - 1
BNP 0 - 1
South East
Conservative 75 - 43
LibDem 4 - 22
Labour 4 - 14
Green 1 - 1
UKIP 0 - 3
South West
Conservative 36 - 25
LibDem 15 - 20
Labour 4 - 8
UKIP 0 - 2
West Midlands
Conservative 31 - 18
Labour 15 - 13
LibDem 0 - 9
UKIP 0 - 1
BNP 0 - 1
Which makes our total with four regions to go for d’Hondt as follows:
Conservative/UCU 136
Labour 105
LibDem 90
SNP 12
UKIP 8
DUP 5
Sinn Fein 5
Plaid Cymru 4
SDLP 3
Green 2
BNP 2
Alliance 1
Independents 1
He said the Conservative base, not the Conservative party.
I finally got to sleep at 5am, only to have to get up at 8am to get ready for work. It was an exciting night but as nothing was really resolved; I wish I’d just gone to sleep after all.
Why wont Brown just step down? He is the biggest obstacle to a Lib/Lab pact. I know the papers will just say we have yet another unelected prime minister but I’ve never bought that argument. The Libs can’t afford to be seen to prop up a dead parrot unless they can guarantee electoral reform.
A Lib/Lab coalition wouldn’t need to command a majority as long as the other smaller parties didn’t vote against them, and I don’t think they would as long as electoral reform was still on the table. The smaller parties know they would likely benefit from electoral reform and that a defeated Lib/Lab coalition would lead to another election, which the Cons would most likely win outright.
Following on from the Barking and Dagenham news, Labour appears to be the winner in the local elections. With two-thirds of the results announced, Labour have won control of 9 more councils (with 249 new seats), the Tories have lost 8 councils ( -78 seats), and the BNP have lost 22 of their 36 seats.
Here are the results for the last Assembly election from Wikipedia, using the d’Hondt method, by way of comparison.
I strongly agree, but I think the Prime Minister considers himself, y’know, nailed to the perch.
Seems dumb, and a disservice to their constituents, for Sinn Fein to continue to get elected but then refuse to take their seats. Should Parliament pass a law that no one may stand for election to the Commons unless he or she will commit, up front, to swearing the Loyal Oath and serving, if elected? More on it: Oath of Allegiance (United Kingdom) - Wikipedia
Duke, thanks for the number-crunching re: the d’Hondt method. Here’s more about it: D'Hondt method - Wikipedia
Last numbers for the D’Hondt study. Phew.
West Midlands (note; East Midlands erroneously marked “West Midlands” in the last post)
Conservative 33 - 25
Labour 24 - 19
LibDem 2 - 12
UKIP 0 - 2
BNP 0 - 1
Eastern
Conservative 52 - 29
LibDem 4 - 14
Labour 2 - 12
UKIP 0 - 2
BNP 0 - 1
North West
Labour 47 - 31
Conservative 22 - 24
LibDem 6 - 17
UKIP 0 - 2
BNP 0 - 1
Yorkshire/Humber (I’ve estimated Thirsk and Morton here)
Labour 32 - 19
Conservative 19 - 19
LibDem 3 - 13
BNP 0 - 2
UKIP 0 - 1
North East
Labour 25 - 12
Conservative 2 - 7
LibDem 2 - 7
BNP 0 - 1
So the final totals are:
Conservative/UCU 240
Labour 198
LibDem 153
UKIP 15
SNP 12
BNP 8
DUP 5
Sinn Fein 5
Plaid Cymru 4
SDLP 3
Green 2
Alliance 1
Independents 1
Under d’Hondt, the Tories are the largest party, 86 seats short of a majority. Obviously they’re the biggest losers in a system like this; they lost 66 seats–probably not as many as they might have feared, but still a significant number. It goes without saying that the LibDems are the big winners, up a whopping 96 seats.
It seems to me that the makeup of Parliament would be as follows under d’Hondt:
In government: Labour 198 + LibDem 153 + Alliance 1 for a ruling coalition of 353 (majority 27)
Main opposition: Conservative/UCU 240 + UKIP 15 + DUP 5 + Independents 1 for an opposition of 261
Secondary opposition (nationalists): SNP 12 + Plaid Cymru 4 + SDLP 3 + Green 2 for a pressure group of 21
Outsiders: BNP 8. Sinn Fein 5 will not take their seats.
Well if anywhere was going to elect the BNP, they’d have to be Barking.
I know. It’s just too good to be true, isn’t it, that Mr. Oh-racist-dear-me-no-whatever-gives-you-that-idea can be called Old Nick AND that he chooses to stand in Barking. As a side interest, it will be fun to see what happens with that B.N.P. lot, as there were reports of some internal squabbling and nastiness amongst them.
May I say that I’m delighted that poor Duke has such horribly long work reports to run, thus allowing time for a bit of number-crunching. (Actually, it occurs to me that time was I’d be doing that myself with calculator or pen and paper, pre computer). I must be losing interest, or not coping so well with lack of sleep these days. The latter, I think. 
Three cheers for Duke and I hope there’s coffee and cake in this workplace of long reports.