Technically incumbency would be the status quo in an election, but I don't think anyone would accept an MP continuing to hold office just because turnout in their constituency was below 50%.
Technically not. The way our elections are structured, we don't vote to keep or replace an incumbent - the whole parliament gets dissolved, there are no MPs, and then we vote for some new ones. Who may or may not be the old ones. So by construction there is no "status quo".
Here's my solution to the whole voters/electorate dilemma...
Both in-person voting and mail-in ballots are offered.
Voting Day is a national holiday.
Under these circumstances, it is assumed that anyone who wanted to vote did vote, and that those who stayed home simply did not care about the issue enough. Therefore, 50% plus 1 of active voters is the only threshold.
Though you still need to make provision for the significant proportion of the population who will still be working. If someone doesn't vote because they start their shift in the hospital too early to get to the polling station before work, and the bus is late getting them home does that mean they didn't care enough?
Not just those, but others who are unable to get to the polling station due to unforeseen circumstances. People get taken ill, or a family emergency can come up unexpectedly for instance.
This would also be a problem with compulsory voting. Some people just wouldn't be able to get to the polls, and therefore there wishes would never be registered.
I would be stunned if Reform actually get more votes than the Tories and there's something of an outlier in general with YouGov at the mo. However, all the data points to a very bad night for the Tories. The distortions of FPTP means that they sit of precipice: it is a fine line between 100 remaining MPs and 30.
Having heard a clip of Farage this morning, he basically admitted his plan is to become an MP, merge Reform with the Conservatives or defect and then become Tory leader. That's not a viable long term strategy for the Conservative party.
There are some interesting quotes in there, including:
"Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority."
Which - if real - is approx 13% of the UK with some fairly disconnected views.
This would also be a problem with compulsory voting. Some people just wouldn't be able to get to the polls, and therefore there wishes would never be registered.
You can have a postal vote. You can have a proxy vote. You might not be able to get 100% turnout but I bet you could get 97% without too much trouble.
I would be stunned if Reform actually get more votes than the Tories and there's something of an outlier in general with YouGov at the mo. However, all the data points to a very bad night for the Tories. The distortions of FPTP means that they sit of precipice: it is a fine line between 100 remaining MPs and 30.
Having heard a clip of Farage this morning, he basically admitted his plan is to become an MP, merge Reform with the Conservatives or defect and then become Tory leader. That's not a viable long term strategy for the Conservative party.
AFZ
It's also kind of horrifying that Starmer could end up with a landslide of historic proportions with less than 40% of the vote. FPTP is looking less and less credible by the day.
I would be stunned if Reform actually get more votes than the Tories and there's something of an outlier in general with YouGov at the mo. However, all the data points to a very bad night for the Tories. The distortions of FPTP means that they sit of precipice: it is a fine line between 100 remaining MPs and 30.
Having heard a clip of Farage this morning, he basically admitted his plan is to become an MP, merge Reform with the Conservatives or defect and then become Tory leader. That's not a viable long term strategy for the Conservative party.
AFZ
It's also kind of horrifying that Starmer could end up with a landslide of historic proportions with less than 40% of the vote. FPTP is looking less and less credible by the day.
In theory you could get a majority with less than 10% of the vote (approximate number of votes needed to win the 326 least populous seats based on 100% turnout), obviously the realities of voting coalitions make this unlikely.
I would be stunned if Reform actually get more votes than the Tories and there's something of an outlier in general with YouGov at the mo. However, all the data points to a very bad night for the Tories. The distortions of FPTP means that they sit of precipice: it is a fine line between 100 remaining MPs and 30.
Having heard a clip of Farage this morning, he basically admitted his plan is to become an MP, merge Reform with the Conservatives or defect and then become Tory leader. That's not a viable long term strategy for the Conservative party.
AFZ
Labour still have a good lead but their vote is down from the mid 40s
@Hugal. Discussed what with the EU? The terms were already renegotiated 4 months before. Why would we start going with a hard Brexit before 'leave won'? Who's 'we' in the 'we were looking at a Norway style relationship'. Theresa May? Get complacent about what? You mean it could be worse?! Even under Labour.
Leave leaders did not push a hard Brexit during the campaign. They talked about a Norway style Brexit mainly. After they won they immediately started pushing a hard Brexit as if that is what they had said all along. When they got power they made that hard Brexit happen.
None of the major parties wanted Brexit so it has always puzzled me how they come to vote for a hard Brexit. I know that the government had problems with the ERG but they could have easily been ignored if the parties had co-operated
@Hugal. Discussed what with the EU? The terms were already renegotiated 4 months before. Why would we start going with a hard Brexit before 'leave won'? Who's 'we' in the 'we were looking at a Norway style relationship'. Theresa May? Get complacent about what? You mean it could be worse?! Even under Labour.
Leave leaders did not push a hard Brexit during the campaign. They talked about a Norway style Brexit mainly. After they won they immediately started pushing a hard Brexit as if that is what they had said all along. When they got power they made that hard Brexit happen.
None of the major parties wanted Brexit so it has always puzzled me how they come to vote for a hard Brexit. I know that the government had problems with the ERG but they could have easily been ignored if the parties had co-operated
Part of the problem was that there weren't the votes for being in the single market or the customs union because some remainers thought they could stop the whole thing. Classic example of letting perfect be the enemy of good.
I would be stunned if Reform actually get more votes than the Tories and there's something of an outlier in general with YouGov at the mo. However, all the data points to a very bad night for the Tories. The distortions of FPTP means that they sit of precipice: it is a fine line between 100 remaining MPs and 30.
Having heard a clip of Farage this morning, he basically admitted his plan is to become an MP, merge Reform with the Conservatives or defect and then become Tory leader. That's not a viable long term strategy for the Conservative party.
AFZ
It's also kind of horrifying that Starmer could end up with a landslide of historic proportions with less than 40% of the vote. FPTP is looking less and less credible by the day.
In theory you could get a majority with less than 10% of the vote (approximate number of votes needed to win the 326 least populous seats based on 100% turnout), obviously the realities of voting coalitions make this unlikely.
Sure, every voting system has hypothetical scenarios that are deeply unattractive. In this case, however, we're close to realising a pretty extreme failure state of FPTP, even if it falls some way short of the hypothetical worst case.
I would agree with that, @Arethosemyfeet. Which may surprise you, but then again it might not.
I can provoke a disagreement, if you like, by pointing out that if tory remainers had been willing to tolerate Corbyn as PM in a unity government that would also have done the job.
As an Australian who has actually worked as a polling official, may I drop into this thread to point out that although our electoral laws are usually referred to as compulsory voting, they are actually compulsory turnout. I.e. no one will stop you from walking straight from the polling official who has crossed your name off the roll and given you your ballot papers to the ballot box with a blank ballot. [Governments of all stripes get a bit grumpy if you say this too loudly, but it is correct]. I, and many other people, regard the very mild compulsion [i.e. easy to enrol, relatively easy to attend a polling booth or vote by post, and relatively low fines], as a reminder to everybody that voting is a responsibility as well as a right.
Both postal votes and early voting are readily available, and early voting has become more common over the last few elections, which is a little sad, as it makes the Saturday of the election a bit less of a community activity.
Our electoral laws are not perfect, particularly in not having an option to indicate that you don’t want a candidate to be in the parliament at all, rather just preferring another party’s policies, but they are better than a lot of places.
I would agree with that, @Arethosemyfeet. Which may surprise you, but then again it might not.
I can provoke a disagreement, if you like, by pointing out that if tory remainers had been willing to tolerate Corbyn as PM in a unity government that would also have done the job.
As would Corbyn being willing to tolerate leading the Labour Party into a unity government under say Dominic Grieve…
The whole point was - and you were spot on with perfect being enemy of good - we ended up with a a situation where just as every Brexiter had their own version in their head, so did the stop-Brexit camp, who consistently failed to agree on any one formula to oppose it.
The ERG grandstanding was shameful, but so too in retrospect was what seemed like every last remain MP tabling their own nuanced amendments one after another.
Personally I feel pretty failed by nearly every member of the 2017 Westminster parliament, on either side.
When the time came to do ‘grown up politics’ virtually none of them knew how to do it.
I rather expected that response @Arethosemyfeet and we could argue the toss about Corbyn's equivocation before belatedly throwing his hat into the Remain/Let's Sort It Out Properly camp.
As a more active Lib Dem than I am now, I was not alone among the rank and file in expressing misgivings about my own party's post-Referendum stance.
I don't think the hard-line Remainers did any of us any favours and we'd all have been better pressing for an amelioration in the form of a 'softer' deal.
There's an irony though, don't you think, in wishing that Corbyn - who was in a very awkward position - had formed a unity government with pro-European Conservatives when the Lib Dems have faced nothing but excoriation from the Labour left over the Coalition.
I'm not defending the Coalition, by the way. Just pointing out the possible dilemmas and potential double-standards.
Whatever the case, I don't think any political grouping came out of it smelling of roses.
But what's done is done. All any of us can do is brush the shit off once it's dried and try not to fall in the manure heap again.
That might take a generation or two, of course and in the meantime there'll be new crises, new compromises and new barrow loads of manure.
Until we all see sense and get some kind of electoral reform.
Even then, the problems won't go away. We'll have another set but even so ...
There's an irony though, don't you think, in wishing that Corbyn - who was in a very awkward position - had formed a unity government with pro-European Conservatives when the Lib Dems have faced nothing but excoriation from the Labour left over the Coalition.
I'm not defending the Coalition, by the way. Just pointing out the possible dilemmas and potential double-standards.
I think there is a difference between a temporary unity government in pursuit of a small number of shared objectives and carrying water for a tory government for 5 years and getting little to nothing for it.
Although I consider FPTP to be a bad system, it was democratically chosen over AV, which I consider to be a slightly better system.
Although that's going to depend on how you measure "better".
AV is better in the sense of enabling people to put their first preference for who they want regardless of their prospects for being elected, without the fallacy of "wasted vote" entering thinking.
But, lower preference votes, which in most cases will be what is counted when first preference is for smaller parties or independents, will still be for the same set of larger parties. That's going to still lead to tactical voting, albeit based on lower preference votes. And, it's unlikely to significantly change the overall result for any given constituency, though in close marginals between one party and a group of others it can tip things by removing the split vote effect.
The effect in practice would be an increase in first preference vote share for smaller parties, but no increase in the number of MPs elected for those parties. And, thus, the larger parties gaining even more MPs than their share of first preference votes. Which is why the Jenkins Commission, charged with examining options for electoral reform which would improve proportionality in Parliament, rejected AV. It's also why Cameron offered a referendum on this option, it was a win win for him, retain FPTP and the system that ensured Conservative majority of MPs on a minority of the votes in most elections, or switch to AV and increase the chances of a majority of MPs from a minority of votes.
@Hugal. Discussed what with the EU? The terms were already renegotiated 4 months before. Why would we start going with a hard Brexit before 'leave won'? Who's 'we' in the 'we were looking at a Norway style relationship'. Theresa May? Get complacent about what? You mean it could be worse?! Even under Labour.
Leave leaders did not push a hard Brexit during the campaign. They talked about a Norway style Brexit mainly. After they won they immediately started pushing a hard Brexit as if that is what they had said all along. When they got power they made that hard Brexit happen.
Links? Who is 'They'? Here are Vote Leave's, i.e Johnson and Cummings, 15 lies.
This has been talked to death on these boards. I cannot reasonably find things at the moment as I am at work, but many of us lived through it. We know the promises and the things said.
I would agree with that, @Arethosemyfeet. Which may surprise you, but then again it might not.
I can provoke a disagreement, if you like, by pointing out that if tory remainers had been willing to tolerate Corbyn as PM in a unity government that would also have done the job.
As would Corbyn being willing to tolerate leading the Labour Party into a unity government under say Dominic Grieve…
This was indeed one proposal, and was Grieve et al who ultimately demurred.
Part of the problem was that there weren't the votes for being in the single market or the customs union because some remainers thought they could stop the whole thing. Classic example of letting perfect be the enemy of good.
And besides, a large number of the people who *led* the remain campaigns saw it as an instrument for something else. There's an element of it being self serving here, but the Tom Baldwin interview I linked upthread is interesting reading in this context.
They didn't need a unity government. They just needed sensible MPs to vote sensibly on this issue
The government has control of the parliamentary timetable. If you want to get anything done without it being talked out of time you need to be the government.
It's also why Cameron offered a referendum on this option, it was a win win for him, retain FPTP and the system that ensured Conservative majority of MPs on a minority of the votes in most elections, or switch to AV and increase the chances of a majority of MPs from a minority of votes.
Conventional wisdom says that AV would likely be bad for the Tories, because of the number of Tory marginals where Labour and Lib Dem voters would likely list the other second preference. In a model where the vote is "Tories vs everyone else", the Tories need FPTP.
If the current election were to be conducted under AV, one might suppose that many Reform voters would vote Tory as second preference, and so the Tories would get less of a drubbing than the one the polls suggest they're going to get.
Or Labour and Conservative - during my time working at a Cambridge computer firm I had some colleagues who were keen Labour activists but were more anti-LibDem than they were anti-Conservative: "I can respect an honest Tory but those LibDems have no principles at all" is a quote I seem to remember...
As a Cambridge resident, I suspect that quote reflects that the rivals for Labour in the Cambridge seat have been the Lib Dems not the Conservatives for many years and the Lib Dems are very visible. Cambridge is red/yellow in a sea of blue but the tide may be turning in the county seats around us.
Here's my solution to the whole voters/electorate dilemma...
Both in-person voting and mail-in ballots are offered.
Voting Day is a national holiday.
Under these circumstances, it is assumed that anyone who wanted to vote did vote, and that those who stayed home simply did not care about the issue enough. Therefore, 50% plus 1 of active voters is the only threshold.
Yes to 1 and 2. No to 3. Make voting compulsory, like Australia, and include a "None of the Above" box.
And with voting on Saturdays to assist voters get to the booths. No matter what day you choose is going to be inconvenient for some people, but a weekend day will adversely fewer than midweek. But there's no need to include "None of the Above" - no-one knows what you do in the booth, so if you simply go into one, fold the ballot paper in half (as most people do in any event) and put it into the ballot box you'll achieve the same result. If you want to, you can write in a description of one or all of the candidates.
The bbq out the front is a bonus with any profits going to a charity.
We've had the discussion about polling day and other associated activities before. It probably says a lot about British culture that many would view a Saturday voting day as an imposition on their day off.
And, at the moment you don't even get candidates or other activists to hang around polling stations. Voters just turn up, vote and leave so why bother when no one stops to chat? Many drive in and out, so wouldn't even really notice people standing around outside the gates.
I don't know about the UK but in Canada campaigning in front of a polling station on Election Day is completely illegal.
I expect it is here, too, but it's not uncommon to see candidates visiting polling stations, or to see supporters of this party or that on or near the premises. I once asked a group of elderly UKIP supporters how they would manage in their care home, if all the horrid foreigners were deported, but they gave an evasive answer...
My local polling station is the Village Hall, and, as our current-ish MP lives (and is well known) locally, they were visible at or near the Hall last time around. They weren't doing any actual campaigning, unless simply reminding people of their existence could be so described!
I don't know about the UK but in Canada campaigning in front of a polling station on Election Day is completely illegal.
I expect it is here, too, but it's not uncommon to see candidates visiting polling stations, or to see supporters of this party or that on or near the premises
They can campaign in public spaces that are near polling stations:
In the immediate environs of a polling station (eg: the path outside) it would be illegal to do anything that might be considered "campaigning" - party political posters or similar would only be allowed on private property (eg: a home that's directly opposite the gate). But, further back where people wouldn't be potentially impeding access to the polling station it is permitted to display posters or for people to stand wearing party rosette etc.
Inside the grounds of the polling station and surrounding property it would be strictly forbidden for anyone to be campaigning at all. Even wearing a politically themed T-shirt while you vote would be illegal (in practice staff are more likely to ask you to simply put on a jacket to hide it than call in the police). Candidates and delegated agents are allowed into polling stations to observe proceedings, they're allowed to enquire about turn out and at the start of polling can inspect boxes to confirm they're empty before being sealed and at the end of polling observe that the seals are still intact and paperwork is kept with the boxes as they're collected. Candidates and agents are allowed to talk to voters, but that should strictly be to thank them for voting and not to enquire how they voted or in anyway to suggest how they should vote.
We've had the discussion about polling day and other associated activities before. It probably says a lot about British culture that many would view a Saturday voting day as an imposition on their day off.
To say nothing of all the Jews who might not want to vote on their Sabbath...
I don't know about the UK but in Canada campaigning in front of a polling station on Election Day is completely illegal.
I expect it is here, too, but it's not uncommon to see candidates visiting polling stations, or to see supporters of this party or that on or near the premises
They can campaign in public spaces that are near polling stations:
In the immediate environs of a polling station (eg: the path outside) it would be illegal to do anything that might be considered "campaigning" - party political posters or similar would only be allowed on private property (eg: a home that's directly opposite the gate). But, further back where people wouldn't be potentially impeding access to the polling station it is permitted to display posters or for people to stand wearing party rosette etc.
Inside the grounds of the polling station and surrounding property it would be strictly forbidden for anyone to be campaigning at all. Even wearing a politically themed T-shirt while you vote would be illegal (in practice staff are more likely to ask you to simply put on a jacket to hide it than call in the police). Candidates and delegated agents are allowed into polling stations to observe proceedings, they're allowed to enquire about turn out and at the start of polling can inspect boxes to confirm they're empty before being sealed and at the end of polling observe that the seals are still intact and paperwork is kept with the boxes as they're collected. Candidates and agents are allowed to talk to voters, but that should strictly be to thank them for voting and not to enquire how they voted or in anyway to suggest how they should vote.
Before we did the postal vote, I don't recall anyone ever speaking to me outside a polling station and no candidate or their representative has ever knocked on my door
Before we did the postal vote, I don't recall anyone ever speaking to me outside a polling station and no candidate or their representative has ever knocked on my door
That is the same for me. I live a Con stronghold. The local MP lives locally in the area but not locally to the small town I live in. He has sent out invites to take locals to the Houses of Parliament to see how it works before, and I got a hand addressed letter from him about why a I should vote for him. I won’t but he seems a decent sort.
Before we did the postal vote, I don't recall anyone ever speaking to me outside a polling station and no candidate or their representative has ever knocked on my door
That is the same for me. I live a Con stronghold. The local MP lives locally in the area but not locally to the small town I live in. He has sent out invites to take locals to the Houses of Parliament to see how it works before, and I got a hand addressed letter from him about why a I should vote for him. I won’t but he seems a decent sort.
The trouble with the decent sort of Tory is that they have nevertheless voted in favour of a great many abhorrent policies (which is why you shouldn't vote for them, of course).
Before we did the postal vote, I don't recall anyone ever speaking to me outside a polling station and no candidate or their representative has ever knocked on my door
That is the same for me. I live a Con stronghold. The local MP lives locally in the area but not locally to the small town I live in. He has sent out invites to take locals to the Houses of Parliament to see how it works before, and I got a hand addressed letter from him about why a I should vote for him. I won’t but he seems a decent sort.
The trouble with the decent sort of Tory is that they have nevertheless voted in favour of a great many abhorrent policies (which is why you shouldn't vote for them, of course).
Before we did the postal vote, I don't recall anyone ever speaking to me outside a polling station and no candidate or their representative has ever knocked on my door
That is the same for me. I live a Con stronghold. The local MP lives locally in the area but not locally to the small town I live in. He has sent out invites to take locals to the Houses of Parliament to see how it works before, and I got a hand addressed letter from him about why a I should vote for him. I won’t but he seems a decent sort.
You used to live in a Con Stronghold. I suspect that it's now a marginal
We've had the discussion about polling day and other associated activities before. It probably says a lot about British culture that many would view a Saturday voting day as an imposition on their day off.
To say nothing of all the Jews who might not want to vote on their Sabbath...
Sunday then. Although all the Jews who couldn't vote on the Sabbath would be less than 100,000.
On a tangential note I don't like postal votes. They dilute the principle of the secret ballot. It would be possible to intimidate or bribe a postal voter and, importantly, check up on them so that you'd know you'd been successful. I think they should only be available for very good reasons.
On a tangential note I don't like postal votes. They dilute the principle of the secret ballot. It would be possible to intimidate or bribe a postal voter and, importantly, check up on them so that you'd know you'd been successful. I think they should only be available for very good reasons.
On that tangential note, I don't think I follow. How is a postal voter especially vulnerable?
I have a postal vote. I miss voting in person but it's necessary.
I leave for work at 7. It's not unusual for me to be late home. Therefore, without knowing in advance when an election will occur, means I cannot be sure of being able to vote. This year, I am away at a conference on election day...
I think a postal vote being easily available is a very good thing.
On a tangential note I don't like postal votes. They dilute the principle of the secret ballot. It would be possible to intimidate or bribe a postal voter and, importantly, check up on them so that you'd know you'd been successful. I think they should only be available for very good reasons.
Yeah, I've wondered about that myself, and not just in regards to secrecy.
As long as we're gonna say eg. "You can't show up visibly drunk to vote", it doesn't really make sense to allow someone to vote in the privacy of his own home, where he could be bombed out of his skull with no way anyone could know.
Comments
Technically not. The way our elections are structured, we don't vote to keep or replace an incumbent - the whole parliament gets dissolved, there are no MPs, and then we vote for some new ones. Who may or may not be the old ones. So by construction there is no "status quo".
This would also be a problem with compulsory voting. Some people just wouldn't be able to get to the polls, and therefore there wishes would never be registered.
Lab: 37% (-1)
Reform: 19% (+2)
Con: 18% (nc)
Lib Dem: 14% (-1)
Green: 7 (-1)
SNP: 3 (+1)
Plaid: 1 (nc)
Other: 2 (+1)
I would be stunned if Reform actually get more votes than the Tories and there's something of an outlier in general with YouGov at the mo. However, all the data points to a very bad night for the Tories. The distortions of FPTP means that they sit of precipice: it is a fine line between 100 remaining MPs and 30.
Having heard a clip of Farage this morning, he basically admitted his plan is to become an MP, merge Reform with the Conservatives or defect and then become Tory leader. That's not a viable long term strategy for the Conservative party.
AFZ
https://www.thetimes.com/article/cdc8d582-17fc-4757-8f4b-ddcee80fdfdb?shareToken=03ce0c205cae031e1f067d82e22828f4 (archived: https://archive.is/R4WzN )
There are some interesting quotes in there, including:
"Yet the poll highlighted the challenge facing Tory strategists in converting this sentiment into votes. Only 22 per cent of Reform voters thought Labour would win any kind of majority."
Which - if real - is approx 13% of the UK with some fairly disconnected views.
You can have a postal vote. You can have a proxy vote. You might not be able to get 100% turnout but I bet you could get 97% without too much trouble.
It's also kind of horrifying that Starmer could end up with a landslide of historic proportions with less than 40% of the vote. FPTP is looking less and less credible by the day.
In theory you could get a majority with less than 10% of the vote (approximate number of votes needed to win the 326 least populous seats based on 100% turnout), obviously the realities of voting coalitions make this unlikely.
None of the major parties wanted Brexit so it has always puzzled me how they come to vote for a hard Brexit. I know that the government had problems with the ERG but they could have easily been ignored if the parties had co-operated
Part of the problem was that there weren't the votes for being in the single market or the customs union because some remainers thought they could stop the whole thing. Classic example of letting perfect be the enemy of good.
Sure, every voting system has hypothetical scenarios that are deeply unattractive. In this case, however, we're close to realising a pretty extreme failure state of FPTP, even if it falls some way short of the hypothetical worst case.
I can provoke a disagreement, if you like, by pointing out that if tory remainers had been willing to tolerate Corbyn as PM in a unity government that would also have done the job.
Both postal votes and early voting are readily available, and early voting has become more common over the last few elections, which is a little sad, as it makes the Saturday of the election a bit less of a community activity.
Our electoral laws are not perfect, particularly in not having an option to indicate that you don’t want a candidate to be in the parliament at all, rather just preferring another party’s policies, but they are better than a lot of places.
As would Corbyn being willing to tolerate leading the Labour Party into a unity government under say Dominic Grieve…
The ERG grandstanding was shameful, but so too in retrospect was what seemed like every last remain MP tabling their own nuanced amendments one after another.
Personally I feel pretty failed by nearly every member of the 2017 Westminster parliament, on either side.
When the time came to do ‘grown up politics’ virtually none of them knew how to do it.
As a more active Lib Dem than I am now, I was not alone among the rank and file in expressing misgivings about my own party's post-Referendum stance.
I don't think the hard-line Remainers did any of us any favours and we'd all have been better pressing for an amelioration in the form of a 'softer' deal.
There's an irony though, don't you think, in wishing that Corbyn - who was in a very awkward position - had formed a unity government with pro-European Conservatives when the Lib Dems have faced nothing but excoriation from the Labour left over the Coalition.
I'm not defending the Coalition, by the way. Just pointing out the possible dilemmas and potential double-standards.
Whatever the case, I don't think any political grouping came out of it smelling of roses.
But what's done is done. All any of us can do is brush the shit off once it's dried and try not to fall in the manure heap again.
That might take a generation or two, of course and in the meantime there'll be new crises, new compromises and new barrow loads of manure.
Until we all see sense and get some kind of electoral reform.
Even then, the problems won't go away. We'll have another set but even so ...
I think there is a difference between a temporary unity government in pursuit of a small number of shared objectives and carrying water for a tory government for 5 years and getting little to nothing for it.
AV is better in the sense of enabling people to put their first preference for who they want regardless of their prospects for being elected, without the fallacy of "wasted vote" entering thinking.
But, lower preference votes, which in most cases will be what is counted when first preference is for smaller parties or independents, will still be for the same set of larger parties. That's going to still lead to tactical voting, albeit based on lower preference votes. And, it's unlikely to significantly change the overall result for any given constituency, though in close marginals between one party and a group of others it can tip things by removing the split vote effect.
The effect in practice would be an increase in first preference vote share for smaller parties, but no increase in the number of MPs elected for those parties. And, thus, the larger parties gaining even more MPs than their share of first preference votes. Which is why the Jenkins Commission, charged with examining options for electoral reform which would improve proportionality in Parliament, rejected AV. It's also why Cameron offered a referendum on this option, it was a win win for him, retain FPTP and the system that ensured Conservative majority of MPs on a minority of the votes in most elections, or switch to AV and increase the chances of a majority of MPs from a minority of votes.
This has been talked to death on these boards. I cannot reasonably find things at the moment as I am at work, but many of us lived through it. We know the promises and the things said.
This was indeed one proposal, and was Grieve et al who ultimately demurred.
And besides, a large number of the people who *led* the remain campaigns saw it as an instrument for something else. There's an element of it being self serving here, but the Tom Baldwin interview I linked upthread is interesting reading in this context.
The government has control of the parliamentary timetable. If you want to get anything done without it being talked out of time you need to be the government.
Conventional wisdom says that AV would likely be bad for the Tories, because of the number of Tory marginals where Labour and Lib Dem voters would likely list the other second preference. In a model where the vote is "Tories vs everyone else", the Tories need FPTP.
If the current election were to be conducted under AV, one might suppose that many Reform voters would vote Tory as second preference, and so the Tories would get less of a drubbing than the one the polls suggest they're going to get.
And with voting on Saturdays to assist voters get to the booths. No matter what day you choose is going to be inconvenient for some people, but a weekend day will adversely fewer than midweek. But there's no need to include "None of the Above" - no-one knows what you do in the booth, so if you simply go into one, fold the ballot paper in half (as most people do in any event) and put it into the ballot box you'll achieve the same result. If you want to, you can write in a description of one or all of the candidates.
The bbq out the front is a bonus with any profits going to a charity.
And, at the moment you don't even get candidates or other activists to hang around polling stations. Voters just turn up, vote and leave so why bother when no one stops to chat? Many drive in and out, so wouldn't even really notice people standing around outside the gates.
I expect it is here, too, but it's not uncommon to see candidates visiting polling stations, or to see supporters of this party or that on or near the premises. I once asked a group of elderly UKIP supporters how they would manage in their care home, if all the horrid foreigners were deported, but they gave an evasive answer...
My local polling station is the Village Hall, and, as our current-ish MP lives (and is well known) locally, they were visible at or near the Hall last time around. They weren't doing any actual campaigning, unless simply reminding people of their existence could be so described!
They can campaign in public spaces that are near polling stations:
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/code-conduct-campaigners-uk-parliamentary-general-elections-great-britain-local-elections-england/campaigning-outside-polling-places
The people directly outside the station itself are generally tellers.
Inside the grounds of the polling station and surrounding property it would be strictly forbidden for anyone to be campaigning at all. Even wearing a politically themed T-shirt while you vote would be illegal (in practice staff are more likely to ask you to simply put on a jacket to hide it than call in the police). Candidates and delegated agents are allowed into polling stations to observe proceedings, they're allowed to enquire about turn out and at the start of polling can inspect boxes to confirm they're empty before being sealed and at the end of polling observe that the seals are still intact and paperwork is kept with the boxes as they're collected. Candidates and agents are allowed to talk to voters, but that should strictly be to thank them for voting and not to enquire how they voted or in anyway to suggest how they should vote.
To say nothing of all the Jews who might not want to vote on their Sabbath...
Thank you, both, for the clarification.
The trouble with the decent sort of Tory is that they have nevertheless voted in favour of a great many abhorrent policies (which is why you shouldn't vote for them, of course).
Or, more succinctly: ATAB.
Sunday then. Although all the Jews who couldn't vote on the Sabbath would be less than 100,000.
Especially when we could just legislate to make election Thursdays into bank holidays - we could call them Democracy Days.
Our productivity is crap as it is. What's wrong with Sunday?
Declaring a holiday on election day is going to have the square root of bugger all effect on productivity.
On that tangential note, I don't think I follow. How is a postal voter especially vulnerable?
I have a postal vote. I miss voting in person but it's necessary.
I leave for work at 7. It's not unusual for me to be late home. Therefore, without knowing in advance when an election will occur, means I cannot be sure of being able to vote. This year, I am away at a conference on election day...
I think a postal vote being easily available is a very good thing.
AFZ
Yeah, I've wondered about that myself, and not just in regards to secrecy.
As long as we're gonna say eg. "You can't show up visibly drunk to vote", it doesn't really make sense to allow someone to vote in the privacy of his own home, where he could be bombed out of his skull with no way anyone could know.