The UK is hung - Part 4

Continued from here.

Can one of our resident electoral system experts please confirm for me - is the 'Alternative Vote' the same 'preferential ballot'/'instant run-off' system that is currently used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives?

Gordon Brown's resignation has freed things up.  He has actually improved chances of the Lib-Dems finding common cause with Labour. 

ghoris wrote:

Can one of our resident electoral system experts please confirm for me - is the 'Alternative Vote' the same 'preferential ballot'/'instant run-off' system that is currently used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives?

YES, it is the same. In Australia, it works well - people can cast a protest vote for the Green party and still preference Labour ahead of the Liberals. On the rightwing side of the equation, the National Party and the Liberal Party maintain a separate identity and in some ridings run candidates against each other - but its understood that they will always preference each other head of Labour.

Imagine a system like in canada where people could vote however they wanted as long as they ALWAYS RANKED THE TORY LAST!

In the UK they are also talking about an "AV Plus" system whereby some additional top up seats would be allocated proportionately.

ghoris wrote:

Can one of our resident electoral system experts please confirm for me - is the 'Alternative Vote' the same 'preferential ballot'/'instant run-off' system that is currently used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives?

Alternative voting is essentially the same as a preferential ballot. It is more appropriate for a single position such as a President, or to decide between competing proposals rather than simply Yes/No in a referendum. It can result even less proportional results than FPTP and while it would eliminate attempts at strategic voting (which rarely works anyway), it is inappropriate in my view to elect a representative legislature.

ghoris wrote:

Can one of our resident electoral system experts please confirm for me - is the 'Alternative Vote' the same 'preferential ballot'/'instant run-off' system that is currently used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives?

There all one and the same.

AV is also known as instant runoff voting

wiki - Instant Runoff Voting / Alternative Vote / Preferential Voting

wiki - AV Top-Up

Polunatic2 wrote:

I don't anything about "AV-Plus" but in the Canadian context, is AV not likely a formula for perpetual Liberal rule.

a) Liberals vote liberal.

b) NDPers select libs as 2nd choice (or only vote their 1st choice)

c) Cons select Libs as 2nd choice (or only vote their 1st choice)

d) Not sure about Quebec.

I'm not so sure - first of all in Australia (for example) you MUST rank everyone on your ballot or else your ballot is considered spoiled - so you cannot only vote for your first choice. If you actually look at "second choice" preferences - its not so cut and dried - there is a chunk of Tory voters who would preference the NDP over the Liberals and vice-versa and Green votes would go largely NDP and Liberal. We also can't neglect the impact of having that system would have on the way in which parties campaign. Fore example, the Liberals and NDP could make a pre-campaign deal whereby they both run candidates all 308 ridings - but they explicitly urge their voters to preference the other. So if you were identified as a Liberal voter by a Liberal campaign, you might get a "How to vote" card from you local Liberal candidate the night before the election showing how should shoudl rank the Liberal -1, the NDP-2 and so on.

I suppose the possible danger for the NDP would be that in close NDP/Liberal battles - most Tories might preference the Liberals ahead of the NDP - but that may or may not happen and the NDP might get more Green preferences than the Liberals and alot would depend on local candidates as well. In western Canada, a lot of Tories have an almost pathological hatred of Liberals but are more benign towards the NDP - the NDP might gain from Tory preferences there.

Sean O'Grady: Brown out. PR back on the table. Has Clegg snatched victory from the jaws of defeat?

The last time the Liberal party joined the Tories in a coalition the party split three ways

Sean O'Grady: Brown out. PR back on the table. Has Clegg snatched victory from the jaws of defeat?

More immediately, a Lib-Con deal will propel a Tory into No 10, and into all the key ministerial jobs, for the first time in 13 years. Thus Vince Cable can be allowed the job of chief secretary to the Treasury, but not the chancellorship. Mr Cable can be the man who toils in the undergrowth of Whitehall with his axe, while George Osborne gads around the G20 summits and the rest of it. Thanks, George. Thus, also, Michael Gove can nobly sacrifice his putative role as schools secretary in favour of David Laws, safe in the knowledge that Mr Laws agrees with 90 per cent of his policy anyway. Mr Clegg, Prescott-style, could be appeased with a grand but meaningless title of deputy prime minister, and left to fiddle around with the constitution. But won't Nick Clegg force through electoral reform? What about the Tories' promises?

The sad answer is that the Tories will find a way of dodging their obligations. For them the Liberal Democrats are not partners in power, but enemies to be destroyed - by stealth if necessary, as outright electoral assault has not worked. The last thing they will give the Liberal Democrats is a permanent lock on power.

Any commitments the Tories make on electoral reform will be confined to inquiries and referendums, and the Tory party itself , and possibly Cameron, will not change settled policy. Even though they have offered a referendum on the alternative vote, they might not agree to whip the Tory MPs to support the enabling Bill. And even if they did, lots of Tory MPs might ignore the whip. The sanctions imposed by the Tory leadership for such indiscipline might be light. All this, by the way, will be late in the parliament, and too late for the Liberal Democrats to do much about it.

Now, in their talks with Labour, the Liberal Democrats have the best chance of fair votes in 80 years. They also have Brown's head on a stick (which is certainly what the nation wanted), immediate legislation on electoral reform, and an agreed programme for economic recovery, probably with David Miliband as PM, Vince Cable in No 11 and Clegg as deputy PM, this time with a proper job of political reform to carry though straight away. That, it seems to me, is the fulfilment of the original Tony Blair-Paddy Ashdown "project" of 12 years ago to re-unite the progressive parties. Gordon Brown vetoed that in 1997 and 1998; he has now acted as midwife to its rebirth: a pleasing symmetry.

More immediately, a Lib-Con deal will propel a Tory into No 10, and into all the key ministerial jobs, for the first time in 13 years. Thus Vince Cable can be allowed the job of chief secretary to the Treasury, but not the chancellorship. Mr Cable can be the man who toils in the undergrowth of Whitehall with his axe, while George Osborne gads around the G20 summits and the rest of it. Thanks, George. Thus, also, Michael Gove can nobly sacrifice his putative role as schools secretary in favour of David Laws, safe in the knowledge that Mr Laws agrees with 90 per cent of his policy anyway. Mr Clegg, Prescott-style, could be appeased with a grand but meaningless title of deputy prime minister, and left to fiddle around with the constitution. But won't Nick Clegg force through electoral reform? What about the Tories' promises?

The sad answer is that the Tories will find a way of dodging their obligations. For them the Liberal Democrats are not partners in power, but enemies to be destroyed - by stealth if necessary, as outright electoral assault has not worked. The last thing they will give the Liberal Democrats is a permanent lock on power.

Any commitments the Tories make on electoral reform will be confined to inquiries and referendums, and the Tory party itself , and possibly Cameron, will not change settled policy. Even though they have offered a referendum on the alternative vote, they might not agree to whip the Tory MPs to support the enabling Bill. And even if they did, lots of Tory MPs might ignore the whip. The sanctions imposed by the Tory leadership for such indiscipline might be light. All this, by the way, will be late in the parliament, and too late for the Liberal Democrats to do much about it.

Now, in their talks with Labour, the Liberal Democrats have the best chance of fair votes in 80 years. They also have Brown's head on a stick (which is certainly what the nation wanted), immediate legislation on electoral reform, and an agreed programme for economic recovery, probably with David Miliband as PM, Vince Cable in No 11 and Clegg as deputy PM, this time with a proper job of political reform to carry though straight away. That, it seems to me, is the fulfilment of the original Tony Blair-Paddy Ashdown "project" of 12 years ago to re-unite the progressive parties. Gordon Brown vetoed that in 1997 and 1998; he has now acted as midwife to its rebirth: a pleasing symmetry.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/sean-ogrady-brown-out-...

Gotta love the Lib Dems decision making process. It is absurd how much power the leaders of most parties have.

Nick Clegg showed his hand, but MPs told him to call David Cameron's bluff

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7122351.ece

I think the tipping point will be the probability that most Lib Dem MPs seem to be opposed to a pact with the Tories and could rebel if they were forced to go along. Apparently, any deal has to be approved by 2/3 of the Lib Dem caucus in any case which alone makes a Lib-Lab pact more likely (let's also not forget that the "Dem" part of the Lib Dems, the former SDP, came out of the Labour Party and thus is less likely to want to support the Tories) A number of MPs are cogniscent of the fact that they benefit from Labour supporters voting for them tacticly in rural or middle class ridings in order to block the Tories and that they would likely lose that support if they put Cameron into power. Even Billy Bragg said last week he votes Lib Dem because he lives in the countryside and that's the only way he can stop the Tories.

Is it just me or do Nick Clegg and David Cameron look exactly alike? I can't tell the difference.

As a rep of the "party of the centre", Nick Clegg seems to have a bit of Michael Bryant about him

JKR wrote:

Policywonk wrote:

Alternative voting is essentially the same as a preferential ballot. It is more appropriate for a single position such as a President, or to decide between competing proposals rather than simply Yes/No in a referendum. It can result even less proportional results than FPTP and while it would eliminate attempts at strategic voting (which rarely works anyway), it is inappropriate in my view to elect a representative legislature.

FPTP is even less appropriate to elect representatives.

All the parties use AV, not FPTP, to elect their representatives. Would you say that the parties should switch to using FPTP to nominate their candidates in the constituencies?

If the parties feel that AV is the best system to select their own representatives in the ridings why should they prefer a less satisfactory system for the general election?

I would agree that PR is better then AV but I would also say that AV is much better then FPTP.

PR systems such as AV top-up are better then just AV, but AV is much better then FPTP.

On the other hand, one advantage AV has over PR systems is that AV is acceptable to the vast majority of people in the UK and Canada. AV is a system most people could live with. Like it or not, many people prefer majoritarian governments.

AV may produce a better result in a particular election, or a worse result. It depends on vote concentrations even more than FPTP, in my view. AV is perfectly suitable for electing candidates, because you are only electing one position (in a single member constituency). It would be less so in a multiple seat constituency, but then STV (for the nominations), would be more appropriate.

In the case of the recent UK election, the analysis I have seen indicates that the Lib-Dems would probably have enough seats to hold the balance of power with both the Conservatives and Labour without any other Party. On the other hand, analyses of previous elections tend to show that AV might exagerate majorities even more than FPTP, even if it is more generous to third parties past a certain threshold (Lib-Dems may have been the official opposition in 1997).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8644480.stm

General election 2010 - live blog

"8.47pm: Labour's negotiating team has been meeting the Lib Dems tonight. It comprises Lord Mandelson, Harriet Harman, Lord Adonis, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls."

Lord Adonis? Didn't he used to wrestle with Bobby 'The Brain' Heenan?

Curious that potential leadership candidates Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are on the negotiating team but likely leadership frontrunner David Miliband is not.

NorthReport wrote:

 A resignation that changes everything

 

Now that Brown has made his move the Lib Dems would be crazy not to take the chance it presents, rather than prop up a largely unreformed Conservative Party

 

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-r...

The problem for the Lib Dems is that Labour is considered the loser of the election, and many people think that the Conservatives have the strongest right to be the Government.  If the Lib Dems prop up Labour, there could be repercussions.

It must be difficult to be Nick Clegg right now.

As the talking head idiots of FoxNews pointed out (there is a link on a previous thread) , the UK Conservatives "pissed away" a massive 11 point lead during the course of the election campaign. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

In that sense, measly is perfectly apt. And it's put the UK Conservatives in a foul mood; their US brethren at FoxNews were full of "tut-tuts" about such an awful waste.

lol. couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

Another take on the issue. http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Commentary/-/689364/915822/-/a28ejyz/-/

This is actually pretty sad.

Quote:

But the point is that Tony Blair was able to get a majority government in 2005 with only about 36% of the vote, so it's not fair that David Cameron didn't

I'm getting all weepy just thinking about the injustice of it...  An unfair past result isn't a very good argument for another unfair result.  The Cons had their chance but they're refusing to play ball with the Lib-Dems and make unfair results less likely in the future.

The Tories and their '36% is a mandate' supporters deserve to be out of power just like their Canadian counterparts.

It was nice to see the recent changing political landscape both in the USA and in Australia. Canada's the only one left of the four which includes Britain that has a rabid right-wing government.

If I were Clegg I would make a deal with the Tories that at least gets a referendum on AV as a step towards further electoral reforms. I'm not saying this is what i would prefer as a British citizen, but I think that politically, its better for the LibDems to make a deal with Cameron.

Here is a very interesting analysis from the blog "leftfoot forward" in the UK about why a Lab/Lib/SNP/PC/Green/Other deal cannot work.

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/05/no-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow/

The election showed that Britain is a progressive country but two significant interventions today make a Rainbow Coalition both unworkable and undesirable.

First, Douglas Alexander said that Labour could not work with the SNP because of “fundamental” policy differences. Without SNP support, a rainbow coalition would have just 323 seats – the absolute minimum – unless they relied on the support of the DUP. As Iain Dale highlights, it would be inconceivable for the Labour party to go into formal coalition with homophobes such as Ian Paisley Jnr....

There are also some practical objections that are well worth considering. The first, pointed out by Liberal Conspiracy’s Don Paskini, is that:

“The Labour MPs in the last parliament were the most rebellious ever. How can a coalition which depends on Jeremy Corbyn, Frank Field, Tom Harris and John Hemming all voting the same way ever get any legislation passed?”

And as highlighted by Rory Cellan-Jones on BBC, Lib Dem blogger and Left Foot Forward contributor, Mark Thompson has come out in support of a Lib-Con deal. He points out:

“Gordon Brown has promised instant legislation to bring in AV for the Commons and a referendum on something more proportional … It would only take a few Labour MPs to vote against this for it to fall. And having conversed with some Labour backbench MPs I am convinced that there would be enough for this to happen. So what Brown is promising simply cannot be delivered.”

There can be little doubt that the Liberal Democrats are between a rock and a hard place. The collective failure of progressive parties to win an additional 20 seats – which would have provided a parliamentary buffer – has scuppered their preferred option of a Lab-Lib coalition with a new Labour leader. But the Lib Dems must now hold firm and not sacrifice principle for power by getting into bed with the Conservatives. The only progressive route ahead is a Tory minority government with case-by-case “confidence and supply” from the Liberal Democrats followed by a Lib-Lab electoral pact at the next election.

If so, look for fireworks within the LDP.... and not just in the immediate aftermath. Like now, again in several months.... 

Stands to be a LONG 3 years inside that tent.

So they'll have a bunch of people who get to be Ministers and Secretaries, plus all the staffers that go with that. Plenty to keep the party apparatus in line despite lots of grumbling and turnover.

Abd they'll have the security of 3 years without an election. Plenty of time to beleive the drop in fundraisng and shoring up your weak organisation stll has time.

While the rest of the party stews and festers. It will hardly matter whether or not there are formal splits.