Thursday 28 April 2011

Is politics just a choice between A or B?

8 comments:

  1. Funny. But what's your point?

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  2. Point is that the Yes to Av campaign would have you believe that there is a party that 30% like and 70% hate and would prefer anyone else but always gets in...in short that there is only two types of political thought...A or B

    This is oversimplifying to the point of being disingenuous.

    This adaptation was to reflect the true political landscape.

    In 95% of cases, we have to remember, the 1st round winner (i.e. fptp winner) will win under AV.. I think this represents that more fairly than the original

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  3. When the BNP have won council seats under FPTP (or similar), what percentage of the vote have they won? Are they "a party that 30% like and 70% hate and would prefer anyone else"?

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  4. Anthony, if we were talking about council seats, i would understand the original...but we are not, we are talking about General Elections, which people take more seriously, have a wider voting area, and most importantly have NEVER elected a BNP or similar extremist MP.

    I do not believe we have had a working example of a condorcet loser winning MP in this country in its history, let alone it being something that we should be hinting is typical under FPTP.

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  5. That's all true. But I'm sure there are constituencies where the majority of those who voted would have preferred either of the other two main candidates to the one who they now have as their MP. In other words, the vote was split, as in the beer example. That wouldn't be the case under AV.

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  6. I agree.. however I would imagine if another candidate got in there would be a majority that could have wanted someone else.

    As this picture was aiming to show, there is not clear cut.. Conservatives are closer to Lib dems in some areas, then labour, then labour are closer to lib dems and then (shock horror) labour are closer to Tory...then lib dem..

    To try and designated one party that wins MPs as a coffee party while the rest are beers is not doing justice to the political landscape.

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  7. I disagree with your suggestion that politics is more evenly spread than two-sided.

    We all know that there is the left and the right - and we all know what the tendencies of those are.

    In the north (where Thatcher's meddlings were quite ruinous in places) there is a big anti-Conservative sentiment. This makes the coffee analogy completely legitimate - so here Tory would be the coffee.

    In the 2010 GE, I think it's fair to assume that the beer and coffee analogy is what happened in quite a few of the new northern seats won by the Conservatives. The 'beer' parties will mainly have been Labour & Lib Dem with a few others too.

    It's vote splitting and it's one of the main flaws of FPTP, which I'm hoping to see the back of.

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  8. Politics is not a two choice system. Left and right do not cover all parties.
    For example, BNP is socially right wing but economically left wing. The tories are pretty centre on social side but more right on economic.. etc and there are more than two variables

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