Secret Squirrel has noticed that there are many grave irregularities in British elections,elections which lack proportional representation,representation by population,in British election results ,and Squirrel sees that there is grave need of electoral reform, of having constituency borders redrawn to bring about a fair and equitable electoral system for Britain, fair and equitable for all around, a system of representation by proportion, representation by population,a just,true, and fair system of elections.To continue,"The time has come," I,Squirrel said,"To talk of many things:Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--Of cabbages--and kings--And why the sea is boiling hot--And whether pigs have wings.",and why a British Prime Minister can be elected, according to calculations, by having as low a popular vote as 25%, this according to the present Prime Minister himself,consider, the First Past The Post enabled Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair to win landslide majorities based on popular votes of only 35% to 44%,Democracy: we’ve never had it so bad.This democratic deficit is a direct result of the first-past-the-post system, which allows the election of MPs and governments with minority support.This is not democracy. It echoes the gerrymandering and ballot-rigging of two centuries ago, which galvanized the Chartists to campaign for a democratic, representative parliament.Not since the rotten boroughs of the eighteenth century have elections been so legally corrupt.With proportional representation , neither Thatcher and Major nor Blair and Brown would have been able to form governments without the support of other parties. Supported by only a minority of voters and with only a minority of seats, they would have had to form coalitions, which would have almost certainly prevented policy excesses, such as the poll tax and the Iraq war,if we switch to proportional representation Labor might never again win a majority of seats and form a government in its own right. If a party cannot persuade a majority of the voters, it doesn’t deserve to form a government (ditto the Tories). Democracy is supposed to be about the will of the majority. It cannot be reconciled with a voting system that persistently allows parties with minority support to form governments with often huge majorities. Under proportional representation,in the last four elections, there would have been Green MPs and more Lib Dem, SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs. Also the actual Prime Ministerial elections would have been reversed with respect to the two main parties, Conservatives, and Labor.A democracy requires a parliament that reflects the people’s will; where the proportion of seats won corresponds to the proportion of votes cast. Let's look at some of the strange British election results.........
In the 1992 election, the results were Conservatives 336 seats,41.9%, Labor 271 seats,34.4%, and Liberal Democrats 20 seats,with 17.8% of the popular vote.
In the general election of 1997, for example, 13.5 million people voted for the Labour Party led by Tony Blairfor 418 seats, but at 43.2% populator vote,; 9.6 million for the Conservative Party, led by John Major,for 165 seats, at 30.7% of popular vote,the previous Prime Minister; and, 5.2 million for the Liberal Democrat Party led by Paddy Ashdown,for 46 seats,16.8% popular vote.
In 2001,Labor had 403 seats,62.38% of the total seats,yet only 40.7% of the votes. Conservatives 165 seats,25.54% of the seats, yet 31.7% of the votes ,liberal democrats had 51 seats for 7.89% of the votes, and 18.3% of actual population percentage votes.
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labor Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160. Tony Blair was returned as Prime Minister, with Labor holding 355 MPs but with a popular vote of 35.2%, the lowest of any majority government in British history. The Conservatives managed to return 198 MPs, 33 more than they had previously and managed to win the popular vote in England. The Liberal Democrats saw their popular vote increase by 3.7% and won the most seats for any third party since 1923, in the form of 62 MPs.The system is so broken ,in 2005, if you total all the votes cast for the main parties, it took an average 26,906 votes to elect a Labour MP, 44,373 to elect a Tory MP and 96,539 votes to elect a Lib Dem MP.That gave labour 413 seats, 40.7% conservatives 166 seats, 31.7% liberl democrats 52 seats, 18.3%.
In 2011,Consevratives 307 seats 36.1%of vote share,labor 258 seats 29%of popular vote ,liberal democrats 57 seats, 23%of the vote.
This is hardly equitable, this is hardly proportional, this is hardly representation by population, it's still a system of rotten burroughs.In the last two elections, studying the color maps of the elections, we see that the largest effect on the electoral voting change which tipped and concentrated the balance of power, was in the East and West Midlands area of Britain, sparsely populated as compared with the denser ares of Britain where the Conservatives have the greater voter support, but strangely a meagher amount of seats to be garnered there.Inequity, inadequacy,inequality, in the representation of the population, the power of their vote.Looking on a political map of voters the Conservatives carry the greatest amount of voters, but strangely the seats vote do not show proportionality.The labor areas of the maps are few and far between, and small, but the seats per voters percentage are enormous, enormous quantity of seats, for the very least voters....disproportionality, not population by representation. Britain can redraw electoral maps,Ministers say it will lower the "cost of politics" without reducing accountability. No country actually uses representation by population.Almost every nation claims it uses this system; it gives the government legitimacy because it can claim it is expressing the will of the people. Representation by Population refers to the simple idea that every vote should be equal, and therefore every riding should be roughly the same size. Currently, some ridings contain far more voters than others which means that each individual vote is worth less. This is a difficult issue to address because changing a riding boundary will often benefit one party over another. Proportional Representation, on the other hand, is about how the seats in Parliament match with the actual votes that each party gets. If a party gets 20% of the popular vote, then they should get 20% of the seats. Currently, our Parliament is extremely disproportionate, and millions of votes across the country are wasted.our current voting system was invented when people still thought the earth was flat”. Not surprising. In a plurality system whoever gets the most votes in each riding wins, even if the vast majority of voters didn’t want them. This is what the present system is, a system not reflective of the popular vote, the true wish of the vast majority of,we, the people. What this amounts to, representation by population, given the population of Britain as it is, at 61,838,154, and equal division of seats by population, would mean each existing seat as it presently is, would have a population of 95135.6 in it's make up, the voters, all things being equal.
The independent Boundary Commissions of each of the four nations of the UK are responsible for drawing up the political map on which the next general election - expected to take place in 2015 - will be fought.Details of the re-drawn boundaries will only be finalized after a public consultation but must be agreed by 2013 in order to be in place for a 2015 poll.Under proposals announced on Friday, England will see its total number of seats drop from 533 to 502 with all regions set to see their representation fall.But the size the size with respect to what?Area? Or actually population? Britain is fully capable of redrawing such that size of population per seat is equal.Other nations have interesting difficulties in this.But it is stated that all seats will now comprise between This will require all seats - bar a handful of exceptions - to comprise of between 72,810 and 80,473 voters. No constituencies will cross national borders but critics say the shake-up will create seats spanning traditional county and local boundaries...a very great improvement indeed, and one must applaud this,it WILL be a major change, a major improvement, representation by population, proportional population, equal population per a seat..........indeed a major step forwards, should it be achieved, necessarily achieved.ugh Buchanan, secretary of the The present coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats is proposing to make a change in the electoral make up of Britain, here specifically in the BBC.......
(Part of the electoral reform, besides redrawing boundaries, involves removal of some seats, a lowering of the amount of sitting MP's in the House of Commons, presented as a fiscal saving policy......)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12650869
Here commences the epistle from the BBC........
Constituency boundaries will also be fundamentally re-drawn to ensure that nearly all seats are roughly the same size.
PROPOSED SEAT ALLOCATIONS
England: 502 (-31)
Scotland: 52 (-7)
Wales: 30 (-10)
Northern Ireland: 16 (-2)
"The new rules put greater emphasis on equal electorates and as a result there may be more constituencies which cross local authority boundaries." Labor said they believed the Boundary Commission would handle the process "openly and impartially" - but they had "serious concerns" about the framework the organization was being asked to deliver. "These rules appear to have been devised with political motives in mind," a spokesman said. "The government have never been able to explain why 600 is the right number for the Commons and 650 is not. They have never explained where that number came from and refused all attempts to conduct an independent assessment. "The rigid rules for drawing seats also threaten to undermine the Boundary Commission's ability to take account of geography, history and local ties when constructing constituencies."The SNP attacked what they said seemed an "completely arbitrary" reduction in seats in Scotland. "There is no science behind this, just rushed reforms by a Tory-government which does not care about the impact this will have on rural areas where MPs are already stretched," said the party's constitutional affairs spokesman Pete Wishart. And Plaid Cymru said the loss of ten seats would mean Wales having less of a voice on issues reserved for Westminster such as tax, defense and welfare. "Decisions on matters which affect the lives of Welsh people are made daily in Westminster and it is worrying to me that it is Welsh representation which will suffer most under these plans," MP Jonathan Edwards said. "Wales needs to be heard. Cuts to our voice in Westminster mean less input into issues on defense, policing and other key issues."
Here ends the epistle from the BBC....
There is a need for change, Wales and Scotland don't like the seat number reduction, but as to necessity, there is a clear necessity for representation by population ,it's long overdue.Polls show that a majority of people want a fairer electoral system. It would benefit all progressive people and parties, shifting the political consensus leftwards.the new government should let the people decide by means of a two-stage referendum: first, on whether people want to change the voting system and second, if they do want change, on what kind of PR system they want.Constituency boundaries will be fundamentally re-drawn to ensure that nearly all seats are roughly the same size.This will require all seats - bar a handful of exceptions - to comprise of between 72,810 and 80,473 voters. No constituencies will cross national borders but critics say the shake-up will create seats spanning traditional county and local boundaries.Let wisdom prevail, let the majority rule,let the popular vote of the people decide,one man,one vote,all constituencies equal in size,proportional representation by population, the fairness,the equity, the equality, of the vote and the voter who will in future elect the government, of we,the people, of the UK.Let the votes fall where they may, and be counted, and a proper right,true and just election elect the government.
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