UK election result if we had proportional representation 

What does this reply even mean? The point of the original post is that wildly different results based on the same performance is unfair, unrepresentative and illogical. The attempt to analogize it to different sports makes no sense because the post is about what the rules ought to be for competitive elections.

​@@elliottcovert3796well said

@@Objectivebeatz I see you don't understand what representative democracy is....

@@Objectivebeatz tactical voting indicates a failure of the system.

​@@Objectivebeatzshouldn't the option be to vote for the party you support instead of against the party you don't want to win? With FPTP system many don't really have the option to vote for who they want for government and instead are "forced" to vote tactically to prevent candidates from getting into parliament, it's basically forcing people to choose the least bad option instead of the option they really want.

Our current system is basically PR, except the smaller parties are brought under one umbrella by the system, labour is a coalition of centre left and left wing parties.

@@kingflynxi9420 An engine is made of many parts, does it mean I have multiple engines? No. There’s still just 1. Just a hint, if you have to warp and change the meaning of words to try and construct a point, stop and think. You’re probably chatting sh*t.

That is what is being missed here yes, parties need to form a coalition and cooperate and that means there isn't a sole party with all the power like with fptp in current UK.

I find it interesting that the UK hasn't devolved into a pure two-party system, like the USA. That would otherwise be the "best" way to avoid coalitions.

@@reformCopyright the US is two party, because in such a large country is just too expensive to play third or fourth fiddle. The UK is reasonably small. US politics is all about money. They even rate your electoral chance based on how much donations you can collect. Not on how good you are. Money, means ads, promotions, more travel, bigger shows and buying more votes with gifts.

The Labour NEC has totally ignored many of the conference policies :(

lol that reminds me Canada/Trudeau did the same fucking thing

We had a referendum on changing the voting system in the UK during the early days of the Cameron/Clegg coalition parliament (2011), but the public voted against it. If we have another referendum on PR, then we can have another referendum on reversing Brexit and re-joining the EU.

You think they will throw away almost half their seats?

We need to recall the referendum on PR in 2011 (UK). 68% of those voted said ,'No.' In a large population, 68% to 32% is an overwhelming statistical bias. Personally I like PR, but there we have it. In 2011 the population said a resounding no.

Or it was compulsory. There should be a "None of the Above" box for dissenters. If "None of the Above" wins, there should be a new vote with entirely different candidates.

@@markaxworthy2508 Or they could just change the voting system so that you don't need to vote for none of the above

@@Ry_TSG Even PR doesn't produce a 100% turn out, so the dissatisfaction of the disillusioned should still be registered and have an influence.

Bring on compulsory voting. If you don't vote you can't complain.

​@@Ry_TSG Or they could do both? Having a PR voting system doesn't mean it's not worth having a way for people to clearly and unambiguously reject all the candidates available. Currently all non voters are lumped into the "too lazy or too stupid to bother voting" camp, when a great many people actually stay home because they don't want to support any of the parties or candidates available. Yes , currently it's possible to spoil your ballot, but often people assume those will just be ignored. Giving people the option to send that clear message that they feel that none of the candidates are suitable is valuable for greater democracy. PR doesn't guarantee decent candidates, but a "none of the above" option would help with that.

not defending FPTP but in the 2011 referendum 70% of voters voted in favour of FPTP

I think just adding an instant ranked run off would be a better fix. No candidate wins until they reach 50% and would allow voters to tactically rank their choices to prevent essentially the nazi party winning 93 seats

@@William26002 The alternative that was offered in that referendum wasn't PR though. It was AV. Which is even stupider than FPTP.

@@William26002 on a turnout of like 40% and with AV as the only offered alternative

@@giantWario how can AV be worse than FPTP?

Hopefully you could vote for both. There are ways to punish extremely unpopular hated parties through other voting systems. Ranked voting for example

Amen

And votes that are just completely wasted in general. If you vote for any other party except the one that wins your seat, your vote counts for literally nothing. Even if you vote for the winning MP, any votes above what they needed to beat the candidate in 2nd place are totally pointless too. It has to change.

When there is nothing on offer to vote for the only alternative is to vote against!

Can see from the super negative campaigning. Nothing about 'what we can do for you', but 'Look, the other guys will be bad for you'

Shin Fein got 0.7% and 7 seats !!! LOL and they would not darken the door there

it's not crazy. For all other constituencies, they did not win the largest share of the votes. Even with STV, they wouldn't get a proportional result nationally because their vote is spread throughout the entire country. It would be locally unrepresentative for them to win seats in constituencies where they don't have the highest share of votes.

​​@@thomasjosullivan9179Are you saying that result is not leg-it? 😅 It is Sinn Fein.

​@@Cannon952it kinda is, 14% of the popular vote and not even 1% of the seats?

@@Slayrid yes, that's what happens when their votes are spread throughout the country. They receive a small % of the vote for almost every constituency

Farage never called for PR when he was a Conservative member...

Don't forget that it was Labour in February 2010 who pushed through the AV Referendum, which then took place in 2011 (after Labour lost the May 2010 election). The electorate, for reasons I still cannot fathom, resoundingly said "no".

@RCassinello The parties who don't benefit from it, didn't promote it.

@@RCassinello They sound no because the offer on the table (AV: ranked choice) was absolute garbage. A part of the Conservatives (successful) scheme to discredit the Liberal Democrats. Labour were 'neutral' with no official position -- turnout was 42.2%. It was the appearance of a referendum without actually offering a credible alternative to the status quo

@@RCassinellono Labour did not push through the av referendum,, it was a requirement of the coalition agreement.

You got the red tories lol

The percentage of the vote doesn't matter, it's the representation of constituencies. People don't understand the strengths of FPTP - it acts as mini-elections for each region with a winner take all, it's a perfectly valid way to do it. It also means we don't get constant coalitions and open the door to extremists. FPTP is an acid test for actual electability by demanding widespread AND strong support in multiple areas, instead of PR which allows power even if your popularity translates to 3rd place or whatever across the country. That's literally how the NSDAP came to power in the 1930s, because PR is wide open to populism.

Do you really believe that some cockneys are allowed to affect the country under a caste British society? There is no democracy. Ordinary people have no power.

@@tubey84 Wow, not even three comments in and you already invoked Godwin’s law, that has to be a record.

@@allthenewsordeath5772 It's a discussion about voting systems and the weaknesses of PR - if you can't mention the most blatant example of the weakness of PR just because of an internet meme then there's no point discussing it at all.

Labour and National ( conservatives ) in NZ under a ffp system changed it to MMP in 1996, after a referendum in 1993. They bowed to the will of the people. If the people of UK want a change, just push for it.

Humorously, the Tories actually lost out compared to PR this time, just as Labour lost out in 2019.

but Starmer said country before party :/

@@armelfrancois7009 It's only legally binding if he writes it on the side of a bus...

In the 2012 AV referendum it was the Tories and the right wing press that actively campaigned for a No vote. Labour took a neutral position

True, of course, but it's likely that that has skewed the Labour vote higher, making the disproportionate result even worse. Labour weren't out there campaigning for... Whatever their policies are... They campaigned as "the credible alternative to tory chaos". Most people voting Plaid or SNP did so because they believe in greater devolution/independence. People voting Green generally did so because they are concerned with pollution and the climate. Meanwhile, a poll on why people planned to vote Labour had only one or two results of "I like Starmer" or "I agree with their policies" versus an avalanche of "get the Tories out", "I hate Sunak" and "We need change". I genuinely think that actual support for Labour may be as low as the support for the Tories, it's just that there's a massive undecided group that picked the best alternative to Tory rule in a broken electoral system (and not all Left-wing and Central people, there's bound to be people who were deciding between Labour and Reform because they align roughly with the Tories politically, but are tired of the incompetence and corruption the current batch have shown and want to punish them). Sure, left wing people (who wouldn't vote Reform or Tories in a million years) who had also rejected Labour due to their shift Right, their abandoning of Corbyn or their stance on Gaza may have voted tactically between Lib Dems, Greens and SNP/Plaid, but considering all those parties support electoral reform, which one the person truly supports is a bit of a mute point.

Thst's rxactly what happened in the rural contituencies of the SW. People knew the LibDems couldn't form a govt but used them to winkle out the Tories.

@@kieranharwood7186 The point is though, whichever way it impacts it, people were voting using the system in place, you can't take those votes and assume they would have been the same if people had been voting under a PR system. Any article saying what the house would have looked like under a different system is fishing for views rather than being a serious review. This is the same inane conclusion that has so many in the US quoting, who won the 'popular' vote, as if there was a popular vote at any point.

@@mattc3581 But the other point is that tactical voting will nearly always favour the bigger parties. No-one "tactically" votes for the person in fifth. Tactical voting is either for first place to fight off second (who you hate) or voting for second to try and topple the incumbent (who you hate). Thus, the reality of PR would be that it would favour the smaller parties even more than the results show. There will be loads of people who would vote Green if they thought that it would have an effect. There will be loads of people that voted Labour simply to ensure that the Tories lost. There will be people that voted Tory/Reform simply to try and reduce the chance of Labour getting a super majority. And all this makes Labour's "landslide" even worse, they already lost half a million votes compared to the "disastrous" result in 2019, and the polls suggest that the vast majority of Labour's voters were simply voting "not tory" this time, whereas 2019 showed a their vote base was much more inspired by the Labour position.

@@kieranharwood7186 Tactical voting works by constituency though doesn't it, in an area where Lib Dem is the best challenger to Tory then Labour voters will vote Lib Dem. So tactical voting may be for only the two leading parties, but it is the two leaders in each seat which varies. Overall I'm not saying that labour may not have benefitted the most though, I was just saying that you can't assume what the results would have been under PR given we know there will have been tactical voting.

Intersting. The NZ system might be the one to adopt? I'm trying to learn about PR and understand the options. Thankyou for this insight.

@@mikeb7379 here in Uruguay we have a form of PR. each party is made of Party Factions, each faction chooses a candidate for an internal non mandatory election open to all citizens. most parties have a bunch of possible candidates until that point. then once the formal candidate of each party has been elected each party faction creates a list of candidates for parliament. then 6 months of campaigning later every adult citizen has to vote on the general election. you can choose any faction list of any party and the votes are taken into account to create the parliament. so if an internal faction has only enough votes for 3 seats they get the first 3 names on their list into parliament. if no party as a whole has more than 50 percent of votes we hold a second round with the two presidential candidates that got more votes on the first round. both rounds are mandatory for the citizens to vote in. only the first round is taken into account to form the parliament.

Nah

Look up CGP grey STV it’s much better

The stark bollock naked reality is, it’s here for the foreseeable and this has resulted in a scrumdiddlyumptious result for Labour

@@adamgrimsley2900great debate 😂

What about a mixture of both FPTP and PR? 325 seats elected from single district constituencies using FPTP while the other 325 seats are elected through open list proportional representation.

To be fair to Belarus, their actual president is Vladimir Putin, the other guy is just a puppet.

I get your point, but it's unfair to compare British democracy to Belarusian democracy because Belarus isn't a democracy in the first place.

@@connorthompson66 that is why its so bizarre we use such an antiquated and outdated system

We have a 2 round system here in France, it's only slightly better. Although we had proportional voting once, during the 4th republic between 1946 and 1958. Needless to say, it didn't ended well. The parliament was too unstable almost created a civil war.

​@@mrsupremegasconI suspect that's more to do with the circumstances of the time than proportional representation.

It's always been that way. Instead of throwing a quiet tantrum we need to demand change because change is possible. We had a referendum on this very issue back in 2011 and unfortunately 67.9% of people voted no. In the mean time, feel free to continue to exercise your right to not vote and don't let anybody try to gas light you into agreeing that in so doing you forfeit your right to representation, however do not be afraid to make your voice heard as change is possible but we won't get action unless people speak up and make it clear it's something they feel is important.

It is

@@Robert-cu9bm It’s hilarious that you believe that.

When it suits you!

The entire concept of democracy has been poisoned and twisted over the past 150 years. The Greeks at least put people in governmental positions having had no prior experience or particular interest in the field, so you did it as a service to your community and not for any career gain or self-interest.

​@@Robert-cu9bm it's really not

Hasn’t New Zealand been overrun by woke communists?

Hardly anyone lives in NZ though

@@K_j_Mno reason why AMS couldn’t work in the UK. Like literally 0 reason as to why it’s not actionable

NZ is a white settler colony that stole land from the native population. Anyone from NZ lecturing people on better ways to govern is doomed to fail. Get your own house in order first.

​@@K_j_Mignorant comment. Australia has mandatory preferential voting and it works. Only 66% of you Brits bothered to vote, a bit like the yanks 🤷‍♀️

In fptp the coalision are inside the big parties. Really both the labour and the tories show it every other day by their internal fights

Preferential voting and proportional representation is not in the interests of the current elected dictatorship.

Put the politicians out of a job , Direct democracy! No corruption!

The only thing in coalitions are small parties can have a big say especially if they are key to having a majority for the bigger party so there's a democratic deficit there. And if they exit the govt it collapses and you can get frequent elections.

​@@GK-qc5ry Have a look at how we work PR in Ireland, incidentally a system that was a non negotiable part of our independence treaty settlement with the UK, being a requirement of the UK side. We get along fine and have stable government, most of which in recent times have lasted their full term.

Oh dear how sad never mind. Fartage was happy enough with fptp when Bozo won big now it's not fair. Boo f ing hoo

And that is still too much for a party that had no real plans or design for government, that listed many paper candidates just to get on the ballet, created a wish list of ideas and were for many a call for change rather than an actual vote of support for Farage and his little hate group

This is why it shouldn't be a right/left issue. The Greens were also cheated out of their true number of seats.

When you consider the proportion of the vote over England only the representation is even worse .

Whilst I think Reform UK are terrible, they did get partcularly underrepresented compared to their vote share. It is ridiculous how poorly parliament ends up representing the people's actual votes. The one thing that annoys me is we had at least 2 Tory governments with massively inflated representation in parliament, and not a word in the media said about it ... right until a labour government gets in and then suddenly a ton of attention is on the voting system. Whilst I hate the voting system, it is noticable how suddenly the FPTP system went from a non-issue in the media to being a talking point suddenly.

Do you live in the same Canada I do? The Liberal Party has been in a minority government twice now, with the support of the NDP in the Canada I live in.

@@ronbock8291 but they still won the elections? I didnt say anything about majoirities...

Back in 2015 Liberals in Canada promised us that we will ditch first past the post and know in 2024 we still have have first pass the post

NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

I agree, though I think it's worth noting that if you're supporting a change because you feel the Conservatives would've won, that's misguided. Under PR, the Conservatives would've gotten the most seats in those elections but still a minority... well less than the combined NDP and Liberals. Cons + PPC would still fall short of Lib + NDP + Green. Left gets more votes, so what you'd likely get is a broad left-wing coalition which would massively empower the NDP relative to now at the expense of the Liberals. Not saying that's bad, just saying that kind of deflates the main argument I've seem for Conservative supporters that PR would've been good for them, lol

Exactly You would have alot less of the ooh look at the evil other party type campaign too

That point is covered at the end of the video

Huh? That makes no sense. It’s mental isn’t it? We (allegedly) live in a democracy, but we don’t _really_ live in a democracy. For example, how do the Lib Dems get 71 seats with 12.2% but Reform only get 4 seats with 14.3%? That’s not democracy. You can try and spin this any way you want but if 14.3% gains 4 seats and 12.2% gains 71 seats, how can you call that ‘democracy’? 🤔

@@aquaticpears3183 My point is that EVERYTHING would be different, from rhetoric to tactical voting, let alone that people would be working towards coalitions instead of single party majorities. So like I said, I get the point of the video but the actual result shown would bear no resemblance to any PR election.

@@dondoodat ⁠But we had the ‘actual result’. 2% more people voted for Reform more than they did the Lib Dem’s, yet they have 18x fewer seats?! What ‘democracy’ are you upholding here? 🤔

France also doesn't use it, however some of the French opposition parties are advocating for PR.

@@uOkae France does use it as it's part of the EU Parliament to use PR

@@KrzysztofSzkodaGames Correction: The EU Parliament uses PR but France does not use PR for ITS NATIONAL elections. There's a world of difference between the two.

Only difference is that Belarus hardly has fair and free elections. Though saying that it wouldn't surprise me if someone came knocking late at night to make sure you vote a certain way, given the way things are going.

NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

It was a problem when the tories were winning and it’s a problem now.

Closer to schizophrenic governing really.

PR - All I have to say is Italy!

@@drkstrong Well the instability of Italian governments from 1945 onwards has a lot to do with Italian Political culture. Just like the instability of Weimar Germany had a lot to do with German political Culture between the wars. It's not down to any inherent instability in PR. The instability of Italian politics between 1945 and 1990 also had a lot to do with the hoops being jumped through to keep the Italian Communists from power at all cost. The Christian Democrat governments after elections where the Communists performed well were particularly unstable

FPTP does tend to produce more stable governments. That is, as long as the party in government is stable. That's its major advantage and we don't have to deny that it does exist to say that FPTP still sucks. That being said, I don't think pure PR has no drawbacks either. Aside from inherent instability (which can only be amended through "rationalised parliamentarianism" or political culture), PR systems empower parties to impose their own candidates on the electorate without restriction - this encourages favoritism and purges within parties, MP party switching and so on. There's a reason why Italian electoral systems always have "blocked lists" where the elector cannot express a preference, so that the party always decides which of their members they send to which house. Another drawback is the increased distance between the national and local level. Local issues are not brought up in PR systems unless they are of national significance or significant to a party. You cannot "call your MP" because you don't have one. The point is not that I oppose PR (it's better than FPTP) but that the type of PR implemented matters. Pure, national level or large constituency PR has significant drawbacks. What I personally see as a good fit for the UK is STV (Single Transferable Vote) with constituencies that elect 5 MPs. Without getting into detail, this is a form of PR that allows for a more detailed choice and keeps the constituency aspect that's been historically associated with the house of commons. It's already in use in Ireland and Australia and, for my money's worth, a better alternative to FPTP than national level PR.

Strange comment following two elections where a clear majority was given to the winning party. You are confusing "stable" with "what I want"

Plus have the Lords as a delocalised PR for better scrutiny.

@@frightday13dragon94That’s the combination we have in Australia and it works.

I doubt most people would understand how to apply the STV, they barely comprehend putting a cross in a box as it is.

@@philwhitelaw3111 Australians manage to vote in our more complex system. There’s effort put into educating people how to vote. If Australians can do it, why don’t you think that Britons can as well?

​@@philwhitelaw3111voting under STV is still easy to understand, you number candidates in order of preference. Yes this means you need to look into the candidates more to be able to rank them more carefully, but you don't need to look at polling to try to guess how others will vote to vote tactically. I would much rather focus my election research on the candidates instead of other people's opinions.

In that case no electoral system is any form of Democracy. NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

It is literally a form of democracy it just adds extra measures against extremist parties.

Little more than a 2-horse race... and there are more than 2 horses in this stable.

"welcome to the internet, have a look around"

It's to scare you. 'Ooh if you get proper representation reform will do well, you don't like reform right? Better support fptp!'

It wouldn't be hard to find out. With all the polls being done. Instead of asking "how do you intend to vote at the next general election" ask "if you could directly pick who was in government, who would you choose" These would give two wildly different answers.

@@temtem9255 I thought that, but given the tone of the video, I actually thinks it’s just poorly thought out not necessarily malicious.

Direct democracy , PR is flawed too... Any system with representatives is flawed and very open to corruption!

Definitely not. Our current system protects against extremism. Given the recent results here and abroad I’d say that’s a good thing

​@@henryburton6529 have you seen the extremist conservative governments we've had in the last 14 years?

​@@henryburton6529how does it protect against extremism? If you look at countries like New Zealand, are you saying it has extremism in politics due to proportional voting?

@@jebbo-c1l better than reform (brexit party)

I hear you, but it is a decent approximation. The general gist is that there's no way Labour would have won 63.8% of the vote - many people don't love them, they just hate the Tories.

Even that system is flawed. The List MSP part allows numpties to cling on to power without any democratic accountability - people like the Tories' Douglas Ross and "Scottish" Labour's Anas Sarwar.

@@jackdubz4247and Nicola Sturgeon was a list MSP between 1999-2007!!!

Is that the system where a minority of Green MPs have been holding the SNP to ransom, forcing them to adopt policies no one voted for? Yeah, working great for ya

PR in Scotland is horrific. thats why we get loonies like the Greens running the show. How is that democratic?

@@jackdubz4247 On the contrary. I vote in Scotland and knew exactly who was on the list for each party in my region (The Highlands). I used the flexibility in the system too, more than once I gave my constituency vote to one party and my list vote to another. I dislike some of the people who got elected, whether by the list of by their constituency - but I'm not going around pretending they weren't really elected because they got to Holyrood via the list.

Soz to mess with your comment, but how do you put italics in your post? I can only do the *bold* thing 🤷‍♂️

Australian government is unstable because of the STV.

This is what i would love to see. Then my vote always counts

@@gnoelalexmay _Italics_ is _ either side

Problem with STV is it favours centrist parties because right wingers and left wingers will put the centrists on their 2nd & 3rd place votes. So anything on the fringe basically has no chance of winning even if it had high support of 1st place votes.

NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

Labour already tried - we had a referendum about it in 2011. It was the people who said "no" in the end.

@@RCassinellowhy do people peddle this myth, the referendum was on the complicated Alternative Vote system not PR

@@markaxworthy2508 - we already heard you the first five times you cut and pasted this response.

@@AnthonyFlack 1) If something is worth saying once, it is worth repeating. Why recompose and paraphrase the same thing if you don't have to? 2) I am not advocating any electoral system. My point is that every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system. 3) As an example, NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In all bar one not a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Is that not true? If not, why not?

Thank you finally someone mentioning the Australian voting system 🤦‍♀️

The French system just tells some electors that they got it wrong first time and obliges them to either drop out of the electoral process by abstaining, or vote for someone they don't really want.

French system is not the answer. UK rightly rejected the offer to move to AV. It's a ridiculous system. One vote and divi up the seats based on the outome. That works for me. I struggle to make my mark for one party let alone be asked to choose the next least shite alternative.

@@jayggg 100% disagree. I do however support proportional representation, but, if you want a local MP, which I can understand, then the frech system is still way better than the current system. You still know whether you would rather have a green MP or a reform MP. You would make that choice easy

@@plasmacannon1198 So let's imagine you are for Macron. Your scheming politicians do a deal so that your candidate steps down to prevent another party winning. Who do you expect that person should vote for in round 2? Ridiculous system. I'd stay home if I were that person because now, instead of voting for a party you want, you are voting againt someone you don't want and will have no representation. (for clarity I am far from being a supporter of Macron).

NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

Might encourage labour to up their game. Or some new parties...

@@markaxworthy2508 The world doesn't revolve around anyone therefor it would be foolish to think that a voter should get all what they want. In NZ, in 2011, they had a referendum whether to switch back to FPTP which there was a 50%+ voter turn out which the majority of the voters voted NO, they want PR to stay. They are happy with PR compare to the years of FPTP. Also, in 2020, the New Zealand Labour party got a majority with MMP, yet the voters still didn't get what they want. I think you should remember that politicians lie a lot and breaks promises with PR or without PR (Also, you definitely know this, you are just cherry picking information to make PR look bad)

@@user-ge5ce2rr6p You write, "it would be foolish to think that a voter should get all what they want". Exactly my point in writing, "Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system." It also explains why everybody adopts different versions of PR. There is NO right answer. In the UK we also had a referendum on the subject. FPTP won overwhelmingly. You say, "in 2020, the New Zealand Labour party got a majority with MMP, yet the voters still didn't get what they want." Perhaps not, but they certainly, for once, got the government at least one of them VOTED FOR. In the other eight MMP ensured not a single voter did. They horse-trading coalition governments nobody had voted for. You say, "I think you should remember that politicians lie a lot and breaks promises with PR or without PR." Different issue and down to political culture, not the electoral system. I would suggest that for you to highlight just one election in nine is the "cherry picking". 2020 was an exception that proves the rule. FPTP is a compromise with pure democracy, but so is every other system.

You write, "it would be foolish to think that a voter should get all what they want". Exactly my point in writing, "Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system." It also explains why everybody adopts different versions of PR. There is NO right answer. In the UK we also had a referendum on the subject. FPTP won overwhelmingly. You say, "in 2020, the New Zealand Labour party got a majority with MMP, yet the voters still didn't get what they want." Perhaps not, but they certainly, for once, got the government at least one of them VOTED FOR. In the other eight MMP ensured not a single voter did. They horse-trading coalition governments nobody had voted for. You say, "I think you should remember that politicians lie a lot and breaks promises with PR or without PR." Different issue and down to political culture, not the electoral system. I would suggest that for you to highlight just one election in nine is the "cherry picking". 2020 was an exception that proves the rule. FPTP is a compromise with pure democracy, but so is every other system.

the tories dont have an issue with it, in fact most parties dont as they know its a corrupt way of getting themselves into power.

You say that, but having virtually no differences between the major political parties is just as detrimental to a democracy as factionalism, if I recall the two main political parties in Ireland have been described as two cheeks of the same ars. The trouble with the government in Dublin is that they only seem to serve the upper class progressives of Dublin.

What you're describing is not PR in general. It is STV. There are other ways to accomplish PR, though the only ones besides STV that are in use are list-PR and MMPR. Among countries using PR, STV is actually quite uncommon. Though in my opinion it is a better system than list-PR and MMPR. Do not mix these up. STV isn't the only way to accomplish PR, and by implying that it is, you may confuse people.

@@allthenewsordeath5772 Well, shows how little you know about how Irish politics work.

@@andrasfogarasi5014 Granted

The Irish want a 100% Northern Ireland referendum when only half want to join. How does that make any sense? Especially with as you say factionalism? Just let the left leave.

NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

@markaxworthy2508 Should we expect to get only and exactly what we want? Isn't government about doing the best possible for everyone? When a gov has absolutely no Opposition, it can impose its will regardless of half the populations' wishes.

@@ant7936 You ask, "Should we expect to get only and exactly what we want?" In an ideal world, yes. On a more practical level it would be nice if at least somebody gets what they want. FPTP, for all its other faults, generally ensures that this happens.

But its not working in Scotland. The Greens get no votes but end up as part of the government. How is that democratic.?

​@markaxworthy2508 Under a PR system, people vote based on who represents them best ideologically. Like-minded people vote for like-minded parties. Like-minded parties work and form coalitions with like-minded parties.

isn't it more a tradeoff between laws that keep one part of the public very happy vs. laws that make most of the public, just a bit happy

NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

​@@markaxworthy2508 You know that the point of "Replies" is to interact with the comment, not to copy-paste the same argument everywhere?

@@shrouddreamer If something is worth saying once, it is worth saying multiple times, don't you think? It doesn't get more or less true with repetition. Have you anything on subject to offer?

​@@markaxworthy2508 - we've already read it three times by now. Once was enough to get the point, and I don't think it's worth repeating. Voters not getting exactly what they ask for isn't necessarily a flaw - we have representative democracies for good reason.

I can't think of anything worse than being forced to vote for one of a list of candidates that are all terrible.

Turnout is partly a result of the system. Millions don't vote because they live in 'safe' seats. With PR or another system, they can see their vote counts.

@@roberthudson3386spoil your ballot then, good? Awesome!

There is value to being able to differentiate between people who don't bother voting and people who vote by spoiling their ballot. That forty odd percent of people staying home are a mix of people that don't care, people that are lazy, people that realise they are not informed enough to make the decision and people that would happily vote if the choice wasn't pointless/terrible. It's impossible to tell how that is split. When someone spoils their ballot in a non-mandatory vote, it's not because they are lazy, if they were lazy they wouldn't bother at all. It PROVES that they have at least some passion, but that none of the candidates have made them care specifically about them. Spoiling the ballot is saying "I came out here of my own volition, if you were less useless you could have got my vote, but you all suck, so you can't have it". You can't get that with mandatory voting.

@@kieranharwood7186 The person in question could write their reason for spoiling on the ballot. Those who are disinterested can just leave it blank. What is the advantage of knowing what category non-voters are in?

You just have to turn up, you're not forced to vote.

We were only offered one, very convoluted and still unfair system ... so we voted no because it was a bad system. There are some very good PR systems but we weren't offered them as an alternative because they didn't want us to vote yes and oust their cushy jobs for the boys FPTP. Try it again with a democratic option and I think you'll get a very different result, especially after the latest fiasco.

You were offered one choice, and the PM blatantly lied to the public about how it would work. And if somebody doesn't follow politics they shouldn't be made to vote. People vote in ignorance too much as it is.

Indecision is a decision in its own. If you can not get up in the morning, go to your vote and cast your ballot a few times a year every other year then you do not deserve to have a say in it. And no right to complain afterwards.

Or you could try to be like Sweden, which does things so right that they have 84% turnout *without* mandatory voting.

They do cover that towards the end of the video to be fair.

That is a fair argument, but one important point is that there is no way 63.8% of the people would vote for Labour if they had PR. I believe virtually all Green and Reform voters under FPTP would still vote for those parties, and many Lib Dem voters as well (except those who would prefer Labour but voted Lib Dem tactically). You can't directly translate the FPTP vote into PR, but it's not like the PR results would be completely disconnected from the vote that actually happened either. It's just more nuanced.

Don't agree. It's more common to hate a small number of parties and like several to different extents. If by stable government you mean one party has a majority so you don't need coalitions, that is exactly the thing we are trying to avoid! Unless one party actually has the support of a majority of people then they shouldn't get a majority of seats. PR and ranked choice are different things. Under a pure PR system you only vote for 1 party and then they get the number of seats according to their % of votes. STV is ranked choice proportional. In that system you group existing constituencies into groups of about 5 then you vote for your candidates in order of preference. This way only parties that get over 20% in that area get a seat. This keeps out extreme fringe parties but lets moderate minor parties get seats where they have local support. That's a good compromise between full PR and FPTP.

@@adrianthoroughgood1191 ranked choice is already proportional enough to cause the problem of “too many parties”. That’s why I think only being able to rank top 2/3 would be a good compromise. Pure PR would make the issue even more nighmareish. Best case scenario, the candidate/party you support compromised their political stance you voted for just so that they can be in a coalition to govern. Worst case scenario, constant infighting within the coalition of many parties and no legislation gets passed. Also, mandatory voting. Without it, only those who feel strongly about their political opinions come out to vote. That’s how you get parties to produce candidates on the extreme spectrum of either left or right. Requiring the silent moderates to come out and vote is the best medicine for divisiveness in the society.

@@Ballacha Are you saying you think candidates are too extreme now? Most people complain that there isn't enough difference between Con and Lab and that they are all the same!

@@adrianthoroughgood1191 14% of the votes went to nigel farage and his goons. 14%. if the uk had a slightly more proportional system, they would have won big. if this goes on, more and more people are going to be too disillusioned to vote. and britain is going to be as divided as america in no time at all.

You're not required to ranked all the candidates though, at least not anywhere in the UK that uses STV. If you hate all the parties bar one then only use you're first preference and then stop

Yep, and people have forgotten that the 2011 referendum only happened at all because Labour pushed it through in February 2010, shortly before losing the May election.

Preferential is better. If your first choice doesn't get in your second might and so on

@@Robert-cu9bm though thats just the current system but slight improovment.

@@Robert-cu9bm I could not have put any party as a second vote so prefer pr system

STV tells some of the electorate that they got it wrong and gives them a choice of either dropping out of the electoral process altogether or voting for someone they don't really want. NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

@@angelakadeer1565 Then you don't put one down. That's the brilliance of it, you can pick just the one or your second, third..etc choice.

You can manage both depending on the system used. Scotland and other areas use a version of Mixed Member Proportionate(al?). One vote goes to your representitive, the other vote to the party. The party vote corresponds roughly to a share of the seats and the representative votes elects your MP. The difference between directly elected MPs and the seat share is made up with list MPs made by the party. Downside is these currently aren't very transparent or manipulatable by the public, but probably could be for those interested. See Australia above the line or below the line type voting. I hope this makes sense. I'm writing this at 2.05am...

Lol most people voting for a political party aren't doing so because of the local candidate lol. That's the claim but it's not true. Most people who voted Thursday did so on a "get the Tories out" ticket, and probably knew very little about who their local candidate even was. A lot of candidates are brought in to areas that they have absolutely no affiliation with.

Well that’s why most countries actually use both. In Germany, they have two ballots, one for the constituency which is FTFP, and one that is directly proportional, with a vote threshold of 5%.

Except that tram is essentially powerless without the support of the governing party. Why do you think most northern towns and cities have been left to rot over the past 20 years? Because they don't fit the narrative within Westminster. If the Tories could, they would have demolished the likes of Middlesbrough and Sunderland and expanded London or Milton Keynes instead.

That's just marketing spiel. MPs govern by party whip, the constituency is irrelevant in Parliament. And forms of PR can still give you local MPs, or you can give the council more powers. There is zero excuse for FPTP.

c4 trying to cover their asses after the actor scandal election interference. Playing both sides

How small?

@@gregoryfenn1462 good question. It's something that always gets a lot of discussion. Technically it takes away a little from the true democracy of pr. PR is perfect democracy, but humans are not perfect. My usual guess is that a few percent vote threshold should be enough. If you need a solid number... About 5% possibly less, but it depends on the population and the number of seats in government to be divided. My number is for 16000000 people and 150 seats. I'm not from the UK. For you Take your voting population and divide by the number of seats. You will get the number of votes needed for a seat in PR. Then calculate one percent of your population. Think of what you think is the smallest amount of seats for a party you find acceptable. For example no parties with less than two seats. Use the numbers you just got to calculate the vote share for that number of seats and you got a voting threshold.

@@gregoryfenn1462 in Germany it's 5%

PR ensures splintering into multiple parties. NZ has had 9 elections since PR was introduced. In not one has a single voter got what they voted for because of post-election coalition horse trading. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

@@markaxworthy2508 no voter should get what they voted for unless their party has more then 50% of the vote share and can govern alone. If you don't represent a majority on your own, you shouldn't be able to force things thru on your own. It's a democracy not a dictatorship of the minority. If the citizens have different opinions on how things should be solved then those opinions should be taken into account. Yes nobody gets exactly what they want, but everybody gets something of what they want. If that makes things a little less stable in times where opinion is divided, so be it. Their government should represent the people, if the people are divided then so should the government be. They should work and work until a solution for the division is found. No system is perfect, but some systems are far more flawed than others. Fptp is severely more flawed than pr.

Not only that, but shouldn't a prospective PM be able to manage alliances amongst other parties? Isn't being the leader of one country amongst hundreds worldwide involve that same diplomacy? The idea that we WANT a leader that is inept at one of the main skills they require for the job is madness.

Actually it's "our democracy" ..... only question is who is "our" 🤔

If he was right, people in PR countries would be clamoring to have FPTP and that basically never happens.

So you're against democracy?

What a biased and unfair comment !! I could say the same for people who vote Libour, idiots.

It did, just not enough people in your constituency share the same opinion as you

Or they're equally clueless ​@@alr68

My vote counted. The candidate I backed didn't win the seat, but their party went from a weak fourth to a strong second in the poll. The trick is to understand the system, complaining is never a winning stratagem.

@@chrisoneill3999your vote goes up in smoke if who u voted for doesn’t win. It doesn’t get added to the tally as it would in a real democratic system, it’s simply binned

​@chrisoneill3999 The system heavily favours previously established and long running parties, which is exactly why we have the same 2 parties dominating every decade, regardless of whether you know the system or not, you can't change that without decades of voting. It leaves no room for newer established parties, people that have already assigned themselves to a party are unlikely to change their allegiances. The vote does go to waste if your voted candidate in your constituency doesn't win, if 10,000 people vote Reform for example, and Labour win, those 10,000 votes don't carry over to the general consensus, they're basically binned. It's a rigged system to keep those in power, in power.

In most, if not all, cases the final result of STV will be closer to the PR result than FPTP. STV also allows a more accurate prediction of what PR would give (as there's virtually no need to vote tactically in STV).

STV is indeed a proportional representation method. If party X has the support of 20% of voters and they rank all party X candidates above any other candidates, they're guaranteed to get 20% of the seats, up to rounding. That is what proportional representation means.

It is so worrying the number of people who post this sentiment un-ironically.

There is no "fair" system. Every system is flawed. It is a matter of choosing your preferred flawed system.

This is how you spot people who don't actually support democracy, but prefer to have some sort of dictatorship, where a minority, including them, gets to make the rules for everyone.

I do and it would be great !

"Inflicted". Reform came second in 98 constituencies mate... And won 5 + 1 TUV MP making it 6. Telegraph analysis shows if 340,000 more conservative voters swing to reform they'd end up being the opposition.

@@GDP-hm5ey yeah, 2nd. Why should a constituency have an MP who they didn't vote for?

@@goooooorkyo Majority of people in Labour constituencies didn't vote Labour. And where Reform came second most of the time if some of the left over conservative voters had swapped to them they would have won.

@@goooooorkyoLabour got 30% of the vote share in almost all of their victory constituencies.

To be fair, it wasn't specifically for PR vs FPTP. It was FPTP vs AV.

that was a referendum for alternative vote, not proportional representation

​@@arranclarkwhich is still infinitely better than FPTP

@@blisz2718 It wasn't "an unspecified alternative", it was alternative vote (AV) a.k.a ranked-choice voting.

@@scotandiamapping4549 i agree completely

@@chaphidoesstuff we’re all already on board for PR. Please don’t put us off by pointing out it’ll help the Nazis.

​@@isolationnationnyou insult the dead of the second world war with your brain damage comment

They'll get hit harder once the 5 Reform UK Party Ltd MPs all go in by-elections in the next few months.

@@isolationnationn "Nazis". Don't be silly.

Reform got what they deserved. Probably a bit more than they’re deserved actually.

Consistency is an alien concept to fifth columnist Farage

Voters who are bigots will believe anything a bigoted politician tells them. Confirmation bias. The people who voted for Reform live in dilapidated areas who are told brown skinned people with funny sounding accents are the cause and not the capitalist policies of the tories. The tories were simply blamed for not being far right enough.

Farage has never complained about PR, what are you on about 🤣

What was funny earlier ed davey was going on about changing to pr. then the reporter told him his party would have less seats than reform and he shut up. Lol

@@billyward7108 I'm not a fan of Farage but I do give him that, he's consistently supported electoral reform.

Belarus and India. Let that sink in.

@@jasonpereira4024 I think the comment referred to Europe .

Just spoil it

And what happens when that option wins? That constituency goes unrepresented? Or do we need further rounds of election? Either way it is not an ideal situation

@@saikoujikan should either be a second ballot for that constituency, force voters to think more

@@gaycha6589 it’s more likely fewer people will be bothered to vote the second time, meaning the turnout lowers and only the dieheart will turn up, getting what they wish.

If you don't like any of the options, leave your ballot blank. Spoil it. Or, better yet: run.

Wah 😭

The system has been in place for years and it’s a system that people voted to keep in a referendum. However, of course she system was set up to disenfranchise reform voters and if it PR reform would have won.

​@@mwd331people didn't vote reform because they had more confidence in conservatives to win in their area. They do this because if you don't vote for the winner your vote doesn't matter at all and they'd rather the conservatives win than labour

@@shanghaichica But the referendum rejected AV. No evidence to say that another referendum would be any different.

That's not true of MMP, you still have constituency MPs.

Did you watch the end of the video? They literally directly address this

Not true, we have PR in German elections and every constituency has an elected MP (sometimes even two if a party does really well). Check out the German voting system for the Bundestag.

Jesus Christ-1300 to 1950 MPs. Save us.

@@FranzBieberkopf Not true, you just have to change the size of your constituencies. Germany has 299 for the Bundestag elections, the UK has 650 with a smaller population (84.6 versus 67 mlillion)! The maximum number of seats in future will be 630, restricting the number of overhang seats (to ensure proportional representation) to 32.

That's not true. London Assembly, Welsh Parliament, Scottish Parliament, and Norther Irish Assembly all use PR and all have a connection between voters and their local representatives

@@FranzBieberkopf - save us from representation? More MPs is not a bad thing. Better than having fewer. Better than the opposite end of the scale with one person holding all the power.

That's your opinion but the reality is the majority of people who voted had a representative in government. The same was true when Labour and the liberals formed a coalition between 1999 and 2007. Just because you don't like the government doesn't make the system bad. Most people just don't agree with you and voted for something you don't agree with

Why?

@@kiwi235kiwi the Tory mention is self explanatory, especially if you're not part of the 1%. For reform: no plans on the housing issue other than "reviewing the system", scrapping laws that we have adopted from the EU now we've left such as the consumer rights act, literally zero ways of funding any of their plans as their plans on the economy would cost the government more money, they reject the WHO which is absolutely bananas and their views on immigration is what they're banking on. They're acting as if immigration is the biggest threat to everyday lives & the cost of living crisis & immigrants, legal or not, cannot claim benefits (outside of special circumstances and length of stay) so them claiming there is a drain on the benefits system is false. They're pushing a populist agenda to give the people who have been hard done by something to blame. Sorry if this is long, this isn't me telling you how you should vote, you're entitled to vote however which way you want. It's just with parties like reform it's good to look past the big drum they pound and see what they would offer to you and the people you care about.

​@@kiwi235kiwi Because all they offer is culture wars and handouts to their rich sponors (owners re reform corp).

@@kiwi235kiwi I did reply with some thought out and factual reasons but it seems like my comment has been deleted. I do apologise.

@@kiwi235kiwiBecause right wing ideology has destroyed this country, the solution is not to move further right.

The version of PR we were offered was not a good one.

@@steveknight878Yes it was, the AV system actually lets you rank candidates and subsequent runoffs from that lead to the party that is most broadly preferred being elected in each constituency.

​@@steveknight878Neither was Brexit. Let's vote on both again

@@steveknight878 well you had your chance, not allowed to have another referendum ever again..... Brexiters said so....and they love referendum results

@@dominicchallis2928 as far as I remember there were multiple options.... it was just more complicated than a three word slogan. stop the boats, take back control etc