Can Somebody PLEASE Explain The British Elections To Me?

[matcom]

here is what i have (admittedly not much):

Blair will probably "win" (?)
BUT
Fewer than 100 or so seats means he is "in trouble" (?)
I KNOW the Liberal party is VERY SMALL (?)
There is a possability that SOMEONE (?) would ask Blair to step down (?) if the Labor party loses too many seats (?)

In what scenario does Blair outright lose? (possible?)

help!

[applegrove]

1. Britain has a first past the post electoral process. That means the

party with the most votes extra extra help crossing the 50% mark with seats. And it is only the number of seats that matter, not the number of votes each party gets.

Keep in mind I have no idea how many seats there are in the British House of commons with the following explanation.

It is the number of seats that you win that gives you a majority. So if there are 200 seats then Blair needs 100 +1 to win. Once he has a majority(and Blair himself runs in a riding and has a seat so his seat counts just like all the others)then he can pass all the bills in the house of commons until the cows come home. If he wins just half the seats, he still wins because as PM and the winning party,,he gets to choose the speaker and the speaker doesn't vote unless there is a tie. And of course in that situation the speaker that Blair chooses will be of the other party..giving him a majority of regular votes cast in the House of Commons. If Blair is missing only a few seats to make them the majority, they can form a coalition with independants or opposition party mavericks.

Because there are three parties running in every riding, it is possible for someone else to have very nearly the same popular vote and be nowhere near having enough seats to form the government. If people in one riding hate Bush and thus Blair terribly, they would vote for either the Liberals or the Tories.. in which case the opposition vote is split and the Labor Candidate will easily win that riding.

It would take a number of seats a percentage point less than 50% for Blair to be in a minority situation in the House. If he still has the most seats, he gets to try and form a government. He may have trouble passing legislation but it only matters if it is a budget bill that fails.. That would cause a minority government to lose power and the queen could call an election on that bill. So you would likely see Blair handing out favors to one of the other party in order that they agree to support the government's budget bill and the minority government would not fall.. but govern like this until a budget bill did fail, or if the Prime Minister called an election (he has 5 years to call the next election).

So with the opposition divided it is very easy for Blair to win another majority even though more than half the population may hate him.

That is why the opposition parties often try and get their people to strategically vote in ridings instead of splitting their vote and allowing the labor to run up the middle an win many of these ridings.


The first past the post method sort of pushes the party with over 42% of the vote to win a majority of the seats. Thus there is stability. When a government falls to below 42% or there abouts.. then they will end up with a minority government or be kicked out of power by a coalition of the opposition.

This method is meant to give majorities easily to the most popular party. But when there is not party clearly ahead then you are in a minority (or coalition) situation.

Places like Israel & Italy have seats given out to people depending on the popular vote each party gets. They end up in coalitions all the time and it makes for long term instability.


I don't know how may seats there are in the British House of Commons. But all they need is 50% to form the majority (50% of the seats that is). This could easily be only 45% of the actual votes counted. But since there are three parties..that means at 45% they are way ahead of the others.

Often if there is a minority, the ruling party will form coalitions to get budget bills past and thus not 'fall'. And legislation from minority parties finds it way into the law books (how Canada got health care in the 1960s). But as soon as the minority government party sees it is doing great in the polls.. it often calls a snap election and tries to win a majority.

[mr blur]

2. There are 646 seats in the Commons

The winning party needs to get 324 of them.
Of course, Blair personally loses if he fails to win his own seat in his local constituency. What would be perfect would be if Blair lost his seat but Labour still won the election - perfectly possible but extremely unlikely.

[applegrove]

3. That means nothing. Canada had a PM who ran in a different riding

every election 1930s. They would go to a safe riding and call a by-election and the local labor MP would be named ambassador to Hawaii. And the local voters, who love labor anyhoo, they would be thrilled to have the PM as their member of Parliament.

Of course Blair would not be allowed in the House of Commons until this next election cycle was complete. The House Leader for Labor would take over and run things just like he does when Blair is on trips.

He could resign, or he could just parachute in somewhere. Another election (called a by-election) would take about 8 weeks or so.

He could say he was doing it to preserve the rights of the voters who did re-elect his party with him at the helm.

[mr blur]

5. Absolutely right,

they would find him a safe seat somewhere and the poor sod in it would be quietly persuaded to step down for the good of the party or country or whichever bullshit they might use. That is, unless they realised that everything Labour stands for is now damaged by its association with this neo-Presidential liar.

[applegrove]

8. It is the economy stupid. And the fact that the Tories were being anti-

immigrant. I may have had to vote for Blair if I was British on those two issues alone.

As long as people are voting in their own best interest.. and not being hood-winked.. I'm fine with it.

Blair made an awful mistake in buying into Rule Bushtania, but the cost to the Brits has not been in attacks on all they hold dear. Cause they are the labor party (not the conservative one) and they don't have the Rove. Or the tribalness being created by labor at home.

[liberalpragmatist]

4. It's sort of how OUR system would look if there was more competition

We have a first-past-the-post too. Yes, we're a presidential system, but if we had more minor parties and no gerrymandering, House elections would look a LOT like House of Commons elections.

England is also functioally a two-party system, but they have a very competitive third party, the Liberal Democrats. They haven't gotten into government and there's debate over how much influence they actually have.

Anyway, like the US, the UK doesn't have a proportional system. Whoever gets the most votes in a district wins. Thus, like the US, the overall results don't necessarily resemble the actual proportions of the vote. In the US, the results are closer to the proportions by virtue of the fact that we only have 2 parties competitive in most races. Britain is functionally a 2-party system, but many individual districts and regions have competitive third-party candidates, so it gets more mixed up.

As for a majority of ~60 being seen as a defeat, it's because it's far below expectations. It's the same that would be if a US president was expected to win a landslide reelection but only won a narrow one - it shows a big erosion in support. Plus, overall it looks like Labour got less the 40% of the vote.

[doni_georgia]

9. Wow. Can you explain the old monetary system (pre 1970) ?

Was it.. three farthings = 1 pence... 12 pence = a shilling.... 2 shillings = a florin.... a pound + a shilling = a guinea.... and 5,000 pounds a year = a seat in the house of Lords?

Geez. 37% of the vote to Blair... which means at least 60% wanted someone other than him. And he stays in.

Tell me again why that's so different from the U.S.?

Mac in Ga

[truth2power]

6. Here's an excellent article by Greg Palast. May be hopeful.

Explains the parliamentary system and why Tony may yet get the boot.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050405A.shtml

"Mark my words: Tony Blair won't be re-elected Thursday. However, he will remain in office.

That's because Brits don't vote for their Prime Minister. They've got a "parliamentary" system there in the Mother Country. And the difference between democracy and parliamentary rule makes all the difference. It is the only reason why Blair will keep his job - at least for a few months."

snip>

"Blair will hold onto office - for now - due only to a sly campaign that relies on the public's accepting on faith that, sooner rather than later after the vote on Thursday, Blair will do the honorable thing and end his own political life, leaving the British-to-the-bone <Chancellor Gordon> Brown to inherit the parliamentary throne. Tony's political corpse can then be mailed to Texas - wrapped in an American flag."

[Spazito]

7. Here is a good 'primer' on the election

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/uk/

On the question of the 100 seats, that is in reference to how many seats above what is needed to form a majority government because in the last election Blair had a 161 seat 'cushion'.

The exit polls are saying he will only win a 66 seat 'cushion' tonight which would mean a loss of 95 seats if the exit polls are relatively accurate, a big loss for Labour which would cause trouble for Blair within his own party as he will be blamed for the loss of the 95.

[yvr girl]

10. Blair's majority will be smaller, but they are still projecting a majority

Imagine if the the House or the Senate had 60 members more of one party than the other - still pretty comfortable.

If a party has a majority government they could only fall if members of their own caucus revolt and vote against the government. Voting against your party will get you kicked out of caucus. If an individual MP has strong objections, he might cross the floor.

The real fighting will happen in the caucus depending on who wins seats. They can force the government's agenda.

In a Parliamentary system, you don't vote for PM. You vote for individual MPs. The party with the most MPs forms the government and their leader becomes PM.

[Parche]

11. british

British erections or elections?