Re: UK election thread
Cheers for the details on that mate, its interesting to get a proper on station run-down, i'm starting to get into the politics of Australia and NZ (British policy analysts have a lot of plans for you guys post-brexit/like pretending we can still play empire 2.0...just without telling you that you're part of itOriginally Posted by Cyclops
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It has been an issue certainly since 2010, its now very difficult for either of the big two parties to get a 'real' majority as you say because their typical electorates have splintered (Even Cameron in 2015 was absolutely tiny and unstable by historic standards)- it's been a growing criticism that FPTP is unfit for 'modern' politics in any real democratic sense in Britain as voters are being drawn more and more to single party or niche politics... and either voting for that, or being forced (as arguably in 2017) to tactical vote for a party that actually they do not really care for. The 'Broad Church' approach of the big two has fractured by essentially the political fabric being stretched too thinly to try and contain this- hence the Conservative 'left' being essentially ejected from the party, and the Labour right also being given the boot- both of which would in any other system see an increase in vote share for the Lib-dem.Thx for the details. Is the UK so regionally divided that no one leader can unify enough electorates?
But immediate divides- indeed as we saw in 2017, the traditional Labour and Conservative heartlands are no longer the absolute strongholds they once were- Labour's 'Northern Wall' is vulnerable now more than ever to the Brexit Party and Conservatives (Its saving might be the fact that these two challengers are essentially competing for the same voting groups), while even with the Brexit party promising not to stand in the Conservatives heartlands, the Lib-dems and Labour in some areas present a big enough threat that there is a significant chance for losses here, potentially crippling ones. Scotlands set to go full Clansman.
This isn't helped as you rightly allude to- no one leader is actually 'popular', even in their core homelands- other political factors and perceptions have made them divisive figures even in their own ranks.
Its likely thus we're heading for a hung parliament again, indeed the polling company Survation who got the last few GE's and referendum right have just published a poll placing Labour now only 6 points behind the Conservatives- if this plays out that is a huge swing and indeed places us on course for this election getting easily into hung territory- which means coalition (which essentially writes off the Conservatives), but again coalition is a failure for the Westminster system whose whole point is to give one party the 'winner takes all' factor.
Though i'd even add the caveat here that even if Labour or the Conservatives do get a majority, it'll be based on tactical voting (We've already seen Farage and his pact, or the Lib-dems not standing in Canterbury or the Lib-Green-SNP remain alliance), and we'll probably see it crumble right back down at the next election (Or we accept that tactical voting and electoral pacts are somehow 'democratic' in the moral sense and now for the first time a common part of the Westminster system instead of 'winner takes all'- for instance if i hate Lib-dems domestic agenda, but the Greens refuse to field a candidate in my constituency as part of an alliance, then there is an issue).
EDIT: To add to the above -I've actually had the honour of being invited to give a series of political talks around the South-East and London, these have almost wrapped up so i feel i can post drawing on parts of what i said. So an interesting point to add to the regional thing and how hard it is for a leader and/or party to command a majority (and how sustainable FPTP majorities are probably a thing of the past) is the decline of 'Safe Seats', which highlights a continuous churn towards a more diffused political spectrum, rather than a 'big two' monopoly.
In 1979 there were only 25% of seats that could be deemed marginal- the rest were ‘safe seats’- which could be lost but required a lot of battering. But social media/media reach giving greater exposure to smaller parties and the formation of regional/One issue parties that are at odds with FPTP- Lib-dems, Greens, SNP, UKIP, Brexit Party- have meant that now more than 1 in 3 seats are marginal with majorities significantly less than 5000, with only 15% of seats being ‘safe’. That's a seismic change and a blow to historic FPTP.
Now FPTP naturally protects the big-two still to a large degree, however it at this point is more of an unfair 'prop' over stability giver- as essentially its helping to keep the Conservatives and Labour party afloat through tactical voting, rather than actually giving them 'stable' majorities as would historically be expected. Essentially FPTP is indeed unfit.
Added to this, voting concerns have grown, even with Brexit dominating we're seeing new 'major concerns' being added for the big two parties to try and accommodate.
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.ne...20Issues_W.pdf
Climate change is now on parlance with the economy as being a top voting concern (and are roughly on the same percentages- though Climate Change has experienced rapid and sustained shoot-up and may end up surpassing), this is actually similar to the growth of how Brexit became a political concern. In 2015 only 23% of voters actually listed the EU as something they gave a damn about- positive or negative, this was indeed even with UKIP and the debates about EU membership and immigration (Which was a factor that was politically tied to the EU) gaining prominence. Climate Change could be the next 'big issue', and again it is something that the big two will more than likely struggle with as both have internal splits on the subject and have to juggle other concerns (Moreover while climate change denial isn't big in the UK- opposition to some of the more 'radical'/necessary (depending on view) policies needed to tackle it (Carbon 0, extra taxation etc) are controversial- a new UKIP style party could easily arise on this space, likewise the Greens (whose vote share has increased currently) are best placed to represent that other extreme- in the mid-term this is likely to become another flashpoint. So it'll be interesting as the big two continue to fail to return to two-party politics (there may be some instances when they get a majority, but i would argue that is not going to be the norm) at what point do we finally all accept that FPTP is outdated and needs to change to accommodate the modern plurality in politics?
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