Lord Duckhunter

To compare a party leadership election to a general election is totally wrong. If you wanted to run general elections on the same basis, than a Labour party member who was also a union member would get 2 votes, if he was an MP as well he'd then get 3.Tory leadership elections rules are delberately written the way they are because of the nature of politics. It protects the party from damaging splits what an incumbent is challanged. A prime example was the Thatcher resignation (although the rules were slightly different, the end result was the same).Thatcher was challanged by Hestletine and won the intial vote, she did not however win by a big enough margin, therefore it went to a second round. The cabinet had all backed Thatcher, but went to her between votes telling her to step down as they would vote for Hestletine in the second round. She had lost the support of the cabinet, but they had shown loyalty (except Hestletine, who therefore lost the election). David Davis had many MP's pledge to vote for him "in the first round", he actually lost votes in the third round of voting when the final 2 would have gone to the members. Had the MP's had one vote only, who knows who they would have voted for. Davies was the favourite and the system allowed people to pledge support for him to his face, to vote for him right up until the final round (therefore honouring that pledge) and then voting for Cameron in the final run off.That is not AV, it was a system to get the top 2 through to the membership, who then had one member one vote.MP's may have voted for Davies to ensure that the party members got to vote between a left and a right candidate. remember in the Labour leadership Dianne Abbot picked up enough nominations on the basis that some MP's who were supporting someone else thought it important that a leftie was on the ballot. You can not demend parties run their elections on the system that they support for general elections, they are 2 different things.The final FPTP membership vote ended with large Cameron majority. You're right,Warsi is not elected, but then neither are Kinnock, Ashdown or Eddie Izzard, but they seem to be having their say.

But AV will not change that. In some cases it is even less proportional than FPTP.In 1954 in Aussie, one of the only Country to use AV, The Labor Party won 50% of the national vote, but did not win enough seats to form the Govt.

At the end of the day, you can always find reasons for matches being tough. Town have daggers on Monday, if that was us we'd be moaning about them being in a relegation dog fight. At the end of the day, this is the best time to play Brighton,Harlepool played today and again on Monday(with a thinner squad than ours) , Plymouth play a local Derby against Exeter the Saturday before we play them. If we dont make it, it'll be down to the start we had, not because Brighton wanted 100 points or Walsall needed a draw to stay up.

Looks like you're in favour of PR then. AV (in the words of Lib/Dem hero Jenkins) "offers little prospect of a move towards greater proportionality, and in some circumstances, it is even less proportional than FPTP." Perhaps the 23% of Lib/Dems voters should be asking their leadership why they entered a coalition in return for a vote on a system that "offers little prospect of a move towards greater proportionality, and in some circumstances, it is even less proportional than FPTP."

2 games in hand, Brighton away and Plymouth away, and a better goal difference is a better position to be in than Town's, especially as they also have Brighton away. If we win one of this weekends games, we'll still be in the box seat even if Town win both of theirs. After Wilkins spell in charge if you had said, beat Plymouth, Brentford and Wallsal and you're up, everyone would have taken it.

So what about Woy Jenkins, he can hardly be called right wing, yet he conculded that AV "offers little prospect of a move towards greater proportionality, and in some circumstances, it is even less proportional than FPTP."

My mates from Huddersfield, he reckons it's dropped points at home that will cost them, so I'm not too surprised they're winning today.

Maybe he is only 59th but Roy Jenkins a Lib/Dem who spent his whole life campaigning for voting reform, was asked by the Labour Govt to look at electrol reform. The Jenkins report was a result of a commission into the issue of electoral reform chaired by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. Jenkins said "AV on its own suffers from a stark objection. It offers little prospect of a move towards greater proportionality, and in some circumstances, and those the ones which certainly prevailed at the last election and may well do so for at least the next one, it is even less proportional than FPTP."

Maybe, but this was the problem once Labour set devolution in motion. One day the Englsih are going to wake up and realise they've been short changed. The next few challanging years are going to open up wounds, particulary with a Tory Govt cutting the state back. A higher % of state workers live in traditional Labour areas, and although I fully believe that the private sector will grow to fill the gaps, the jobs will be in differant areas from the losses. I think we'll end up with public sector job losses in Scotland, North East, NI ect and Private job increases in the South East and Midlands.This will play into the SNP's hands, and they'll demand more autonomy from the next labour Govt. More autonomy for the Scots will highten English injustice, particulary if the Tories carry a majority in England. The first thing that must happen is Scottish and Welsh MP's stop voting on matters in England that are devolved in Scotland and Wales.

In the main yes. There are things that a UK wide Govt would have to do, but other than that I would leave it up to the Countries. It goes without saying that the Federal Govt would need to be smaller than it is now, but there is no reason why Scottish, Welsh, English and NI MP's couldn't sit in Westminster and their own Parliaments.

I would like to add, I am not against devolution in any way, what I'm against is devolution for some and not others. I would like the Countries of the UK to raise their own revenues, setting their own tax rates ect, and then spending the money as they seem fit. I think it would make the union stronger and more united, with the population of each nation being governed by the will of their own people.

You cant put the Genie back in the bottle. Labour were warned that the West Lothian question wouldn't go away, but they carried on regardless. The solution in my opinion would be a Federal system (a republic would be my option, but that wont happen so one like the Aussies have would have to suffice). The issue will go away for a few years because we have the major English party leading the Country. The issue will reopen again once Scottish and Welsh MP's are propping up a Westminster Govt, and pushing laws through that apply to England and not their voters.I stand to be corrected, but I do believe that tuition fees were passed under the last Govt as a direct result of Scottish and Welsh MP's voting for them, despite it being an English only issue. Had Brown got back in, the issue may well have come to a head, but it will die down now.

I partly agree, but the free prescriptions and uni places come at a cost elsewhere ( I did read somewhere that Welsh school children have less spent on them than the average, because the Welsh Govt have allocated some of that money to pay for the free prescriptions). The decisions are down to the Welsh and Scots, and that's fair enough, they can vote the Govts out. My issue around the fairness is that Labour MP's in Scotland can vote for an increase in charges for England,and their voters are not affected by that decision. Peter Hain siad on QT that because the Welsh had a Labour Govt they got free prescriptions, and it was a great thing. When Alex Salmond asked him why he therefore voted for them in England, he squirmed and couldn't answer.That is the unfairness of the whole thing in a nutshell. Peter Hain votes for charges in England, but his voters wont be paying them.

Not true, you can win a seat without 50% of the vote.It is not "guaranteed". According to experts a 4 out of 10 MP's will be elected with less than 50% of the vote. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2010/10/25/av-no-multi-party-preferences/

Recently I have heard Peter Hain, Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown all complain about the "unfairness" of FPTP. They claim it is important that there is "fairness" in our electrol system. All 3 backed devolution, what happened to the "fairness" that is so important to them, when they voted for this unfair change? They seem to judge "fairness" on the basis of political gain.

Surely it's relevant to any discussion around "fairness".The yes to AV political supporters seem really keen on "fairness", yet most of them backed devoloution. There approach seems to be "fairness on my terms".

My Mrs is a midwife and for the first time in years, all 3rd year student midwives have been promised a job with her NHS trust.

I would go back to Feb 10th 2010 and give Registrar Christine Derrett one, she would enjoy the action so much that she begs me to nail her again. When I refuse, she takes her bad mood out on the Skates the next day and winds the business up.

That is the whole crux of the issue as far as I'm concerned. It is not proportional and in some cases is less so than FPTP (according to Roy Jenkins). Despite what the yes people say, you can win under AV with less than 50% of the vote. All in all it is a "miserable little compromise" that can be, but sometimes isn't , more proportional than FPTP. If you want the Tories 16.7% of the Scottish vote to be represented in seats, then I assume you think that the BNP should have twice as many seats as the Greens, seeing they polled twice as many votes. To my mind there are two arguements. One, all votes count and the % of MP's reflect those votes, or Two you have the winner of each single constituency sent to Westminster.If you are going to send representives from each part of the Country, then it should be the person who wins the most votes. How on earth can you have a situation where a person comes third,in everyones first preference, but wins the seat. It's not the Xfactor or Britains got Talent.

Sorry, I'm not with you. Are you saying that England should not have devolved powers because it has a right leaning majority?

The West Lothian question is dead and burried, Labour just ploughed ahead regardless of the unfairness. They had to protect their seats from the SNP and New Labour had to have the continued support of Old Labour in Scotland to get elected.They made the correct judgement that the English were just not political enough to bother with protests and complaints. The Unions and lefties who tend to be vocal over political issues stayed silent because the devolution stich up favoured Labour. Had Thatcher devolved power to England and not Scotland, they would have soon started marching and getting on the BBC. The BBC would have a field day with special reports about how people in Scotland and Wales paid for their medicine and the English didn't, how the poor Jock students had to pay a premium for their education but the English didn't. Like happy ****ing idiots us English just sit there and take it. If the Scots and Wales want to govern themselves, let them. They can raise taxes and spend them how they want, let's have a federal constitutional monarchy. Because at the moment we have a half way house which benefits the smaller nations far more than us English.

Spot on, MP's from Scotland and Wales can vote on matters that do not effect their constituents. They can vote in Prescription charge increases in England knowing that it does not effect their voters. Had Maggie Thatcher devolved power to England and allowed English MP's to vote on Scottish measures,which did not effect England, the lefties now shouting about "fairness" would be rioting in the streets of Glasgow.Fairness in the UK should surely start with every Country having the same devolution settlement.

Perhaps some of the Labour supporters could explain why after 13 years when they could have done something about it, they did nothing. They looked at the whole constitution, they changed the Lords, gave devolution to wales and Scotland and yet nothing about “fairer” votes, which seems an important issue to them now. 3 large majorities, yet no mention of “fairer” votes. All of a sudden they lose, and within a few months most of them are banging on about “fairness” and the “unfairness” of FPFT. They’re position seems to be “it was fair when we won, but unfair when we lose”.

But according to Jenkins (an expert on PR), it can be "even less proportional than FPTP"

Surely your "Fair Votes" agenda means constituencies of equal numbers, an English parliament and PR. Not a tinkering around the edges and a system that nobody wants, but pretends they do. It was a scrap the Tories throw the Lib/Dems and Labour are behind it for political purposes. Roy Jenkins spent his whole life fighting for PR and in 1998 he said this "AV on its own suffers from a stark objection. It offers little prospect of a move towards greater proportionality, and in some circumstances, and those the ones which certainly prevailed at the last election and may well do so for at least the next one, it is even less proportional than FPTP"