London Banter - View Single Post

Ben Nunn · September 12th 03, 09:24 AM posted to uk.transport.london

Unless I'm very much mistaken, it was Robin May
), in message
who said:
(Mait001) wrote the following in:

Ah, so even if they express themselves by being good little girls
and boys and casting a useless vote you think badly of them.

Don't be so peurile: if their vote is "useless" that is because
hardly anyone else agrees with them - that is hardly my fault.

No, their vote is useless not because hardly anyone else agrees with
them but because the people who do agree with them are spread out
across the country. That means there's never a single constituency
with enough people agreeing with them to elect an MP. It seems a bit
unfair to let geography and the first past the post system dictate
whether you get an MP elected.

This problem doesn't just affect very small parties. There's the well
known case of the Lib Dems where their share of the vote isn't really
reflected by their share of the seats. In the 1992 election they got
3% of the seats and 17.85% of the votes.

There are also constituencies where it doesn't matter who you vote
for, the (insert political party) here candidate will always win. I
live in a constituency where Labour will always win, so I might as
well not vote because whoever I vote for the outcome will be the
same. People wonder about voter apathy but when there are so many
people for whom voting will make no difference, it seems more like
voter sensibility.

I don't see how we can go on under the current system.

Currently the electoral landscape is far more skewed in favour of one party
than it has ever been in history.

The Lib Dems complain about being robbed in the past, but then they
contribute to the problem by encouraging tactical voting, targetting specfic
seats, and making 99% of their electoral gains from the Tories, not from
Labour.

BTN