

Gordon Brown steps down - barnaby
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8672859.stm

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btilly
Everyone knows that the Lib Dems want proportional representation, but the two
leading parties don't want to give it to them because it will greatly reduce
the power of the leading two parties.

I predict that they will be willing to compromise a lot for that, the
resulting alliance will be unstable, the government will have to make a lot of
very unpopular decisions, then shortly after it is passed there will be a re-
election where everybody will blame everybody else for the things that nobody
likes.

~~~
goatforce5
My 2 cents (erm, pence?) is that Brown stepping down is paving the way for the
Lib Dems and Labour to announce a coalition in the very near term.

I'm sure all of the heavily publicised talks with the Tories was just the Lib
Dems flexing some muscle as they were conducting their talks with Labour.

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nkassis
The opposition in Canada attempted something similar. They wanted to join
forces and form coalition government. The only reason they failed is that the
current PM ask the Governor general to prorogue the government. A truly
undemocratic way to keep control. Let see if the Brits manage to pull this
off.

~~~
gsmaverick
There was nothing undemocratic about the way that Harper handled it. He had
the confidence of the House and therefore was prime minister, if they wanted
to lead a coalition government they should have lost confidence in the
government and then proposed a coalition government.

~~~
thisduck
Yes, and when you prorogue parliament it effectively dissolves any tabled
motions in parliament. Taking away the chance for the opposition to lose
confidence.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_parl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute)

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iamcalledrob
This could pave the way to a (welcome) Lib-Lab coalition, and win over the
support of those who voted Conservative just because they're not Gordon Brown.

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protomyth
Can someone explain how this proportional representation would work? It sounds
like how some school/city boards are elected in the US but over multiple
seats. I just don't have a good image in my head. Is it meant to be a national
election then? Is a majority possible?

//I admit the experience I have seen with city boards with this type of thing
has not been good.

~~~
btilly
(Why do I write essays that nobody is likely to read? Oh well.)

Nobody can explain how it would work because there are multiple possibilities
that work differently. But I can give you an idea of how it could work.

First a piece of background. England follows the English Parliamentary System.
The country is divided into seats, which are kind of like Congressional
districts in the USA. Each seat elects a Member of Parliament, which are kind
of like Congress-critters in the USA. Similar to the USA you have parties.
Each party has a clear leader, which doesn't really happen in the USA. The
prime minister is then selected from the MPs by a majority vote by the MPs and
is always the leader of a leading party. So it is kind of like how the Speaker
of the United States House of Representatives is chosen, except that the
person chosen is the leader of some political party, and is given a lot more
responsibility.

So the whole system depends on selecting members of Parliament. Which
currently happens by having seats chosen in a winner take all fashion. To get
to a proportional representation system, you need to change how seats are
allocated.

A very likely proposal is what is called the Single Transferable Vote. Here is
how that works. Existing districts are combined so that each district is
assigned where 3 seats are now. Then 3 MPs are elected from each district.
Voters make just one vote, but in that vote they list preferences for who they
want first, second, or third. (In other countries, most people will just vote
for a party, and the party supplies the preferences, but people can vote in
more complex ways if they want.) Then there are a variety of ways that these
votes can be tabulated to get 3 candidates in such a way that the first one is
the most popular, the second is the most popular of the remaining votes, and
so on.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote> for an overview of
some of the different tabulating methods that are used. Examples of countries
that do this include Ireland and New Zealand.

The various STV systems get very complicated to calculate. An alternate
proportional system is the D'Hondt system. Its voting is much simpler, the
trick is in the allocating. As before you have districts which represent
multiple seats. But this time rather than voting for candidates with
preferences, people just vote for parties. The allocation is then best
supplied by an example.

Let's suppose that in a district of 100,000 we have 40,000 vote for party A,
35,000 for party B, and 25,000 for party C. Suppose that this district is
supposed to elect 5 seats. First you generate a set of numbers by taking each
party's total vote, and dividing by 1, 2, 3, ... up to the number of seats to
allocate. So we get:

A: 40,000, 20,000, 13,333, 10,000, and 8,000. B: 35,000, 17,500, 11,222,
8,750, and 7,000. C: 25,000, 12,500, 8,333, 6,250, and 5,000.

Now sort all of the numbers together, then count off as many as you have
seats. In this case we'd have 40,000 (A), 35,000 (B), 25,000 (C), 20,000 (A)
and 17,500 B). This gives how many seats each party gets to fill. In this case
2 for A and B, and C gets 1. It is them up to the party to decide who gets
those seats according to some internally chosen mechanism.

The UK already has experience with this method since it is how they choose
members for EU elections.

As if this wasn't enough, you could have an additional member system. Under
this system in addition to the normal seats you have a certain number of
additional members who are selected proportionately in some way. What
proportional are additional? And are the proportional seats chosen to be
proportional to the vote, or to try to bring the overall seat allocation
closer to proportionality? It makes a huge difference.

For a silly example you could use the D'Hondt method with a nationwide
district, and allocate 20% of the seats that way. If you do it proportional to
the vote, then the party that won the popular vote will pick up a bunch of
proportional seats in addition to the regular seats, and it won't make much of
a difference. If you're aiming to correct for proportionality, then you could
have the starting votes be the difference between your share of the
proportional vote and your share of seats in the regular election. In this
variation all of the 20% of proportional seats would go to smaller parties,
and it would make a huge difference.

A virtually infinite number of possibilities exist. And an amazing number of
them are actually in use somewhere, for some kind of election. And many of
them work quite well.

~~~
protomyth
Interesting.... Is it not more likely to have a hung parliament under this?

~~~
btilly
Yes.

First past the post systems create a strong disincentive to vote for whoever
is likely to be in third place or farther back. It therefore naturally leads
to 2 or 3 party systems, where the parties try hard to appeal to just over
half the voters.

By contrast preferential and proportional voting systems make it easier for
smaller portions of the population to get a political voice. This naturally
leads to a greater diversity of political parties, each of which captures a
smaller fraction of the overall vote. Which makes it much harder to wind up
with a simple majority in Parliament. And forces the evolution of coalitions.

There is no question that this is more representative. Whether or not it leads
to better government is a matter of debate.

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philwelch
I wonder what would happen if some sort of national emergency took place
during this transitional period. As an American, I'm used to having weird
things happen for a few months after an election (recounts and such) but as
soon as Inauguration Day rolls around, the next guy is officially on watch. I
understand that Gordo remains PM until Labour elects a new leader and the new
government is formed, but it seems tenuous at best--if there was enough of a
crisis, could someone else form a government and force him to hand over power?

EDIT: This isn't a criticism of the British system at all, just a question. I
wouldn't presume to judge the system since I don't know much about it, hence
the asking of questions. If there's some other reason I'm being downmodded I
would like someone to tell me just so I know what to fix in the future.
Thanks.

~~~
handelaar
Nope.

He's expected to consult with the other guys under standing guidelines (as he
did last night with the EU bailout fund), but the UK Government is still the
same one they had on Wednesday until Brown goes to Buck House, resigns _and_
points to someone else as his recommendation for the next person who should be
invited to form a government.

It's considered _critical_ that HMQ should not ever be asked to make a
political decision of any kind.

~~~
philwelch
So with a hung parliament and a national emergency he could just stay in power
indefinitely?

~~~
sharpn
There was a coalition formed without election during WWII, as an election
could not easily have been held. It worked quite well, perhaps partly because
nobody wanted to be the one who exacerbated the crisis, and partly the gravity
of the situation:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_Government_1940%E2%80...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_Government_1940%E2%80%931945)

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alecco
Gordon Brown has said he is stepping down as _Labour Party leader_

Misleading headline

~~~
foldr
It's not misleading. If he isn't leader of the labor party, he can't possibly
have the support in the house of commons necessary to remain Prime Minister.
Although there is technically a distinction between resigning as Prime
Minister and resigning as leader of the Labour party, the latter pretty much
implies the former.

~~~
philwelch
As I understand, if he resigned _as PM_ he would in effect concede the
government and it would be up to the Tories to form a minority or coalition
government. Instead he is resigning as Labour leader (effective September) so
his party can form a coalition government with Lib Dems. Evidently, he is even
remaining PM under the new government, but only until a new Labour leader is
chosen.

~~~
foldr
Yes, so in other words he's stepping down as PM, just not for the next few
months.

~~~
philwelch
Correct. But one interpretation of "Brown steps down" or "Brown resigns" would
be "Brown resigns as PM" and hence, "Brown to concede election to Tories",
when the real story is "Brown to step down from Labour leadership in September
in bid for coalition with Lib Dems". So the headline is in fact misleading, or
at least ambiguous.

