The British were given the choice and voted against proportional representation. They deserve the duopoly and everything that flows from it e.g. terrible healthcare, the illegal war in Iraq, royals, pointless and expensive aircraft carriers. They chose to leave the only institution that is defending their basic freedoms. These bigoted Dunning Kruger morons cannot be told.
What an utterly moronic stance that stems totally from your complete lack of understanding of what was actually offered.
Proportional representation was never on the table, what was offered was single transferable vote, which would keep the first past the post system but add the option to transfer your vote to another candidate if your preferred candidate lost. There was never proportional representation stop with the false narrative.
Instant Runoff was on the table in the 2011 referendum. Very similar to STV, but generally STV is what’s referred to in a multi-winner situation. Australia uses STV in the Senate, as does the Irish Dáil. IRV is what Australia uses in the House of Representatives, and a few areas of the US, like Maine. STV actually is a proportional (or at least quasi-proportional) system, unlike IRV.
But you’re right that unfortunately proportional representation has never been on the table in the UK. I don’t agree with the guy’s more recent takes on comedy and “free speech”, but I have great respect for the fact that this is something John Cleese has been on about since 1987. And again in 1998. And most recently in 2018.
The reason a lot of people voted against it was that there was a concern that if it was implemented the government would consider themselves to have taken action and would just shut down any talk about proportional representation by arguing that we already had it. Even though we wouldn’t have.
The theory was that by not voting for the weak source option the idea of proportional representation could be floated at a later date, and to be honest I actually agree with the analysis.
Not an unreasonable concern, to be honest. In politics there is often a balance to be struck between “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good”, and “not allowing a weak compromise option that’s just not good enough to pass because it’s ever so slightly better than the status quo”.
We use IRV for our House of Representatives, which is by far the more politically significant chamber, and it sucks. Our most recent federal election saw just 4 Greens MPs elected after an absolute record performance for them (their previous best was 1). That’s 2.7% of seats from their over 12% of first-preference votes (not to mention votes for closely-aligned minor parties like Animal Justice Party). Labor (yes…we spell it the American way in this one specific context, for some reason) got 51.3% of seats from 32.6% of the first preference votes.
But on the other hand, it is better than FPTP. Enormously better. Those 4 Greens seats would probably be 0 with FPTP, because who would vote for them? They first got into Parliament thanks to receiving preferences, and many of the new seats they won in 2022 were dangerously tight. I know even as an ardent Greens supporter, I would never have voted for the Greens under FPTP, because I’d be terrified of increasing the chance that the conservative LNP won instead of Labor.
If I were voting in the UK in a referendum like the 2011 one, I don’t know how I would vote. Probably yes, but the threat of stalling any progress to an even better system is strong enough it’s hard to blame people who vote no on that grounds.
The British were given the choice and voted against proportional representation. They deserve the duopoly and everything that flows from that e.g. terrible healthcare, the illegal war in Iraq,
But whoever they poll to determine the points makes me sometimes feel utterly insane watching the show. When they don’t know obscure Australian towns as well as me, that’s one thing, and not very surprising. But when major Disney Renaissance films, or some other thing that to me is part of the most fundamental 21st century culture, scores in the low 20s, it makes it very hard to relate to the show.
If the polling was done by an audience more representative of the general population in terms of age, instead of clearly skewing very old, it would be greatly to the show’s benefit.
And yet many countries with PR still have crap governments and bad policies. You’ll never have a perfect system since you’re still expected to choose one party, but there’s a large number of policies and issues to address, and the odds are that no party gets the mix correct for most voters. It’s a one-dimensional system to implement multidimensional politics. So quibbling over the particular metric to use to allocate seats along that single dimension is missing the larger problem. Something closer to direct democracy might be better, but that requires an engaged, disciplined and educated electorate.
The British were given the choice and voted against proportional representation. They deserve the duopoly and everything that flows from it e.g. terrible healthcare, the illegal war in Iraq, royals, pointless and expensive aircraft carriers. They chose to leave the only institution that is defending their basic freedoms. These bigoted Dunning Kruger morons cannot be told.
What an utterly moronic stance that stems totally from your complete lack of understanding of what was actually offered.
Proportional representation was never on the table, what was offered was single transferable vote, which would keep the first past the post system but add the option to transfer your vote to another candidate if your preferred candidate lost. There was never proportional representation stop with the false narrative.
Instant Runoff was on the table in the 2011 referendum. Very similar to STV, but generally STV is what’s referred to in a multi-winner situation. Australia uses STV in the Senate, as does the Irish Dáil. IRV is what Australia uses in the House of Representatives, and a few areas of the US, like Maine. STV actually is a proportional (or at least quasi-proportional) system, unlike IRV.
But you’re right that unfortunately proportional representation has never been on the table in the UK. I don’t agree with the guy’s more recent takes on comedy and “free speech”, but I have great respect for the fact that this is something John Cleese has been on about since 1987. And again in 1998. And most recently in 2018.
The reason a lot of people voted against it was that there was a concern that if it was implemented the government would consider themselves to have taken action and would just shut down any talk about proportional representation by arguing that we already had it. Even though we wouldn’t have.
The theory was that by not voting for the weak source option the idea of proportional representation could be floated at a later date, and to be honest I actually agree with the analysis.
Not an unreasonable concern, to be honest. In politics there is often a balance to be struck between “letting the perfect be the enemy of the good”, and “not allowing a weak compromise option that’s just not good enough to pass because it’s ever so slightly better than the status quo”.
We use IRV for our House of Representatives, which is by far the more politically significant chamber, and it sucks. Our most recent federal election saw just 4 Greens MPs elected after an absolute record performance for them (their previous best was 1). That’s 2.7% of seats from their over 12% of first-preference votes (not to mention votes for closely-aligned minor parties like Animal Justice Party). Labor (yes…we spell it the American way in this one specific context, for some reason) got 51.3% of seats from 32.6% of the first preference votes.
But on the other hand, it is better than FPTP. Enormously better. Those 4 Greens seats would probably be 0 with FPTP, because who would vote for them? They first got into Parliament thanks to receiving preferences, and many of the new seats they won in 2022 were dangerously tight. I know even as an ardent Greens supporter, I would never have voted for the Greens under FPTP, because I’d be terrified of increasing the chance that the conservative LNP won instead of Labor.
If I were voting in the UK in a referendum like the 2011 one, I don’t know how I would vote. Probably yes, but the threat of stalling any progress to an even better system is strong enough it’s hard to blame people who vote no on that grounds.
And time travelling powers apparently 🤣🤣😂.
🤡
What’s wrong with Pointless? It beats the shit out of most game shows.
Pointless is a fucking great premise for a game.
But whoever they poll to determine the points makes me sometimes feel utterly insane watching the show. When they don’t know obscure Australian towns as well as me, that’s one thing, and not very surprising. But when major Disney Renaissance films, or some other thing that to me is part of the most fundamental 21st century culture, scores in the low 20s, it makes it very hard to relate to the show.
If the polling was done by an audience more representative of the general population in terms of age, instead of clearly skewing very old, it would be greatly to the show’s benefit.
Let’s hope polling standards maintain their upwards trajectory.
And yet many countries with PR still have crap governments and bad policies. You’ll never have a perfect system since you’re still expected to choose one party, but there’s a large number of policies and issues to address, and the odds are that no party gets the mix correct for most voters. It’s a one-dimensional system to implement multidimensional politics. So quibbling over the particular metric to use to allocate seats along that single dimension is missing the larger problem. Something closer to direct democracy might be better, but that requires an engaged, disciplined and educated electorate.