Regular readers will know that this blog is supposedly a blog about our family life and occasional foray into home education. Previous political posts have been few and far between, but this week, I just don’t seem to be able to drop the subject.
I was typing a long and fascinating response to comments below when my browser crashed under the requirements of the research I was doing. Technology will not beat us though.
Liberta asked:
First past the post is one of the glorious British traditions. Been going 100s of years. Do you wish to dismantle the foundations of our political society?
Yes, I do. First of all, just because something has been happening for 100s of years doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to have happen, or that everyone will keep wanting to do it, or that each individual has to want to do it. Secondly, foundations are meant to build on. Our democratic process has been developing since it started. And right at the moment I believe it’s stalled, and is essentially undemocratic. A quick peek at the figures should suffice to illustrate the point.
BBC has some nice bar charts and so on
There’s a particularly good table, halfway down this wikipedia page
Or you can go to the horse’s mouth, and download the full pdf report on turnout from the electoral commission.
It’s an interesting document. If I could find an editor that would let me play with the figures and put them into a sensible format, I’d paste them in here. But basically, the labour party was elected with 35% of the vote. That means 65% of the voting electorate *didn’t* vote for them. I’d say that puts me in a fairly sizeable minority, wouldn’t you? So I don’t believe that they do have a mandate to do what they are doing to our liberty.
Merry said:
If it is apathetic to concentrate on the small, then yes i am. The things that make a daily difference to my children; decent midwifery, the right to home educate, the right to know their parents won’t get carted off because of a lifestyle choice or a political stance, the right to know that their world won’t be untenably polluted by their adulthood.
It is not apathetic Merry. But your right to home educate could oh so easily evaporate. And if we don’t keep an eye on the power of our parliament, then it will. Hyperbole? Then go and read the minutes of the various discussions over that bill.
How do you downplay (;) ) that? I’m not sure you can. I’m definitely sure you shouldn’t.
Right, one of the reasons that I don’t usually get too involved in the whole political stuff is because once you get started, it’s kind of difficult to stop. But I need to go sleep, because my paying job is a way up the road, and I have to drive up there with children in my car in the rush hour. So I’d rather be able to see.
Play nicely.
Comments
6 responses to “Democracy”
Jax,
Zeroing in on the election figures is precisely the way to begin understanding democracy. You can access those figures, which is telling.
If we took the turnouts seriously, and went strictly by the majority vote, most local councils would not exist and Parliament would only have ~350 MPs for 635 constituencies.
In most British elections, the majority do not vote. Only general elections tend to get a majority of people voting. I’m not sure what the quorum is but my recollection is somewhere around 30%. In other words, so long as 3 out of 10 people vote, the election is valid.
MPs want more people to vote. Debate after reform after debate after reform still has not succeeded in significantly upping the turnouts. Short of compelling people to turn out (as in Australia, which enjoys 95%+ turnouts), there isn’t much left to try.
Proportional representation will work but only with compulsory turnout, which will not be popular.
So we have to take a pragmatic view. A person who does not exercise their right to vote is assumed to mean “I will be happy with whomsoever everyone else chooses” rather than “I do not want government”, which is fine.
First-past-the-post may leave us in the position of electing representatives by minority majority, but is more certain than trying to apportion power by sharing a minority vote fairly, as the proportion of non-voters must be considered in the latter.
Regarding the Legislative Reform Bill, I noticed that Standing Committee A sat four times, and were still discussing the first clause of the Bill at the start of the fourth session.
Given that rate of progress in committee, with no likelihood for more progress on Report, I expect the Bill will be eviserated by the Lords, and fade away towards the end of the current session.
“That means 65% of the voting electorate *didn’t* vote for them. I’d say that puts me in a fairly sizeable minority, wouldn’t you?”
No. You cannot derive intention from inaction.
I didnt vote for them because I wasnt in the country [the last two elections]. You and some other people didnt vote for them because you wanted to vote for someone else. A Labour supporter may not have voted for them because they lived in a safe Labour constituency, so felt their vote would not risk it, but they wanted to send a message about green policies or some other single issue so put their vote there. Someone else didnt vote for them because they couldnt care less who got into power.
The 65% of people are not one group.
You have your sums wrong, I think. Jax is stating that OF THOSE WHO VOTED 65% voted against Labour.
The difference in vote between the Conservatives and Labour was very small, so how come there was such a large difference in the numbers of MPs elected for the two parties?
We might as well go back to having Rotten Boroughs and let Dunwich have its two MPs back.
Sorry my mistake, I got it wrong with including non-voters.
But the argument stands. You cannot say that 65% of voters voted AGAINST Labour. Nor can you say they are one group. The only thing in common is that they didn’t vote FOR Labour.
Now it would be an interesting way of approaching elections if you could have a preference system that included negatives as well as postitives, and then you could tell what people voted against.
I could then vote +1st choice Monster Raving Looney, +2nd choice Natural Law, +3rd choice Socialist Tea Drinkers, and (minus) -3rd choice Conservative, -2nd choice Labour and -1st choice National Front.
My -1st counts directly against a +1st, -2nd against a +2nd etc. Labour gets 23000 +1st but 18000 -1sts so comes out with net 5000 +1st. Conservative get 17000 +1st and only 5000 -1st so their net sum is 12000 +1st. They have more people for and fewer people against which makes them a better representative of the group of voters.
We should put Dunny-on-the-Wold on all political science syllabuses.