dune

Is it good that the Welsh nationalists and Scottish nationalists would be king makers in coalitions and would get preferenential treatment for their "countries" over and above what we get in England?

So what happens to local representation in parliament under this system? What are the regions that the Liberals propose? Isn't this alienating politics further from the people?

If it barks like a dog and looks like a dog it's a dog.

I can just see it now. Are they going bring Lancelot and Guinever out get Draw Master John Willan to make sure all the balls are present and correct. **** it let's go the whole hog and get Dale Winton to announce the results. In short this is a bonkers idea from a bonkers party.

You've lost me here. This sounds completely crackers. 1 vote for 1 party is the common sense way, why the need to jot down a list? Surely for each region you assign say 10 seats. 10% wins a seat. What's so wrong about a simple system like this?

I see so i'd probably just vote BNP because any other vote would dilute the vote i want?

Looking at it for PR to work you'd need a South East region, South West, E Mids, W Mids etc etc. Surely this system takes away having a truely local representative in parliament?

So how many seats do the Liberals propose nationally? How many seats do the Liberals propose for each region? What is the threshold they propose? And what are the regions?

Mate, no disrespect and shout me down for saying this but a lot of that is gobledigook unless you really study it all. Take the STV section it clarifies how it'd work thus: As the name "single transferable vote" implies, this systems involves a process of transferring votes. To understand how the transfer process works, it may be best to start out with a simple analogy. Imagine a school where a class is trying to elect a committee. Any student who wishes to run stands at the front of the class and the other students vote for their favorite candidates by standing beside them. Students standing almost alone next to their candidate will soon discover that this person has no chance of being elected and move to another candidate of their choice to help him or her get elected. Some of the students standing next to a very popular candidate may realize that this person has more than enough support to win, and decide to go stand next to another student that they would also like to see on the committee. In the end, after all of this shuffling around, most students would be standing next to candidates that will be elected, which is the ultimate point of this process. So does PR need several votes?

You're the Liberal canvasser. Imagine you're knocking on my door and i ask you to explain how Proportional Representation would work if your party got it's way. Saying STV and go on google isn't really selling the idea. If PR is so important to you i'd have thought you'd have jumped at the opportunty to platform your proposals.

Means absolutely nothing to me.

Can't be arsed to read all that, what is the system the Liberals want? I'm not a Liberal supporter so up until now have taken no interest, but surely they have proposed the system they want given they've been banging on about it for years?

This has been discussed on another thread but it deserves a thread of its own. I can't make my mind up about it without knowing exactly how it'd work. Of course it's easy to understand in principle e.g you have a 100 seat parliament (number chose because it's easy to work out the %ages) Tories win 35% = 35 seats, Labour Win 30% = 30 seats, Liberals win 20% = 20 seats, BNP + UKIP + Greens + Others make up the rest = 15 seats. Extrapolate this to a house of 300 and Tories have 105 seats, Labour 90, Liberals 60, Others 45. But how exactly would it work in terms of local representation. Would local constituencies still exist or would it be regional constituencies? Or would there be constituencies at all? There's many more questions i'd need answering but this get's the discussion started.

You've completely missed the point. Clegg has already said he'll support the party with the mandate. What he won't clarify is whether the mandate is the most votes or the most seats. Clearly if the "winning" party has both it's a non issue but there's a chance Labour will finnish with the most seats and not the most votes. Under the PR system this would give the Tories the mandate. But Clegg won't explain what the mandate is.

Actually you're wrong. I can't make my mind up without knowing EXACTLY how a new system would work. Would parliamentary reform go to a referendum? I presume it would, but if anyone has confirmation i'd appreciate a link to a direct quote from the liberal Party.

That's ********. Democracy is about letting people vote for things they agree with. If the far right is what you agre with your vote should count. Equally if the far left is what you agree with your vote should count.

It doesn't matter at all. That is the whole point. Cleggs class is irrelevent, just like Camerons class is irrelevent. what is relevent is what the parties stand for and how your views relate to that.

It has far deeper repersussions than I think most appreciate. If the Lib-Dems form part of a coalition the whole voting system will be reformed. Two party strong majority government will be gone. In its place we'll be left with minority coaloition governements. Much like when the Liberals were destryoed by Labour at the turn of the last century we're at a tipping point again. It may work because it'll benefit parties I like such as the BNP and UKIP, but with change comes uncertainty and our country could be on a path to ruin.

No deal with Cameron after the election, say Lib Dem voters Liberal Democrat voters would prefer to see Nick Clegg supporting Gordon Brown – rather than David Cameron – as prime minister in the event of a hung parliament after the election, according to a new survey. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/no-deal-with-cameron-after-the-election-say-lib-dem-voters-1948796.html With every day that passes the message is getting out that a vote for the Liberals is a vote for Gordon Brown.

A home banker.

I stick by my original opinion, Gillingham is the toughie.

I used to respect him but he's wrong about not tackling the deficit straight away. We're in a quicksand like situation and only the Tories will get to work fixing the problem straight away. You look at Greece and that's what will happen to us if we don't act asap.

In your opinions he's rather good, in my opinion he's a smirking smarmy little ****.

Yeah and we all know who that would be. Cue smarmy Milliband as PM. Bring back Brown all is forgiven.