in just a few weeks (three, i believe) of this being published the UK shall have a new prime minister. or, for some, and not incorrectly, yet another prime minister. for a nation that tends to base itself on a level of stability, this shall be the fourth (4th) prime minister in 8 (eight) years, look you see. sure, certain reasons may exist for the sudden shift to frequent change - like, for instance, entirely the wrong person getting the job in at least one instance - but, still.
something of an age old, if not ancient, argument (or "narrative") has become increasingly louder during these changes. that is of a voice which says "not my prime minister". apparently they voted for neither the party nor the person coming to be prime minister, and thus they "wash their hands" of them, or something. certainly, indeed, a lot of this is just silly nonsense which would be discarded, but is now amplified by all of this "social media" stuff, in which people believe their voice is the only one which should be heard; that they alone are guardians of "critical thinking". weirdly, they tend to speak of their "free speech" whilst denouncing all others who serve to exert the same.
leaving aside the fringe lunatics, no matter how loud they may be, i figured that i would at least look at, or consider, some of the more compelling arguments they put forward why, exactly, it is not "their" prime minister. usually such leads down the path marked "proportional representation".
a long running (or standing) argument is that this is unfair, or even "undemocratic", for so many votes get described as "wasted" or "lost". this, apparently, would not be so under proportional representation, where each and every vote nationally would count. so, i decided to do a little exercise. exactly how different would the last four (4) elections be had this much vaunted (by some) proportional representation been in place?
using the most basic or purest form of proportional representation possible, i applied the percentage of votes to the number of seats in parliament, momentarily taking it as 650 actual rather than the 649 real term ones on the go. and here is a graphic of the boss spreadsheet thing i made. do bear in mind, then, that with both the current as-is system and this proportional representation theory, a single party would require 326 seats so as to command a "majority" and govern as they wished.
hmn. assuming that "all things remained equal", we would have had to have a "coalition" government after each election, and not just the one which happened in 2010. one that not too many recall fondly, or would argue existed as a boss ace number one example of what makes the potential for proportional representation agreeable. with the exception of 2019 and, very much in particular, 2015, it is not really so that so-called (and i absolutely do not mean this disrespectfully) "minority parties" have all that a radical change in the number of seats they ended up with. quite an interesting quirk, that said, is what happens to the Scottish Nationalist number of seats when one awards them as a percentage of voting population instead of constituencies. let me let the numbers speak for themselves.
much of my view against proportional representation is that i quite like a local MP, who(m) i and the regional, provincial electorate can hold to account. under 'pr', it would presumably be the parties and or their leaders who pick the MPs based on votes. just take a moment to think what a parliament full of people picked exclusively by Johnson, Corbyn, Cameron, May (God forbid), Sturgeon, Starmer, etc would look like. quite unlikely to represent the majority of the nation any greater than the current system allows for, or puts in place. by the way, Starmer is left out of the collage of pictures partially because i forgot him, but mostly as he has not "fought" an election as such as yet.
yet that 2015 election stands out. advocates of proportional representation would say look, see how the Greens should have had 25 seats, not one. but they are oddly quiet about the small matter of how UKIP would have had 81 (that's eighty one) seats, instead of the 1 (one) they got. if we take the broad political leanings of each party, with proportional representation it is rather (highly) likely we would have ended up with a Conservative-UK coalition government. loathe as i may be to generalise, but i am not sure, indeed uncertain, that this is the sort of thing those who most loudly advocate proportional representation have dreams of being in place.
of course some who would still argue for proportional representation probably have something not quite as simplistic as what i have presented in mind. undoubtedly they have a model for "how much" votes count for, with the calculations likely based on outcomes that would see who they wished to be in power turn out to be the winners. rather like that time they let Ed Sheridan (or whoever) rewrite the rules for the single chart, and then changed them again after he had got what he wanted.
generally, then, i would suggest that all voting systems have distinct flaws. at least they do in use in truly democratic countries, like ours, where one is free to voice a view and/or be critical. perhaps if i had gone further back and looked at even more previous elections the changes would have said more to me, but i doubt this to be so. at the very least this "first past the post" tends to give a clear(ish) winner, sometimes good sometimes bad.
to be honest, yes, no, one should not speak of politics or religion in polite company, for those subjects tend to cause polite ways to part. a ghost whispers in my ear, carried by a wild wind, saying that one should not also speak of weather. let me dispel that ghost, though, for if we cut that from chat our nation would be oh so very silent. but, if anything here as been of interest - even or perhaps especially if this strikes you as something to dismiss as rubbish - nice one.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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