If, like me, you’re interested in Proportional Representation a good account to follow - @propvoting.bsky.social See ⏬️ this week’s Passenger Railway Services Bill Passed, but if each MP was replaced with the number of votes they received at GE, then it would have failed by almost a million Hmmm - ThreadSky

carolvorderman.bsky.social • 95 days ago

If, like me, you’re interested in Proportional Representation a good account to follow - @propvoting.bsky.social

See ⏬️ this week’s Passenger Railway Services Bill

Passed, but if each MP was replaced with the number of votes they received at GE, then it would have failed by almost a million

Hmmm

Reposted from Proportional Commons

2024-11-19: Passenger Railway Services Bill: motion to disagree with LA1

The 343 MPs voting 'Aye' represented 10,640,334 voters.
The 172 MPs voting 'No' represented 11,469,724 voters.

No majority = 829,390

But result was Aye because seats don't match votes. See ALT text.

Comments

yorkyphin.bsky.social•95 days ago

Pure PR can be dangerous. There are better alternatives to it and the FPTP we have at the moment.

thetransitman.bsky.social•95 days ago

@carolvorderman.bsky.social we just it in Ireland. It's used in Northern Ireland for assembly elections. It's probably one of the better systems of deciding elections.

litterygeniarse.bsky.social•93 days ago

I favour transferrable voting to keep local MPs, but what about a second chamber?

We need some plans presented and not the kind of garbage discussions we had around Brexit.

If we had PR 2nd chamber, which would be main one for govt?

Scrap Lords, replace with short term expert appointments
-->

litterygeniarse.bsky.social•93 days ago

-->

to work on specific projects/specialities.

Also need to reform lobbying to prevent corruption. CON & LAB neck deep in it though.

anbenn.bsky.social•95 days ago

democracy carol that's how we work 🫢

anbenn.bsky.social•95 days ago

Its ideal to have proportional representation but would any thing ever get done thinking Brexit ?

anbenn.bsky.social•95 days ago

It drained the life out of me ,at the end it was just make it stop!

iebathrugby.bsky.social•95 days ago

This is a Bill that a lot of people wanted to see passed. PR is not all it's cracked up to be if it had been applied in this election we wouldn't see any progress in the passing of Bill's etc. I also doubt the put down of the riots would have been so swift.

chris-franklin.bsky.social•93 days ago

I agree, this nation’s been crying out for PR for decades. We have to be careful about the maths here though - if we had PR, political parties would campaign differently and people would vote differently so I think it’s an unrealistic comparison.

Regardless, let’s have PR and see how things change!

shaggydo.bsky.social•95 days ago

Carol I may be wrong..would this mean farage would have more influence. Wouldn't risk it for a biscuit, as he is a total cxxt.

2300.bsky.social•93 days ago

The main thing that worries me about PR is that Farage & his band of bigots favour it. 🤔

annie5545.bsky.social•95 days ago

No, because under PR, Farage would have a lot more MPs.

cllrandyoddy.bsky.social•95 days ago

Thx Carol. Hadn’t discovered that account. PR has to be the future.

mdg-photography.bsky.social•95 days ago

Thank you and followed

kmkmacdonald.bsky.social•95 days ago

Westminster chose to give the devolved legislatures proportional representation but, for some reason, it's not good enough for it.

jazzhack.org•95 days ago

You can't count these MPs votes, cast in one system, as if the MPs had cast the same votes but in a different system.

propvoting.bsky.social•94 days ago

Correct, as the ALT text and FAQ say. The method is showing the distortion of FPTP; it is not a simulation of a PR elected Commons.

jazzhack.org•94 days ago

I don't really see that as a distortion of FPTP. I see it as a consequence of MPs voting en bloc along party lines.

propvoting.bsky.social•94 days ago

The party whip definitely has an effect. But consider the change in size of the Reform UK vote in the chart. That is a distortion caused by them having far too few MPs for the number of popular votes cast - that is, caused by FPTP. The charts hopefully make this visible.

drownedinsound.bsky.social•94 days ago

Be fascinating to see non-voters represented, somehow.

I am increasingly finding people don’t vote because FPTP consistently fails them, as does the pugilistic politics of trying to win votes from other parties, rather than having policies people can vote “for” what’s the best for the country.

propvoting.bsky.social•94 days ago

Yes, that's a good point. The recount method "reaches" all the people who voted, but whose votes had no effect. But it does not include those who did not vote.

alexzurclark.bsky.social•94 days ago

skullkidtermina.bsky.social•94 days ago

We won’t have democracy again without PR

saying-it-101.bsky.social•95 days ago

👍 thanks

loosemanofkent.bsky.social•95 days ago

PR would mean a different kind of politics. Gone the bipartisan games and rhetoric.

Now the politics of consensus and compromise would have to take the lead.

Coalition government of the moderates. No more extremes.

thispetera.bsky.social•94 days ago

Agreed on all points, but this is an interesting test case as nationalisation would probably be considered extreme by many people and, as the data shows, the majority of MPs.

It will take a long time with grown up politics to change those opinions. PR's trade off: no extremes at the cost of speed.

loosemanofkent.bsky.social•94 days ago

Interesting, rail nationalisation has had a majority support in the country for some years, if you take out political polarisation and the party politics.

I’d also love to see the party whip system banned and all the other political one upmanship games.

andrewhj.bsky.social•95 days ago

Because of the way our political system works, I don’t think PR is necessarily the best answer, though it may be the only achievable answer.

louwhit15.bsky.social•95 days ago

STV is my preferred option

andrewhj.bsky.social•95 days ago

Of all the PR options, that seems one of the biggest improvements on FPTP but it still forces voters to elect people they don’t know who are also preselected by unrepresentative groups of party members and vulnerable to the influence of both those groups and party funders.

louwhit15.bsky.social•95 days ago

Very true, it does give people more options to vote for who they really want and against what they really don’t want, maybe lets in more independents too maybe

andrewhj.bsky.social•95 days ago

Given the size of constituencies and how our parliament works, I think most people will still have no idea who (rather than what colour of rosette) they are voting for and there might be a few more independents than now but not many or enough to make a difference.

louwhit15.bsky.social•95 days ago

True to a degree it depends on how long a candidate has been in the public eye how much effort they put in, only the previous incumbent didn’t work at it, the red and yellow really worked hard both local councillors too but I know it doesn’t happen everywhere

bartnz.bsky.social•94 days ago

Since we've had PR in NZ all voices are heard. After an election, policies are traded and bottom lines are made, and a coalition is formed. Some are always disappointed but let me say... it's way better than a first past the post system where just 2 parties got a chance to represent the electorate!

andrewhj.bsky.social•94 days ago

Thanks. I’m in favour of PR. However, I think the party political preselection of candidates would still be less good than a system where we chose our representatives on the basis of whether we trusted them to make decisions on our behalf.

heinousone.bsky.social•95 days ago

One suspects you have too much time on your hands.

bthalpin.bsky.social•95 days ago

I had a go at modelling the effects of moving to Single Transferable Vote with multi-seat constituencies a while ago, using existing UK constituency outcomes and voting records.

tl;dr No chance of a Tory majority 2010-2017 and only 12% chance in 2019.

https://brendanhalpin.net/blog/posts/stv4uk/

adventurist.bsky.social•95 days ago

What interests me is that Tory scum voted against a bill to reform the absurd ripoff that exists today.

rusticola.bsky.social•95 days ago

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700036

gruntbuggly.bsky.social•95 days ago

If you want to see PR in all its glory with the Single Transferrable Vote, may I recommend @gavreilly.com 's tracking of the counts in the days following next Friday's general election in Ireland?

frankcourtney.bsky.social•95 days ago

I'm interested - but then we already have it here in Ireland

robertfingleton.bsky.social•95 days ago

If you're into PR, we have a general election here in Ireland next Friday (and have always had PR). It usually takes days to get a final result with all the extra counting involved 🗳️

trezzyw.bsky.social•95 days ago

We have proportional representation here in Scotland for the Scottish Parliament elections. Sadly not for Westminster elections.

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