Re: Yesterday we received the great news that the Hunting Bill will be reintroduced to the Commons next week.

From: Martin Willett (ignoredmailbox_at_ntlworld.com)
Date: 09/19/04 

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 09:32:12 +0100

Paul Rooney wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Sep 2004 11:31:38 +0100, "BAC"
> <casswalk@NOSPAMdircon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> Many years ago, Northern Ireland was administered by a parliament
in
>> Stormont, which was heavily dominated, under the first past the
post
>> system, by the majority protestant population. Even though that was
>> a 'democratic' process, a significant minority felt oppressed by
the
>> majority, and, seeing there was no way of altering things by that
>> 'democratic' process, were perhaps fertile ground for those wishing
>> to bring about change by extra-parliamentary means.
>
> The problem there was that the boundaries were drawn in such a way
as
> to ensure permanent Prod domination - hence only 6 out of Ulster's 9
> counties were included, plus the existence of the property owner
vote,
> which many people are wholly unaware ever existed.
>
> Either the majority can do what it likes or it's not democracy
> (because in such a case, the will of the majority would be thwarted
by
> the minority). It's imperfect, but it's the most legitimate syatem
> ever devised.
>
> PR, of course, means no-one gets the government they want (-:

If the majority ever happened to vote for the same party they would
get the government they deserved. Why do you think it is just to give
control to the largest minority? What possible justification is there
for that apart from "we like strong government and this way we get to
be that strong government about half the time even though we will
never likely to get more than about 44% of the vote".

http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/uktable.htm

>
> At least with first past the post, that doesn't arise, and you don't
> get plagued by the need for constant elections like Israel and Italy
> have been. Also, you can vote for the man, not the party, so
> independents get a fair chance.

Independents getting a fair chance? What are you on? There have been
TWO independents elected in recent times.

There is a system of voting which allows people to vote for individual
candidates, to give independents a fair crack of the whip and allow
people to select between candidates within a party (what about
conventional psychotic Tories in constituencies with anti-hunt Tory
candidates? Who do they get to vote for?). It reduces the power of
parties and strengthens the hands of the voters and it delivers a
broadly proportional result without letting in people representing
very small minorities like the stupid Israeli system does.

http://mwillett.org/Politics/vote.htm

If no party ever gets more than 50% of the votes cast you can't fairly
accuse the electoral system of being responsible for creating
coalition governments. In reality all governments are coalition
governments. Just look at the current lot in Westminster, you know if
it wasn't for the current electoral system there would be at least two
political parties covering the ground the Labour Party occupies, and
probably two or three conservative parties too. Is it better for
coalitions to be argued out between party leaders or faction leaders?
If it is parties doing the negotiating the electorate knows how it can
influence the result, if the two factions are represented by a single
name on the ballot paper the voter has no influence at all and is just
given the mushroom treatment.

There is a system that works well, the Irish used it from the start of
their republic and seem pleased with it and they have not seen the
turnout figures decline as sharply as those in Britain:

http://www.int-idea.se/esd/case/ireland.cfm 

-- 
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/

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