Whoever wins today’s elections, democracy is the loser under first past the post
Polly Toynbee
That it is possible to throw the bsatards out is rather the point of an electoral system, no?
Whoever wins today’s elections, democracy is the loser under first past the post
Polly Toynbee
That it is possible to throw the bsatards out is rather the point of an electoral system, no?
The BBC is currently showing Reform (for me the best of a bad bunch) up 382 seats, Labour down 258, the Tories down 158, the Lib Dems up 35 and the Greens up 27.
Beyond wondering who the fuck is voting for the Lib Dems, I’m heartened – as things stand – by the relative lack of success of the Greens.
Meanwhile, Keith ‘Tis but a scratch’ Starmer is quoted thusly: ‘Days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised.’
What change, and to whom did you promise it, you cunt?
And if voters are kicking your fuckwit minions out by the lorryload doesn’t weaken your resolve, why not?
What’s incentivising you if votes aren’t?
At this stage in the game, it must be the chance to really f**k the country good and proper
Or not to disappoint his Chinese bosses?
I’m not certain it’s just Chinese bosses.
I’ve concluded that Starmer believes almost solely in Human Rights, and specifically, rule by Human Rights lawyers. The EU, especially the ECJ, is full of Human Rights lawyers, which is why Starmer’s every act is designed to pull us back under their control.
This is the endgame for socialism and communism. The electorate rejects it: it wants material advancement. Mass-education indoctrination fails: it’s had a century to indoctrinate the entire population but too many people see through the con as they mature.
Therefore the only way forward is institutional entryism and autocracy by a trustworthy cadre, but ideologically, Progressivism is too unstable. Something documented and predictable is required, with a pre-existing enforcement mechanism. Hence the cult of Human Rights.
Spot on, Norman. Starmer, Hermer et al are human rights internationalists and transnational progressivists, dedicated to a vague ideal of a world governed by international ‘law’.
Therefore the only way forward
No. Their plan is better than that:
Destroy middle class prosperity.
Welcome invaders, demand people waste their money on renewables, heat pumps and electric cars, stop law enforcement. Destroy health care. Create absurd regulatory burden.
It is proceeding.
Polly, take note…
MPs favourite expression, “Change”. New broom-itis.
His other memorable quote of the day was “I’m not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos.”
Nope he stays at number 10 where he can maintain his customary level of chaos.
It’s worth contemplating the conceit of a man who thinks he is so indispensable that his moving from his current job to a different job would plunge the country into chaos.
Anyway, and on the subject of chaos, when we’ve got savage tribesmen routinely hacking people to death and other savage tribesmen riding horses through northern cities by way of shows of tribal dominance, to mention just two examples, I’d say we’re already pretty far gone in the chaos stakes.
He’s not finished yet. No-one else on the Labour front bench can complete his task of re-integrating the UK into the structure of transnational rule by Human Rights Lawyer cabal.
Wait until all results are in before cheering too much. Some councils finish counting earlier than others. With a few more results in the Greens are +217, more impressive if you compare to their previous figure (82 up to 299). Reform figure is good, Conservatives avoided a total wipe out and made some gains in places but overall lost heavily. Progressives will find plenty to cheer in the results. Even the rise of Reform gives them an excellent bogeyman to justify clamping down on social media and generally reeducating the proles. “London in decline” memes are racist, etc. https://order-order.com/2026/05/07/sadiq-khan-uses-botched-research-to-call-for-state-clampdown-on-the-internet/
The problem with FPTP is that parties say, “Vote for us or x wins.”
Under a proportional system that seems harder to justify and parties would have to campaign on their policies.
Also when it comes to local elections it can mean one party states on less than 50% of the vote.
I’m with Nicolas de Santo, “Pakistan is Britain’s second worst invention, after FPTP.”
Also FPTP makes it harder for new parties to start – which seems from a free market point of view bad.
Saying that the results are encouraging today.
Proportional is a good theory.
In practice it results in elected members being diluted by a list of party hacks, who (because they aren’t elected) are impossible to remove.
Or else the members are entirely party hacks.
You can have an open-list system, like Finland: several districts of varying size where you vote for one candidate. The votes for all the candidates of each party are combined to determine how many seats each party gets in a district, but those are then awarded on the basis of how many individual votes the individual candidate got. So if, say, the Social Democrats win six of Helsinki’s seats, those go to the top six SDP vote-getters, and not to whatever order the SDP might want.
In theory, this would make it easier not to have as many party hacks. How much that works out in reality is a matter of opinion.
PR produces coalitions. In coalitions, very often one small party holds the balance of power, and becomes disproportionately influential. The result is an electorate ruled by a party very few voted for, largely in control of an agenda no-one explicitly voted for. This result is not “democratic”. Israel’s government is a good example of this but there are many others.
Democracy makes it possible cheaply to distil vast complexity into a simple binary, which is what referenda do, and what FPTP achieves when it results in an outright majority: the majority of the voting electorate actually gets what it voted for.
PR would result (in at least some cases) with the Greens holding said balance of power. Therefore PR is bad.
If you think that the majority gets what it voted for, name the last UK general election in which that was the case (i.e. the party that formed the subsequent government got at least 50% of the votes).
For comparison, the last such government in Ireland, which uses STV, is the current one with the government getting 21.86% (Fianna Fail), 20.8% (Fine Gael), and 10 (!) independents on 13.2% for a total of 55.86% of the votes cast (first preference – not including subsequent transfers).
I think the criticism of FPTP and PR is both justified. But there’s no ideal voting system. The economist Kenneth Arrow had a mathematical proof of that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem
My least worst choice is probably multimember STV. You knock a couple of neighbouring constituencies together – still elect same number of representatives but it’s done essentially proportionately within that local area. It’s more proportionate than FPTP but not so friendly to tiny parties as PR, and representatives are still locally accountable. You can also vote more honestly instead of tactically because like in AV voters get to rank candidates, so you can vote for your true preference first even if they’re unlikely to get any of the seats (you might get lucky if enough people think like you so it’s worth a try, plus it sends a signal as first preference vote shares are widely reported). Then you can hold your nose and put down your “well at least it stops the other guy getting in” preference down as second choice. If there’s someone you especially object to you can rank parties lower down the ballot too so they come above your most disliked party, though it isn’t compulsory and may not make any difference unless there’s a tight seat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem
The Irish use it. Came surprisingly close to being used for the UK in 1918 – it seemed either AV or STV would be introduced but in the end neither was – but it did end up being used in university constituencies. https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2011/05/06/the-av-what-if-story-of-1918/
Personally I would copy the Swiss voting system their economy has done better than the UKs in the last 50 years despite being smaller and not having North sea oil.
Agree. Quarterly referenda on clear questions; reduced role and power for the political class. Who knows the names of any Swiss politicians? Almost no-one. That’s the way it should be.
Yes, I never really paid attention to it, but when I saw how the Irish system worked, I actually thought it a great idea. Still produced two party results after SF faded away in the 1920s though.
Wales has a funny system this year with 16 super constituencies electing half a dozen or so members.
Realise I stupidly linked Arrow’s impossibility theorem twice instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
Proportional Repeesentation makes minority Parties king-makers. The consequence is fringe, idiocy becomes mainstream policy. It is why we have Net Zero because the Greens in Germany who invented al the Eco-shite, made it frontline German Government Policy – and therefore ÈU policy – for decades.
PR produces the perpetual Uniparty – it can never be removed, just change the seating arrangements.
In the Netherlands, and Germany, when a new Party emerges and gains electoral support, even if it becomes the largest Party, the other collude to deny it power. That is worse than Parties colluding at the ballot box to stop Party X getting a majority, because it isn’t possible to organise all voters collude.
If PR is so great, why is Europe such a mess?
If FPTP is so great why is the UK such a mess?
In the Netherlands the left had to murder Pym Fortuyn to stop him being PM – I don’t think he would have had a chance here.
“why is the UK such a mess?“
because people have short memories and kids have no memory of how bad things can be when you vote for the wrong lot.
Cast you mind back to the mid to late 1970’s
Things weren’t that great under the Tories – a teacher had to go into hiding and they wouldn’t say anything about it.
The problem is not FPTP but that our franchise is universal. The franchise should be limited to payers of income tax. In a universal franchise – under either FPTP or PR – those who don’t pay income tax (and CGT?*) will always vote for more benefits and more public expenditure, leading to national penury and economic collapse.
*over the last 3 years I’ve paid £45k+ of CGT on property transactions.
This isn’t the type of change it’s possible to build consensus for so it’s pipe dream stuff, but stepping inside the parallel universe where it happens I doubt it would work as intended. Too many public sector workers plus people on in-work benefits or heavily benefiting from public services. Even a lot of the well paid private sector jobs are full of “progressive” people these days, you often need to have gone to university to fall into that trap.
Yes very true.
The private sector people are only progressive because they can afford to be, and anyway, Tax The Rich. Once these people know it’s actually only them paying for stuff their attitudes may change.
So what do you suggest to prevent welfare demands destroying society?
AI and robotics. It takes it to the logical conclusion where the “workers” don’t get paid and everyone else i.e. “people” get universal welfare benefits.
There won’t be universal welfare benefits. This future will be the state distributing resources. The people will be utterly dependent on the state. It won’t be pretty.
I haven’t paid income tax for 35 years, and have never paid CGT. But I do pay council tax and VAT and betting duty and insurance tax and I think I’ll stop there before I start crying. I’ve never claimed any benefits either.
There’s nothing morally righteous about income tax or CGT above the countless other taxes everyone pays. I would be mighty aggrieved to the point of violence if I were to lose my vote merely on account of winning enough on the horses to avoid paid employment.
Yeah, income tax payers only is a total non-runner. No party could seriously use it in their platform and there’d be bloodshed if they tried it. I take Theo’s point that voters demanding the expansion of the welfare state is a problem but it’s just one of many problems we’re all facing.
Just like “only university graduates should be allowed to vote” is not really a viable solution to the feeling intellectual standards are in decline, or the Starship Trooper “votes only for those who serve” idea isn’t a viable solution to the problem of declining armed forces recruitment and fewer young people agreeing in polls that they’d ever serve their country in the event of a war.
Still, I’ll do my part to answer Theo’s “what do you suggest”. The basic idea of “producers” or “taxpayers” having their own say is something I can see the point of, even beyond the welfare issue. Since the House of Lords is being reconfigured, I wouldn’t mind some Hong Kong style seats for businesses. Perhaps grouped by industry – finance, retail, construction, engineering, small businesses, whatever. Businesses get to vote on who represents their category. Weight votes by tax paid to the Exchequer in the last few years. Candidates must be an actual executive, or recently retired, working in that category – maybe not that exact rule but you do need something to stop this just being another graft that professional campaigners can run for. Point is to get someone able to stand up and say from experience “this is a terrible policy for my industry because…”
It’s not totally outlandish because the idea has happened elsewhere and I think you can get away with more not-exactly-democratic stuff in the Lords than the Commons. In my view it beats the way there’s the odd politically appointed businessman in the Lords, and having elections forces them to listen to and represent other firms within their sector. (And yes I’m aware that categories aren’t without their problems.) Long shot? Certainly. Cure-all? Obviously not. Worth a pop? Maybe, but anyone who sticks it in their manifesto is going to get lampooned for it. Just not as disastrously as a party running on a “vote for me and I’ll take your vote away forever” platform.
Well, it would certainly be an improvement on the current system whereby businesses do their lobbying in the shadows.
Thought did cross my mind. Wouldn’t end lobbying of course and there’d be a lot of criticism for conflicts of interest. Should the representatives all be retired or take a compulsory sabbatical? Then again, plenty of MPs return to jobs doctoring, lawyering or teaching – even moonlightimg while in office – and they don’t get as much stick as they deserve for their own conflicts of interest.
But my main point is there are “voices of business” in the system, who are really the ideological pets of the party that appointed them. So they can claim “see, even legitimate businessmen agree the minimum wage is too low!” or “even businesses thinks climate has to come first!” A more representative business showing would point out the industries that can’t cope with rising wages or energy bills. Of course they’d also clamour for the immigration floodgates to open further and mourn the good old days when ‘labour shortages’ could be met by opening a recruitment office in Poland or Romania. The point isn’t that what business says is good or right or even necessarily honest. But the parliamentary system only works if it finds a way to balance interests, and arguably we’ve had the wrong people in the Lords for that since the Industrial Revolution.
In my Scifi books (out later this year) the house of Lord is replaced by a jury it is such a success that all countries copy it and it becomes a public holiday.
(It’s not a major thing in the books).
This has become a very fashionable thing to advocate but then it becomes critically important who gets to put the evidence in front of the jury. Pretty clear what the organisers of the “Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit” thought their randomly selected assembly (effectively a jury) should see in order to obtain the kind of result they wanted. Same for most of their other “assemblies”. https://citizensassembly.co.uk/brexit/about/
I’ve come to see parties as a necessary evil but do understand there’s a case for making the Lords more non-partisan.
But it would not necessarily be taking away their vote forever. There would be nothing to stop people who lost their vote in year 1 earning enough four or five years later to regain a vote.
And, on your bloodshed point, even general elections routinely have about 30% of people not bothering to vote. They apparently don’t care enough to do so. And I don’t buy the thing about there being no point because they’re disgusted with the options. Until recently I was always disgusted with the options, but I turned up to vote and spoiled my ballot paper.
If you seriously think a political party could win an election in the UK on the basis of banning people from voting if they don’t earn enough, and even that this change could be instituted without major civil strife, then that’s bonkers. It’s an interesting thought experiment. It is not a realistic policy suggestion.
It reminds me of something I’ve seen suggested in left-wing forums, that retired people should be denied the right to vote because they will be dead soon and don’t need to live with the consequences of their vote. That became much more widely touted after the Brexit ref. It is also totally bonkers and will never happen, but it amuses me (and worries me) when I come across people taking the idea seriously. Do they somehow imagine that retired people would take that lying down, or that everyone under retirement age would go along with it just because they’re not directly affected yet?
Fwiw, for a lot of OAPs and disabled people a ban on low-income people voting would effectively be a permanent ban. And there is a huge difference between people not being bothered to vote and being told they can no longer vote. There’d be no end of court cases and international condemnation about it, opposition parties who promise to end it, and have no doubt there would be violence – particularly since students would be affected. Even people who would not be directly affected would be up in arms about it.
Whether an election could be won right now on the proposition, I do not know. You may be right that it could not. It is not as if the argument is being had publicly. But if it was had publicly, could people’s minds be changed? Again, I do not know, but I think it is worth raising it and trying to win the argument.
Of one thing I am fairly sure, and that is that if the idea were adopted, it would not lead to widespread strike. You might get the usual rentamob types, but we get those anyway. I just don’t think most people care that much about most things political. They do what they’re told.
And it’s worth taking a leaf out of the progressive playbook. They commonly do whatever they want, much of it without any mandate. They shift the dial hugely. They just get on and do it. And it’s amazing what they get away with.
What the progs are very cunning at is finding ways to make your vote ineffective because it can’t change stuff anymore (yuman rites law, international treaties etc) or to dilute it (bring in millions of voters from overseas, introduce votes at 16*). That’s a lot less in-your-face than telling approximately 1 in 3 adults that they are now so poor they’ve been banned from voting.
We have had near enough universal suffrage for about a century now, people do value having the power to vote the bastards out even if they don’t all make use of it. I know furious students are nothing new, but there would also be furious stay-at-home mums, furious retirees, furious low-wage workers, furious disabled people and their furious unpaid carers. Plus plenty of people furious on their behalf. Even if only a small minority of them cared enough to take to the streets it would be the biggest protest in British history. If a tiny minority took more “direct action” it would dwarf the poll tax riots. They’re definitely not all going to “do as they are told”. If you are in any doubt after reading what Paul said, try asking some normies how they’d feel about being disenfranchised like that.
* Wonder if Labour will back away from votes at 16 that now they’ve seen the Greens and Reform do well among young people. The vote importation trick has also backfired.
The big problem with PR is that it rarely produces a decisive result, which leaves minor parties in a position of power (see Israel and Germany for the problems that can cause). And it also weakens the link between the electorate and their representative – it’s often more important to keep in with your party than the people voting for you. Karl Popper has an excellent take down here:
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/from-the-archives-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-revisited
Politics UK claims that Muslim Independents will win 208 council seats. It’s a bit like everyone squabbling and fighting in Game of Thrones while the white walkers advance in the background (hackneyed reference I know). We can’t address this problem under the rules clowns like Polly set for us.
Or quibbling over who’s in and who’s out at the court of the Inca while a small army of firearm equipped steel armour wearing strangers are camped outside the city with quiet designs to overthrow your entire political order and set up their rule over you.
A lot of Incan leaders thought that they could use the Spanish in their ongoing civil war, they were wrong. Hopefully our leaders will wake up in time.
I think you’ll find the Spanish saw off the Inca, and that history will repeat itself.
I know the Spanish won but hopefully it will be happier here.
“Hopefully” is not grammatical in this context, and no, it won’t be happier here.
Unsurprising Polly wants a Euro style system where alleged conservatives ally with literal communists to keep out a genuine, popular, right-wing party.
I agree with Polly. It would be dreadful for the future of democracy if the people who constantly wanted to cancel elections were removed from power. She’s such a veritable sage…
And yet Polly’d have soiled herself if a PR system had delivered a bunch of seats to Reform in the last GE.
The system that got Labour a huge majority with a low percentage of the vote is suddenly no good? Shame.
I see Starmer has “taken responsibility” already, which apparently means not resigning.
“Taken responsibility” for Starmer appears to be rather like going to a dominatrix and saying “I’ve been a bad bad boy”
Though I’m not sure it would be a dominatrix in his case.
His wife’s as fit as ten dogs, though. I most certainly would. Perhaps he’s a late sausage developer, as recently discussed.
She might just as well written a one word article.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE……….
“Democracy” means something different to Polly – to some of us it means “rule by the people” and that includes the possibility of our side losing an election.
AND acceptance if the other side wins.
US Democrats haven’t accepted a national election loss 3 decades.
IOW, democracy is dead in America.
Others feel it means the people choose who rules them for a limited term.
Venting: talking with a friend this morning I met while walking the ‘hood, mentioned government should have limited power. I mentioned freedom. He said, “Yeah, that’s what the constitution says, but if we had freedom, there would be chaos.”
Former friend.
Thousands of Americans fought and bled and died through eleven world wars so the likes of your former friend could be tucked safely into bed by the likes of Ilhan Omar.
It is decadence. He is TOO comfortable.
Yes, but that is a “representative democracy”.
The Swiss have, at least partially, a real democracy
Representative democracy is the norm for all modern western states. Switzerland and California are still representative democracies, even though they institutionally provide more opportunities for direct popular decisions on some policies than most states.
“Real democracy” pretty much ends at hunter-gatherer tribe level, where the regular issues facing the people are simple and few enough for all the people to decide. Bigger, more complex societies require specialisation and that’s where exclusive decision making comes in (in whatever form).
Both Switzerland and the UK have referendums on some important issues. That one offers more doesn’t mean they have more “partially” a real democracy.
Your last sentence is nonsense.
Because it points to the nonsense in yours:
Which is like saying a 30mph speed limit is, at least partially, a 50mph speed limit.
The Swiss have representative democracy. That some issues are put to the people to decide does not make Switzerland a real democracy.
Do you know what “partially” means?
There are issues upon which the people, not just their representatives, decide. So Switzerland i, in part, a democracy.
She has a point.
80% of the electorate did not vote Labour but that’s what we get for five years, isn’t my idea of democracy.
And listening to some labour bint on GBNews this morning, telling us just what a good job she and her colleagues are doing, made me wonder if she ever asks herself why, if they are indeed doing such a good job, the voters think they aren’t?
FPTP tends to mean fewer parties, but wings within parties. The coalitions are decided before the election not afterwards. What concerns me most about PR is that it can deliver unreasonable power to a fringe group, and result in an inability to thrown out a party who may control the balance of power. Though I think the Lib Dems were treated very harshly (by their own voters) after the coalition, it does serve as a warning for future coalition candidates.
I don’t think the current proliferation of parties can continue long term. My expectation is the Green vote will fall as more people begin to see the lunacy and contradictions of their policies under the Tit Whisperer, and the general buggeration of lives in places where they have influence.
There’s even a page about this on Wikipedia. Duverger’s Law, that FPTP generally has 2 parties.
The problem in Britain is that both of the main parties, the Conservatives in particular, stopped tolerating local differences. You can see this with where Reform support is strongest. It’s in the sort of places that were seen as Thatcher’s Children. Not the gentrified, lovely Conservative bits of the UK but the more average industrial places like Essex and Swindon that liked lower taxes and privatisation. The Conservatives stopped tolerating those sorts of people and made them feel unwelcome and so off they fucked to UKIP. Reform have also gained from Labour in the places that aren’t Guardian readers.
And to a large extent, the Greens have gained in places where people want more extreme versions of Labour. Full-on weapons-grade socialist knobheads like London, Bristol and Oxford. If those places had more control over their candidates, they’d be Labour.
The US system has primaries which stop this, so before you get the election for Arkansas and California, people pick the sort of republican you want. The sort of modern, free market type like Arnie in California, or the guns and Jesus type in Arkansas.
PR is not without its own faults. It can result in very small parties having undue influence (a large party needing a few extra seats to form a majority having to make concessions to a small party). Or a coalition of also-rans being able to form a government.
And since coalitions invariably breakdown you can have very unstable government – Italy which has PR has had 68 different governments since 1945.
She doesn’t give a fuck about democracy.
Correct. She only gives a fuck about her sort being in charge. Because they’re worth it.
Two homosexuals pretending to like each other…
…and failing.
What’s wrong with the American system? If no one gets a majority, you have a runoff between the top two vote getters.
Definitely has some pros compared to FPTP. The problem is the horse-trading and tactical voting that decides which two make the run-off. Most people here would see the Australian instant-runoff system (which Brits call “alternative vote”) where voters rank the candidates as an improvement over that. It mitigates the tactical dynamics that occur when similar candidates effectively become spoilers for each other – if you like them both, just give them both a high rank and don’t worry so much whether you’re wasting your vote by choosing the one with the worse chance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
A big difference between US and UK politics (in fact most Commonwealth countries) is that your system has accepted parties having a very big tent with wings who are allowed to publicly slug it out against each other in an election. In the UK, parties try to minimise in-fighting and those kind of battles are mostly kept in-house. So we would never have had an election like eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Georgia's_14th_congressional_district_special_election
That one wasn’t too bad because there was a clear leader among both Ds and Rs. An election with two leading Ds, two leading Rs, and a bunch of others getting a few percent each would be a tactical voting nightmare in the first round under pure runoff voting, and candidates would have lots of scope for horsetrading. That’s a case where it would help if you could rank preferences like instant runoff/AV.
My personal preference would be multimember STV like in Ireland. Group the constituencies, rank the candidates, pick multiple winners in a proportional way. Bit less majoritarian, gives smaller parties a bit of a chance but not the super fringe ones who might hold the balance of power under full PR, means your vote isn’t meaningless despite living in an area where your view is a minority one (eg split a city into four separate seats and they might all vote 75% left so it’s pretty pointless voting right, pool them and the 25% of right-wingers can actually win 1 of the 4 seats in offer). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
The problem is the horse-trading and tactical voting that decides which two make the run-off.
I see “tactical” voting as a good thing.