Belligerent Tory on talk radio.

[Bugtownboy]

Totally agree OGB.

Our ‘democracy’ no longer represents the majority of the population.

Other models of representation are, arguably, more socially responsible.

But how do ‘we’ change the system - locally and nationally ?

[Oldgreybeard]

The problem we have is that every government, of whatever hue, has the power to shift the rules that determine how governments are elected. Gerrymandering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering) has become a normal process, used by every government to try to increase the chance of them staying in power. It works because our "first past the post" electoral system has been designed to allow it to work. Any attempt to change to a more representative system of democracy has been blocked for decades. The closest we came was Nick Clegg making a PR referendum a condition of the LibDems helping the Tories form a government, but that got scuppered by the Tory right wing diluting the PR option to being something that was nothing like PR.

We could learn a lot from countries like Germany, that have long had a PR system and that have lived with coalition government for decades. It has generally served them well, better than our own system of government, although it has its flaws, like the pressure brought to bear that resulted in Germany becoming beholden to Russia for energy. No system is perfect, but I remain convinced that a proper PR system is far better than the antiquated FPTP system we have today, that really harks back to the days of the landed gentry controlling the country.

[spread-tee]

Hear hear OGB, our system of FPTP has been designed to concentrate power in a very small mostly rich minority, aided by the media which is mostly owned by a very few individuals and bankrolled by a few rich individuals, the normal "paups" don't get a look in. What with the gerrymandering and "voter fraud" (which is almost non-existant) measures the tories are trying to bring to law, we are bordering on fascism. (blood starting to boil)

Desp

[Bugtownboy]

Agree.

FPTP is no longer fit for use.

How we move towards a more social democratic type system - don’t know

[spread-tee]

Agree.

FPTP is no longer fit for use.

How we move towards a more social democratic type system - don’t know

Vote Green or Lib Dem and write a stroppy letter to Starmer

[Mart]

Agree.

FPTP is no longer fit for use.

How we move towards a more social democratic type system - don’t know

Wales has a system that incorporates proportional representation and works quite well and isn't too complicated. The main problems with PR is that some extreme parties can accrue enough votes to get a member in, and if a party has too many seats, which person (who won their area) loses their seat, which gets awarded to someone else?

So in Wales, we vote for the local member across 40 seats, as per the usual FPTP.

But there are an additional 20 seats, broken up into 5 regions of 4 additional members.

So, after the FPTP voting is concluded, you take all of the votes for each party, and then divide by the number of FPTP seats they won. You then give the party with the largest number an extra seat. Then you repeat the process again, but now the party that got the first PR seat, will have its total votes divided by a number that's one higher than before. Award the next seat, and keep repeating till all 20 extra seats have been issued.

It's actually really easy, and simple, and means that 2/3rds of the seats are FPTP, and 1/3rd are PR, issued to smooth out any discrepancies created by the FPTP part.

Hope that makes sense, and one additional factor which could be good, or confusing, is that each person in Wales is now represented by 5 members, the FPTP member for their electoral area, plus 4 more PR members for the larger region as a whole that the electoral area sits in. [Edit - Plus their UK parliamentary MP.]