Comments on: Labour drop to third place

By: Paul H-J

Paul H-J — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:56:17 +0000

Alec,

On the PR thing, two points:

Firstly, France only uses PR for the Euros. For all National elections they use a two-round FPTP whereby any seats with no candidate securing 50% in the first round goes into “ballotage” two weeks later. Only candidates securing above a threshold (I forget actual number but it is around 15% of votes) can stand in the second round – though in practice it is often the two top placed candidates. For the presidential election only the two leading candidates progress – which is how the 2002 election produced a shock Chirac-Le Pen run-off.

While a modified version of anglo-saxon simple majority FPTP, it is nonetheless FPTP. What the two-round system does do is allow a wider choice of party and ensure that in all seats the most popular candidate wins. It also moderates the wide swings which can occur under simple FPTP as voters can take stock of the national and local position after the first round.

Secondly, while we can debate the merits of various systems and perhaps even reach a consenus on reform in the not too distant future, there is no way that any change in the electoral system is going to be in place before the next GE.

Even assuming that Brown can get himself organised to introduce a bill and whip it through the Commons, with extensive use of guillotines, it will not pass the Lords. Brown cannot invoke the Parliament Act to push it through because there is less than a year to go. Even then, there is no time for it to be put into effect in practical terms.

Any attempt to even try it will become clear for what it is – a blatant attempt to rig the election to save Labour from disaster – and as such, I doubt even the most passionate PR supporter on the LD benches would support it.

By: Alec

Alec — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 07:07:17 +0000

@Promsan – I quite agree. In essence my desire is to see a system that permits much greater varition of opinion to be expressed within Parliament, therefore hopefully encouraging new entrants more easily. Whether this actually happens is up to us, rather than the system, although a well constructed PR system should make it easier to break the current party stanglehold.

By: Colin

Colin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:33:52 +0000

Alec-yes your right.

By: Gray

Gray — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:30:41 +0000

And, of course, I now find another leak that I think may prove analogous to what I suspect may happen this week: The German Presidential election results got prematurely Twittered out. I have to say that Twitter is certainly becoming a pain in the arse for anyone trying to sequester anything these days.

By: Gray

Gray — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:27:22 +0000

Pete,
It’s the EU rules. The election takes place over four days (Thursday-Sunday) and they force results to be sat upon. Now, that’s not saying it’ll always work…for example, if the penalty were simply a 100,000 Euro fine, a network might well find it to their advantage to stroke a check and unapologetically report on the elections; likewise, a leak to a network based outside the EU would be exceedingly hard to prosecute. I also do seem to recall there being a leak on the Dutch results in 2004, for example.