Hung Parliament , PR and The British Angst

The votes are cast and now the wrangling has begun. While the politicians meet and discuss the way forward, the British angst over a Hung Parliament bemuses the Europeans.

My German husband finds it all very strange, that a party that achieves 23% of the votes only has 57 seats in parliament while the other two parties with a share of 65% of the votes have a whopping 564 seats.

My feelings on this are clear. Electoral Reform is needed, and need now. The British voting system is archaic and unfair.

Why should the 23% of the British public who have voted Lib Dem be fobbed off with so few seats, and so little influence on how our country is run?

Why should the two main parties always have an unfair advantage?

Why, when 35% of the population did not vote Tory or Labour, do these people only have 85 seats in parliament - that is just just 13% of the 650 seats.
35% of the British public did not vote Tory or Labour and are their opinions are not being heard. Ok, these numbers have been simplified and do not take into account the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Irish parties who have seats, but you get the picture.

I wonder why coalitions are such a bad word in UK. Most Europeans are used to coalitions and welcome them. Consider how UK would look today if Maggie Thatcher had a coalition partner to temper the worst of her policies. The German Green party were able to introduce legislation that has made Germany one of the leading nations in ecological matters. Not only that, but the bill to allow civil partnerships for gay men and women was Green initiative. Germany has had a very stable democracy in the past 60 years despite the coalitions. Or perhaps because of the coalitions.


I had a look to see if I could find the arguments against PR, and found  this blog where Françoise Boucek neatly trashes Cameron's arguments.

For all his talk of doing what is best for Britain it is very obvious that David Cameron and the Tories do not want Electoral Reform, not out of concern for nasty hung parliaments but out of basic self-interest.

The next couple of days will be crucial to the future of Britain. We can only hope that the Lib Dem leadership is not lured by Cameron's offer. Only a fool would believe that the Tories will allow the kind of Electoral Reform that Britain needs.