horsemouth versus first past the post

“A ROOF OF MY OWN” (1964) - Uncensored Version copy from Nick Wates on Vimeo.

you find horsemouth with few thoughts in his head. 

ah good he has found his thoughts on first past the post (the candidate with the most votes wins) these will do. 

now first past the post has lots of problems - the main one is that as there are more than 2 parties in the election you can get 'third party effects' that mean (for example) more people in a constituency can have voted 'not tory' rather than tory and the tory party will still get in - the 'not tory' votes are not counted elsewhere so the relationship between votes cast for a party (nationally) and how many seats they receive in the parliament is not proportional. 

the gallagher index is a good measure of how unrepresentative this is. with the UK 16th in the world in terms of how unrepresentative in terms of the votes of the people its elections are (between panama and liberia)

arguably the factor that does even more to distort elections in the UK is low voter registration with it is now thought 8 million people not registered to vote or incorrectly registered, out of an electorate already depleted by the removal of the right to vote in UK elections of 5 million EU citizens with settled status.

instead of addressing these the government has chosen to address the uneven size of of constituencies and voter fraud both of which have a negligible effect upon representation. though arguably addressing them effectively constitutes gerrymandering and voter suppression in all but name.

horsemouth is a grumpy old mule. he complains long and often about politics and when the opportunity is afforded him he votes. 

if some form of proportional representation were used horsemouth would vote green or some variety of ultra-left party that would at least make the argument for the destruction of capitalism. (once upon a time, when he had just moved to london he voted SWP, at  a time when the SWP ran candidates, not that he had any great faith in them you understand).  

under first past the post system horsemouth would tend to vote labour (as the party the farthest to the left (!!!?) with a decent chance of getting in) or perhaps tactical vote elsewhere for whomsoever will keep the tories out. 

here we can see that first pat the post objectively skews and supresses political opinions not at the alleged 'centre' of the debate. votes for leftwing (and rightwing) parties are effectively suppressed and reframed as useless and wasted protest votes.

of course many of the political levers of power are not accessible from the house of commons but nonetheless parliamentary majorities can be used to leverage improved conditions for the working class or at least the defence of their interests. it can provide a perception of increased working class autonomy and confidence that feeds back to produce increased working class autonomy and self-confidence. 

securing political representation for the working class is however not a substitute for generating actual class power for the working class but it can be a useful adjunct (see the peruvian bariadas as mentioned above). 

today a visit to TESCOs (the monthly shop).