UK Politics / Reply to Ann (was Re: Is Umbridge a commentary on British govt. ed

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Goddlefrood" <gav_fiji at ...> wrote:
>
> > Ann:
> > Well, I had a vague idea that the 1992 election had been close, 
> > and looking it up on Wikipedia I saw that the Tories only won 
> > by 1,241 votes - but you're right, scrolling a bit further down 
> > I see they had a majority of 65. This country could really do 
> > with a bit of democracy.
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> Another convert then? I live as far as it's humanly possible to 
> live away from the place while still being on dry land, partly 
> for this very reason. Unfortunately proportional representation 
> probably wouldn't work there, there'd be too many hung Parliaments 
> with the Liberals holding the balance of power, and would you 
> really want that?

Geoff:
I think I would probably disagree there. The suggestion of a hung 
parliament to many people produces symptoms of shock, horror and 
a sharp intake of breath which I feel is perhaps unwarranted.

The fact is that many mainland European countries function 
perfectly well in a coalition situation. Perhaps our UK politicians 
suffer from a folk memory of disastrous so-called National
Governments in the early 1930s.

The reality is that that, under the first past the post system, many MPs 
are elected with way under 50% of the support of their constituencies 
and the representation of the parties does not reflect their share of 
the vote.

By way of example, in the May 2005 election, Labour polled 35.19% of 
the vote which should give them 227 seats out of the 646 in the House 
of Commons; they hold 355. The LIberal Democrats gained 62 seats but, 
with 22.05% of the vote, should have 142. So the system is basically 
flawed.

Additionally, we have, as a result, a confrontational style of politics 
where two parties cannot put forward similar policies without one 
accusing the other of swiping their ideas, as happened after the Queen's 
Speech this week, when David Cameron, who - to explain for the benefit 
of non-UK readers - is the Conservative leader, launched an attack on 
Gordon Brown in the House over a number of Labour proposals.