In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"P.G.Hamer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Anon. wrote:
>
> > H
> >
> > > 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.
>
> Ignoring any non-UK aspect of the situation ...
>
> I think that there are two issues here. Firstly, is it OK to have a
parliament
> whose allegiances match that of the overall popular vote. Secondly,
how do
> you decide who gets elected.
>
> I am comparatively unworried about the first issue (although some
european
> countries may be having problems with the really extreme right-wing
parts
> of their electorate).
>
> I am much more worried by the second issue. Taking the first N names
from
> a list produced by the party machines seems to put far too much power
in
> the hands of the party machines.
You could of course have the voters choose which people will be elected
from each party, instead of letting the parties rank their candidates
on a list. This is how it works in Finland.
>There are candidates in both main parties
> I respect, and others I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. A mixture of
> voting for candidates and voting for a party list would be bettter.
[I think
> that a lot of people from both main parties got some satisfaction from
> Prtilllo's non-election.]
>
> On the other hand it would be nice to be enfranchised in some sense.
The
> outcome of the election in my constituency is essentially pre-
ordained by
> the demographics. Neither of the parties I favour stand a chance.
>
> Peter
>
>
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