Herman Rubin wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> Thom Baguley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Herman Rubin wrote:
> >> The UK has effective disenfrachisement of most of the
> >> members of its Liberal party. Also, the US was definitely
> >> set up NOT to be "democratic"; the British democracy has
> >> greatly eroded the rights the people won in the Bill of
> >> Rights and the Petition of Right. Democracy is two wolves
> >> and a sheep deciding the dinner menu.
>
> >It is true that minority parties such as the Liberal Democrats (typically
> >15-25% in polls) are disenfranchised by the first-pass-the-post General
> >election system (5-8% in terms of parliamentary seats). However, this is the
> >same FPTP system in the US elections (excluding the Electoral College) which
> >effectiviely disenfranchises Green, Libertarian, Reform etc voters. In my view
> >both would benefit (in terms of fairness) from a more proprtional system.
>
> There is essentially no chance of it happening in either
> country. The British system does enable them to get a
> modicum of seats, but not easily. There were a few places
> which had proportional representation for their city
> councils, but the major parties combined to get rid of it.
>
In the UK, PR has been used in Northern Ireland for the European
Parliament for several years. It was also used for the regional
assembly in Wales, the Scottish parliament and the London city council.
The latter three are experiments, and we'll see how long it lasts.
> The US could have splitting of the Electoral College vote
> in any given state, but this would reduce the importance of
> winning the state.
>
Some states do, don't they?
> But do not rush to a proportional system. It can have very
> bad consequences, as can be seen from Israel and Italy, and
> which was the case in France until de Gaulle reformed the
> structure of the government.
>
It works fine in Scandinavia. The Swedish People's Party in Finland has
been in power since independence (I think), as part of whatever
coalition was in charge. It works well if the climate is one of
bi-partisanship, and the Italian and Israeli politicians never give the
impression of calm moderation. I suspect it would work fine in Britain,
once the MPs got over the initial shock.
Bob
--
Bob O'Hara
Metapopulation Research Group
Division of Population Biology
Department of Ecology and Systematics
PO Box 17 (Arkadiankatu 7)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
tel: +358 9 191 7382 fax: +358 9 191 7301
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To induce catatonia, visit:
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/metapop/
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you
looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -
Poul Anderson
But shame and disgrace are very hard to achieve in politics nowadays, as
in any other branch of sport. - Alistair Cooke
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