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This year’s general election, after all the votes counted, has a
- Sainte-Laguë index of 48.36, and a
- Gallagher index of 23.75.
This makes the (dis)proportionality worse than HUNGARY’s (my home) FPTP component (SLI = 36.96) – a component of the mixed system which allows our ruling party to get 2/3 supermajorities each time, every time, with sometimes less than 50% of the votes, and which ultimately transformed our country to an “electoral autocracy”
You guys need electoral reform desperately. And do it before someone cheats with the current rules deliberately.
(PS: I calculated the electoral indices using the python package
voting)The parties’ share of the vote and other statistics (source: The Daily Telegraph)
lawrence fox wasn’t running but he was still a loser last night
And every night.
tories lost, labour didn’t win. labour’s vote share plunging in constituencies they won is terrible for starmer’s hope for a long mandate.
He should try not being neoliberal swine as head of “Labour” if he wants a long mandate.
I figure satire articles probably aren’t allowed in the general community, but hopefully it’s ok in the megathread? This was brilliant.
https://theshovel.com.au/2024/07/05/australia-loses-shortest-time-to-5-pms-ashes/
You can post satirical news in [email protected]
Italy: hold my beer
They even brought in Rudd for a second go, which didn’t seem to be within the spirit of the game if I’m honest, but that’s Australia for you.
Is a particularly biting bit of satire on the way we usually hear about sports reporting.
Reform didn’t gain many seats but came 3rd in total votes
about 1/7th of the total, or about 1/5th of Labour, Tory, and LDs combined.
Did the areas with a high Reform vote, have a higher vote turnout?
The fuck happened in Leicester East that it’s the sole Con gain in the country?
Their last two Labour MPs not only were kicked out in scandal, but also ran in this election splitting the vote. It looks like the Lib Dems also got a significant vote share which has helped the Tories.
Makes sense. Thanks
3 seats to go!
2 now
Feels quicker than previous years
So looking forward to the next five years…
Looking at how Reform and Lib Dems made significant gains in vote share you have to wonder if its still worth Labour chasing after the right wing vote that Reform achieved. I just do not see the where the voters who voted Reform actually believe Starmer on the key issues that Reform campaigned on, immigration, anti “woke”, and Brexit. I cannot see Labour ever gaining the lead on those issues over someone like Farage who will always position himself to the right of whatever Labour or the Tories campaign on. I cant even see Labour being trusted at the voting booth on these right wing issues over a rebuilt Tory party. Its a fools errand to try.
The Lib Dem vote share, as with Reform, boosted by previous Tory voters but Lib Dems campaigned on almost the opposite of Reform (with some tactical, local, NIMBYism) and achieved way more seats on a lower overall percentage vote than Reform. If you are going to pick a direction to go in, wouldn’t it make more sense to move towards the Lib Dems position to shore up in time for the next election?
Labour did worse total percentage of the vote than 2017, its more that the Tories collapsed losing about 20% of their vote that caused this swing in seats. The Tories will rally next time around and a lot of the seats look winnable for them with only a small local swing. The current stance of Labour simply isn’t popular enough to be a vote winner against a rebuilt Tory party.
Yes, but I think you’re overstating how right wing Labour pitched it. There were no claims to be anti woke. I think it was a pretty firmly centrist pitch. It’s the Conservatives who are going to panic and try to out-nutcase Farage. Labour are going to try and be responsible and fix the broken ship. It’s just whether they can do it fast enough for people to notice a big improvement in the cost of living vs wages problem.
Are you forgetting Starmers statements around women only spaces as it seems like it.
Farages entire point of existence is to drag the overton window to the right, which he succeed yet again, particularly around Brexit.
The other big concession Starmer made, this time because of the Tories, was not to raise taxes, which was also incredibly dumb. As was honouring triple lock.
My biggest issue with Starmer making claims like these is that he will stick to them. Someone like Boris is too lazy and an out and out liar so has no problem dropping things. Starmers big pitch to be different is that he will stick with what he says.
By sticking to what he said around terfs issues, Brexit, taxes, he really fucks his options in these areas, and for what? As you and I have both said, toil not out crazy Farage or be trusted by people who these are important issues for, so it’s a massively stupid thing to do.
You make very good points.
As an Australian, I have to once again apologise on behalf of my nation for the turd in a tuxedo that is Rupert Murdoch.
Thank you. But we don’t blame regular Aussies. You’re good with us.
Gosh what an absolute bloodbath for the Tories. While I knew the Tories would lose and massively and that Reform would have impact I didn’t think this is beyond what I was expecting.
The best thing is, they did worse than the exit poll so they can’t even say “we did better than expected”
Anyone got that link that recalculates the results of the GE by different voting systems? For example if we had a form of PR how would this election turned out? I swear it was posted here a few days ago.
Direct proportional representation is easy enough. Just look at the number of votes each party got, and assign that percentage to their overall parliamentary representation. That roughly gives you the answer.
IRV is more interesting, but more complicated. It relies on some assumptions (e.g. Green, SNP, LibDem, Labour all preference each other 100%, Conservatives & Reform preference each other 100%) and takes a lot of effort to do on a seat-by-seat basis. And of course it all assumes ceteris paribus, when in actuality people would vote differently if the voting system were different.
As one example, here’s the seat of Tatton:
Under IRV, with the above assumptions, Labour’s Ryan Jude would have won with 26,005 votes to Conservative Esther McVey’s 25,904. But tweak those assumptions just slightly (give 90% of LibDem votes to Labour, 10% to Conservatives) and it could go the other way (26,365 CON to 25,544 LAB). There are dozens or scores of seats where these sorts of interesting hypotheticals can be asked and analysed. IRV is actually, in my opinion, the next-worst voting system after FPTP (if you exclude weird and rarely-used ones like approval voting, range voting, etc.), but it’s one of the most interesting to do analysis with.
STV is an utterly impossible comparison to make, because it relies on multi-seat electorates, which would probably be done by merging existing electorates into groups of 3–8. STV is a more generalised case of IRV so if you decided on how to do those merges, then you can get even more interesting analysis. As one example, if we imagine a merged electorate involving West Ham, East Ham, Ilford North, Ilford South, Leyton & Wanstead, and Stratford & Bow. Some assumptions are necessary to make this work, my assumption is that anyone whose party name says “workers” or “socialist” preferences Green and then Labour, while those mentioning religion preference Conservative, and if I don’t know, I’m giving them to LibDems then Labour. I’m also assuming all voters for a named party vote as a block, preferencing the same candidate 1st, 2nd, etc., while independents get the votes as they were actually given. This is somewhat realistic because ballot paper design can be set up to encourage this in an STV context (see how Australia does it with “above the line” voting in the Senate, for an example). I’ve merged the minor parties named “workers” or “socialist” into a single party.
A detailed explanation of my calculation is contained here.
In our merged hypothetical under STV, they win 3.03 quotas on first preference, Conservative wins 0.88, Reform 0.41, LibDem 0.28, Green 0.78. So Labour immediately win 3 seats, before 0.03 quotas are distributed lower down in their party. After numerous more rounds (my attached spreadsheet simplifies multiple rounds that by eye would obviously not result in a new quota being reached being merged down into 1), the LibDems win a quota. I’ve decided to distribute their excess 50/50 to Green and Conservative, since Labour has already been eliminated. To be frank, after that I’m not sure what to do. LibDems having been eliminated, the 3 remaining independents can’t go to them as was my initial plan (the basic thinking being independents are probably more centrist, but LibDems and Labour being eliminated already. I’ve decided to give them 50/50 to Conservative and Green, but the reality could be so, so much more complex. After one of those is eliminated, Conservatives get a quota. One final independent distributed to Conservatives/Green and the Greens win the last quota.
This is Labour heartland and in FPTP Labour won all 6 of these seats. My calculation ends up with 3 Labour, 1 LibDem, 1 Conservative, and 1 Green.
MMP ends up with basically the same overall result as direct proportional, but can be interesting in terms of independents & very minor parties and resulting overhang seats.
Given, many systems require more than just marking one box. While, even those that do not, would drastically change how people choose their vote.
I am unsure any such site can give a realistic result from available data?
Edit:
If we just assume proportional based on % of vote yesterday.
Tor 22.9% Lab 35.2% LDe 11.3% Ref 14.5% SNP 2.5% Oth 13.6%
It is bloody hard to see how either party could form a viable 50% Lab LD SNP and a few independents would take it over 50. But honestly, it is hard to imagine that working with the politicians voted yesterday. Tory Ref would need all independents. So less likely to work.
But as I said. Voters would go to the polls with very different ideas about how to vote.
Tory Ref would need all independents
“Other” is not all independents. 6.8% of the vote share was Green, and 0.8% is between Workers Party and Social Democratic Party who, based purely on the names, I cannot possibly imagine would ever back the Conservatives. Unless LibDems were to support that coalition (which, after the 2010 Government I cannot imagine they’d be super keen on), there is no path to a Tory Government from these results under a proportional system. Labour can form a Government with just LibDem, SNP, and Green parties.
An independent (SNP) and unionist (Labour) party would be hard-pressed to form a government.
But again the whole idea of the votes being identicle under a vastyyly different system
Honestly the big question would be how government is formed. With seat numbers matching % of vote. under our current system. Labour could run a weak gov by depending on greens snp and others never supporting a tor ref vonc.
But with centre right lab, it is likely only ld and lab would be garmented to support most policy votes. Others, often refusing because it’s not left enough and not right enough at the same time.
Unfortunately, while the right has clasped over this election. The right has a long history of unity to fight the left.
the left much the opposite in fighting the right.
An independent (SNP) and unionist (Labour) party would be hard-pressed to form a government.
Would they? Outside of the question of independence, the two parties agree on more than not, don’t they? If they alternative is no functioning government, couldn’t you see Labour giving some minor concession to the SNP (like maybe allowing Holyrood to have power over one or two of the things that was recently denied by the Supreme Court) in exchange for the SNP’s support in Confidence?
the big question would be how government is formed
I’m not really sure what you mean. (It doesn’t help that the rest of that paragraph is ridden by typos to the point of being unintelligible. Sorry.) Government would be formed the same way they do it in Germany or New Zealand or any of the many other countries with proportional systems. They would find a way to reach a majority by agreeing on whatever compromises are palatable to both sides. In a hypothetical where the SNP had way more seats, Labour might have to agree to a second independence referendum. If they really needed Green support they might agree to pass strong climate legislation. They might have to give the LibDems a couple of significant cabinet positions. Proportional systems force politicians to actually do politics and pass legislation that is supported by a majority of people, instead of giving a single party a majority of seats based on a minority of people supporting them.
Your final sentence is painfully true.
Exactly, total up left(ish) votes and you get about 54% ✊️
Starting the day and seeing Rees snob, grant schnapps and penny mordor are out.
Feels like a good start to the day
Oh and Liz snubbed
There are some very close run seats out there, how close do they have to be to do a recount?
A recount is called if one of the sides requires one. Obviously if you only had a difference of 10 votes, it’d be daft not to demand recount, but technically it only happens if a candidate requests one.
Remember the votes are technically recounted already. They are counted three times, by three separate people, who don’t know what the other two people have found as results, so they cannot be influenced by their number. If all three people get the same answer, the count is probably correct, discounting incredibly bad luck, which is statistically unlikely.
If a recount is requested then three new people perform the task just to discount the possibility of collusion.
Labours majority is huge but vulnerable. It’s clear that Reform bled millions of votes away from the Tories.
I don’t see how that makes them vulnerable though. I can’t see the reform voters going back to the conservatives so reform are going to continue to split the conservative vote forever.
In 1993 in Canada, there was a Reform party that along with the BQ, split the Tories so much that the latter won only 2 seats. Though not as badly, the splitting was repeated in 1997, and 2000. Then they (i.e. Reform, renamed Alliance, and the Progressive Conservatives) merged. After that to present they were in government for about 9 years, over half as a minority. Presently 118 Canadian MPs are Conservative.
So if Canada is a guide, Farage might be replaced, then the replacement replaced by one maybe born in the early 1980s and one who will be compared to a Vulcan. Reform will merge with the Conservatives, and he will become leader, and will run the Conservatives for over 10 years. During this time, he will lead minority government for about 4 years and then a majority another for about 5 years; but all of this won’t happen for at least 10 years.
Similarly to what happened with UKIP, the Tories will just take Reforms policies, bring in new further-right leadership and support will come back.
Especially after Labour (who just got elected on a fairly bland centrist manifesto) won’t manage to magically fix things in 2-3 years. Conservative media will blame Labour for all the issues (even though most are the fault of the Tories) and Conservative voters will rally around the banner of “Labour out!”.
Or Reform just eats the Tories, which seems a but less likely to me, but either way the split won’t last.
while also dragging labour further right on immigration and culture wars.
Yes. Thinking that reform will always be there is extremely naive, reform can disappear just as quickly as UKIP did after Brexit.
UKIP disappeared because they were a single issue party.
I’ve personally not met anyone that voted Reform for who immigration wasn’t their top priority.
I know they’re not a single issue party unless you consider “the Tories aren’t right wing enough” as a single issue.
I think that’s right. Tories will move further to the right on immigration and force Labour to move with them. Populism isn’t going anywhere.
But one of the main reasons that the conservatives are so unpopular is because they’ve been chasing the right and leaving the centralist politics basically defended, which is why Labour wandered over there, and they have clearly done well out of that.
They have done well but they only won because Reform stole votes from the Tories, and because of the voting system, those votes go in the bin. Labour barely got a third of the national vote.
That’s my point really. Labour’s biggest risk is that the Tories become moderately reasonable again. Then they’d actually have to step up.
I’m not convinced that the Tories downfall were their right wing policies, most people are thinking of partygate, Lizz Trusses disaster budget and the cost of living crisis in the ballot box.
I personally think that labour would have won whether they were trying to court centrists or not and labours biggest risk is that the the Tories will mop up the reform vote.
This election shows that the Tories still have a HUGE core vote, these are people that will never vote labour and I think chasing reform voters is a fools errand because it’s likely they’ll never vote labour either.
Ree Smog is out! I repeat, Ree Smog is out!
Yes, despite many leftists decrying Labour’s centreward shift, I think this is a good result. This result was helped by that shift in no small part.
Starmer is very well spoken and his morning after speech does well to inspire confidence.
Countdown to Smog reappearing as a Reform candidate?
This is clearly a great result, but I think that given the popular vote, that it’s important to accept that this election was anti-tory, not pro-labour.
Labour have five years to make a substantial tangible change in people’s lives or we may very well find ourselves back where we left off or even worse.
Top hat wanker! Truss lost too, this is amazing.
Oh good, so now Truss can now piss off too the US and moan about the apparent conspiracy that was against her all she likes, and it won’t inconvenience her constituents anymore.
And of course no one in the US will really care, because will have no idea who the hell she is.
Is she that head of lettuce who killed the queen?
Yeah. She has convinced herself that her complete failure is a result of a grand conspiracy. This conspiracy requires some of the most uncharitable and profit driven people in the world, to be bleeding heart liberals, which is why no one believes it.
Apparently a bunch of venture capitalists, economists and fellow politicians decided that, rather than making vast sums of money under her “brilliant” scheme, it was instead better to crash the economy just despite her.
