A Rainbow Coalitian in Wales - How its all so wrong!

[raphael123]

I think this shows how this system isn't appropriate. The welsh people spoke, the majority of the public wanted a Labour run welsh assembly, yet it now seems every major party - bar Labour, will be in charge of Wales, due to Plaid joining up with Lib Dems and Tories.

Why don't they just join up and become one party for the next elections if they want to work so closely together :rolleyes:

It really does stink of unfairness, when the people ask for a Labour, and get everyone but Labour.

:dozey: Something needs changing!

[SOD]

sorry, the system doesn't need changing.

Its about receiving the most votes for first minister , Labour didn't get enough votes.

if Labour wanted in the'd have had to do a deal with the other parties.

[Daniel]

You clearly don't understand politics at all Raphael.

Coallitions are not uncommon and can work very well (depending on your PoV).

You could argue that if 40% of people vote for labor and labor are in control then 60% of people are getting what they didn't ask for. Hence the idea of a coallition.

[Mark]

No I pretty much agree with Raphael, Labour are the biggest party therefore they should form the government. It seems that secret negotiations in back rooms (used to be smoke filled but not in Wales :p ) are deciding who governs Wales, that's something which just doesn't sit right IMO.

[Daniel]

But as things stand a greater percentage of voters have voted for the parties in the coallition than the votes which went purely to Labor therefore this is in some senses a fairer government than a purely labor one. I agree that it would be fairer if Labor was part of the coallition but it didn't want to do business with other parties or vice versa.

Majority rule. Just as it should be!

[Daniel]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6685033.stm

Not going ahead anyway. Minority rule. Yay! :cheese:

[Mark]

Hmm. Methinks PR is a failure, back to first past the post I say!

[BDunnell]

I used to be in favour of proportional representation for the whole of the UK, but now I'm not.

It works very well in federalised countries, like Germany for instance. When you vote in a national election to the Bundestag, you get two votes — one for a local candidate, which uses a first-past-the-post system, and one for a candidate from the parties' regional lists, the result of which is worked out through PR. Because the Länder (states) from which the candidates come are all so large, it makes sense to have more than one representative from each. This is not the case as far as UK constituencies are concerned, and I believe that if you are only voting for one candidate, first-past-the-post is perfectly sufficient. If you can vote for two, as in Germany, PR seems to work very well, but it depends on the system. I think first-past-the-post is fine for local council elections in the UK in which we have two votes.

Why not devolve more powers to the regions, you might ask, and adopt the German system or something similar in order to make PR practical? Well, I'm all in favour of giving more power to local authorities, but we will never have powerful regional assemblies or governments in the UK for all sorts of reasons. For a start, the regional divisions would have to be large enough to allow the establishment of institutions capable of handling significant powers, like the London Assembly or each of the German regional parliaments. However, in the UK, the areas to which we feel we 'belong' tend to be too small for this. Counties are, it seems, more important to us than regions — I would say that I come from Norfolk, not the Eastern Region. Yet if we were to set about establishing regional parliaments, we would have to divide the country up into larger units than just counties for it to be practical, and these would lack legitimacy in the eyes of the public. The saga of the North-East Regional Assembly bears this out.

[courageous]

you get two votes — one for a local candidate, which uses a first-past-the-post system, and one for a candidate from the parties' regional lists, the result of which is worked out through PR.

That is kind of how the Scottish, Welsh & London Assembly (and Northern Ireland?) elections work.

General & Council elections are first past the post, Mayoral elections are done on 1st, 2nd, 3rd choice (forget what the system is called but), EU elections are run under a form of PR.

Bloody hell - thats a lot of elections!


Back to the original point - Labour's 1997 "landslide" victory in the general election involved 70% of the potential votes not going to Labour (hardly a popular mandate)!

[imull]

Think that its hugely ironic that it was the cretinous Labour and moronic Liberal Members that dreamed up this PR thing and it has bitten them in both the Scottish and Welsh elections.

They were not overwhelmingly voted for in Wales. They may have got the most number of seats but they did not get the majority of the votes available. If as someone else said, 40% voted for them then 60% didnt. Perhaps that make the rainbow coalition the majority that was voted for........

[raphael123]

I don't think because I have a different opinion to you, means I must not understand politics. Especially as my opinion isn't an uncommon one.

As Mark said, it seems that behind the scenes meeting with the parties who didn't get many votes was going to be deciding who runs the country, rather than what people voted. The fact that Lib Dems, who got 6 seats compared to Labours 26, would have been having a greater influence on how the country is run isn't 'right'. It's not what the people voted. Even Tories and Plaid put together, only got 1 more seat than Labour by themselves. The public clearly choose Labour over any other party, yet if this proposed coalitian did happen, they would have been the party with the least say in how the country is run. That's not right. My opinion.

[Daniel]

As I said...... say for instance if Labor have 40% of the vote (or seats) then that's 60% of people or seats who are not represented in any way or form. That's wrong.
Say for instance if there is a poll on this forum which gives the following options for the colour that a room is to be painted
A) I like yellow
B) I don't like yellow, I like blue
C) I don't like yellow, I like red
and 30 people vote and 13 vote for A, 9 for B and 8 for C.
If you paint the room yellow then that's 57% of people who are getting something that they didn't want. This is minority rule and that's that.
With a rainbow coallition at least a majority of seats would have a say in what goes on in Wales. If parties want to get together and form a coallition then that's great as smaller parties which otherwise wouldn't have a voice will have a say in what goes on. It's called democracy and it's great!

[raphael123]

I don't think anyone misunderstood that was your point first time round Daniel.

It's true more people didn't want Labour than wanted Labour, hence the votes. But no one voted for a coalitian either.

I think it's wrong that parties who didn't even get half the amount of votes as the top party can simply join group, even if they all stand for different things, promoted different promises in their manifesto, simply to gain a majority. Maybe the public should be given the chance to decide if they want a coalitian?

At the end of the day, more people voted for Labour than any other party standing in Wales, and by quite a margin. For the parties with the least amount of votes to then have a greater say is wrong.

[Daniel]

It's not unfair. Those parties which could have made up a rainbow coallition would still have stood for the majority of the voters in Wales.

It's called the balance of power and Labor just didn't hold it. In Australia there have been a number of coallitions between the National Party and the Liberal Party. The National Party was traditionally the party that held the balance of power in the lower house and therefore they decided who got to be PM. They could have chosen to go with the Labor party in Australia but they didn't because it was against their party values.

To come onto a forum and say that a majority government is unfair because a few parties came together to form a majority government when they didn't want to join with Labor is ludicrous. If it's against their values to get into bed with Labor then why is it wrong for them to want to form a majority government that represents the majority of the people in Wales?

[raphael123]

It's not unfair. Those parties which could have made up a rainbow coallition would still have stood for the majority of the voters in Wales.


No one voted for a coalitian. It's like if the BNP were part of the coalitian, and Liberal Democrats, and they formed a coalitian to get the majority, would you be saying it's fair then? Even though the people who voted for those two parties would be voting for two completely different things.




It's called the balance of power and Labor just didn't hold it. In Australia there have been a number of coallitions between the National Party and the Liberal Party. The National Party was traditionally the party that held the balance of power in the lower house and therefore they decided who got to be PM. They could have chosen to go with the Labor party in Australia but they didn't because it was against their party values.

To come onto a forum and say that a majority government is unfair because a few parties came together to form a majority government when they didn't want to join with Labor is ludicrous. If it's against their values to get into bed with Labor then why is it wrong for them to want to form a majority government that represents the majority of the people in Wales?

I don't believe I've stated anywhere that I am against it because Plaid didn't form a coalitian with Labour. I think when the most popular party, by quite a margin, just miss out on a majority, and all the other minor parties (minor in terms of popularity) join up jsut so they can get a majority - that is wrong.

Any party which didn't even have 1/4 of the votes of the main party, having a bigger say in how the country is run over the party which 40% of the people voted for, is not very democratic in my opinion.

If the parties with the lower votes decide to form a coalitian, maybe there could be a vote of whether it's thats what the public want.

You base your arguement on the fact people voting for Tories, Lib Dems and Plaid outweigh those who vote for Labour, but they weren't voting for a coalitian, which is what they would be getting. Voting for Tory, is completely different to the coalitian you would get.

[Daniel]

Regardles of whether it's 10+5+21+15 = 51 or whether it's 49+2 = 51 the answer is still 51. As long as a majority of the constituents are represented in a coallition then it's legal and the views of the majority of people will be taken into account.

[raphael123]

Ok. You seem to fail to understand that these people who voted for Lib Dems, Plaid, and Tories didn't vote for a coalitian - so the majority aren't being represented.

We're going round in circles. I've made my point, you've made yours (and very well to :up: ). I guess it's time to agree to disagree.

Nice discussion things with you.

[Daniel]

My last point then.

People elected these representatives right?

Well if these representatives want to form a coallition with a mixture of minority parties then that's the wish of the people. If they don't then that's also the wish of the people ;)

To not allow the representatives that people have elected to choose how to form government then you are denying people their right to chose who governs their country and in effect you have denied them the right to vote.

[scrappy]

Dan politician are slime balls, they are all the same they would sell their granny for a sniff at power. The lib-dems you can smell the desperation for some form of governmental role, labour are Just plain scared they know their time is almost up and like a cornered doge attacks anything that comes close spin,spin,spin. The only reason they remain in power is that they never had a conservative part to mount a decent challange. With good old prudence aka screw the punter (Gordon brown), I can't see middle england excepting this idiot thankgod :)

[raphael123]

My last point then.

People elected these representatives right?

Well if these representatives want to form a coallition with a mixture of minority parties then that's the wish of the people. If they don't then that's also the wish of the people ;)

To not allow the representatives that people have elected to choose how to form government then you are denying people their right to chose who governs their country and in effect you have denied them the right to vote.

Thats not what I've said though is it.

I'm not blaming the parties for trying to form a coalitian, im critizising the system in place allowing them to do that.

They may have voted for these representatives, but if what they (Lib Dems, Plaid etc) were offering isn't what they are going to get when the coalitian is formed, it's not going to be what the majority voted for.

I can see your point of view, yes more people didn't vote for Labour than the other 3 main parties - therefore according to you it's right a coalitian should be able to form. But you seem to try and block the fact that the 60% who didn't vote for Labour (split between 3 different parties) didn't actually vote for this coalitian, so wouldn't be getting what they were voting for, hence why I think the party with the most votes should have a greater say than a party who didn't even receive 5% of the votes.

With your arguement you voted these people, so you should accept that whatever decision they take, does that mean you think the government should ignore what people want, such as if a nation is dead against Iraq war, the government should do the opposite and go and fight there? That's just an example. Do you think the general elections should be held straight after Blair steps down, to see if the country want Brown as a leader? Or do you think as we voted them in, they should choose everything for us, and ignore public opinion. Just a little thing to think about :)

Sorry I replied, but your last message seemed to suggest you thought I was saying something, which wasn't the case.

Scrappy, politians are slime balls unfortuantely, though I do think a government run by Brown would be better than one run by Cameron.