This could pave the way to a (welcome) Lib-Lab coalition, and win over the support of those who voted Conservative just because they're not Gordon Brown.
It's not misleading. If he isn't leader of the labor party, he can't possibly have the support in the house of commons necessary to remain Prime Minister. Although there is technically a distinction between resigning as Prime Minister and resigning as leader of the Labour party, the latter pretty much implies the former.
As I understand, if he resigned as PM he would in effect concede the government and it would be up to the Tories to form a minority or coalition government. Instead he is resigning as Labour leader (effective September) so his party can form a coalition government with Lib Dems. Evidently, he is even remaining PM under the new government, but only until a new Labour leader is chosen.
Correct. But one interpretation of "Brown steps down" or "Brown resigns" would be "Brown resigns as PM" and hence, "Brown to concede election to Tories", when the real story is "Brown to step down from Labour leadership in September in bid for coalition with Lib Dems". So the headline is in fact misleading, or at least ambiguous.
Everyone knows that the Lib Dems want proportional representation, but the two leading parties don't want to give it to them because it will greatly reduce the power of the leading two parties.
I predict that they will be willing to compromise a lot for that, the resulting alliance will be unstable, the government will have to make a lot of very unpopular decisions, then shortly after it is passed there will be a re-election where everybody will blame everybody else for the things that nobody likes.
My 2 cents (erm, pence?) is that Brown stepping down is paving the way for the Lib Dems and Labour to announce a coalition in the very near term.
I'm sure all of the heavily publicised talks with the Tories was just the Lib Dems flexing some muscle as they were conducting their talks with Labour.
The opposition in Canada attempted something similar. They wanted to join forces and form coalition government. The only reason they failed is that the current PM ask the Governor general to prorogue the government. A truly undemocratic way to keep control. Let see if the Brits manage to pull this off.
There was nothing undemocratic about the way that Harper handled it. He had the confidence of the House and therefore was prime minister, if they wanted to lead a coalition government they should have lost confidence in the government and then proposed a coalition government.
Yes, and when you prorogue parliament it effectively dissolves any tabled motions in parliament. Taking away the chance for the opposition to lose confidence.
No he didn't. He introduced a confidence motion and the three opposing parties, representing a clear majority of MPs, announced that they would vote against the motion and ask the GG for a chance to form a coalition government. Harper responded by asking for a prorogue - an unprecedented manoeuvre to avoid facing a vote of non-confidence.
I wonder what would happen if some sort of national emergency took place during this transitional period. As an American, I'm used to having weird things happen for a few months after an election (recounts and such) but as soon as Inauguration Day rolls around, the next guy is officially on watch. I understand that Gordo remains PM until Labour elects a new leader and the new government is formed, but it seems tenuous at best--if there was enough of a crisis, could someone else form a government and force him to hand over power?
EDIT: This isn't a criticism of the British system at all, just a question. I wouldn't presume to judge the system since I don't know much about it, hence the asking of questions. If there's some other reason I'm being downmodded I would like someone to tell me just so I know what to fix in the future. Thanks.
He's expected to consult with the other guys under standing guidelines (as he did last night with the EU bailout fund), but the UK Government is still the same one they had on Wednesday until Brown goes to Buck House, resigns and points to someone else as his recommendation for the next person who should be invited to form a government.
It's considered critical that HMQ should not ever be asked to make a political decision of any kind.
There was a coalition formed without election during WWII, as an election could not easily have been held. It worked quite well, perhaps partly because nobody wanted to be the one who exacerbated the crisis, and partly the gravity of the situation:
> I wonder what would happen if some sort of national emergency took place during this transitional period.
Dutch politics are almost always led by a coalition. These fall apart every now and again. The cabinet then enters 'demissionary' state and can continue to handle running affairs, but is not allowed to enact new legislation - except for emergencies. (There is constitutional protection here in the form of an oversight body that rules on whether or not a situation qualifies as being an emergency). At some point, elections are held, a new cabinet is assembled, assumes power and the whole circus starts over again.
Can someone explain how this proportional representation would work? It sounds like how some school/city boards are elected in the US but over multiple seats. I just don't have a good image in my head. Is it meant to be a national election then? Is a majority possible?
//I admit the experience I have seen with city boards with this type of thing has not been good.
(Why do I write essays that nobody is likely to read? Oh well.)
Nobody can explain how it would work because there are multiple possibilities that work differently. But I can give you an idea of how it could work.
First a piece of background. England follows the English Parliamentary System. The country is divided into seats, which are kind of like Congressional districts in the USA. Each seat elects a Member of Parliament, which are kind of like Congress-critters in the USA. Similar to the USA you have parties. Each party has a clear leader, which doesn't really happen in the USA. The prime minister is then selected from the MPs by a majority vote by the MPs and is always the leader of a leading party. So it is kind of like how the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives is chosen, except that the person chosen is the leader of some political party, and is given a lot more responsibility.
So the whole system depends on selecting members of Parliament. Which currently happens by having seats chosen in a winner take all fashion. To get to a proportional representation system, you need to change how seats are allocated.
A very likely proposal is what is called the Single Transferable Vote. Here is how that works. Existing districts are combined so that each district is assigned where 3 seats are now. Then 3 MPs are elected from each district. Voters make just one vote, but in that vote they list preferences for who they want first, second, or third. (In other countries, most people will just vote for a party, and the party supplies the preferences, but people can vote in more complex ways if they want.) Then there are a variety of ways that these votes can be tabulated to get 3 candidates in such a way that the first one is the most popular, the second is the most popular of the remaining votes, and so on.
The various STV systems get very complicated to calculate. An alternate proportional system is the D'Hondt system. Its voting is much simpler, the trick is in the allocating. As before you have districts which represent multiple seats. But this time rather than voting for candidates with preferences, people just vote for parties. The allocation is then best supplied by an example.
Let's suppose that in a district of 100,000 we have 40,000 vote for party A, 35,000 for party B, and 25,000 for party C. Suppose that this district is supposed to elect 5 seats. First you generate a set of numbers by taking each party's total vote, and dividing by 1, 2, 3, ... up to the number of seats to allocate. So we get:
A: 40,000, 20,000, 13,333, 10,000, and 8,000.
B: 35,000, 17,500, 11,222, 8,750, and 7,000.
C: 25,000, 12,500, 8,333, 6,250, and 5,000.
Now sort all of the numbers together, then count off as many as you have seats. In this case we'd have 40,000 (A), 35,000 (B), 25,000 (C), 20,000 (A) and 17,500 B). This gives how many seats each party gets to fill. In this case 2 for A and B, and C gets 1. It is them up to the party to decide who gets those seats according to some internally chosen mechanism.
The UK already has experience with this method since it is how they choose members for EU elections.
As if this wasn't enough, you could have an additional member system. Under this system in addition to the normal seats you have a certain number of additional members who are selected proportionately in some way. What proportional are additional? And are the proportional seats chosen to be proportional to the vote, or to try to bring the overall seat allocation closer to proportionality? It makes a huge difference.
For a silly example you could use the D'Hondt method with a nationwide district, and allocate 20% of the seats that way. If you do it proportional to the vote, then the ...
First past the post systems create a strong disincentive to vote for whoever is likely to be in third place or farther back. It therefore naturally leads to 2 or 3 party systems, where the parties try hard to appeal to just over half the voters.
By contrast preferential and proportional voting systems make it easier for smaller portions of the population to get a political voice. This naturally leads to a greater diversity of political parties, each of which captures a smaller fraction of the overall vote. Which makes it much harder to wind up with a simple majority in Parliament. And forces the evolution of coalitions.
There is no question that this is more representative. Whether or not it leads to better government is a matter of debate.
23 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 57.4 ms ] threadMisleading headline
I predict that they will be willing to compromise a lot for that, the resulting alliance will be unstable, the government will have to make a lot of very unpopular decisions, then shortly after it is passed there will be a re-election where everybody will blame everybody else for the things that nobody likes.
I'm sure all of the heavily publicised talks with the Tories was just the Lib Dems flexing some muscle as they were conducting their talks with Labour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_parl...
No he didn't. He introduced a confidence motion and the three opposing parties, representing a clear majority of MPs, announced that they would vote against the motion and ask the GG for a chance to form a coalition government. Harper responded by asking for a prorogue - an unprecedented manoeuvre to avoid facing a vote of non-confidence.
EDIT: This isn't a criticism of the British system at all, just a question. I wouldn't presume to judge the system since I don't know much about it, hence the asking of questions. If there's some other reason I'm being downmodded I would like someone to tell me just so I know what to fix in the future. Thanks.
He's expected to consult with the other guys under standing guidelines (as he did last night with the EU bailout fund), but the UK Government is still the same one they had on Wednesday until Brown goes to Buck House, resigns and points to someone else as his recommendation for the next person who should be invited to form a government.
It's considered critical that HMQ should not ever be asked to make a political decision of any kind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_Government_1940%E2%80...
Dutch politics are almost always led by a coalition. These fall apart every now and again. The cabinet then enters 'demissionary' state and can continue to handle running affairs, but is not allowed to enact new legislation - except for emergencies. (There is constitutional protection here in the form of an oversight body that rules on whether or not a situation qualifies as being an emergency). At some point, elections are held, a new cabinet is assembled, assumes power and the whole circus starts over again.
I assume the UK has similar provisions.
//I admit the experience I have seen with city boards with this type of thing has not been good.
Nobody can explain how it would work because there are multiple possibilities that work differently. But I can give you an idea of how it could work.
First a piece of background. England follows the English Parliamentary System. The country is divided into seats, which are kind of like Congressional districts in the USA. Each seat elects a Member of Parliament, which are kind of like Congress-critters in the USA. Similar to the USA you have parties. Each party has a clear leader, which doesn't really happen in the USA. The prime minister is then selected from the MPs by a majority vote by the MPs and is always the leader of a leading party. So it is kind of like how the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives is chosen, except that the person chosen is the leader of some political party, and is given a lot more responsibility.
So the whole system depends on selecting members of Parliament. Which currently happens by having seats chosen in a winner take all fashion. To get to a proportional representation system, you need to change how seats are allocated.
A very likely proposal is what is called the Single Transferable Vote. Here is how that works. Existing districts are combined so that each district is assigned where 3 seats are now. Then 3 MPs are elected from each district. Voters make just one vote, but in that vote they list preferences for who they want first, second, or third. (In other countries, most people will just vote for a party, and the party supplies the preferences, but people can vote in more complex ways if they want.) Then there are a variety of ways that these votes can be tabulated to get 3 candidates in such a way that the first one is the most popular, the second is the most popular of the remaining votes, and so on.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote for an overview of some of the different tabulating methods that are used. Examples of countries that do this include Ireland and New Zealand.
The various STV systems get very complicated to calculate. An alternate proportional system is the D'Hondt system. Its voting is much simpler, the trick is in the allocating. As before you have districts which represent multiple seats. But this time rather than voting for candidates with preferences, people just vote for parties. The allocation is then best supplied by an example.
Let's suppose that in a district of 100,000 we have 40,000 vote for party A, 35,000 for party B, and 25,000 for party C. Suppose that this district is supposed to elect 5 seats. First you generate a set of numbers by taking each party's total vote, and dividing by 1, 2, 3, ... up to the number of seats to allocate. So we get:
A: 40,000, 20,000, 13,333, 10,000, and 8,000. B: 35,000, 17,500, 11,222, 8,750, and 7,000. C: 25,000, 12,500, 8,333, 6,250, and 5,000.
Now sort all of the numbers together, then count off as many as you have seats. In this case we'd have 40,000 (A), 35,000 (B), 25,000 (C), 20,000 (A) and 17,500 B). This gives how many seats each party gets to fill. In this case 2 for A and B, and C gets 1. It is them up to the party to decide who gets those seats according to some internally chosen mechanism.
The UK already has experience with this method since it is how they choose members for EU elections.
As if this wasn't enough, you could have an additional member system. Under this system in addition to the normal seats you have a certain number of additional members who are selected proportionately in some way. What proportional are additional? And are the proportional seats chosen to be proportional to the vote, or to try to bring the overall seat allocation closer to proportionality? It makes a huge difference.
For a silly example you could use the D'Hondt method with a nationwide district, and allocate 20% of the seats that way. If you do it proportional to the vote, then the ...
First past the post systems create a strong disincentive to vote for whoever is likely to be in third place or farther back. It therefore naturally leads to 2 or 3 party systems, where the parties try hard to appeal to just over half the voters.
By contrast preferential and proportional voting systems make it easier for smaller portions of the population to get a political voice. This naturally leads to a greater diversity of political parties, each of which captures a smaller fraction of the overall vote. Which makes it much harder to wind up with a simple majority in Parliament. And forces the evolution of coalitions.
There is no question that this is more representative. Whether or not it leads to better government is a matter of debate.