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Author Topic:   UK's Thatcher, rot in hell . . .
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 119 of 149 (696864)
04-19-2013 10:14 AM
Reply to: Message 107 by Tangle
04-18-2013 2:53 PM


If we're going to be picky, I think it's more accurate to use advertising weasel words, something like 'of those people that expressed a preference, Margaret Thatcher had the majority vote.'
No she didn't. Of those that expressed a preference, a plurality voted Conservative. Which is a minority of those who expressed a preference. Not sure what you're finiding so hard to grasp about this.

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 Message 107 by Tangle, posted 04-18-2013 2:53 PM Tangle has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 120 of 149 (696865)
04-19-2013 10:19 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by Straggler
04-19-2013 7:41 AM


Re: Blame Game Numbers
But lacking 50%+ of the vote is really just a feature of a multi-party election. If I remember correctly only a single UK election since women were given the vote has resulted in a single party garnering over 50% of the vote. That was in 1931.
So if we follow your logic no UK government except the one of 1931 has ever had a popular mandate........... Even if you want to argue that this is true it seems unnecessary to single out Thatcher given that it applies to every other Prime Minister (except one - Stanley Baldwin of 1931 - I just looked it up as the details had escaped me)
The problem is not with having more than two parties. The problem is with an absurd and anachronistic electoral system that means votes don't match a party's representation in Parliament. If Britain had a normal electoral system, the conservatives would have been forced to find allies, and wouldn't have been able to force through their programme against everyone else's complaints. The same would have gone for Blair.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by Straggler, posted 04-19-2013 7:41 AM Straggler has replied

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 Message 121 by Straggler, posted 04-19-2013 11:43 AM caffeine has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 145 of 149 (697148)
04-22-2013 5:21 AM
Reply to: Message 121 by Straggler
04-19-2013 11:43 AM


Re: Blame Game Numbers
Well that depends what the complaint is. If the complaint is that Thatcher specifically pushed through an agenda without having 50%+ of the vote - Then it seems fair enough to point out that this is true of pretty much every UK government largely because the vote is split 3 ways.
It's true of every UK government because the British electoral system allows them to have a large majority in Parliament without a majority of the votes. Seems odd to blame the existence of more than two parties, when almost every country in the world has a multiparty system.
quote:
That's just hyperbolic. Firstly - The sort of 40-50 percentage of the vote that British governments generally get (Thatcher, Blair before Iraq, most others) is symptomatic of having three mainstream parties + numerous others that typically combine to get between 5-10% of the vote. In a strictly two party system the winner will get 50+% of the vote.
This isn't true. In a proportional system, yes it would be. But in the British system it wouldn't necessarily be the case. It depends on the distribution of support. Imagine we only had two parties, Labour and Tory. Labour win every seat in Scotland and Wales, plus all the big urban centres, with colossal majorities. The Tories win every other seat in a close fought battle.
With such a situation, Labour could easily have more votes in total, and yet still come away with less seats in Parliament.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 121 by Straggler, posted 04-19-2013 11:43 AM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 146 by Straggler, posted 04-22-2013 7:55 AM caffeine has replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1045 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 147 of 149 (697161)
04-22-2013 9:04 AM
Reply to: Message 146 by Straggler
04-22-2013 7:55 AM


Re: Blame Game Numbers
Yes it is. The more parties there are receiving significant numbers of votes the less likely it is any one party will receive over 50% of the vote. This is just numerical fact.
"This isn't true" referred to your claim "In a strictly two party system the winner will get 50+% of the vote", and I explained why it's not true. You ask "has this ever happened", when of course it hasn't - we've never had a strictly two-party system. It has happened often that the geographical distribution of votes has led to absurd electoral results. In one of those you list the results for, 1983, Labour and the Liberals got almost the same number of votes, yet Labour got ten times the number of seats. It's also happened a couple of times in the 20th century that the party with the most votes got less seats than the party who finished second in the popular vote.
You are welcome to complain about the British electoral system. I voted against it in the recent referendum remember? But the same electoral environment is true of every other UK Prime Minister so this isn't really anything that can be tied to Thatcherism specifically.
And I never pretended it did. I was just arguing against specific claims from earlier in the thread, it's not a general comment on Thatcherism.
The UK currently has a coalition government. Here are the results for that:
2010 Con 36.1% Lab 29.0% Lib 23.0%
Now you could say that the present government got 59.1% of the vote. Or you could, on the basis that both parties have used the fact of coalition as an excuse to jettison firm manifeso pledges, say that nobody at all voted for the present programme of policies.
Which would you say?
Well, both, obviously.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 146 by Straggler, posted 04-22-2013 7:55 AM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 148 by Straggler, posted 04-22-2013 10:33 AM caffeine has not replied

  
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