From: gdb15@grebe.cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Subject: Re: Rule Britannia
Reply-To: gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 10:48:04 GMT

In article <1df1qvINN7jo@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>In article <1992Nov6.211248.29979@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, gdb15@grebe.cl.cam.ac.uk writes:
>> In article <1deircINN7jo@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>> 
>> >Did Kohl's party get an absolute majority of the popular vote
>> >in the last election?   
>> 
>> No, and they haven't got an absolute majority in the Bundestag.
>> The German government is a coalition.
>
>And is that what you want?   A permanent state of
>coalitions?  Have you taken a look at Israeli, or Belgian
>or Irish politics recently?   Or the sparkling record of
>our own lamented National Government back in the thirties?

I was just stating a fact.  Anyway, I don't think many people would
claim that Germany has been governed worse than Britain since the war.
Either the Social Democrats and Free Democrats have formed the
government, or the CDU/CSU plus the Free Democrats.  There haven't
been the unstable multi-party coalitions that you get in countries
like Israel and Italy, but there's always been a second party in
power to prevent one party from sliding into elective dictatorship.

>More general question.   Are politicians and parties any
>better or more trustworthy when more of them are on the
>inside.   I like it better when all but one party is on the
>outside, loudly pointing out the faults of the governing
>party.   That way I can be pretty sure that they aren't
>conspiring to carve up power and stay in office for ever.

I think politicians can take far fewer liberties if they have to
negotiate with people outside their own party.
>> 
>> Even if the Americans had the best electoral system in the world 
>> (which they certainly haven't!) they couldn't elect the
>> President by PR.
>
>That's right.   And by extension, we are talking about the
>entire US Administration, apart from a small number of
>offices that need Senate approval.   Now, would it be any
>improvement if Clinton had to consult with Ross Perot, say,
>twenty percent of the time?   [Obviously not, but it's
>Friday afternoon and I'm in a silly mood.]

Well, there are rumours that Clinton may take Perot into his
administration...  But a presidential system is different from
a parliamentary one.  In the US, Congress keeps a check on the
President.  In the UK, there's nothing except Parliament.

>> I suppose they could elect the electors by PR, but they'd
>> need a system like the Alternative Vote to ensure that the
>> President had majority support.
>
>Ah, but what does that really mean?   "Ensure that the
>President had majority support" or "Fiddle the numbers so
>that it merely appears that the President had majority
>support"?
>
>That's a serious question, by the way.   PR, and similar
>systems, have always seemed to me to be mostly ways to
>massage voting totals so as to make it *appear* that the
>party which ultimately takes power has majority support.
>Personally, I think we're all sensible enough to understand
>what FPTP means.   

Of course we are.  It's a system whereby the winner of
an election is determined not by her/his level of
support but by how votes are split amongst her/his opponents.

>Do we really have to go through a little
>minuet with transferable votes, or whatever, and the
>overwhelming majority of times come up with the same
>result, anyway?

How do you know it would come up with the same result?
For all you know, Perot's supporters might have voted
overwhelmingly for Bush as a second choice.

>Of course, I could easily be wrong about that.   Has anyone
>done any simulations to show how many times PR or STV would
>have resulted in different UK Administrations this
>century?

Every time since the war, certainly, since no government has had more
than 50% support.  Assuming that people's votes wouldn't be affected
by a change in voting system (which is certainly not the case), we'd
probably have had a Tory-Liberal administration instead of each Tory
one, and a Labour-Liberal administration instead of each Labour one
(although I'm not sure about Feb 1974, when the Tories got slightly
more votes than Labour but Labour got more seats).

--
Guy Barry, University of Cambridge | Phone: +44 (0)223 334757 
Computer Laboratory                | Fax: +44 (0)223 334678
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