From: gdb15@grebe.cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: Rule Britannia
Date: 8 Nov 92 11:28:17 GMT
Reply-To: gdb15@cl.cam.ac.uk (Guy Barry)
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK

In article <1difcmINN582@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
>
>In any case, the reason I mentioned these other examples is to
>make the point that it's what would happen in the UK under a
>system of more or less permanent coalition.   Pointing to other
>countries is just a way of showing that sometimes it works, and
>sometimes it's a disaster.   The Germans seem fairly happy with
>their system, but both the Italian and Israeli systems have
>more or less ground to a halt, and people are calling for 
>something more like FPTP, and MPs answerable to distinct
>districts.  

The moral of that appears to be that pure PR isn't a very stable
system of government, and that a compromise like the German system is
preferable.  Don't forget that there are numerous different electoral
systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.  The German
system tends to give rise to two-party coalitions, the Italian one to
multi-party coalitions.  Lumping them together misses the point.

>> I think politicians can take far fewer liberties if they
>> have to negotiate with people outside their own party.
>
>I don't know.   Negotiation, to me, implies the exchange of
>favours.

Are you saying that doesn't happen within one-party government?
We don't have to look back further than Wednesday...

>Two things bother me about coalition government.  One is,
>as I said, that if many parties are on the inside, then they
>are not working so hard to expose the weakness of the current
>Administration.

I'm quite sure that if we currently had a Tory-Lib Dem government
then Labour and the other parties would be working just as
hard to expose them.

>The second may be more subtle, but it's well exemplified by
>the National Government of the thirties, and it is that when
>the dust settles, no-one takes responsibility.   Today, if
>I mention the National Government.  Labour supporters say
>"Well, we were hamstrung by the Tories" and the Tories say
>the reverse.

True -- that's why coalitions break up sometimes.  I don't
know much about the National Government so I can't really
comment on that.  All I can say is that it's in the nature
of politicians always to blame someone else.  How often
do you hear any politician admitting responsibility for
his/her own mistakes?

>> >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.
>
>Well, isn't there a certain justice to that.    If the
>opposition voluntarily splits its votes up among competing
>opposition groups, that actually does say something about
>the coherence of opposition to the eventual winner.

No -- it's an indication that the voters have divergent views.
You can't coerce people into voting for party B merely on
the grounds that they're opposed to party A.  There have
got to be positive reasons as well.

>> >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.
>
>I'm not sure I follow that.   Are you claiming that we would
>have had different PMs and policies?    I can see that there
>might have been a different Postaster General, or Minister
>of Ag. and Fish., but I can't get too excited about that.

I don't know about different PMs, but we'd have had different
policies.  To take an obvious example, we certainly wouldn't have had
the poll tax.  But more generally, I can't imagine that a Tory-Liberal
administration over the last thirteen years would have allowed
anything like the degree of centralization of power that we've seen
under the Tories alone.

>> Assuming that people's votes wouldn't be affected by a change in
>> voting system (which is certainly not the case),
>
>Yes, I agree.   The concept of tactical voting among the 
>electorate would largely be replaced by tactical voting in
>the House.   I'm not sure which I prefer.   At the moment,
>we have fairly rough justice at the Polls, but once the
>results are announced, we know what we are getting - modulo
>U turns and skidmarks - but under PR, Parliamentary life would
>have more of a smake-filled-room aspect to it, in which various
>parties would bargain and horse-trde.

So you're saying "We don't really get what we vote for, but
at least we know what we've got when we've got it".  I wouldn't
call that a sufficient reason for defending a system that's
supposed to be democratic.  Why not have an even simpler system?
Count up all the votes, and the party that gets the most votes
gets absolute power -- no need for Parliament.  Wouldn't that
be even better by your criteria?

>> 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).
>
>Yes, I guess that's right, but as I said above, I'm not
>particularly excited by the prospect.   I can't see
>changing the voting system just to get the no-doubt
>trenchant wisdom of people like Thorpe et. al.   They
>always seemed ideally formed for Opposition, to me.

Well that's your personal opinion.  It's probably because they've
always been *in* opposition, so they seem like a natural opposition
party.  I'm sure some people feel the same way about the current
Labour party.
--
Guy Barry, University of Cambridge | Phone: +44 (0)223 334757 
Computer Laboratory                | Fax: +44 (0)223 334678
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street  | JANET: Guy.Barry@uk.ac.cam.cl 
Cambridge CB2 3QG, England, UK     | Internet: Guy.Barry@cl.cam.ac.uk