The people voted No to changing the voting system

In 2011 the Coalition government at the request of the Lib Dems gave us a referendum on abandoning the first past the post voting system. Recognising the fact that many voters support the idea of single member constituencies where the MP has to provide a good service to retain support they offered the country the Alternative Vote system. This is a cheaper and easier version of the French two round system. It is designed to ensure every elected MP has the support of more than half the voters.

Under AV like the French system if a candidate attracts more than 50% first preference votes they are elected. If they dont then the second preferences of candidates attracting few votes are allocated until someone does achieve 50%. So if this system had applied this time there would probably have been more Conservative or Reform MPs on reallocations.

This was decisively rejected with 68% voting against. England was more strongly against but all four parts of the Union voted No.

Reform now campaign for PR. PR systems often break the link between an MP and a single constituency, or creates  two classes of MPs. Some  can be elected locally and others are chosen as top up MPs from a party list. The U.K. system of electing MEPs was a list system. It meant many MEPs were casual over regional constituency correspondence, often redirecting to U.K. MPs who needed to take constituents issues seriously. An MP/ candidate who is top of his or her party list knows they will get a seat so there is no pressure to listen or serve well.

Labour of course need to remember that their large majority is based on only a third of those voting wanting them in government. They should also worry that so few voted. A heavily distorted Parliament relative to public wishes is a concern but there is no obvious voting model that is better or would be supported in a referendum.

No government should change the voting system without a referendum

We should be reluctant to abolish single MP accountability to a local area.

EU countries with PR end up with coalition governments. Coalitions often  take a long time to create. They start by the parties in the coalition dumping many of their Manifesto promises to electors to find a common platform with other parties they disagree with.

How is that better?

The Netherlands decisively threw out their old government. It took seven months to form a new one out of four parties. . They had to chose a civil servant as PM as they couldn’t agree to support the leader of the largest party to be PM.

If the U.K. this time had wanted a Reform or Conservative government it could have voted for one in sufficient numbers to secure it.

 

 

 

248 Comments

  1. Lynn Atkinson
    July 7, 2024

    In addition how can a ‘second choice’ candidate be counted as one that the voter wished to have? They are patently NOT what the voter wanted. So continuing down a long list of second third and fourth choices until you claim that someone has achieved 50% of the voters support is a lie.
    Moreover I can’t decide which I would have as a third or fourth choice – do I hate the Greens more than the Lib Dems? I don’t care – I don’t want either. I want my first choice! Sometimes my first choice is the ‘best’ choice if I want to get rid of a bad Tory. I would of course, because I am a conservative, like a good Tory on the n]ballot paper every time.
    For Reform to argue that the result of referenda that they disagree with should be overturned is politically dangerous and puts the Brexit Referenda at risk. It’s madness.

    1. Ian wragg
      July 7, 2024

      But FPTP gives a stonking majority on 34% of the vote leaving 66% of voters disenfranchised. Politicians would be much more receptive to the wishes of the people if they had to earn every vote.
      Coalition or not, look at Europe rowing back on ruinous net zero policies after suffering a trouncing at the ballot box.
      Starmergeddon will see his majority as a mandate to father destroy our infrastructure and way of life when 80% didn’t vote for him.

      1. Dave Andrews
        July 7, 2024

        You’d still be disenfranchised if you voted Redwood and got Gove.
        Vote for the person, not the party.

        1. Everhopeful
          July 7, 2024

          Very true.
          I never really understood the supposed advantage of the tories’ “broad church”.
          But thinking about it they could so easily have stopped Reform had they so desired by simply adopting conservative policies.
          Of course though…THAT is why they had to lie and lie and lie…….( pretending conservative policies were in the pipeline).
          Espousing right wing policies would have handed power to the tories…sorry LibDems.
          They miscarried (on purpose) of their saviour!

          1. Hope
            July 7, 2024

            We voted not to have mayors or police commissioners. They were imposed. Police commissioners got less than a 10% turn out and were still elected!

            The manifestos have no legal or moral standing to be fulfilled. So how do the public say no thanks to what is on offer?

            We are currently witnessing Tory party refusing to deliver Brexit by Sunak. Starmer and chums making it clear the same EU lock step and no divergence will now be labour govt position. The country voted against this and to leave the EU. How do the public say no thanks? Parliament has gone rogue again, so what should the public do JR? EU one nation Tory MPs caused this with help of Labour and civil service.
            It appears Hoyle will be back instead of being booted out, Why?

          2. Ed M
            July 7, 2024

            The Conservative Party is much more like a global high-tech corporation like IBM.
            Reform is more like an entrepreneurial start up that lots of investors want to invest in.
            At one time, IBM was in the doldrums. And it was brought back from the dead. I think that involves imbuing a more entrepreneurial approach (not forgetting, entrepreneurs really believe in what they do and passionate about). So a matter of TRYING to attract more high quality Tories into Parl with good business experience, in particular entrepreneurial. So many Tories simply do NOT cut it. Including people such as Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps (both gone). And also people such as Suella (lawyer), Boris (journalist), Gove (PR), and so on.

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          +1 and demand the right to freely select, support and work to get your candidate elected.

    2. Mike Wilson
      July 7, 2024

      You can say what you like but what we have ain’t democracy.
      Reform 4.1 million votes – 5 seats
      Lib Dems 3.5 million votes – 72 seats
      What we have is a minority vote dictatorship.

      1. Donna
        July 7, 2024

        +1

      2. Jim+Whitehead
        July 7, 2024

        Surely the caveats and reasons for rejecting a PR approach out of hand are looking rather like sophistry or calculated deception, threadbare at the very kindest.
        The grossly disproportionate results with the huge numbers of unjustly dashed hopes and the equally obscene gains by Labour and Lib/dems are of an order which might in other places give rise to serious unrest. The years of patient tolerance by those who voted Leave and who have had to swallow the utter foolishness of Net zero imposition after voting for nothing of the kind deserves more recognition of the destabilising unfairness of meek acceptance of the outdated rules of the political power game.
        Consider this: How will the Left react if the pendulum ever swings as far in the opposite direction?
        Would the winning ‘right’ ignore that unfairness or seek to amend it or gracefully accept and obligingly water down its policies?

        1. Peter Parsons
          July 8, 2024

          FYI, the LibDems still ended up with a lower percentage of the seats (11.1%) than their share of the vote (12.2%). Yes, they gained massively compared to recent general elections, but there isn’t an argument that this left them over-represented (unlike the SNP in 2015, for example).

      3. Ed M
        July 7, 2024

        Our democracy is based on local accountability as well (voting for your local MP) and who you feel most strongly about (so no prizes for second place).
        So it is democratic. Leave alone. Lots more important things to focus on i.e building up our economy!

      4. Bloke
        July 7, 2024

        FPTP works to empower the chosen best MP from an individual constituency size.
        However, awarding power to them and excluding what a majority would prefer imposes rigid crass rule.
        Carelessly adding the so-called ‘best’ together risks delivering the worst for the majority.
        The 2024 election result leans that wobbly way.

      5. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        You think the EU Parliament is a superior house? They never even have a majority attending so don’t have a ‘quorum’ even if they all voted the same way, to overturn the Commissions laws, which are deemed to be approved unless voted down by a majority.

      6. anon
        July 9, 2024

        Without direct democracy and recall removal rights by the local electors then there is little connection between where you want to go or vote and where the drivers gangmaster decides.

        Some people obviously just decided not to take part.

        1. anon
          July 9, 2024

          Perhaps rolling bye elections through the cycle 15 MP’s a month after first 12 months.

    3. Mark
      July 7, 2024

      In the French system candidates who do not secure 12.5% of the electorate in the premier tour are eliminated. The remaining candidates are then allowed to go forward into the deuxième tour. However, as we are seeing, tactical candidate withdrawal is reducing voter choice with the aim of ensuring that RN do not secure a majority. Voters in many conscriptions are being offered choices they do not like and asked to choose the least bad in their opinion. Sound familiar?

      1. Ed M
        July 7, 2024

        British system better. Less complicated / less bureaucratic ..

    4. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      With FPTP you often have a choice – should I waste my vote on a no chance party or vote X to keep out Y. With transferable votes you can do both.

    5. Paula
      July 7, 2024

      Our voting system is fine.
      The problem is that we have an imposter Conservative Party splitting the Reform vote.

      1. Mike Wilson
        July 7, 2024

        Our voting system is fine.

        NO IT IS NOT. If you think 9.9 million votes should give a huge majority, you are WRONG!

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        +1.

  2. Peter Parsons
    July 7, 2024

    1, AV is not a PR voting system.

    2, It is possible under PR to elect constituency MPs while voting for individuals and giving the choice to the electorate of which individuals using the STV system currently used in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

    The New Zealand approach of 2 referendums, one on whether the voters wish to change to a PR system and, if that passes, a second on the form of PR to adopt, is the right way to go.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      The big advantage of transferable vote is people can vote as they wish, and can indicate their real preferences even for smaller parties without being forced to waste their vote. You thus get far more honest information off the voters. You also retain the local link with the MP your constituency.

      1. Lifelogic
        July 7, 2024

        We say honest information when Farage’s parties came first to two EU elections as UKIP and as Brexit the Tories were fourth I think.

        So Starmer has also appointed James Timpson as prisons minister who wants fewer people in prison. Start by releasing the female teacher just given 6.5 years for having sex with a 15 year old boy. She is hardly a danger to anyone is she? It would be completely legal in many places nit that I would encourage such behaviour in teachers but six plus years!

        Also the man given two years jail for selling stickers saying things the government disliked – see The Free Speech Union.

        Surely a year cutting keys at Timpsons is quite enough punishment?

        1. Dave Andrews
          July 7, 2024

          Give the teacher the lash, and let her get back to whatever work she can find. Gets it over with without years of public expense.

        2. Hope
          July 7, 2024

          Children cannot consent to sex, it is called rape.

          1. Jim+Whitehead
            July 7, 2024

            Hope, surely we can’t compare the teacher’s misdemeanours with the horrors of the October 7th abominations.
            Does the word ‘grey’ adequately describe every degree from off-white to total darkness?
            The days of Galileo and the Inquisition and of Witch hunting are long gone. Law and justice are not always the same thing, as we see with T. R., Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, silent protesters at prayer, etc., etc.

          2. Mark
            July 7, 2024

            Try that message in Rotherham, Telford etc.

          3. Narrow Shoulders
            July 7, 2024

            I was a 15 year old boy once. Teacher, water melon, classmate. All the same.

          4. Lifelogic
            July 7, 2024

            Well that may be what the law says.

            But in reality there is rather a difference between a real and violent stranger rape and to “consenting” in reality ;even if not in law) 15 year olds’ choosing to have sex is there not? There is also a difference when it is an older women with a usually stronger 15 year old man and when the sexes are reversed older man with weaker girl. Many countries have an age consent as low as 13,14,15…

          5. Hope
            July 7, 2024

            Male Head teacher sent to prison last week, women should be treated the same.

            Children are children.

          6. Lifelogic
            July 7, 2024

            @ hope “women should be treated the same” I do not agree each case should be judged on its merits and full circumstances one of which is the gender, was force used… Also for sentencing is this person really any real risk to the public?

          7. Mike Wilson
            July 7, 2024

            Children cannot consent to sex, it is called rape.

            I think that is nonsense. Rape is forcing someone to have sex with you. Many 15 year olds have consensual sex with each other. Are they raping each other. When I was a 15 year old boy (all boys grammar school, almost exclusively male teachers) , we had a young, very attractive, French (as in born in France) teacher who took us for French oral. If she had wanted to have sex with me I would have thanked her, paid her (if asked) and been her devoted slave. It would NOT have been rape.

        3. Jim+Whitehead
          July 7, 2024

          LL, ++++ Good comments, thank you

          1. Hope
            July 7, 2024

            LL,
            How about forced marriages, incest on family members who have known nothing different from birth and think it is normal? What is your definition of a paedophile? How about people with learning difficulties?

        4. Bloke
          July 7, 2024

          Key cutting skills in the wrong hands might lead to escapes.

      2. Donna
        July 7, 2024

        Yes.

      3. Everhopeful
        July 7, 2024

        Local links would be good as long as the MP cares for his/her entire “flock” and not just the individuals who are considered “vulnerable” etc.

      4. Lifelogic
        July 7, 2024

        Now the Brexit retreat begins! Boris Johnson warns UK is ‘on the road to serfdom’… as we reveal Starmer plans talks with EU leaders over new relationship. in the Mail on Sunday.

        Indeed but whose fault is this but Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak. You wasted you 80 seat majority on a botched Brexit and failed to take advantage of Brexit. You also got almost everything wrong on Covid. The lockdowns and vaccines both did huge net harm. Yet you still boast about the vaccine roll out. 85% of the people taking them never even needed them even had they been remotely safe, effective, regulated sensibly and tested properly. Vast harm has been done at vast expense rather like Net Zero in fact another of you delusions Boris!

        Some advice for West Streeting (PPE again but despite this seems most sensible than most MPs) Secretary of State for Health.

        Junior Doctors take 5 to 6+ years to qualify and leave Uni with about ÂŁ100k of student debt plus interest at circa 7%. To repay this in say 15 years after tax and NI (by which time they will be about 40) they need about ÂŁ28,000 in extra salary on top of a living salary for 15 years. Had they left schools at 16 and got a minimum wage job until 40 most would be far better off. Even in London they start on just ÂŁ34k less prof. Fees and student interest – even a 35% pay rise is not enough for them to live on. Also they are best not referred to as “doctors under training” as that lawyer idiot Victoria Atkins on ÂŁ160k + called them.

    2. PeteB
      July 7, 2024

      Well said Peter. Problem with the 2011 AV referendum was that few of the population understood what was being offered – mainly as the main political parties deliberately obfuscated the issues.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        Ah – we are stupid. We did not know what we were voting for in the Brexit referendum or in that last election.
        Just too stupid to vote at all do you think?
        This is a free country and you are allowed to not be a democrat. Just admit that to yourself and say what you would prefer.

        1. PeteB
          July 7, 2024

          I didn’t say stupid, I said the public were largely sold spin about the wonders of FPTP. Comes down to a choice between a PR type system that is more fair in reflecting voter desires or a FPTP system that leads to more stable government by favoring the large parties of the day.
          What is right for the UK? I’m unsure, although I fear this result of a Labour majority on approval of 20% of the voting poplulation will lead to problems.

          1. JoolsB
            July 7, 2024

            Totally agree with you PeteB. In 2010 the referendum on AV, which wan’t really PR anyway, was to appease the Lib Dums, who if England had been afforded the same autonomy as the rest of the dis-uk, they wouldn’t even have been needed as the Tories won the popular vote (in England). This recent election is different as we can all see the injustices of FPTP. 80% of the voting population didn’t vote for Starmer yet he has a stomping majority whilst Reform got almost half their votes and got just 5 MPs and 67 less than the Lib Dums who received half a millions votes less. We may as well be living in a communist country at the moment as 80% of us have to watch Labour finish off what the fake Tories started, ie. destroy our country with their net zero rubbish, mass immigration ,big state, high tax policies and make us the laughing stock of the world when they are all moving to the right.

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            July 7, 2024

            The population did NOT buy the spin that an alternative to FPTP is better. There are 160 registered political parties in the U.K. We CHOOSE to vote for the two that represent the main strands of politics, because then we can give power to a party to implement its manifesto and if it fails we sack it.
            The British public is WIZE!

          3. Peter Parsons
            July 8, 2024

            The two main parties secured 57.4% of votes in a 60% turnout, which means that only a little over 1/3rd of registered electors (34.4%) chose to support either of them.

            65.6% of the registered electorate chose to vote for neither of them, so the idea that they should be the only two choices on the table is not supported by the choices expressed by voters.

    3. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      The NZ approach is a trap! You vote for something against promises. One you have opted for promises you have to choose which version of the broken promise you want!
      Politicians spend their lives trapping people. Don’t fall for it!

    4. forthurst
      July 7, 2024

      The referendum on AV was a cynical exercise in which the LibDems reasoned they would form a government based on second choices of both Tory and Labour supporters and the Tories who gambled that enough people would vote against a system which would entrench such an outcome.
      The people have not been offered the choice of PR so it is typical Tory cynicism to suggest otherwise.

  3. Javelin
    July 7, 2024

    I agree FPTP creates more stable Governments.

    I agree people wanted to vote Conservatives out rather than Labour in.

    The reason people still voted Conservative was because they didn’t want to vote Labour in either.

    Half the non Labour voters voted Conservative out of habit and half of the rest voted for Reform or LibDems.

    People were split on how to keep Labour out.

    But nobody voted Conservative because they wanted to conserve their policies. Don’t kid yourself the people wanted any of your major policies.

    The last lot of Conservative policies were not conservative with a small ‘c’. The Conservatives wanted to radically change the people in the country by importing millions of foreigners with migration laws. The Conservatives wanted to radically change families. The Conservatives wanted to radically change economy by adopting NetZero. The Conservatives wanted to radically change Free Speech laws by introducing woke anti hate laws. The Conservatives wanted to radically change society by locking it down and taking away our liberties.

    The last lot of Conservatives were not conservative they were very radical extremists.

    Time will give you that perspective and you will realise your mind was boiled like a frog in the Westminster bubble.

    There are NO major policies of the Conservative party that are worth conserving, because they were radical extremists.

    Reply When I was a Conservative MP I supported a big reduction in immigration, lower taxes, different ways of running the public sector, big reductions in specified wasteful and loss making expenditures etc. Do not keep writing to me as a if I am or were a supporter of One Nation Ministers and policies.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      As you say “nobody voted Conservative because they wanted to conserve their policies. Don’t kid yourself the people wanted any of your major policies.”

      They know this perfectly well what is wanted by the public, that is why their last five manifestos promised far lower immigration, lower taxes, better law and order, better public services, lower taxes… the Tories just chose to rat on all these promises and defraud voters for 14 years. Blatant fraud by them surely. They did not even try to deliver these things.

      1. Lifelogic
        July 7, 2024

        Cameron even gave us a Cast Iron Promise as he knew it would win votes but he then ratted on that too. Osborne promised IHT threshold each of ÂŁ1M to defraud voters of their votes – the threshold is still ÂŁ325k now 16 years later (worth circa just ÂŁ200k in real terms).

        1. Hope
          July 7, 2024

          Excellent post Javelin. You are correct. Who would believe Sunak low tax low immigration rot when the record shows historic highs in stark contrast to 4 previous election promises. Conclusion, dishonest liars.

      2. Donna
        July 7, 2024

        Osborne’s still trying …. having in the past day or so advised that the Not-a-Conservative-Party’s next GE campaign should offer more right-wing policies and when/if they win, govern from the centre (ie more Blairism).

        Basically lie to the electorate.

        1. Lifelogic
          July 7, 2024

          Osborne’s biggest lie the promise of £1M IHT thresholds each it is not about £200k in real terms no increase for 16+ years. He also lied the landlords were getting an unfair advantage in being able to deduct interest from rental profits which was also a complete lie and fraud against the electorate.

          1. Mark
            July 7, 2024

            Perhaps we should return to the old Schedule A where housebuyers and owners were assessed to income tax on an imputed rent, but were able to offset mortgage interest against the liability. The previous system allowed relief to landlords, but not to housebuyers. Schedule A was followed by MIRAS, which limited the size of mortgage on which relief could be obtained to ÂŁ30,000, later expanded by double relief for partners/spouses before being withdrawn creating a price bubble as the withdrawal was well signalled in advance.

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            July 7, 2024

            Sorry you are wrong. You can leave ÂŁ1m if you had a house of that value. Google the details.

          3. Berkshire Alan
            July 7, 2024

            Lynn, Sorry in my experience you are wrong.
            Do not need to Google it as have been an Executor for family members 3 times now, so am reasonably aware of the rules that were in place just 2 years ago with HMRC and Probate.
            If you are a single person with no children, but own your own house, you are limited to ÂŁ325,000 before inheritance tax comes, into play because you have no direct decedents to pass your property onto.
            Double relief for couples is ÂŁ650,000 on second death, if nothing has been left previously to anyone else other than a spouse on first death.
            If on first death you leave something for the children, then that sum is removed from the first death allowance, when second death happens.
            Thus it is ÂŁ650,000 less what first death gave/Willed to children (or anyone else).
            House only comes into play if it is bequeathed to a direct family member, and that is at a maximum of ÂŁ175,000 per person or ÂŁ350,000 per couple.
            Thus maximum you can leave as a married couple with Property is ÂŁ1,000,000 on second death before inheritance tax strikes.
            Also unfair on married couple renters who only have ÂŁ350,000 each before inheritance tax strikes (same rules as above) so ÂŁ650,000 for renters only before IHT.

          4. Lifelogic
            July 7, 2024

            Lynn I am not wrong and I do know the details I am dealing with an estate now, but this only applies to couples leaving their main residence to children or grandchildren and in specific circumstances – it was a fudge to con people they had kept their promise. The promise was ÂŁ1 threshold each. The main limit is still ÂŁ325k per person.

          5. Lynn Atkinson
            July 9, 2024

            Alan — you prove my point, you CAN leave £1,000,000 max to your children without incurrring IH.
            ‘ Thus maximum you can leave as a married couple with Property is £1,000,000 on second death before inheritance tax strikes.’

      3. Jim+Whitehead
        July 7, 2024

        Javelin, ++++ Very good comment, also LL and Donna, thank you.
        Sir John, we fully respect and understand how you worked hard to present your first rate arguments and that is why we are all so addicted to your excellent Diaries. I am in awe of the qualities of discussion and erudition in this unique forum, and your following is comprised of many excellent free thinkers who represent so well the varying points of view to be found in the great basket of ‘common sense’.
        Let us be gentle and generous with our differences and reserve our prickliness for the more egregious examples of competing opinions from more damaging sources.

    2. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      “I agree FPTP creates more stable Governments.”

      Perhaps but not ones that actually do what the people wanted or is in their manifestos it seems.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        How do you get a government that ‘does what the people want’ – which people for a start. We know that 2% want net zero (the Greens) and 4% want Sharia law. You think they should all get ÂŁhat they want – or should the greatest number be allowed to outvote the minority interests?
        Labour is going to lose to Moslem ‘communities’ in a critical number of seats. You happy to include those people in Government?
        That is what you are arguing for. I can’t believe you can’t see it!

        1. Lifelogic
          July 7, 2024

          Simple you give rights to more binding referenda, recall powers etc. to the people. A vote every five years under FPTP for people who lie before each election and the. cheat on what they promised is not democracy. Furthermore the Tories did this for the last four elections before this one, and in the end the only way to bury the fraudsters was to have to suffer more of the same lunacy from Starmer and even worse lunacy.

          1. Lifelogic
            July 7, 2024

            How do you get existing MPs to relinquish their power is rather harder.

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            July 7, 2024

            For 20 years you have refused to get off your computer and actively demand to select a candidate you can support.
            Referenda are VERY dangerous. Ask JR about the fight for a fair (not yes/no) question, a question which gave a clear answer etc. Then you are telling me that with the example of the 2020 US Presidential election – and all at stake, you are going yo trust the count, the postal ballots etc.
            And you tell me all of this childish naïveté on the Day the French electorate have been trussed like chickens ‘under a better system’.
            Pah!

          3. Bloke
            July 7, 2024

            Do people laugh at Keir Starmer saying his father was a ‘toolmaker’ because they hear it as if he said ‘tool maker’?

    3. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      To reply indeed alas almost all you called for was ignored by the No nation socialists like Cameron, May, Sunak in charge of the Tories.

  4. Mark B
    July 7, 2024

    Good morning.

    The one thing I would like to see is, “None of the above” at the bottom of every ballot. We the people need to be able to reject those that put themselves before us. Currently, it is illegal to do that.

    I too do not like PR. They brought in PR into the Scottish Parliament in the belief that it would be forever New Labour. It did not turn out so well in the end and we have the mess that we have.

    The problem for Labour and the Lib Dems is England. Whilst in this election they were returned with a strong number to parliament, it was on the back of a low turnout.

    We need to look at boundaries and the number of people in them. We need to divide the number of people by the number of MP’s to get as close to an average as possible. We do not need fancy systems. One man, one vote as served us well over the years and I see no reason for it to change.

    Reply You can mark your ballot paper in various ways to show you disapprove of all candidates. The candidates and their agents will all read your ballot paper as it will be placed before them to see if anyone claims it as a vote. It is largely pointless as we need to elect someone so if lots of people dislike the candidates coming forward they need to promote a candidate they do like

    1. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      To reply you say “It is largely pointless as we need to elect someone so if lots of people dislike the candidates coming forward they need to promote a candidate they do like” Indeed but if they want X out and only Y has any realistic chance of this they have to vote Y and cannot sensibly vote for the other Party/Candidate they do want to promote other than by wasting their vote. So this smaller party is strangled at birth and can never get past first base or grow.

      See the excellent video – Labour’s Plans to End Democracy: David Starkey

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        Starkey is WRONG. In the same video he completely misunderstands the Covid issue. We already have 900 independent bodies running the country, how much worse can it get? It needs to be put right which is why we voted the Government out.

        1. Lifelogic
          July 7, 2024

          In what way is Starkey wrong and how did he get Covid wrong? I will have to listen again!

          1. Lifelogic
            July 7, 2024

            @ Lynn – Starkey is well worth listening to twice so thanks for that. But I can find nothing wrong in what Starkey said about Covid or anything else in this video.

            Please be more specific?

          2. Lynn Atkinson
            July 7, 2024

            If you have listened twice and still don’t know that he misunderstood the whole CV19 saga you will never know. You were a great enthusiast for the jab – like Tice who wanted people to lose their jobs if they refused the shot – and apparently you still don’t understand what happened.
            Moreover Starkey is being melodramatic. No government can bind its successors, a new government can do anything we want it to do – all we need to do is select the people we want in Parliament. Simple.

    2. Wanderer
      July 7, 2024

      Reply to reply. I don’t think it’s pointless to have “none of the above” being on the ballot, counted and published. I don’t find your arguments against it compelling.

      It would allow people to express their wishes. It would allow those people otherwise chosing not to vote, because there’s no-one they like on the ballot, to participate in the election. It would truly expose the unpopularity of all political parties via hard numbers that are difficult to ignore. Surely these are good things?

      Also it would be so very easy and cheap to do.

      reply They do publish numbers of spoilt ballot papers which is roughly the same thing. What we need is a system where people can choose a good candidate, not a system where most people refuse to make a choice.

      1. Lifelogic
        July 7, 2024

        Not quite pointless but very nearly. A far better additional question would be if you were not voting on the distorting “first past the post basis” who would you really have liked to vote for with a list of candidate/party option and a none of the above option. This would demonstrate the huge distortion you get in voting with FPTP.

      2. Narrow Shoulders
        July 7, 2024

        If the winning candidate had to beat the number of none of the above votes it would be worthwhile.

        40% of people did not vote. Labour secured fewer than 40% of the vote.

        Sir Keith’s turnout was around 55% I understand. He might not be our Prime Minister if none of the above was on the paper.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          So we would have. So government and the Civil service would rule – as in China. Permanently – because nobody would ever get over 50%.

      3. acorn
        July 7, 2024

        You won’t get a good candidate until the UK has a Top Two Non Partisan Primary Elections in each constituency. Having heavily financed national parties shipping in candidates you will be allowed to vote for, is the problem.
        Google “California’s Top-Two Primary: The Effects on Electoral Politics and Governance”.

        1. Mark
          July 7, 2024

          California is now a basket case. Is that what you meant?

    3. Dave Andrews
      July 7, 2024

      Have the “None of the above” on the ballot paper, and if the non-candidate wins the ballot, all the candidates have to stand down and there’s a new election for the constituency with new candidates.
      Might make candidates sharpen their campaign.

      1. Narrow Shoulders
        July 7, 2024

        This!

    4. mickc
      July 7, 2024

      Reply to reply
      But we don’t have to elect someone from the list on the ballot paper. If one goes to a restaurant one doesn’t have to choose a meal if you don’t like any on the menu.
      A none of the above option would allow, if it was the majority, would allow another election with different candidates.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        And those who vote for a new election pay? Because I don’t want to voting every month for 5 years and have no representation for the duration. Those who don’t like the menu need to go to a different restaurant or go hungry.

        1. mickc
          July 7, 2024

          Which different restaurant have you in mind?

    5. Berkshire Alan
      July 7, 2024

      Reply – Reply

      Do not agree with you John.
      “None of the above” would allow people who want to vote and advise that no candidate is suitable for them, and at the same time, for that vote to be recorded factually as NONE OF THE ABOVE.
      When None of the above starts to rise into big figures then perhaps some Party’s may take some notice.
      I think in the USA they have such a box, and it has been reported/alledged that during the Republican elections for the next presidential candidate, None of the Above came 2nd to Trump in one state.

    6. Mark B
      July 7, 2024

      Reply to reply.

      Spoiling of ballot papers is just that, spoiling. It is not as formal as declaring that those above and their policies are not wanted.

  5. Lifelogic
    July 7, 2024

    The problems with FPTP are not just the vastly unfair representation, but you cannot even vote as you wish unless you want to waste your vote. I also kills the development of new parties. The system of TV coverage which is based on recent seats further discriminates against parties like reform. LibDims got 11% of the seats on 12% of the votes Reform get 1% of the seats on 14% of the votes.

    Voting for the London Mayor was absurdly switch back to FPTP by the Conservative without even asking voters. The effect of this was you either voted Kahn or the Conservative or you knew you were wasting your vote. It thus increased support for these two parties over all the other smaller parties.

    It is hard to argue that FPTP once every five years for MPs who do not even try to do as they promised as we saw in the last 4 tory manifestos is any real democracy at all.

    PR has other problems but transferable vote is surely a huge improvement FPTP as you can vote as you wish to indicate you real preference but still knowing that if/when your candidate is eliminated you vote still counts in later round to (for example) keep Kahn out. If, like most sensible people, you despise what Khan has done and is doing to London you were virtually forced to vote Tory as it was the only way that might have removes him.

    Direct democracy, with far more referendums, is the only real democracy and can be far more efficient top especially with phone voting. But the catch 22 is MPs with never relinquish any real power to voters. Under Starmer they will further remove voter powers as Starkey explains well in his recent Starkey Talks videos.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      You do talk nonsense. Labour was a new party which became one of the main Parties because it represented one of the mainstream political views.
      If you want the Woman’s Hopscotch Party represented (yes it is a registered political party) then PR is the way to go. You can vote exactly for what you want and nobody ever gets anything they want as Government policy.
      Brilliant!

      1. hefner
        July 7, 2024

        Labour was created in 1900. Obviously nothing has changed since then in terms of population, their education, wealth, the development of ideas, production, distribution and access to information, or has it?

        Who is talking nonsense?

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          Are you suggesting that Labour’s politics is unchanged since 1900? Is this a competition for top nonsense talk?
          Labour represents the socialist mainstream. The policies change all the time as the situation changes, but they still represent the socialist mainstream.
          The Tories were sacked because they failed to represent the capitalist mainstream which they have represented for 136 years. Their policies have changed as the world has changed. But their politics SHOULD not have changed and they were sacked because it did.

      2. Lifelogic
        July 7, 2024

        I am not advocating PR in any of its various forms nor is anything I have said above nonsense. Which bit is nonsense? – I am merely pointing out that the very serious deficiencies of FPTP which is not remotely democratic in any serious way.

        There are of course huge deficiencies in democracy itself. When more than half the people live of the state (off the back of others) there is a danger that they just keep voting for a government that robs ever more off other people and gives it all to them. Hardly conducive to a productive economy and anyway the victims of the theft just leave or end up as poor as all the others.

        1. Berkshire Alan
          July 7, 2024

          Lifelogic
          Would be interesting if only income tax payers (based on earnings or pension income) could vote !!!

          I wonder what the results would then be like, and how many/few would be allowed/qualified to vote ??

        2. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          Then you should support a Qualified Franchise. It was Rhodes’ policy when he extended the franchise in South Africa to non whites. It means that he who pays the piper calls the tune. There is an argument for that.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            July 7, 2024

            Rhodes had a list of items which ‘qualified’ you for a vote. Education, owning a business, basically you needed to be invested in the nation and be contributing. He was a wise man.

      3. Mike Wilson
        July 7, 2024

        You do talk nonsense.

        The nonsensical system you support gave us the wonderful turnout of 59%. 41% know their votes are pointless. Of the 59% who vote, a large number have to vote for who they don’t want. In many safe seats it is not worth voting if you don’t support the party that always wins.

        If the women’s hopscotch party gets 1/650 ths of the votes, they deserve a place in parliament. Because of the absurdity of your comments, I’m tempted to suggest that, perhaps, women should stick to hopscotch.

        Thanks to the system you support, we live under an elected dictatorship based on a minority vote. Personally, I think anyone with a trace of intelligence, would look for something better. Look where we are – mass immigration, record taxation, record debt, failing public services. No, wait a minute, you’re right – it’s a marvellous system.

  6. formula57
    July 7, 2024

    If this recent election had seen seats in Parliament match total votes cast for each party we might well have had a coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens (traffic light, as the Germans would say). So bad policies doubled up and made worse by doses of eco-lunacy the vast majority eschewed.

    The chief criterion for a good voting system is the ability of the electorate to dismiss a government that has performed poorly. (One cannot know in advance if a government is going to be any good so the ability to dismiss (when experience reveals the need) is more important than the ability to appoint.) David Deutsche, professor at Oxford, explains this point in his YouTube video on the AV referendum.

    1. formula57
      July 7, 2024

      We might, alternatively, have ended up with a Grand Coalition of Labour and Conservative. That would have pleased the One Nation faction more than anything, would it not?

    2. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      “The chief criterion for a good voting system is the ability of the electorate to dismiss a government that has performed poorly.”

      Yes, but in this election we could only do that by opting for an even worse version of what we already had in Labour. Yet more net zero, high tax, big government, anti Brexit Socialist!

      1. Hope
        July 7, 2024

        Hence why Sunak and his one nation got what they wanted by Labour winning they have a public mandate to get close to EU!!

    3. Mike Wilson
      July 7, 2024

      Of course, the bite proportions would have been a lot different if we didn’t have first past the post causing tactical voting and abstentions.

  7. agricola
    July 7, 2024

    Perhaps the PR system offered in the last referendum did not fulfill its purpose and was therefore not supported.

    How important is it to have a direct conection between a constituency and an MP. The MP will do what the party dictates at last resort. One can argue that the MP is the ultimate resort in social services, but that is only necessary when SS fail, admittedly an all too frequent occurance in the UK. Then the local MP is often in conflict with his local government, blocking his local function. A less faux representative function could be an arguement for a Parliament half its current size, witness the USA. All in the USA is not rosy however.

    My arguement is that considerable thought must go into achieving a balance in Parliament that more fairly reflects the views of the electorate. Additionally much greater use should be made of the referendum on major issues. A statement ,after the 2016 experience, that terrifies politicians of all colours, but that is democracy. It works for the Swiss.

    For sure, the relationship between votes cast nationally and the resultant MPs in our current Parliament doesn’t say much for FPTP. It has since WW2 only produced polarised politics that switch from north to south with monotonous regularity, getting us nowhere. So get your heads round a better way of progressing democracy.

    1. Narrow Shoulders
      July 7, 2024

      I have used my local MP in the past and have found the local connection extremely useful.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      The PR system chosen by those who want to replace FPTP was the most popular that they could come up with. They actually wanted a much more draconian system which would sever Pole from power permanently, but to win the referendum, they started out with their best option to sell. It failed.

  8. Lifelogic
    July 7, 2024

    It seems Labour have appointed Patrick Valance as Minister for Science, Research & innovation. Well at least he is a trained medic & scientist I suppose, unlike most of the recent rather dire Tory ones.

    If he is a sensible and honest scientist then he will doubtless tell Starmer that Net Zero is vastly expemsive, pointless, economic and environmental lunacy and that the lockdowns did net harm as have the huge net harm Covid Vaccines. So is he honest and competent or not? I assume not as he would not have been appointed if he told the truth.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      Andrew Bridgen was even kicked out of the party for telling the truth by Sunak. A great loss to the House of Commons and the Conservative Party.

    2. Mark
      July 7, 2024

      I read that Vallance played a major role in the COP 26 negotiations and is an ardent Net Zero supporter, so I think your hope is in vain.

      1. Lifelogic
        July 7, 2024

        So another net zero religious nutter. Medicine not Physics I suppose.

  9. Bloke
    July 7, 2024

    The complicated PR system such as that Roy Jenkins worked on was rightly dumped in the referendum.
    MP candidates should be screened much more thoroughly at source. At one time our police standards excluded short people and those with crooked teeth. The House of Lords retains former criminals.
    If a toaster fails, those who pay for it obtain a replacement promptly by law, not waiting 5 years to choose another from the same source. MPs should stick to what they pledge & pass rigid quality measurement standards before qualifying as candidates.

  10. Michael Saxton
    July 7, 2024

    Interesting points Sir John but I think you’re being a little disingenuous to Reform. They had about four weeks to prepare, have an embryo structure and organisation. I think it’s remarkable they won five seats getting more votes than the Liberals. Millions of people want change as ‘uni-party’ representation in Parliament has not served our best interests. It’s vital the new PM, buoyant from victory, appreciates only just over 9,000,000 voted Labour and over 4,000,000 voted Reform. He ignores these statistics at his peril.

    1. Donna
      July 7, 2024

      Their priority now is to create Branches nationwide and take the fight to Labour. I will be signing up as an activist as soon as one is created in my backyard. (As I predicted, LibCON Chris Loder lost to the LibDems. How will we tell the difference?)

      1. Christine
        July 7, 2024

        I look forward to getting involved with my local branch when it is set up. I helped out in this election but there were too few of us and time was too short to win in my area. I will fight to the bitter end to save this once-great country.

        1. Timaction
          July 7, 2024

          I’m considering the same once the infrastructure is in place. It’s time to take back control from the Uni Party and its quango machine. Starmer will be a disaster and quickly loathed by most.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      Reform have confirmed that changing the voting system to PR is their policy. It’s very lucrative if you sell places on the party list. Basically you can buy a job for life.
      Reform was registered in 2019. Why did they start campaigning only on the eve of the election? Why have they not set up constituency committees?

      1. Hope
        July 7, 2024

        How did that work out for Tory associations! Choose a pro EU Dolly the sheep type clone!

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          My association had no problem selecting a true blue. We even got him elected in the period after Mrs T was sacked – so Tories were hopping mad.
          Have you looked at the list of Remain Candidates – Farage hasn’t – he paid a ‘company to get them’ – for what? Reform politics? 😂🤣 lazy, flippant, basically hopeless, it was an insult to present these ‘paper candidates to the electorate and expect them to vote for them. Who exactly did you vote for? What is the name, career, record of political activity …
          Ask John Brown, ex-Tory MP about how much he had to pay to get in the UKIP list when it was run by Farage.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            July 7, 2024

            ‘Sorry, the company ‘vetted’ the Reform Candidates.

      2. Mark
        July 7, 2024

        If we estimate seats using one of the online calculators and use the vote shares from the 2019 Europarl election then Reform would now be the government with perhaps 480 seats on just 31% of the vote. I can hardly see them turning that down. Farage will be well aware of how PR fails to produce good government in the EU. I think the message is simply that the number of MPs does not reflect support for the party in the country, and that therefore they should have more weight in public debate. That depends on the media. Clearly Labour see them as a major threat because they will criticise Labour policy accurately: I just heard radio news that concentrated on Labour attempts to vilify Reform with no right of reply granted. All very Soviet.

      3. Donna
        July 8, 2024

        I’m struggling to see how that is much different from CCHQ (and Labour) parachuting their favoured “on message” sons/daughters/SpAds etc into safe seats which they have no connection to – often against the wishes of the local Association – and effectively giving them a taxpayer-funded job for life.

  11. formula57
    July 7, 2024

    Fixing low turnout through making marking a ballot paper compulsory (perhaps on penalty of being fined if in default, as is done by Australia) serves to disguise rather to mend the issue of voter disenchantment. The idea was supported in this country by Peter Mandelson and Neil Kinnoch, surely a more than sufficient indication it should be rejected.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      Compulsory voting is a terrible idea. If you want people to vote make their votes count as with the Brexit Referendum & then they will vote. Though they were still cheated on Brexit then by Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak with his nauseous Windsor Accord.

      If voting is often worthless as most votes are in FPTP especially with the uni-parties it is rational to save your energy & shoe leather (or plastic) – forcing people to vote is adding insult to injury another tax in time or fines in fact.

  12. Peter Gardner
    July 7, 2024

    A cynic would say that sometimes a country runs better if the government would stop interfering; that governments are often a threat to the good functioning of a country. The defence of the FPTP systems is usually that it leads to strong government. That is good if the government is doing the right things. But is it true that most people believe the new Labour Government in the UK will be doing the right things? I very much doubt it. Someone has pointed out its Ming vase of policies – basically it won by saying very little about its intentions whereas the Tories’ inarguably awful track record caused it to lose. So it would be better for the country if this government were weaker. Heaven knows what it will dream up without an electoral mandate, but a massive majority in seats. It will be very tempting to do all sorts of things it was too afraid or too sensible to include in its manifesto but secrety wants to do. Who knows? Nobody outside the Labour Government. There has been talk of UK now being in effect a one party state – bound to lead to an abuse of power against the interests of the country.

    It is very hard to defend a system that awards seats in parliament with such little relation to the number of votes cast. FPTP tends to favour only two parties, in UK’s case Labour and the Conservatives. Neither in this election is enthusiastically supported by the electorate so we have to choose between the least bad and or many it isn’t worth votng at all. ‘The other lot would be worse’ is the common cry of general elections which leads to negative campaigns that avoid genuine debate of the key issues and an absence of debate about the future direction. This has been particularly noticeable this time.
    It seems very clear to me that the system really does need reform in order to ensure that representation in parliament more accurately reflects the share of votes. For this reason most countries use some form of PR. What form of PR is another question but representation proportional to votes cast should be the aim
    FPTP is used by a minority of countries (<50) and as the Electoral Reform Society explains, that is mostly a legacy of the British Empire. But there are other structural issues, eg., bi-cameral or unicameral parliament, whether presidential or not, and how much power a president has, how the second chamber is chosen, federal or national government, the role of referenda, etc. All this needs to be considered rather than just PR or FPTP in isolation.

    1. Peter Gardner
      July 7, 2024

      PS. Apologies for length. Another extraordinary feature of the UK’s constitution is that the voters have absolutely no power whatsoever to call a general election unless the government agrees, nor power to adopt legislation unless parliament agrees.

    2. Dave Andrews
      July 7, 2024

      It ends up that the weak government can still agree on more spending, more tax, more borrowing and more waste.

    3. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      This election saw 5 parties obtain large numbers of votes.

    4. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      “governments are often a threat to the good functioning of a country”

      Indeed if they would just concentrate on defence, border control, law and order and little more we would all be far better off. 20% of GDP is more than enough to fund this.

  13. David Andrews
    July 7, 2024

    Not so long ago it was being argued that boundary changes would give the Conservatives a 10 seat or so advantage vs the previous boundaries. That didn’t work out for them. It was thought it would be impossible for Labour to overcome its seat deficit to win power. Well they did so with ease on a reduced share and count of the vote. But that means it’s landslide win of MPs is based on a very shallow share of the votes and could melt away very easily.

    FPTP has proved capable of producing startling swings as it reflects changes in opinion. This is also evident from changes in voting patterns by Islamic and Jewish voters which felled at least two shadow Labour ministers. Reform achieved 4 million votes and 5 MPs from a very small base and a minimal ground operation. To do better it recognises it must campaign locally and contest and win council seats to achieve better results. Conservative MPs who survived, such as Ian Duncan Smith and Jeremy Hunt, did so by pounding the streets of their constituencies to drum up votes. In my constituency both LibDem (the winner) and Conservative leaflets focussed entirely on local issues (access to NHS and water quality). If there were a referendum today I think FPTP would win the referendum because voters enjoy giving an identifiable candidate a good kicking or their enthusiastic/reluctant support. And good local MPs spend a lot of time attending to the needs and concerns of their constituents. Voters will not give that up lightly.

  14. BOF
    July 7, 2024

    Keep FPTP.
    Party members in Constituencies to choose their MP.
    Ensure the right of recall.
    Entrench in law the right of citizens to referenda.

    I would like to see more rights for the people and more control of the state so that the state fears the power of the people.

    I am sure others can add to this but it may take a revolution to wrest our individual freedoms and liberty back from our overbearing and draconian state.

    1. Lifelogic
      July 7, 2024

      Party members in Constituencies to choose their MP yes please. The Conservative party would be in a far better place with this. Not so sure about Labour though you might get 650 Tory Scum Rayner type of candidate. No obnoxious Hobson’s choice candidates forced onto them like the dire Richard Holden MP. Very disappointing that he and tax to death incompetent Jeremy Hunt scraped back in.

  15. James+Morley
    July 7, 2024

    I agree, lets not mess with the voting system, ours is the world leader, just 24 hours to change the Government is imprressive, those who seek to change it seek party political advantage.

    1. Mike Wilson
      July 7, 2024

      those who seek to change it seek party political advantage.

      Let me fix that for you.

      those who seek to KEEP it seek party political advantage

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        No you want a minority of votes to punch above their weight and dictate to the representatives of the majority of votes. That is gerrymandering – no other word for it.
        In FPTP the power of ever vote is equal. You want the power of votes to be unequal and then you want to call that ‘fair’.

        1. Hope
          July 7, 2024

          Not all votes are equal. If it were there would be a straight tally of all votes cast not on a false constituency basis where sheep are ordered to vote for the dictators wish in parliament! We do not need 650 sheep. Their assistants write the correspondence for local matters which are normally low level nonsense.

          We saw Hoyle change his mind about procedure and which rule he wanted. He gave two explanations for changing rules/convention, both could not be true. He would have been sacked in business, but here he is about to get another term with all the trimmings.

    2. Mark
      July 7, 2024

      It indicates that not much change was really needed. Of course, Labour will have had extensive contact with the Civil Service during the election period explaining their policy priorities, and trying to anticipate the banana skins that await them, and they will have had a lot of help, as evident by the welcome given to several ministers on first entering their new departments, with the welcomes made public.

  16. Peter Gardner
    July 7, 2024

    I remember the vote on AV. It was a Lib Dem idea and most of us voted against it for two reasons: 1) the Lib Dems were seen as having far too much power (tail wagging dog) inthge coalition thanks to Cameron’s own weakness and lib dem leanings (another part of that deal was the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, constitutional vandalism that led to the rogue Remainer Parliament defying the electorate on Brexit), and 2) simply because it was a Lib Dem idea and we disliked their policies.
    It is arguable that had UK a PR voting system, there would not have been the need for such a damaging coalition although that rather depends on the detail of the rules for PR voting and how the government is formed.

    1. James Freeman
      July 7, 2024

      Centrist voters already have a big say in FPPP. AV benefits centrist parties, and this was seen as self-serving by the Lib Dems.

  17. Everhopeful
    July 7, 2024

    Is the issue really HOW we vote them in?
    The issue surely is their behaviour and honesty once voted in.
    Penalties for not sticking to a manifesto. Severe ones.
    We need to know exactly WHAT we are voting for.
    In any case our voting system was based and evolved ( shabbily) according to a very different set of circumstances. For one thing we were once a homogeneous society with broadly shared aims. And not everyone actually could vote.
    Too late now.

    Speaking of democracy I see that Starmer has brought back Vallance.

    1. Donna
      July 7, 2024

      Ready for the next Scamdemic the WHO announces. Judging from the low-level propaganda we’re already getting, they’re cooking up bird ‘flu next.

      1. Everhopeful
        July 7, 2024

        That blinking bird flu!
        I’ve still got the packets of lasagne that I put in the loft when May started going on about it.
        I took it all seriously back then.

    2. Christine
      July 7, 2024

      The problem with issuing penalties for not sticking to a manifesto is that Governments can’t change their minds based on new information. Labour plans to ban all new petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. What if we get to 2029 and this isn’t feasible? Do we make people walk? They pledge to be carbon neutral. We all know this isn’t possible. Governments must be allowed to follow the country’s mood otherwise there will be riots. One thing I would suggest is that manifestos are scrutinised properly before being allowed to be put to the vote.

      1. Everhopeful
        July 7, 2024

        Oh dear!
        I wasn’t being particularly serious about penalties. I mean…were there any for destroying the U.K. in the plague panic?I think not. Just making a point about how they promise one thing and do quite another.
        Many people have no idea about what govt. is planning/promising and those I speak to say “ Oh they’d never do that!” It’s what every gas engineer has said about doing away with gas.
        We might do better if before voting we went through the manifestos with a fine tooth comb.
        But then we come to the lies….

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          Of course there was a penalty! They were sacked and reduced to a rump!

  18. Sakara Gold
    July 7, 2024

    Farage’s conversion to PR is because he knows that people only voted for Reform where, tactically, it was best placed to get the Tory out. Elsewhere, the electorate voted Lib Dem or Green – where a tactical vote was necessary.

    Farage and his deluded Reform anti-net zero cult were decisively rejected by the electorate. The pro-renewable energy and pro-net zero parties took a combined 486 seats or 74.8% of the vote. The anti-net zero cult is now dead and the buy-to-let landlords are going to have to dip into their profits and insulate their property to the necessary standard.

    The electorate also decisively rejected national grid NIMBY-ism and the pro-sewage dumping Tory candidates in East Anglia. The remaining badger population will also be pleased as DEFRA will be reformed

    1. Donna
      July 7, 2024

      One of the newly elected Green MPs is opposing the Government’s “green energy” plans. He’s outed himself as a Nimby who opposes 100-mile corridor of massive pylons in his Constituency.
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/06/net-zero-green-mp-adrian-ramsay-opposing-government-plans/

      “The Norwich to Tilbury pylon plan has been the subject of controversy in the local area, with campaigners saying the proposals for 110 miles of cabling using 50m high pylons will “destroy our historic landscapes and will require huge loss of trees”.

      So stripping out trees, to plant metal towers. How very green ….. not.

      I am so looking forward to my hypocritical NIMBY LibDem voting sister rejoining the campaign to prevent a wind farm in her “special” part of Hampshire – which will no doubt be revised in the near future.

    2. Narrow Shoulders
      July 7, 2024

      Deluded post SG.

      Reform stood against net zero and polled 4 million Greens stood as the embodiment of net zero and polled less than half of that.

    3. Roy Grainger
      July 7, 2024

      When was Farage ever opposed to PR ?

      And the landlords won’t upgrade their properties for net zero, they’ll just sell them so there will be fewer rental properties and so rents will be higher. You want that ?

  19. Roy Grainger
    July 7, 2024

    “They start by the parties in the coalition dumping many of their Manifesto promises to electors”

    But that’s exactly what the Conservatives did after winning a majority via FPTP so I can’t see what point you’re making ?

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      We sacked them for that action. We CAN”T sack a PR Government – they are the people at the top of every party list. See Hans Dietrich Genscher – no matter how the German people voted he remained Foreign Monister because that was his price to all the main parties for his tiny but critical support.

  20. Donna
    July 7, 2024

    Sunak told us why FPTP doesn’t represent the wishes of the electorate.

    Shortly before the election the DT carried an article reporting Sunak’s message that only 130,000 votes switching to the Tories would lead to a hung Parliament and pleading for it ….completely overturning the usual argument that FPTP leads to strong governments: a “heads we win / tails you lose” argument for the Uni-Party triumvirate.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/01/deliver-hung-parliament-deny-labour-majority-sunak-pleads/

    He seems to think it was a good thing that the votes of only 130,000 people SHOULD determine the outcome of the election. That isn’t democracy.

    On the basis of Labour winning the votes from only 23% of the electorate (34% of the 60% who bothered to vote and fewer than Corbyn got in 2019), we now have an elected dictatorship. They can do whatever they want – and they will. That isn’t democracy.

    Labour: 33.8% = 412 seats
    CONs: 23.71% = 121 seats
    Reform: 14.26% = 5 seats
    LibDems: 12.22% = 72 seats
    Greens: 6.75% = 4 seats
    SNP: 2.52% = 9 seats
    Plaid: 0.68% = 4 seats

    So LibDems got considerably fewer votes than Reform, but 67 more seats.
    Greens got less than half the number of votes than Reform, but only one seat less
    SNP got less than a quarter of votes compared to Reform, but 4 seats more
    Plaid “lost their deposit” but ended up with one seat less than Reform

    That isn’t democracy.

    That’s why FPTP has to go. It isn’t democratic.

    1. Everhopeful
      July 7, 2024

      One might even think that “democracy” does not suit the agenda any more and we have been herded like sheep into spurning the once gratefully received gift of the elite.
      Exactly as they wanted us to no doubt!
      Look how they have trashed the brand.

    2. Ian B
      July 7, 2024

      @Donna – putting gang leaders in charge of telling you who your candidate will be – isn’t Democracy either. It suggests only gangs can rule.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        We allowed that. Anybody who objected was pushed out of the party. We should have supported each other and pushed the socialist globalists out of the party. But we didn’t. Our fault.

        1. Ian B
          July 8, 2024

          @Lynn Atkinson – so true, but it was also those that sat in Parliament, the Conservative Government, CCHQ, that fought against the idea that those in Parliament should be Conservatives, in a similar way to those that that did the hard-work on the ground – the Conservative Party, the real conservative party wanted and would have voted for.

    3. Ralph Corderoy
      July 7, 2024

      Hi Donna, Democracy isn’t defined by having the number of MPs by party be in proportion to the votes cast for each party. You’re complaining about the voting system, not a lack of democracy. We get to regularly vote for a sovereign parliament; that’s democracy.

      Where we lack democracy is the ever-growing control over our elected government by others. Obviously the EU is no longer one of them, but there’s the ECHR and plenty of native quangos who place high restrictions on our sovereign government, e.g. the OBR ruling out bringing down legal immigration when Suella Braverman argued for it against Sunak and Hunt. Being sovereign, parliament could throw all these aside, but it needs the will of MPs and much time for the legislation. Liz Truss spelt this out a couple of months ago in her in Triggernometry interview: https://youtu.be/jqN-B4DVUww

      (Carswell and Hannan’s book from ’08, ‘The Plan: twelve months to renew Britain’, is related to parliament regaining control. ’The delegation of particular technical tasks to separate bodies, while a regular feature, is yet the first step by which a democracy progressively relinquishes its powers.’ — Hayek, from the start of the book.)

      BTW, your numbers are a bit out. Labour’s 33.8% vote share on a 60% turnout means they were chosen by 20.28% of those eligible to vote, one in five, not 23%.

      1. Donna
        July 7, 2024

        Hi thank you for your response.

        Yes, I am referring to the electoral system (which is what the blog was originally about) but I agree that it is the expansion of the technocracy, Quangos and international institutions which are all outside of democratic control which is the major problem. Unfortunately, Labour is likely to expand these and there is no hope whatsoever that the Not-a-Conservative Party would ever reduce them (if they were ever re-elected, which looks highly unlikely).

        We need a Reforming Government, which respects democracy and the only option will be the one so-named.

        Sorry if the figures were slightly out: I was using the DT election pages, not doing my own calculation, or I may have mis-typed. But the fact remains that based on a very small proportion of the electorate, Labour has a massive majority and is now an elected dictatorship.

      2. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        Did you know that Carswell’s idiot idea of allowing the ‘whole constituency to select the Tory candidate’ was implemented and resulted in a lot of anti-Tories being ‘selected’ by non-Tory majorities in the Constituencies.
        I’m afraid both Carswell and Hannon just don’t have the wherewithall.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          Oh – these anti-Tories stood and were elected in blue rosettes. We paid the price and are still paying the price. Don’t tell me it’s the electorate who are ‘sheep’ – the self appointed elitists are plain stupid. All their ‘improvements’ are not.

        2. Ralph Corderoy
          July 9, 2024

          Hi Lynn, Might you please clarify. Are you saying that the general public of a constituency could chose who would be the Tory candidate? As opposed to the local Tory party members choosing from a short-list of say three? When and where did this happen? I’m surprised to have missed it. It’s so bizarre, I think I must be misunderstanding you.

    4. BOF
      July 7, 2024

      Donna
      Despite my previous post I agree with you! But devising a system that will not be rigged in one way or another by unscrupulous politicians seems more than a challenge. Witness today the left in France doing all in their power to rob the right of victory.

      That is why I believe a great deal more power should be handed back to the people so they can quickly get rid of those that betray them and their country. One thing that is essential is to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act.

      1. Christine
        July 7, 2024

        I thought the Fixed Term Parliament Act had already been repealed.

        1. Lynn Atkinson
          July 7, 2024

          Yep. Done.

        2. Ian B
          July 8, 2024

          @Christine – what is needed is maximum term of 2 years as in real democracies, then all MPs need to be reconfirmed as the choice.
          The World, Big Corporate entities have those making the decisions having to be re-elected by the shareholders on a regular basis, after all isn’t Parliament the ‘Board’ of UK PLC and we the people the sharholders

    5. Mark B
      July 7, 2024

      It is worse than that as the SNP and Plaid have their own parliaments / assemblies and can spend monies from England on themselves.

      We, the English, need our own parliament.

      1. Ian B
        July 8, 2024

        @Mark B – sort of agree, but it should have gone even further the Shires/Counties should have the powers. Power should be at its lowest level an be passed up, not down.
        Our PM has more power than the US President, that cant be good, it has been demonstrated it is not good.
        At a guess Yorkshire a bigger County population wise than the whole of Scotland left to its own devices would have powered ahead of Scotland without the enforced holding down that the centralised Metro Socialist command dictates. Of course it would be similar elsewhere.

  21. MPC
    July 7, 2024

    There is a rational simplicity to FPTP in a general election understood by everyone – the candidate with the most votes in a constituency becomes the MP. Just because the angry few on this site are incensed at the Labour victory doesn’t validate alternative systems, for the reasons you have outlined. Reform may well have attracted more votes without their policy of proportional representation. That was the reason I didn’t vote for them. Their bleating is performative and Mr Farage knows what the reality of PR is as well as anyone. Reform have now committed to ‘professionalising’ in every constituency, under FPTP, so they’ll eventually accept that the status quo benefits them in the longer term.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      Ditto. I would not vote for anybody who proposes PR. So Farage is hoping to win under FPTP and then change the system to one in which he cannot possibly win a majority.
      Brilliant! That’s why he can ever be PM. He’s great when he utters the words we taught him but his own made up words are disastrous. ‘Le Pen and Trump are dangerous’ ‘Britain must take our share of Syrian asylum seekers’ ‘we lost the Brexit referendum’ and much much more.

      1. George
        July 7, 2024

        We will if they can come and live in your house and you feed and pay for their mobile phones

    2. Ian B
      July 8, 2024

      @MPC – at this moment in time Reform didn’t get what some see as a fair balance because the have yet to create the local strongholds and feet on the ground of the alternatives. If they get organised it will come. They did get the MP’s where they were voted by the majority

  22. Berkshire Alan
    July 7, 2024

    Whilst I understand what you say about Local MP’s are best John, a situation with which I certainly agree, that is not the system that is employed at the moment by certainly two of the major Parties, who have head office lists of chosen candidates who they want to stand and compete no matter where they reside.
    We had the situation in Wokingham where a candidate was chosen to stand in the area in which she did not live or work, and it was very clear she knew absolutely nothing about our area, it’s history, or its problems at all, etc, etc.
    It used to be down to the local association who discussed, agreed, and proposed candidates, but no more, HQ seems all powerful in producing clones of a particular type.
    Party politics is actually damaging our constitution because it does not encourage any independent thought at all.

    1. Mark B
      July 7, 2024

      Agreed. Why should a Party HQ drone vote against things HQ wants. The electorate have served their purpose to rubber stamp and give a thin veneer to democracy.

    2. Ian B
      July 8, 2024

      @Berkshire Alan – isn’t Banbury in Wokingham? Or is it in that County where their are NO Conservative MPs. I am not sure that Sunak meeting the candidate for Wokingham in Henley-on-Thames Oxfordshire was a ringing endorsement, although the actual Leander Club just sneaks in – maybe. Then again our new wonderful LibDem MP doesn’t live in the Wokingham Constituency he enjoys life in an area with a Labour MP that gets to serve him

  23. DOM
    July 7, 2024

    FPTP is disenfranchisement writ large. It is also a nobbled system benefiting the establishment and the main parties to the detriment of smaller parties and this vested interest isn’t going to do anything to halt the political gravy train for the main parties. On that basis alone it’s an issue that is beyond debate, a pointless waste of energy.

    I’ve just woke up to be confronted by a photo of Blair. We’re going to be bombarded with images of this creature and other old Blairite creatures for years to come. Oh, discussions with the Germany-EU have already started. The dogs were howling, I’ve had to wretch into the sink after being hit with some form of reaction and the parrot’s committed suicide.

    What have the people gone and done? They’ll regret it, badly

    1. Mark
      July 7, 2024

      The main disenfranchisement is not the election itself. It is the mechanisms for choosing PPCs, and the mechanics of government by quango and delegation to international bodies and treaties. Whoever we elect must do battle with the Civil Service and the quangocracy if they wish to adopt a different policy: these elements no longer operate at the behest of elected government. Perhaps the most egregious example is the Home Office, but it is hard to think of a department that would willingly implement Reform policies.

      PPCs are chosen by very narrow cliques who control the main parties. In the case of Reform, they were not even prepared for selections, allowing a number of false flags to get through to try to undermine the party: they undoubtedly succeeded in switching votes away at a crucial moment in the campaign. There is a delicate balance between some control and avoiding embarassing candidates, as both Labour and Conservatives have seen in the previous Parliament, with each withdrawing the whip from several MPs.

      The process of PPC selection needs a lot more attention – to ensure basic competence, and to ensure that the values that a PPC represents are well understood by the electorate, and that they have rather more influence of the whole process.

    2. Mark
      July 7, 2024

      The main disenfranchisement is not the election itself. It is the mechanisms for choosing PPCs, and the mechanics of government by quango and delegation to international bodies and treaties. Whoever we elect must do battle with the Civil Service and the quangocracy if they wish to adopt a different policy: these elements no longer operate at the behest of elected government unless the elected government operates at their behest. Perhaps the most egregious example is the Home Office, but it is hard to think of a department that would willingly implement Reform policies.

      PPCs are chosen by very narrow cliques who control the main parties. In the case of Reform, they were not even prepared for selections, allowing a number of false flags to get through to try to undermine the party: they undoubtedly succeeded in switching votes away at a crucial moment in the campaign. There is a delicate balance between some control and avoiding embarassing candidates, as both Labour and Conservatives have seen in the previous Parliament, with each withdrawing the whip from several MPs.

      The process of PPC selection needs a lot more attention – to ensure basic competence, and to ensure that the values that a PPC represents are well understood by the electorate, and that the electorate have rather more influence on the whole process.

    3. Ian B
      July 8, 2024

      @DOM – ? every area in the UK had an MP elected to serve them because that candidate received the largest vote. No one was disenfranchised in that sense.

      There wasn’t (although that is what Sunak tried to make it) a vote for president. But Sunak did disenfranchise the Tory voter – he like his Government just didn’t comprehend conservatism

  24. beresford
    July 7, 2024

    Since the election the daily number of illegals crossing the Channel has gone quiet. Has the reality of a Labour government stopped them from coming?

    Interesting to hear Braverman question Sunak’s sincerity about the Rwanda scheme and say ‘The voters aren’t mugs’. A number of us suspected that a reason for the early election was to avoid angering the globalists by actually deporting anybody.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      The scheme ensured that nobody was deported. It cost £150k each and they could be ‘sent back’.
      It was an idiot scheme which treated voters like mugs.
      One of the reasons Sunak apologised I suppose.

      1. Mark B
        July 7, 2024

        Plus. For every person sent to Rwanda, we had to take one of their asylum seekers in return.

  25. Clough
    July 7, 2024

    If the French two-round system had been in place here, Tory voters in many constituencies would in the second round have had the choice of Labour or Reform, and in many other constituencies Reform voters would’ve had the choice of Tory or Labour.

    In other words, they wouldn’t have got their perfect outcome – they would’ve had to settle for something that was less good than what they really wanted, but better than what they absolutely didn’t want.

    It seems to me that that’s how life is, a lot of the time. (Or as the French voters probably say: c’est la vie.)

    The important point is that the chances in future of the ‘Conservatives’ (such as they are) coming back to power would then lie in coalition with Reform. That would be no bad thing, as far as I’m concerned. It might keep them honest with their voters.

  26. Narrow Shoulders
    July 7, 2024

    The low turnout is worthy of note. Were these disillusioned Conservatives or were people on holiday? I would like some research into this as it should effect the timing of future elections.

    Tactical voting played a huge part in Lib Dem and Labour numbers. Now the electorate has seen the results of tactical voting expect more of the same in future. This will keep the left in power for a while in the same way that the anyone but candidate usually wins in the second round of voting in France.

    We don’t need a change to the voting system, we just need a single “conservative” right wing party that social and economic conservatives can support. That will not be Reform as they attract anyone but voting against them. (Rightly or wrongly, they will not change the perception).

  27. Everhopeful
    July 7, 2024

    Anyway when the obvious objective of balkanising the U.K. is achieved voting won’t matter one jot.

  28. Ian B
    July 7, 2024

    Sir John
    “We should be reluctant to abolish single MP accountability to a local area.” we should also re-enforce that part of democracy by stopping the outside meddling of those who show loyalty to a ‘gang’ leader being parachuted in to and area.
    The loyalty to a ‘gang’ leader and loyalty to the electorate and country are not compatible. Who pays and empowers those elected? – it is not the ‘gang’ leader.

  29. William Long
    July 7, 2024

    My guess is that, if Farage does all he says, and gets people voting for Reform in ever greater numbers, leading to a real prospect of their getting a majority under FTPT, he will very quickly see its advantages, and drop any cries for PR.
    It is so easy to see from all the European versions of PR, how difficult it is for it to deliver a clear majority Government, rather than a coalition fudge.

  30. Original Richard
    July 7, 2024

    We should have voted for AV when we had the chance. AV maintains the good FPTP idea that there is a single elected representative for the constituency but ensures that the winning candidate obtains 50% or more of the vote. AV also prevents a constituency electing a candidate who does not represent their views through a split vote.

    We also definitely need referendums as Brexit showed.

  31. Chris S
    July 7, 2024

    I have always thought that FPTP is the least worse electoral system, however it is not possible to justify the outcome of last week’s GE, but the circumstances were exceptional, given the split on the right. Of greater concern to me is the Conservative party, reduced to fewer than 130 seats, most of whom are pro-EU Remainers and supporters of the ECHR.

    To move forward, there has to be an accomodation on the right of politics, but the post-GE Conservative party looks far more like the old SDP than a Conservative force for change. My own MP, Chris Chope, is one of the few exception as a Eurosceptic Brexiteer who has been re-elected, but where do we go from here ?

    I cannot see The Wets allowing someone like Suella or Robert Jenrick to be leader, so we are much more likely to see a Remainer in charge. If that happens, I suspect MPs like Suella and JR-M will conclude that the cause is lost, and could well move across to Reform. Despite supporting my current MP, I will reluctantly follow them and join the Reform party.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      Reform put most of the real Conservatives out. That is the result of their political strategy. It produced no group with whom they could work.
      That demonstration alone should alert people to the Kai-handedness of these ‘saviours’.

      1. Bill B.
        July 7, 2024

        Maybe the time for that group to do the necessary work was before the election. Had they joined Reform, they could have kept their seat. That’s what Andrea Leadsom and the others must be thinking.

    2. Donna
      July 7, 2024

      Marcus Fysh, former Spartan Conservative who represented Yeovil, has left the Not-a-Conservative-Party saying it has no prospect of ever being re-elected.

      Sadly, he has currently said he will not join Reform.

  32. J+M
    July 7, 2024

    All electoral systems have their disbenefits. That of FPTP is the situation we have today; it over-compensates. However, it does deliver majority governments which allows a party to implement its policies and to be judged on those policies at the next election. It emphatically allows us to kick a party out when we have had enough; vide Thursday last week.

    PR systems end up returning same old same old to power each time. That is why you now see in Europe the rise of parties on both political extremes. The voters have no where else to go if they want a change. In the UK extreme parties do not gain traction. For the Guardian readers and BBC: Reform is not an extreme party.

  33. Ian B
    July 7, 2024

    The fundamental is what is democracy? Is it as often suggested it is Government for the People by the People? Or is it rule by one particular religion (Political Grouping/Gang)?
    If you are in the ‘Gang’ Camp where should the selected candidate’s loyalty lay? Who should select the candidates? It is clearly never those that are asked to elect them into office and pay their wages. As a gang member you are forced to toe you bosses’ line by the ‘whips’ or you are out. So that can’t be suggested as democracy.
    All the alternative to FPTP, move democracy from the people and seek rule by ‘Gang’ As we have just seen 40% of the Country couldn’t or wouldn’t engage in the Gang mentality. All the PR versions on show all seek to put a minority Gang in charge, that can’t be democracy, that can’t be Government by the People for the People.
    Too much emphasis is place on the concept that only one Religion/Gang has all the correct answers to every situation. Hence the derogatory mud slinging of ‘left’ or ‘right’ as a doctrine.
    The thing that matters is not how tax is collected, but how it is spent and how it is controlled. Before that even comes into being, how is the real actual resilient income and wealth created by society, to fund tax payments?
    Democracy needs to percolate up from the bottom, the people, anything that interferes with that just seeks to destroy society and model it in a personal image.

    1. ChrisS
      July 7, 2024

      “The thing that matters is not how tax is collected, but how it is spent”
      This is blatantly not true :

      Who is taxed and by how much is crucial. The problem with what the coalition did, and followed by the last government, and set to be even more exaggerated if Reform formed a government, is that vast swathes of voters contribute no personal income tax to the state so have no vested interest in keeping taxes low.
      “Representation without taxation” is just as damaging as the opposite !

      In my view, everyone should pay some income tax and NI, starting at a low rate, so that they would have an interest in keeping taxes low.

  34. Bryan Harris
    July 7, 2024

    It is understandable why some parties want a change from FPTP. It is usually to ensure they get more MPs, but that would only work once or twice to their advantage. After that we would end up with little chance of one party having a full majority.

    As we’ve seen on the Continent, with PR countries have to spend a great deal of time after an election agreeing who would share power, with conditions and back treading on promises made to voters. They end up with a mishmash of agreements that do not work to anybodies advantage. Government is often paralysed.

    Far better to have a clear winner in the elections – even when the end result is a tormented socialist enclave.

  35. Richard1
    July 7, 2024

    I’ve always agreed with these arguments for FPTP and voted no to the AV referendum. But I think FPTP works so long as the main parties encompass the large majority of opinion. Where the govt + the opposition = 80% it’s fine, but with the govt + the opposition at 60% it’s more questionable. FPTP has the great advantage of the direct link with the MP but also that it does lead to unpopular governments being thrown out, as we have just seen.

    But I don’t any longer believe that coalition govts are necessarily weak. If we look at the last 14 years, to my mind the best period of government – and the only vaguely “right wing’ one (if we ignore Truss’s fortnight) was the coalition govt. then we got a real attempt to control public spending and to reform education. There was also a more robust attitude to Islamist terrorist supporters than we now have.

  36. Original Richard
    July 7, 2024

    “If the U.K. this time had wanted a Reform or Conservative government it could have voted for one in sufficient numbers to secure it.”

    But next time?

    The Conservatives are finished. They lied that joining the EEC/EU would mean no loss of sovereignty and PM May tried with the help of the Opposition to overturn the EU referendum result. They lied that they wanted to reduce net immigration to the “tens of thousands” per year when they really wanted to boost immigration to close to a million/year. They lied that Net Zero will bring prosperity when the government UK Fires Report makes clear that the exact opposite will be needed to achieve it.

    It will take time for Reform’s policies to be sufficiently widely known to be converted to electoral success, particularly when opposed by the Con/Lab/Lib/Green Party and the BBC/C4/ITV/Sky, but as was shown at the 2019 European Parliament elections when the Brexit Party came first with almost as many votes as the second (Lib Dem) and third (Lab) placed parties combined the votes exist for Reform to become the next government. The Conservatives came fourth with less than 30% of the Brexit Party’s votes.

    1. Donna
      July 7, 2024

      The creature Blair has already warned Starmer that he has to control the borders to see off the threat from Reform in the Red Wall.

      Much as I despise the man, he understands far better than the One Nation Wets, that Farage and Reform are now the real opposition in large parts of the country, not the pathetic rump of the Not-a-Conservative-Party.

  37. James Freeman
    July 7, 2024

    In Wales, the next Syneed election will use the D’Hondt method. The Westminster constituencies are being paired up, with six members elected each. The result is likely to be no majority party. However, complicated coalitions are unlikely, with minor parties needing at least 10 % of the vote to win seats.

    We could adopt a similar method for Westminster, with six merged constituencies. In most places, these would be small enough to retain local accountability.

    Alternatively, the new constituencies could be the traditional counties and major cities. The number of MPs in each would vary depending on the local population. So Berkshire could end up with ten MPs or have two constituencies with five each. This approach would reduce the purity of the system but increase local links.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      You don’t canvass do you? Have you any idea how big the current constituencies are? Happy that Wales is trialing another bright idea after the 20 mph one already ditched. Saves the rest of us suffering the stupidity.

  38. Ian B
    July 7, 2024

    Sir John
    Keep democracy, keep FPTP. Enhance it by giving those that are to be represented get to choose their candidates, then elect them.
    Keep working towards one person one vote, People in Control of Government. Not Gangs and their leaders interpreting and dictating who your representative will be so that they can maintain control and rule as government.
    Once candidate selection becomes the exclusive prerogative of a Gang leader the essence of Democracy is lost.
    In a democracy it is the People that empower, by lending that power. It is the People that pay the wages of those they elect, so it should only ever be the People that decide who their government is – hence government by the people for the people.

    1. Ian B
      July 7, 2024

      Sir John
      This discussion seems to been derived from the overall vote not being tilted enough. In a parliamentary representative form of democracy, it was perfect the person that conjured up the most votes was elected and no one else. The only discussion in that context is the outside (outside of the constituency) interference in the candidate selection.

    2. Ian B
      July 7, 2024

      Sir John
      Some of the distortion that has Government defining and corrupting democracy comes from the 5-year term and not a 2-year term that is the norm in Democracies. There is something wrong with any leadership that is unable to seek confirmation of its abilities every 2 years.
      We should take a leaf out of big corporations, the shareholder (the people) have to approve the leadership on a regular basis. They are ousted if they are failing not when they are succeeding on their delivery to their shareholders.

      1. Lynn Atkinson
        July 7, 2024

        You are a Chartist. Did you know?

  39. glen cullen
    July 7, 2024

    We don’t currently vote for a government or a party, we don’t measure the overall share vote; we vote for a single candidate in a single constituency
    Maybe we should scrap candidates and constituencies with the ballot paper showing only parties ….the result would be a ratio of appointed MPs by the party reflecting their vote share …just an idea

    1. glen cullen
      July 7, 2024

      Labour: 33.8% = 34 MPs
      CONs: 23.71% = 24 MPs
      Reform: 14.26% = 15 MPs
      LibDems: 12.22% = 13 MPs
      Greens: 6.75% = 7 MPs
      SNP: 2.52% = 3 MPs
      Plaid: 0.68% = 1 MP

      1. Mark B
        July 7, 2024

        I think that is a far better system. Just give the number of seats based on the percentage of votes.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      You mean PR. Then the party appoints all the Heaths, Mays and Sunak’s it likes and keeps Frost and JR off the list.
      You did not think that one through, did you?

      1. Mark B
        July 7, 2024

        The people will turn their backs on it, just like they are now, and eventually it will die, like it will.

      2. glen cullen
        July 7, 2024

        I’m also suggesting getting rid of constituencies and constituency MPs

  40. Denis Cooper
    July 7, 2024

    I could get depressed, because over twenty years ago I proposed an excellent solution to this electoral problem but it seems that nobody else appreciates its elegant simplicity. I find there is still a comment here from 2010:

    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2010/02/09/why-should-lib-dems-vote-twice/

    “The best and simplest reform would be FPTP-SPTP, making use of the fact that Parliament is bi-cameral and both taking the edge off the gross disproportionality of FPTP and creating a much needed centre of effective Parliamentary opposition in a fully elected Second Chamber … ”

    Hereditary peers would still be hereditary peers. and life peers would still be life peers, and bishops would still be bishops, but none of them would have any legislative role. Instead at this point the members of the present House of Lords could be summoned to Westminster to pass a motion resigning all their legislative functions to a new elected Second Chamber made up of those candidates who came second in their constituency elections.

    1. ChrisS
      July 7, 2024

      Denis, Your suggested solution would just set up permanent discord between the two houses with the added problem that the members of the second house could claim more legitimacy than their Lordships.

      1. Denis Cooper
        July 7, 2024

        You call it “permanent discord”, I call it “effective Parliamentary opposition”.

        We need that for good government, but we won’t see much of it in the coming years, like after the 1997 election.

        Second Members of Parliament would have more legitimacy than the unelected legislators-for-life we have now, but obviously they would have less legitimacy than the members of the first chamber and therefore less power.

    2. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      Don’t we have enough losers in Parliament already? Who would form the third elected chamber to break the deadlock of the other two?

      1. Denis Cooper
        July 7, 2024

        I rather like the more nuanced approach taken in Bargain Hunt, with a “winner” and a “runner-up”. But if you want to shout “loser” at somebody who has got slightly fewer votes than the leading candidate then feel free.

        “For example, in 2005 16,374 people in Crawley voted for the constituency to be represented in Parliament by the Tory candidate, but they were denied that wish because 16,411 people voted for the Labour candidate.”

        So by your lights that Tory candidate was a “loser” and not fit to be in Parliament – like Nigel Farage, in fact.

        There would be no need for a third chamber to break a deadlock, that contingency would be covered by the Act.

  41. Ralph Corderoy
    July 7, 2024

    ‘Reform now campaign for PR.’

    True, though I think this is more to keep getting publicity as a party, and to draw attention to their large vote share, one in seven of votes. They don’t expect to get PR any time soon and will therefore be plotting the next General Election campaign assuming FPtP.

    It didn’t matter MEPs were elected under PR so removing the connection between me and ‘my’ MEP(s) because the area an MEP covered was so large that a ‘personal’ MEP wouldn’t have meant much anyway. Not so for MPs.

    (By the way, Sir John, could you consider marking your end-of-comment replies somehow for easy searching? Say by signing off with ‘… -SJ’ or ‘… SJR’. Your current prefix of ‘Reply’ occurs often as the link to click to reply.)

  42. Vivian Evans
    July 7, 2024

    Perhaps, before we fiddle with our system of FPTP, it would be worthwhile to address the low turnout where about 30% Âą 5% are now the norm in local elections and the low turnout of getting just above 50% in a number of constituencies? For example, Parliament could legislate that a quorum of 2/3rds of voters must have cast their votes, else the election must be re-run?
    Just a thought …

    1. Mark
      July 8, 2024

      It might be more workable to have the right to a recall petition and election much as with misbehaving MPs in cases where the turnout is too low once per electoral cycle.

  43. Geoffrey Berg
    July 7, 2024

    Even those who want Scottish independence agree there must be another Referendum before that can happen. Similarly as there was a Referendum on electoral reform, those who want electoral reform must have and win a Referendum before that happens end that further Referendum should not be before a generation has passed.

  44. Bill J
    July 7, 2024

    Until the mid 20th.C the UK seems to have had some multi-member constituencies. If one were to make each historic county a multi-member constituency, one would endreach with a more proportional result and retain the constituency link. I could go to any of the MPs I thought could best help me.

    In a county whose population justifies five MPs, any candidate getting >5% of the vote would probably become an MP. Very small counties might have only two MPs. So it would be less proportional. Fair enough.

    It’s now pretty well the elective dictatorship foreseen by Lord Hailsham in 1976. A leader who takes orders from above gained 64% of Commons seats on around 18% of adult support. About half of adults appear not to have voted, some because they’re not on the register.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      So the one hard working MP would get all the casework and the others would take the salary and spend their days on the Terrace quaffing bubbles.. brilliant idea.

    2. Michael Staples
      July 7, 2024

      I am unsure as to how your model would work. In a hypothetical county with 5 seats I presume each party would put up 5 candidates. With each elector having 5 votes, if Labour were the most popular party all five of their candidates would score roughly equal top votes. However, if each elector had only one vote, presumably for a party (or an independent candidate), splitting the candidates in relation to a party list could be very unfair if the order didn’t reflect the electors’ favourites and five might be very difficult to divide.

  45. RichardP
    July 7, 2024

    It seems to me that people feel represented when there is robust opposition to government plans which ensures thorough scrutiny of policies before implementation. There has been an appalling lack of opposition to Covid, Net Zero, Mass Immigration and just about every other mad government policy.
    We need to find a system that encourages Adversarial Politics rather than the current Uni-Party Consensus Politics. If our Uni-Party Parliament can’t create an adversarial system then perhaps we should look at the Swiss system of Direct Democracy.

  46. Bert+Young
    July 7, 2024

    The voting system has to change ; it is not just because FPTP is undemocratic and that voting area allocation is disproportionate ; the method of candidate selection also has to be on the list . I am dismayed that Labour have succeeded for a number of reasons .

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      The Boundary Commission has the mandate to even up the constituencies. They have just done a rebalancing. Did you not know?

  47. Derek
    July 7, 2024

    FPTP condemns us to a Two Party State. And when we get a bad Government in power we have to wait five years to remove them.
    If you want FPTP to remain, let’s have it in law that for the many government proposals which deeply effect the pockets of the tax payers, those tax payers and the electorate are given a National Referendum do decide for themselves.
    Then we’ll have our own form of ECHR policing who, although based in Strasbourg, currently our own Government has to approach, when wanting to remove illegal immigrants from OUR own country.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      And the ECHR will say NO. Indeed it does say NO. What is your solution to an unsackable, feral ECHR?

  48. Christine
    July 7, 2024

    I don’t like coalition governments. I didn’t like the LibDem/Conservative government that foisted climate change and wokery onto us when few had voted for it. I like the Swiss model where they have referendums on major issues.

    I voted against the PR option offered but I must admit I didn’t have enough information on which to base my decision.

    This time I voted for Reform but if I had had a second choice I wouldn’t have voted Conservative as they have spent 14 years destroying the country I love. Don’t be fooled that Reform voters will ever go back to the Conservatives; we are in this for the long run.

    1. Mark B
      July 7, 2024

      I believe very strongly in Direct Democracy but, the Scamdemic taught me one thing – If people are given poor or false information then they will vote in a manner that may not be in our best interests.

      For DD to work people must be able to make a reasoned and ‘informed’ decision.

  49. Christine
    July 7, 2024

    I would like to see each MP given a budget to spend in their constituency. This would allow local MPs to campaign on local issues and provide a measure of whether they can deliver on their promises. Currently, we vote for a candidate we like but get policies devised nationally.

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      Councils get the local budget and Councillors campaign on local issues.
      Parliament deals with the issues of the Nation as a whole.

  50. Sir Joe Soap
    July 7, 2024

    I don’t think it’s first priority for Reform.
    They’ll work with what they have and once the Labour shine has worn off, with more boats, more tax, continuing poor public services.. the time will be ripe for real reform.

  51. Paula
    July 7, 2024

    This Labour government terrifies me. I could not, however, endorse what the Tories had been doing to us.

    Reform gave me a use for my lost vote – to signal why it was that I’d abandoned the Conservatives.

  52. John McDonald
    July 7, 2024

    Sir John, It is worth looking at the extract below from house of commons library :
    “In a UK wide referendum on 5 May 2011, voters were asked if they favoured changing the system for electing MPs from First Past The Post to the Alternative Vote:
    • There were 6.2 million ‘Yes’ votes (32.1%) in favour of the change.
    • There were 13.0 million ‘No’ votes (67.9%) opposing the change.
    • Turnout was 42.0%.”

    Only 13.5 % of the population voted for the change to Alternative Vote
    and 28.5 % for First past the post. Not even a third.
    The con played by the Major Parties was no mention on the ballot paper Proportional Representation.
    what does Alternative Vote mean to most people ?

    Reply The system was explained at the time. Anyone who thought it mattered voted. All those who didn’t vote clearly did not worry about it.

    1. John McDonald
      July 7, 2024

      Sir John AV is a method to implement PR. It is not the Concept of PR
      only 13% voted for this method of PR. Other methods were not on the ballot paper so had no choice and did not vote. Abstained is better than not worried. Otherwise if MP don’t vote we could say they are not worried also

  53. DOM
    July 7, 2024

    How can we stop Labour from taking the UK back into the EU?

    Would John engage his cerebellum to address this issue and what can be done to stop those lying, two-faced scumbags namely Labour from overturning the wishes of a nation some years ago when they voted to leave the EU?

    Some knew the above would happen and yet the Tory party and sneaky little WEF lackey Sunak never once referred to it during the GE campaign.

    How can tens of millions of voters be so naive that they could not see through crap dished out to them by the two main parties?

    1. Lynn Atkinson
      July 7, 2024

      Calm down. The EU is in its death throes. Don’t you take an interest in geo-politics?

    2. James4
      July 7, 2024

      Don’t worry Dom UK is not going to get back into thd EU never

    3. formula57
      July 7, 2024

      @ DOM “How can we stop Labour from taking the UK back into the EU?” – applications for injunctions to the Court of Session perhaps.

    4. Mark B
      July 7, 2024

      We can stop it by telling the people one simple truth – That by rejoining the EU we would have to adopt the Euro as our currency. There are others things too. Such as taking shared responsibility for other countries debts.

      My guess is that they will slowly keep close alignment and drip-drip pro-EU propaganda in our ear.

    5. mancunius
      July 7, 2024

      *This*. An additional concern must be that the EU will write clauses into any new or amended treaty that will prevent any future UK government from terminating such an agreement except by a payment so massive that it will make Versailles reparations look like chicken feed. This of course binds the hands of a future government and even our constitution, and is entirely illegitimate, but that would not stop Starmer from signing and ratifying it.

  54. MFD
    July 7, 2024

    what I think we need is the Alternative Vote system but with a big change in the constituency, making all constituencies the same size within a two hondred people.
    destgned to stop the likes of LibDems from cherry picking a few constituencies to get them seats they dont deserve!

  55. Mark
    July 7, 2024

    When you survey the incoming Cabinet and consider that Starmer had the riches of 410 MPs to choose from you know that the system is broken when Lammy becomes Foreign Secretary, and Reynolds with no previous relevant experience becomes Business secretary, etc. through the appointments and Starmer has already started appointing unelected people like Timpson and Vallance to key government roles. The system is not providing people who are capable of government. That must change by ensuring that they pass key tests of competency before they can ever become a PPC.

  56. agricola
    July 7, 2024

    Have given thought to the unrepresentative result that FPTP produced and what can be considered to make it more democratic.

    I think it necessary to abandon constituency MPs. The effect would be to stop tactical voting and boundary jerrymandering. Most important it would halt sectarian politics. We could cut down the excessive number of MPs we currently have.

    Assuming ten political parties, candidates per party 300 for a Parliament of 300. Thats 50 more than they have in the USA. Essentially bona fide members of each party should run the selection process and put them in an order of merit. This should halt the vested interests that operate around all parties. You may need to take steps to block infiltrators.

    At election time the electorate would vote the party and manifesto that attracted them. MPs would be selected top to bottom from the party list in proportion to the votes gained nationally for the party. That way Parliament represents the people, and no party can feel cheated by the number of seats they get.

    Such a system would require a revamped social service allowing citizens right of appeal to a parliamentary committee/ombudsman.

    Greater use should be made of referendums triggered by the electorate. No more pillow talk politics introducing of Nett Zeros.

    Think about it and lets advance democracy to avoid the skewed result of 4th July 2024.

    1. agricola
      July 8, 2024

      Are you alien to new thinking, prefering the same old.

  57. mancunius
    July 7, 2024

    Any country with PR ends up with a government cobbled together from various factions, and their horsetrading leads to a policy programme nobody voted for (and might well have been rejected by majority choice). In many cases the government coalition is a stitch-up by the backstairs establishment elite, deliberately excluding the party that got the most votes.
    I am no friend to Sinn Fein, but the RoI electorate did vote for them at the last election, partly I’m sure to teach the two traditional main parties (FF and FG) a lesson for ignoring popular concerns. SF came first, but were prevented from getting anywhere near government by FF and FG coming together to rule.
    I often used to ask German work contacts what on earth they found democratic about the ‘Grand Coalitions’ that have been a frequent feature of German postwar governments – massive governments with almost no opposition. German voters seemed to find nothing curious about it at all, even found my question taboo. Few of them would know, if asked, who their local Bundesabgeordneter actually is or are. (Many come from ‘a list’).

    If we were to introduce an AV system, we’d have to bring in laws to prevent parties from making tactical agreements (such as the one bedevilling today’s French second round parliamentary election) that effectively rob the voters of choice. It is no more honest than an auctioneer’s dealing ring, or ticket touting. And if Macron’s tactic succeeds, it will create utter political chaos in France, far beyond anything RN would do.

  58. Original Richard
    July 7, 2024

    A bigger threat to democracy is not the inefficiency of the voting system but the way Parliament is handing over power to unelected quangos and institutions such as the OBR, the CCC, the MPC etc. and the unelected judiciary.

  59. Original Richard
    July 7, 2024

    Whilst I do not believe PR is a good system because there is no fixed representative responsible for all the people in a constituency and makes it impossible for an electorate to remove unpopular politicians I do believe it could be used for the composition of the HoL. I suggest that any party that achieves 5% or more of the vote in a GE can appoint HoL members of their choice in proportion to their share of the GE vote.

  60. Mickey Taking
    July 7, 2024

    ‘We should be reluctant to abolish single MP accountability to a local area.’

    But currently an MP has up to 5 years before the local accountability might oust a failure to serve the constituency. I and others have wished to limit a government to 3 years so that national (and local) accountability can have an effect. Witness the reaction of the electorate to the last 5 years government!

  61. J.A.+Burdon-Cooper
    July 7, 2024

    The Scottish Government system which has a contituency MSP, plus a List system, connected with larger areas does have some merits. The constituency I used to vote in (Perth and Kinross or whatever its name has cahnged to) always elected an SNP, who I ignored, and instread kept contact with a Conservastive List MSP who is a freind of mine (Liz Smith). Liz has always been very active in local matters, publishing regular news letters etc,and replied to emails etc. (she has also had shadow ministerial responsinilities)
    That constuence did get to within 21 votes of the Tory (Luke Graham) pushing the SNP out, and elelction or two ago. Luke should have got in this time, but I suspect didnt because of the general total disaffection with the conservative campaign , disastrously led and unnecessarily called early. A pitty, because Luke had nursed the contrituency for a number of years.
    If the national government had listened to yourself, they could have kept labour out! Like most members, I voted for Liz Truss, and never thought Sunak would be any good. (just look at the Windsor Agreement for a start! )

  62. outsider
    July 7, 2024

    Dear Sir John,
    As before, today’s second or run-off election in France has gone badly for the Rally Nationale, depriving them of a parliamentary majority (or even perhaps the biggest bloc) after leaving rivals trailing in their wake in the first round. It shows that if a party is, rightly or wrongly, seen as extremist , it is unlikely to gain power unless it wins more than half the initial votes.
    A run-off vote between the top two candidates should give more choice and therefore power to voters in the UK’s current five-party system. It should favour Reform UK, which came second in nearly a hundred seats last week. But not if it suffered the same fate as the Rally.
    This caveat applies to other electoral systems too. The alternative vote and its second-best variations are designed to favour centrist parties and outcomes. Under a full-blooded party list PR system (the least genuinely democratic of all) , Reform would have won loads more seats, as would the Green Party, but would not be allowed near government in a hung parliament.
    Reform’s policies are, in my view, not at all extreme. But Mr Farage’s uniformly aggressive and sometimes insensitive delivery, eg on Ukraine and legal immigrants, allows his enemies ( and even some potential friends) to paint them as such. This approach served him well in the European Parliament, where he was typically only allowed a minute to speak. I hope that he will be more subtle in the House of Commons so that any charge of extremism becomes incredible.

  63. Rita (aka REET)
    July 8, 2024

    In our unequal world, I personally favour FPTP, though can understand the reasoning behind an AV system.

    In their draft “Our Contract With You”, Reform stated they would push for debate on the electoral system.

    Following GE2024 i do agree this is needed as the statistics show incomprehensible (to me) votes:seats won ratios.

    The main difference i can see between GE 2019 and 2024 were the boundary changes drawn up by the eponymous Commission (and ratified by the Privy Council).

    Sir John, i wonder if you’d be able to share your thoughts on this aspect of the electoral system? It seems an important one.

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