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TOPIC: OK let's do the maths
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Re:OK let's do the maths 4 Years, 9 Months ago
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Lab + Lib combined is 13,992,030, Tories 13,966,565 - so the Tories got 25,465 LESS. More significantly they only got 43.6% of the total vote, so were thoroughly beaten by "The Rest". It is clear that a lot more people voted AGAINST Boris.
As electoral-reform.org.uk point out, "That’s because under First Past the Post, all votes not cast for the one winner in each seat go to waste. Across the country, that means millions of votes are ignored. Because of that, 45% of voters went totally unrepresented (they didn’t vote for the one winner in their area). That’s 14.5m people feeling voiceless. And it means the new government was able to win a large majority of seats on a minority of the vote. We also saw incredibly warped results – a 1% increase in the Conservatives’ vote share led to a landslide victory. Parties like the Greens and Brexit Party won huge numbers of votes and almost no representation. The Lib Dems saw a surge in votes and their number of seats fall. Something is very clearly wrong. Voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are used to using more democratic voting systems – and having a more cooperative politics as a result.
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Re:OK let's do the maths 4 Years, 9 Months ago
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as I shout into the wind again aimlessly.. it's one of the truly wonderful things I love about Australia:
Compulsory, preferential voting with strict proportional representation where the boundaries change on a strict basis and may at the worst favour one party over another in one seat.
Thus: never ever under a 90% turnout..voters voting down the line and directing their preference often 10 times to show who they want if their preferred candidate doesn't get in.
Winning party never gets less than 50% after preferences..plus 3 years between elections..they really have to be on their toes..largely reflecting what the majority want (unlike the UK) not that the majority is always right ( ie: they just won't listen to me ).
It is by no means a landslide but it's a convincing win for Boris in seats (but he only needs a handful..the rest are basically deadwood unless they really perform in their electorate.
The majority of voters did not want the Conservatives. they got them anyway.
I've said it before and I'll say it again..Boris will regret the media claiming landslide ! as it means he must deliver. he won't. Unless of course he has a personality by-pass and gets rid of that pathological liar gene.
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Re:OK let's do the maths 4 Years, 9 Months ago
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Yes, Hedda, I wholly agree about compulsory voting, which (as in the Aussie model) is only justifiable if every vote has value, which means some form of PR.
As it is, most citizens feel a certain hopelessness about voting. Every now and again there is a brief upsurge of hope:
Example 1) In 1981 the SDP/Lib alliance was polling an unprecedented 50%, which would have triggered the landslide of all landslides (even without PR), and would have represented the “common sensical / middle-of-the-road British spirit” so much better than the Olde Left / Right Tango. This brief hope was destroyed (and forgotten to history) by Thatcher launching an easily avoidable killing spree in the South Atlantic. Instant return of Jingo Tango Politics.
Example 2) On February 15th 2003, around 2,000,000 Brits braved the cold and joined “the largest protest event in human history”. Amazingly, Brits were actually marching to stop Johnny Foreigner being killed! But Blair needed to impress Bush and Bush needed to impress his dad so all hell was let loose. Memo to the people: you are powerless; and if you MUST vote, stick to Big Brother or Strictly.
Example 3) In 2015, the Labour Party wanted to flaunt how democratic and inclusive it was, so included an actual socialist in their leadership election! The unintended consequence was that all the compassion and idealism that had originally formed the Labour movement suddenly woke from its long sleep, attracted the biggest membership of any party in Europe, and even the fields of Glastonbury echoed with his name! Despite perpetual undermining by his deputy and many colleagues (who mainly dated from the Blair era) the new party members and a briefly inspired public gave him an extraordinary moral victory in the 2017 election. That was a step too far. Bang, Bang, Murdoch’s Silver Hammer came down upon his head…
The only redeeming thought at this time is that The Etonians - who triggered this virtual civil war with a referendum that was only ever intended to save some Tory seats from UKIP - are now solely and wholly responsible for clearing up the mess they created.
I would head to Australia too, but I hear it’s on fire.
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Re:OK let's do the maths 4 Years, 9 Months ago
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According to Wikipedia, Labour plus Lib Dems got fewer votes than the Tories (Labour + Lib Dems: 13,965,499; Tories: 13,966,451).
But I'm not sure if adding up the votes of the other parties makes much sense. If 10 people run a race and the winner wins because he ran at 20 miles an hour and the rest at 19 or less, we don't add up the speeds of the other nine and say they should have won instead.
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Re:OK let's do the maths 4 Years, 9 Months ago
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JK2006 wrote:
if you're selling yourself as The Peoples' Government you should represent all people not just half
Couldn't quite agree with that.
Just one example - the Republic of Ireland.
Until recently, the RoI government described itself as a Catholic country; that church still does.
However, around a third of the population (and rising) have either no religion or another.
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