General election 2015

No chance, those witless bigots represent one person in every eight who voted. Expect to see ordinary bloke Nige on every fucking politics show from now until at least the EU referendum.

In the end they are nothing more than a Conservative branch, invented by the Conesrvative party, appointed for talking to the yokels.

Been going round my head since last week... (it's by Seven Hate, from the film Baise Moi)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va54PkLReAA

They remind me of Bad Religion, lovely stuff.

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/russel-brand-dalliance-party-politics.html

brilliantly put, as ever.

So, I did the calculations that I wanted the electoral data set for.

Essentially I'm fed up with the argument that the SNP don't 'deserve' their 56 MPs as on a national level they only got 4.7% of the vote, and that's unfair on UKIP (etc) who got 12.6% of the vote and one seat.

In essence FPTP and the deposit system should encourage parties to only stand in seats that they think that they have a chance of actually winning. The SNP did this far more effectively than UKIP, essentially taking a rifle to the deer hunt, rather than a shotgun. This is not a defence of FPTP, but part of how it works.

UKIP stood in 624 seats, that had 44,684,664 registered voters in them. Of those voters, 29,528,063 bothered to turn up to the polls. UKIP won 3,881,099 of those votes. This gave them the votes of 8.69% of the electorate that could vote for them, and the votes of 13.14% of the electorate that bothered to vote in those areas.

The SNP stood in 59 seats, that had 4,094,784 registered voters in them. Of those voters, 2,910,465 bothered to turn up to the polls. The SNP won 1,454,436 of those votes. This gave them the votes of 35.52% of the electorate that could vote for them, and the votes of 49.97% of the electorate that bothered to vote in those areas.

Both of those percentages for the SNP are, incidentally, higher than for any other party.

Data for this is here: https://goo.gl/PLLTKa

Oh, and if you want a cycling analogy for it, it's close to the one about red light jumpers. The percentage of cyclists and drivers that both have the opportunity to, and that do jump red lights is similar, but people think that more cyclists do it because they see more of them, because they have more opportunity to do so. The first car that stops at the lights prevents all the cars behind them from jumping them, the first cyclist there doesn't prevent the second or third or fourth from doing so.
This is why it's really important to ensure that you're comparing the correct things, as manipulation of stats happens when what is compared is close enough the same that the difference can seem pedantic to many people.

Nice one, good statting.

Last night a group of tourists on Charing Cross Road stopped me and asked me for directions to Wetherspoons. "Any Wetherspoons", they said. What have we done?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32601281

This gives the split under the D'Hondt PR system (which assigns seats using PR in regions, so Scotland is handily self contained). So the SNP would have got 31 seats rather than 56, just over half which isn't bad given their poll (thanks to your figures) of 49.97% of Scottish votes.

More opposition and a fragile majority.

Oh, and if you want a cycling analogy for it, it's close to the one about red light jumpers. The percentage of cyclists and drivers that both have the opportunity to, and that do jump red lights is similar, but people think that more cyclists do it because they see more of them, because they have more opportunity to do so. The first car that stops at the lights prevents all the cars behind them from jumping them, the first cyclist there doesn't prevent the second or third or fourth from doing so.

True, but there's also the factor of All Green Pedestrian Phases. (All pedestrian crossings get a green light simultaneously, whereas all vehicular traffic is held.) Not only does that mean that three, four, or even more stopped car queues see riders jumping lights, it also greatly increases the incentive for people to do it. Back when I started cycle campaigning, which was just before Livingstone became Mayor for the first time, light jumping was a distant second behind footway cycling in popular perception. Then they started to systematically install AGPPs, and that order was reversed within just a few years.

AGPPs?

I'm not hugely in favor of list based PR on the whole, mainly as I like the idea that MP's are tied to places, it makes it harder for them to tell you to get knotted. Even region based D'Hondt isn't quite close enough for me for this, as the areas are too large. It also prevents independent candidates from standing.

I think that personally I'd lean towards larger constituencies, with a number of top-up MP's that are based on the percentage of votes cast (maybe using a regional D'Hondt system) much like the London Assembly is, but I'd be happy to go with something else if I could be persuaded of its merits. I'm also not sure if the top-ups should be on the basis of the initial vote, or a separate one, as I could be persuaded to vote for an excellent constituency MP, but not like their party. Also see the independent candidates point above (I think that I've just explained that I'd rather it was separate).

All Green Pedestrian Phases

Yup, there's no easy answer to what to replace the current system with.

What is definitely true is that whatever system you replace it with will not have the support of the majority of people, which is kind of ironic.

Maybe we need an STV style vote for which voting system to use.

Even region based D'Hondt isn't quite close enough for me for this, as the areas are too large. It also prevents independent candidates from standing.

Assuming a constituency size equivalent to about 5-10 current constituencies, an independent could still become an MP by taking 10% of that region's vote. Not so useful for the extreme of local-issue cases, but I would imagine that independents who garner enough support to be competitive in one current constituency would also have relevance across a wider geographical area.

I still dislike the list system, as it makes it easier for people to fall between the cracks of their representatives. I'm happy with it as a part of a hybrid system, and I wouldn't stop independents or smaller parties putting themselves onto the lists.

I was thinking of swapping the current 650 for about 550 directly elected MPs, with a further 100 based on the list system. The lists would cover around 20 geographical areas, which would give each area around 27 of the new constituencies, and 4 MPs to put forward.

I've not hugely thought this through, and would need to play more with it to see how numbers stacked up though.

The German system works very well, with around 300 constituency MPs and around 360 list MPs (the exact number varies for various reasons). There are a few dysfunctions, such as the famous negatives Stimmgewicht, but nothing on the scale of the dysfunction of the UK's system.

I do like the German system too. But I'm not sure Britain is really ready for coalition politics, where you have to accept parties will need to make compromises, to work together. Clearly the Lib Dem voters couldn't accept that. And if parties aren't willing to make compromises, the whole system won't work.

Or change to an Alternative Vote (AV) system for the House of Commons and use a PR system for the House of Lords. It works well in Australia... Oh wait, no we can still elect morons there too.

I do like the German system too. But I'm not sure Britain is really ready for coalition politics, where you have to accept parties will need to make compromises, to work together. Clearly the Lib Dem voters couldn't accept that. And if parties aren't willing to make compromises, the whole system won't work.

Er? If they have to make compromises, they will. And if the 'alternative' is to continue to have a wildly unrepresentative system for elections in which results are obscured in a completely absurd manner, I don't really see why that should be a decisive reason not to have it.

And yes, that would mean that UKIP would have had 83 seats this time round, but I'm pretty sure that they've only attracted so much of the vote because of the absurdities of the FPTP system. Look at protest voting in Germany, where it isn't nearly as successful.

What I'm saying is, if the parties are so afraid of losing votes in the next election, they won't be willing to enter a coalition. And then there is no majority.

If I was the Lib Dems, and the Conservatives had needed 8 more seats this time, there is no way I would have entered coalition again. It would have been a death sentence.

I'm not saying it's a reason not to have it, I'm just don't think it will come as naturally to this country.

Yes, I agree, UKIP would probably end up like AFD, narrowly missing out

What I'm saying is, if the parties are so afraid of losing votes in the next election, they won't be willing to enter a coalition. And then there is no majority.

If I was the Lib Dems, and the Conservatives had needed 8 more seats this time, there is no way I would have entered coalition again. It would have been a death sentence.

I think that's only because this particular coalition was so utterly bizarre that it was felt to be a betrayal by Lib Dem supporters. An outlier case that, you're right, wouldn't happen again, but other coalitions would very much happen.

Also the LD were naive (maybe a function of Nice Guy Nick). Every time they moderated the Tories, said Tories managed to spin it to "look at the good stuff we are also doing, we're not so bad". I'm not sure future coalition parties would allow that to happen.

http://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/359uz4/people_who_voted_tory_why_did_you_do_it/

fuck, Reddit is hard to read. I have no clue what is going on on there.