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Thursday, 13 May 2010 00:34 |
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I've followed your blog for a while now, and agree with most of what you say. However, I really feel that you are misrepresenting the disadvantages of a PR system. This post is not to say that FPTP is a brilliant system, or even a good one, but I feel you are showing your bias here, so I'd like to point out the problems with PR in the interests of fairness.
Ok, here goes:
1. PR means bigger constistuencies, of at least 20 members. Bigger constituencies mean a) it is less likely that you will know who even represents you and b) it is less likely that the people who DO represent you will have even visited the place where you live, let alone know what it is like to live there. Both of these mean less cohesion between the elected representatives and the electorate, which will result in people caring less about who represents them and lead to another factor in ...
2: PR means you can (mostly - I am not considering plus-voting in this comment) only vote on party lines. Most PR systems involved voting for a party, who will then put in the MPs (or equivalent) in accordance with who THEY have lined up for the job. So no voting for someone because you like THEM as a parlimentarian (as I did with my local MP). See above for problems when you don't know who will be representing you.
3: PR leads to backdoor deals and 'horse-trading'. Think about it. If one party has a clear majority in government, they can afford to be open about the issues that they will push (i.e. if Lib Dems had a majority, they would openly state that they will integrate further with the EU). PR forces partes to compromise, leading to the fact that they will have to negotiate, behind closed doors, which issues they will agree can be pushed, and which will be dropped (i.e. "If you stop pusing for PR, we'll stop NHS cuts).
Finally, a positive word for PR - it doesn't mean that extremist parties will be elected - most places that use PR will require a mimimum of 5% of the vote (in each constituency) before a party can be given a seat. This is both to stop extremist parties and to ensure parity (if there are 20 seats in a constituency, you MUST have 5% of the vote to get a seat). I will also assume that the 1.2% figure given earlier for the BNP's share of the vote is for the whole of the UK, and not just a gven constituency, and point out that, if that is the national average, then only in a rare aberration would one BNP candidate gain a seat.
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