UK General Election: protests at Lib Dem meeting over proportional representation

[Turborama]

Source: Telegraph (UK)

Protesters demanding proportional representation have picketed a building where Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrat front-bench team were meeting.

Published: 3:50PM BST 08 May 2010

Around 1,000 campaigners from pressure group 38 Degrees urged the party to fight for parliamentary reform.

They held up placards outside Local Government House which read: "Be brave - fair votes now" and "Be brave - demand PR".

=snip=

Pam Giddy, from campaign group Power 2010, said the campaigners were from a range of organisations seeking a "purple revolution".

Urging the Lib Dems to "stay strong" on their commitment to voting reform, she added: "People want electoral reform. They have said they do not want any one party in Downing Street. Mr Clegg has the opportunity of a generation."

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7696497/General-Election-2010-protests-at-Lib-Dem-meeting-over-proportional-representation.html

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Leading up to this, live on Sky News there was a fairly big and loud demonstration organized by "http://www.power2010.org.uk/">Power 2010" for fair votes developing outside Parliament and in Smith Square where the Lib Dems' HQ is, they had to go to a break because they couldn't continue with an interview due to the noise. When they came back the anchor interviewed a representative from "http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/">36 Degrees". The woman "interviewing" him sounded exactly like a Faux anchor, shouting him down and not giving him a chance to answer her questions. Disgusting.

Here's what the Guardian had to say about it.

3.39pm: Kay Burley's coverage of the electoral reform demo has made it onto YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KExTelt3MkE">It wasn't her finest moment. "Lots of demonstrators shouting 'Fair Votes Now', not sure what they mean by that," she said. (Thanks to Lee, a reader, for emailing me the link.)

Nick Clegg is going to come out and speak to the crowd outside the LGA, the Lib Dems have announced.

3.52pm: Nick Clegg has just come out to address the crowd. They applauded him wildly.


"I never thought in my wildest imaginaion that central london would have 1,000 protesters protesting for PR."

He said it used to be a topic that only concerned a small number of academics and politicians. The fact that so many people are concerned about it was "wonderful".

He said he would not talk about the Lib Dem discussions. But he went on:

"But take it from me. Reforming politics is one of the reason I went into politics ... I genuinely believe it is in the national interest ... for us to use this opportunity to usher in a new politics."

That was it. Then he headed back into the LGA.

More details at their ive blog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/may/08/general-election-2010-live-blog

Update: Sky News has had to go to break again after a protester off camera could clearly be heard shouting "SACK KAY BURLEY, WATCH THE BBC!", "END MURDOCH'S EMPIRE, WATCH THE BBC" and "SKY NEWS IS SHIT!" :rofl: I hope this makes it to YouTube, it was a classic live TV moment of truth.

Related articles...

Clegg has a real chance to change the system. He must not blow it

Source: The Independent

By Steve Richards

All three parties lost the election, but there was still a winner.

The Liberal Democrats performed poorly. There was no Cleggmania by the time voters headed for the polling stations. As far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned it should not matter. They have secured what is for them the dream outcome. The electoral system rarely delivers a hung parliament. This time it has. It will not do so again for a long time. Nick Clegg has the chance to seize the moment and get a change to the voting system. There is a danger he will let it pass – an error that is entirely in line with his party's tentative approach to the pragmatic demands of power.

Clegg declared in advance of the election that the party that secured most votes and seats should have the first chance to attempt to form a government. He was obliged to repeat his declaration yesterday. Some Liberal Democrats seem convinced that they will get credit at the next election by allowing the Conservatives to rule. They are deluding themselves. They risk being swallowed alive.

Of course they face a dilemma. The politics of power presents parties with nightmarish dilemmas every hour of the day. The Liberal Democrats are not used to the politics of power and this is a big test. They do not want to be seen propping up a Labour Party that by any definition performed abysmally in the election. For a time they will no doubt face a critical onslaught. Clegg hates the idea of appearing with Gordon Brown on the steps of No 10 having agreed a deal.

But they are being spectacularly naïve if they believe the formation of a minority Tory administration will lead to their party's revival over the next few years. Similarly, Labour figures who assume a period of opposition would give them space to form a new progressive alliance with the Liberal Democrats that will soon sweep them to power are also deluded. Once the Conservatives seize power they will not let go.

Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/clegg-has-a-real-chance-to-change-the-system-he-must-not-blow-it-1968188.html

---- --- ----

Leading article: A result that confirms our electoral system is broken

Source: The Independent

This most extraordinary of general elections has upset many expectations and preconceived opinions.

But the 2010 national vote has left untouched the central fact of British politics: the rottenness of our voting system. The ballots from 650 constituencies around the United Kingdom have almost all been counted. And one picture, at least, is clear: the main parties' share of seats in the new House of Commons does not reflect their share of the popular vote.

The Liberal Democrats are the primary victims of this broken system. Despite marginally increasing their share of the vote, they have ended up losing seats. Meanwhile, the Conservatives and Labour together won around 65 per cent of the popular vote, but take 86 per cent of the seats. Unfairness is hard-wired into this voting system.

And even the supposed practical advantages of first-past-the-post have failed to materialise. The traditional argument from defenders of the present voting system is that it can be relied upon to deliver clear mandates for single parties. Well, it certainly failed to do that on this occasion. This newspaper was sanguine about the prospect of a hung parliament, with no single party in overall control, in the run-up to this poll. We deplored the manner in which the Conservatives tried to use the prospect to scare voters into their camp. And we do not resile from that position now.

Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-a-result-that-confirms-our-electoral-system-is-broken-1968245.html



Something I posted in the UK forum earlier...

The election's stats clearly prove why PR is so essential for the Lib Dems & Britain as a whole

If overall percentages equated to seats, the Conservatives would have 235, Labour 191 and Lib Dems 149.

As it stands now,

Votes and seat for each of the main 3 parties:

Conservatives - 305 Seats from 10,681,417 Votes

Labour - 258 Seats from 8,601,441 Votes

Liberal Democrats - 57 Seats from 6,805,665 Votes

Votes needed per seat for each party were:

Conservatives - 35,021

Labour - 33,338

Liberal Democrats - 117,339

Another example of how unfair the voting system is in the UK, the Green Party had 269,866 total votes but only got 1 seat.

If Clegg fluffs this up by falling for Cameron's bait and switch instead of taking the chance of a lifetime offered to him by Brown, he and his party are toast. Also, it's my opinion that he would have possibly screwed up forever the best chance Britain has of reforming one of the most unfair voting systems in the world.

(Stats sourced from the analysis in this blog: http://worldpoliticsblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/07/clegg-the-kingmaker )

The Liberal Democrats' preferred type of Proportional Representation is the Single Transferable Vote.

This Wikipedia article gives a good overview of STV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote

STV Count Calculators: http://www.stvaction.org.uk/count_calculators

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Burley: " the entire eastern seaboard of the United States has been decimated by a terrorist attack"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1665901,00.html

Yeah, top journalist. Or not.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. yes proportional representation so they can always have a fragmented government

instead of just rarely.

Always solve a problem by implementing a solution that is worse than the problem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The 'strong governments' Britain has had recently have been under Thatcher and Blair

and anything to make the chances of authoritarians like them have an unbridled control of the country is A Good Thing. Remember, there's no written constitution in Britain, just the accumulated laws, which parliament can overturn with new laws with a simple majority (and so the best check on PMs in recent years has actually been the unelected, and still slightly hereditary, House of Lords).

The nearest thing to a list of basic rights that Britain has is the European Convention on Human Rights, to which people can appeal in court cases. To his credit, Blair did introduce the Human Rights Act, which allowed British judges to rule that British laws were in contravention of the convention, and that parliament would have to rewrite the law (previously, someone had to take a court case all the way through the British legal system, and only then could the ask the European Court of Human Rights to rule on it). But the Tories want to repeal the Human Rights Act too (the Tory media is constantly attacking the Act).

[dipsydoodle]

7. What I don't ubnderstand is this.

With proportional representation what then decides who the actual MPs are ?

[harmonicon]

8. as I understand it, the parties do, which troubles me

I'd like to think that people knew exactly who they were voting for instead of just voting for a party. Supposedly MPs would somehow be assigned based on region and such, but it seems a little inadequate.

Election reform is clearly needed when a party that gets almost 25% of the vote gets less than 10% of the seats in parliament, I'm just not sure if PR is what's needed. I know very little about UK politics, but I know that in the US having dedicated regional representation is very important. At least in the US I think instant runoff voting is the answer (and what the LibDems are proposing has an element of that), though, as a BBC commentator pointed out when I was watching TV this morning, that really wouldn't help the minor parties get seats...

Whatever happens, I hope there is some kind of reform, because it's obviously needed. Maybe if it happens in the UK people in the US will be less afraid of it as well... but I'm probably dreaming there.

[Fool Count]

9. True, in most countries with the proportional system

top candidates from a party list (set by a party congress) make it. But if that bothers people,
there is an easy fix - just run candidates in electoral districts as before and rate them into a
list according to percentage of votes each of them gets. Then select top names from this list
to fill the seats won by each party. Another knock on proportional system is that it does not allow
any independents to be elected. That can also be easily fixed by granting seats to any independent
candidates who get plurality of seats in their district (old "first-past-the-post" principle).
Finally, the system can be made much fairer even without switching to proportional system. Simply
use the optional preferential voting, as they do in Australia, where voters can indicate their
first, second, third an so on preferences, and vote counting eliminates candidates one-by-one
in consecutive rounds until the winning candidate gets 50% + 1 vote. This way a voter can vote
for a Liberal Democrat and still express his desire not to see a Tory elected by making Labor
his second preference. The Lid Dem's 29-30% indicated by the polls were reduced to 22% on the
voting day exactly due to many voters not wanting to waste their votes. There are so many ways
to improve this ridiculous system that there would be no excuse for LibDems to not take advantege
of their position and do at least something to help themselves get more seats and the British electorate
to better express their will in the next elections.

[harmonicon]

10. after I wrote my post I looked up what the LibDems are proposing exactly...

and it does involve individual candidates, as you suggest. It seems that constituencies would likely be larger, so people would be voting for a few MPs at a time, with the seats proportionally alloted. It seems pretty good to me. Watching this election (the first general election I've witnessed since moving to the UK), I realized for the first time really how small constituencies are. There are more seats in the house of commons than there are in the US house, and the population is only about 20% of the US population. People really can personally know their MPs, so keeping a system where the electorate is choosing between individuals seems very important.

[Fool Count]

11. True, the constituencies are small, and for historic reasons some

of them are much smaller than others. So at the very least a major redistricting is in
order. But the irrational attachment to "tradition", of which the Tories are the main
flag bearers, often stands in the way of progress there. They still have that useless
old hag, the Queen, don't they?

[CHIMO]

12. Depends

On how the method is establised.

Some examples are here.
B.C.'s referendum on proportional representation
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/bcvotes2009/story/2009/03/26/bcv-stv-referendum.html

[Zynx]

5. Labour had a large majority in 2005 with just 35% of the vote.

That strikes me as a little screwed up. Strong rule is not worth the price of illegitimate government.

[Democat]

3. Is Clegg going to stand strong or sell out?

This will be a make or break moment for his rising star. Will he stand up for what he said he was for, or sell out to one of the major parties?

[Turborama]

6. Nick Clegg addressing the protesters...

Video: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x463153

[grantcart]

13. Clese also had a great youtube on PR