{"id":2374,"date":"2010-04-25T22:29:30","date_gmt":"2010-04-25T21:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=2374"},"modified":"2010-04-25T22:29:30","modified_gmt":"2010-04-25T21:29:30","slug":"why-are-the-tories-so-keen-on-fptp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/why-are-the-tories-so-keen-on-fptp\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are the Tories so keen on FPTP?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n
\nStone balanced tower<\/a>
\nOriginally uploaded by gilest<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

In the UK, the LibDems want to introduce STV<\/a> (which they argue is the best form of proportional representation – I’d prefer the Danish system<\/a>), and Labour have recently decided to support AV<\/a>; however, the Tories remain committed to FPTP<\/a> (although they want to reduce the number of constituencies by 10%, which they probably think will help them).<\/p>\n

I’m a bit puzzled, though.<\/p>\n

The current system is helping Labour at the expense of both the Tories and the LibDems (although it hurts the latter much more, of course).<\/p>\n

In other words, the current system is making it almost impossible for the Tories to get a decent majority.<\/p>\n

Is it just because they remember the 1980s so fondly that they can’t imagine never getting a decade of unrestricted power again?<\/p>\n

Realistically, the rise of the three-party system means that’s very unlikely.<\/p>\n

If they really think single-party majority government is so superior, shouldn’t they aim to introduce an electoral system that gives 350 seats to the largest party, 250 to the second-largest one, 50 to the third one, and none to any other parties, even if their share of the vote were 33%, 32% and 31%, respectively? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Back to reality: If the Tories agreed to proper proportional representation, it’s likely that a coalition of centre-right parties would get a majority in parliament quite often, probably more often than the number of times they can expect to get a workable majority under FPTP.<\/p>\n

So it really won’t be that painful, and wouldn’t it be nice never to see a Labour majority in Westminster again?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stone balanced tower Originally uploaded by gilest In the UK, the LibDems want to introduce STV (which they argue is the best form of proportional representation – I’d prefer the Danish system), and Labour have recently decided to support AV; however, the Tories remain committed to FPTP (although they want to reduce the number of constituencies by 10%, which they probably think will help them). I’m a bit puzzled, though. The current system is helping Labour at the expense of both the Tories and the LibDems (although […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,101,159,130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-denmark","category-election","category-en","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}