UK: Less than 1 in 4 actually voted Conservative in 2015

Taking into account the turnout which was 66%, less than 1 in 4 people actually voted Conservative in the 2015 UK General Election.

So how did they manage to form a majority government?

You can check the maths yourselves.

If Proportional Representation was introduced in the UK no party would ever win a majority.

 

yep, the system needs changing , that's for sure

UKIP , 4 million votes = 1 seat
SNP 1.5 million votes = 56 seats!

WTF

 

Firstly from your point, only 66% of the population turned out to vote. so we can assume that the 34% that did not vote were perfectly happy with the Status Quo Or are you claiming otherwise? If so back up your opinion.


If Proportional Representation was introduced in the UK no party would ever win a majority


This statement in its intension applauses me. Any Country needs a dominant run Government. To doom Britain to endless coalitions sickens me to the core. PR governments produce cabinets & policies that no one voted for!

It leads to political parties doing "back room" deals that no one ever voted for & if you trust Politicians to do the "right thing" under such circumstances, then you further undermine your argument for a PR system.

PR systems most commonly use the "lists" system to elect MP. Again this is prone to exploitation by the party bureaucracy. Where would Neil Kinnock have placed Tony Benn on a PR list in the 1987 elections?

Not very democratic at all given the number of votes.


Under PR the 2015 elections would have given a landslide victory to a Tory - UKIP government.



So maybe as a concession I would introduce compulsory voting (as is done in Australia) plus I Would modify some constituencies to make the votes per elected represented member more even. Why should Shetlend voters count X4 as much as much Isle of Anglesey voters.


The idea of "If Proportional Representation was introduced in the UK no party would ever win a majority."

is laughable. And one promoted by nu-Labour in Scotland. The SNP has a majority under the PR system in the Holyrood Parliament. Or maybe "James" is too ignorant of the facts of a PR system????

 

I doubt somehow that very many of the 34% who didn't vote would have voted Conservative.

Labour has always maintained that the people who don't vote adds up to lost votes for Labour.

And what's wrong with coalition governments? Politics is all about making compromises anyway, or at least it ought to be.

 

LOL, You may doubt that the 34% that did not vote, actually wished to vote for the nu-Labour agenda. Where is your evidence?

No... if you don't vote then the best guess is that you are happy with the Status Quo or couldn't give a monkey's chuff who is in power. So it is just "special pleading" that they are nu-Labour voters (or should we say "sour grapes")

"What is wrong with coalition governments" ???

In a word "compromise" ...


I despise the idea that people get a government that they did not vote for, which is exactly what they get under PR & coalition governments. You leave the deal making to politicians & back room compromises, which produce policies that no one in the electorate actually voted for.

Plus the only system guarantee to produce a hung Parliament and an ineffectual Government is the PR system. This most commonly operates under the "lists system" where by party members are ordered according to the central office. First in the list get automatically elected, last in the list don't. Which leads to biased to "party" ass-lickers & lack of debate against the central office of any political party.


Would Toney Benn ever have been elected under the PR system, when Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour Party? No he would not!


And we need people like Tony Benn.

 

I am all in favour of a PR system.

As a matter of fact under PR people actually get EXACTLY what they voted for.

Coalition governments CAN work in practice. There is much common ground all political parties can agree upon.

One advantage of PR is that it keeps out (or at least helps to keep out) extreme right-wing and also extreme left-wing politics.

 

No, you are wrong, the PR system provide government that people did not vote for. No clear idea of the horse the political trrading is made public before the vote. Everyone gets what no one voted for.


As for extreme left/right political parties. I have no problem with them. At least they enact policies that effect the nation, rather than the week wish-wash of the middle ground. Nations need strong policies to change. Without change we are stagnant

It assumes me sometimes that some people think that under a PR system that everyone's vote counts. It does not!

I'm not too fussed whether we get a strong left or right wing Government. But please God at least we have a strong Government. And the FPTP system tends to lead to that. I despise political compromise - it is the language of the devil.

 

For me PR very much opens the field up to alternative and often creative thinking. In politics quick fix solutions from extremist governments almost never work, it's all about building and planning for the future. Most elected governments of course can only see into the future for the next five years.

PR opens up the debate on all the issues that need to be debated and believe me there are many.

Also politics shouldn't be about buying and selling votes. People should vote for what they believe in.

PR also increases voter turnout as every vote really does count.

 

I agree with you that people should vote for the issues in which they believe. And this is the problem with PR, what you vote for & what ultimately results after all those back room deals by slimy politicians is something quite different. The fantasy that every vote counts seems childish to me. The idea that everyone will be happy & feel represented as a result of a PR election is a myth.

British First past the post turn out figures have been in the 80+% in living memory. As too have referendums ( a form of FPTP) Much more than the average PR system, so we can debunk your blanket comment that PR produces higher turnouts. Plus who cares about turn out figures? Anyone that fails to vote is either 1/ trying to say that they hate all the political options, or 2/ They don't care who wins.

Maybe we should have a system where it is illegal not to vote, as they have done in Australia for many decades.

As for PR opening up the debate on many more issues, I simply don't see this as being true & minority issues can be ignored under any system.

PR is all about buying & selling votes the minority parties horse trade some of their policies to gain influence in the governing coalition & ditch other... The ultimate betrayal of their electorate. And worst of all the people that voted for these minority parties have no idea which policies will be thrown out before they place their vote, how very undemocratic & a betrayal that is.


So no, I hope PR never gets to be a voting system in British election. In Scotland we have a PR system & the Scottish Parliament is still run by a majority SNP Government. And what a hellish solution that is for any Greens, Labour, Tory or Liberal voter, do their votes count? No they don't. So please spare me the idealistic flannel that under PR "every vote counts" they do not!

 

I find it amusing that, since the election, many on the Left have been complaining that the Conservatives won it despite the fact they only got 11,334,576 votes, 36.9% of the total votes cast, and that a change in the electoral system is needed (something the British people voted against in the 2011 referendum).

Yet I didn't hear them complaining and saying that Britain needs a new, "fairer" electoral system when Labour won the 2005 General Election with just 9,552,436 votes, just 35.2% of the votes cast.

The only thing which concerned me about the last election was that Ukip got more votes than SNP and LibDems COMBINED yet ended up with just one MP.

 

Leftists will do or say anything to seize power. Government is their religion. In the U.S. they're for open borders, hoping mass third world immigration will increase their numbers.

 

You despise the idea that people get a government they didn't vote for? You must be a Scottish nationalist then, good man, independence is an absolute must, our whole country gets governments we didn't vote for the majority of the time. Or do you not despise it when it comes to Scotland?

 

Personally I thought that was the funniest part, even funnier than Labour's collapse. You wanted Scotland, you begged, lied, threatened, cajoled and pleaded to keep us, well now you have us and we get a vote too. Suck it up.

 

[video=youtube;DfjtneGa70g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfjtneGa70g[/video]

he's hilarious.

 

Voter turnout in Australia is not 100% or even anywhere close. Although technically it is an offence, in practise it is isn't as it simply is not practical to prosecute hundreds of thousands of people.

 

They fine us. I got fined 20 dollars. The lady I rang about it was really cool. My sister got fined too.

 

Yep - some get fined. I am due to vote in the Canning by-election coming up. I intend not to on the basis that they are corrupt (The state government has refused to keep hardly any of the promises it made to be elected). I will then refuse to pay the fine.

 

It sucks that minorities can be split across electorates and get a seat in none, but I feel that this is the adequate way for a national government in a federal system to operate: it is supposed to be representative of the federal bodies, not necessarily the people. Of course, as a libertarian this goes completely against my interests - but what the hey.

I support a preferential system where preferences are ranked within electorates. If no candidate obtains a majority on first preferences, it should move to seconds and so on until a majority has been obtained. A single vote gives an incomplete picture of the voter's preferences.

 

Do not make it compulsory to vote. It's the biggest insult a government can give to the right to vote.

I oppose PR, but what you talk about is not especially apparent here. Sure, parties order their preferences to their strategic advantage, but FPTP has its own downsides. In the recent elections the minor parties ordered their preferences in the Senate to obtain more seats - the major parties were outraged and demanded electoral reform. Nothing has happened since.

Coalitions are common, but this is not an especially bad thing. Seems to me to match up with British majoritiarian principles quite adequately.

 

He's fantastic. I haven't heard common sense from Europe like that since Thatcher.

I wish we had him.

 

He's exceedingly blithe. A necessary quality when fighting thought police. One must blithely steamroller over their obsfucations.

He's had a hard life from it. He and his family have been run out of restaurants etc by political dingbats for his political position. He really has sacrificed for his country, choosing patriotism instead of the usual excuses.

 

It's called "districting". A party needs to have a majority within some of the voting districts to get representation, it does not necessarily matter how many votes were cast. Ironically UKIP failed to gain representation because it was a popular movement spread across the whole country. If they had been more regional like the Scottish National Party they would have gained a large number of seats.

As for why there was a dramatic shift in the balance of power, two things happened. First, the overwhelming majority of Scotland voted for the SNP, taking away votes from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Second, many voters who had formerly supported the Liberal Democrats voted for the Conservative party instead (particularly in the Greater London area and the Western part of the country).

 

Why on earth would you vote for the Tories?

 

I wish you had him, too.