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31st August 2010

Kicking the B*stards out

We hear time and again of the way First Past the Post lets voters ‘kick the b*stards out’ – a colourful reference to the perceived ease with which voters can turf out one government and neatly replace it with another.

It’s a view that goes almost unquestioned, including by many reformers, so we thought we’d have a closer look.

It’s obvious that the 2010 election was unusual – not because of the coalition – but that it actually produced a transfer of power. The previous occasion was of course Labour’s win in 1997, but other than in the turbulent 1970s that produced three switches of power there have only been two other occasions since the end of the war – 1951 and 1964.

Even then, 2010 came tantalisingly close to an outcome where a reconfiguration of the government as a Labour-led coalition, rather than a full transfer of power, might have been possible: Labour fell a few seats short of this possibility.

While causing a power shift, the 2010 election confirmed another surprising fact about British government – that the classical picture of a majority government of one party cleanly replacing a majority of the other main party (the basis of the argument that FPTP enables voters to kick out a government) is a very rare event.

Since the mass franchise in 1885, there has only been one such occasion – Edward Heath’s singular victory in 1970. All others without exception have involved coalitions, minority government or parliaments with too narrow a majority to allow government for a full term.

Transfers of power in British government

Outgoing governmentIncoming government

1905*	Conservative	Working majority	Liberal	Minority
1915*	Liberal	Minority	Lib-Con-Lab	Coalition
1922*	Nat Lib-Con	Coalition	Conservative	Working majority
1924*	Conservative	Minority	Labour	Minority
1924	Labour	Minority	Conservative	Working majority
1929	Conservative	Working majority	Labour	Minority
1931*	Labour	Minority	Con-Lib-Nat Lab	Coalition
1940*	Conservative	Working majority	Con-Lab-Lib	Coalition
1945	Coalition/ caretaker	Coalition	Labour	Working majority
1951	Labour	Inadequate majority	Conservative	Working majority
1964	Conservative	Working majority	Labour	Inadequate majority
1970	Labour	Working majority	Conservative	Working majority
1974	Conservative	Working majority	Labour	Minority
1979	Labour	Minority	Conservative	Working majority
1997	Conservative	Minority	Labour	Working majority
2010	Labour	Working majority	Con-LD	Coalition

* Transfer of power took place without an election. Elections followed shortly afterwards in 1905-06, 1922 and 1931 which ratified the new governments. The first transfer in 1924 followed a little after an election; arguably 1974 and 2010, when incumbent governments stayed on for a few days, are comparable.

We’ll leave that for First-Past-the-Posters to mull over.

Aug 2010

Tags: Transfers of power

9 Comments

Comments

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Jacabsolute

I’m watching what happens between now and May.

It’s all gone quiet out there, even at the LibDem conference. I note that AV is being bandied about as though the general reader doesn’t assume this means audiovisual.

What a shame it’s not used in full or has a more positive name: Positive Vote, for instance.
Dave Marsay

I am uncommitted but AV-leaning, particularly after the opening of the NO campaign. Surely someone is going to rebut their smearing of AV?

Surely one of the key unique features of FPTP is the advantage it gives to a sitting candidate due to vote-splitting between the alternatives. From the faq’s figures this seems to happen about 2/3 of the time. Thus in most constituencies the candidate elected might have been the last choice of most electors. Maybe not, we just can’t tell. To put it another way, in 1/3 of constituencies AV would have made no difference, while in the others it may have, and if so then most of the electors must have ranked the AV-elected candidate higher than the FPTP-elected candidate. Thus, for example, someone who most people rank last can get in under FPTP but not AV.

Another advantage of AV is that people’s preferences are recorded, so any residual unreasonableness could be monitored and potentially corrected.
http://politicoid.wordpress.com the_politicoid

Ultimately, for me, AV just does not do the trick. The very fact that single-member constituencies remain means that AV cannot address my main issue with FPTP – namely lack of proportionality. There is evidence that AV often produces LESS proportional results than FPTP. I do agree, however, that it is an overall better system, simply because it means that few votes are wasted and ther winner will always have a majority. Check out my posts on the subject on my blog: http://politicoid.wordpress.com/
http://www.tomgash.com Tom Gash

My recent experience of football club elections in Lisbon has persuaded me that the ‘kicking the b**stards out’ argument about AV may be valid: http://tomgash.com/index.php/?p=198
http://digital-marketing-shit.blogspot.com Kevin Brown

Interesting. I’m not in complete agreement, but you argue a good case.

More details here: http://digital-marketing-shit.blogspot.com/2011/04/vote-no-to-alternative-voting.html
http://www.2009-de.com Dr. Axel Ridder

One Idea to improve the British Elction system as a comment to The Economist:
The British Referendum on May 5th asks: FPTP ( relative majority voting in a one-person constituency) plus AV ( alternative voting or preference vote like in Australia) YES or NO? The Economist says NO and proposes: FTPT plus 20% PR (proportional representation).
I say: FTPT in three-persons-constituencies plus American Primaries plus AV plus 33,33% PR for women or men. I have extensively elaborated on my web page http://www.2009-de.com .

My website http://www.2009-de.com proposes a slight improvement of the Westminster model which makes it superior to the American gridlock. My new idea is: Reform of the one-person-constituency (“winner takes all”) to a three-persons-constituency with relative majority voting and a list of 2 candidates for every party ( party A = 2 seats of parliament, party B = 1 seat of parliament; parties C, D, E, etc. get nothing or “everything” in another constituency, as is normal in relative majority voting, invented by the ingenious Greeks. )
In a time of transition it is advisable to have a two-persons-ticket of a man and a woman or a woman and a man plus maybe the Australian “preference vote” ( AV ).

The heaviest argument against the Economist’s NO is: Nobody understands why 20%, not 21% or 17% or 5% or 30% or50%???? It smells manipulation, not clarity, simplicity or functionality. Look to Italy and the whole Berlusconi nightmare!

I do not say YES to the British proposal but say: Make the referendum better! Is there anybody out there, who thinks optimal, logical and global? I am quite pessimistic, when I consider the stupidity in the debate about atomic energy. How many Chernobyl or Fukushima do we need to wake up, before it is too late? When do we have a global practical, easy to understand and simple election system and a world parliament?
http://www.2009-de.com Dr. Axel Ridder

One idea to improve the British election system as a comment to The Economist:
The British Referendum on May 5th asks: FPTP ( relative majority voting in a one-person constituency) plus AV ( alternative voting or preference vote like in Australia) YES or NO? The Economist says NO and proposes: FTPT plus 20% PR (proportional representation).
I say: FTPT in three-persons-constituencies plus American Primaries plus AV plus 33,33% PR for women or men. I have extensively elaborated on my web page http://www.2009-de.com .

My website http://www.2009-de.com proposes a slight improvement of the Westminster model which makes it superior to the American gridlock. My new idea is: Reform of the one-person-constituency (“winner takes all”) to a three-persons-constituency with relative majority voting and a list of 2 candidates for every party ( party A = 2 seats of parliament, party B = 1 seat of parliament; parties C, D, E, etc. get nothing or “everything” in another constituency, as is normal in relative majority voting, invented by the ingenious Greeks. )
In a time of transition it is advisable to have a two-persons-ticket of a man and a woman or a woman and a man plus maybe the Australian “preference vote” ( AV ).

The heaviest argument against the Economist’s NO is: Nobody understands why 20%, not 21% or 17% or 5% or 30% or50%???? It smells manipulation, not clarity, simplicity or functionality. Look to Italy and the whole Berlusconi nightmare!

I do not say YES to the British proposal but say: Make the referendum better! Is there anybody out there, who thinks optimal, logical and global? I am quite pessimistic, when I consider the stupidity in the debate about atomic energy. How many Chernobyl or Fukushima do we need to wake up, before it is too late? When do we have a global practical, easy to understand and simple election system and a world parliament?