Discuss the arguments for and against First Past the Post.
First past the post is the name used to describe the single member plurality system or single relative majority system. It is a winner takes all system where each constituency has one single MP for each of the 650 geographical areas. The winner in each seat is the individual who gets the most votes in a sense of more than the second place candidate. A party/MP can win by 1 more votes it does not have to be a majority. There are many arguments in favour of single member plurality systems one being that it produces single party governments and recognisable opposition of which is very strong. This means that coalitions can be unstable and involve horse trading manifesto promises and undemocratic exercise of power by minority groups despite this being rare. Also there is local contact between electors and MP’s. This system also has the ability to sack an under achieving government and this is less true of systems which produce coalitions. Another advantage is that the system suits the non-political people although it can be seen to discriminate against minority parties and it is also thought to marginalise minority extremists. It is the traditional system of voting in the United Kingdom and there are rarely any votes in in constitutional electoral reform. The single relative majority system has been the two main parties preferences since the 1980’s and after labour defeats in the 80/90’s there has been a growing interest in electoral reform and the plant inquiry, set up by Kinnock, it recommended the supplementary system vote. To contrast, there are many arguments against the winner takes all system and one argument against is that there is no straight forward correlation between seats and votes won which can then cause democratic insufficiency. Also votes don’t have equal value as more value is cast to votes in marginal seats, for example, S Tyrone and Hampstead (42 Labour seats). Also another disadvantage is that governments are regularly elected on a minority vote i.e. 50%. Moreover, minority governments can have landslide victories in terms of votes and
Nevertheless, there is an argument that the use of the traditional first-past the post system is unfair because many votes get wasted and therefore, votes for parties outside the main two or three are of an unequal value. This is because representatives can be elected on tiny amounts of public support and so, the size of victory is irrelevant, it is only that they have more votes than other candidates which counts. This also leads to tactical voting, as votes vote against the candidate that they…
proportionate to the number of seats given to the party. Currently, the system that is being used in the UK is First-Past-The-Post. This essay will attempt to argue that Proportional Representation should be introduced for British general elections. It will also try to present sufficient evidence including examples of different types of Proportional Representation to support its stance. First-Past-The-Post is a straightforward method of electing a candidate. The elected candidate will just have to gain most…
Parliament: In the UK parliament the House of Commons is elected by the first past the post system (FPTP), the country is split into 650 constituencies and each one votes for an MP to represent them, some candidates represents parties and others are independent. The House of Lords are appointed not voted for, they are appointed by the queen on the prime ministers request. First pass the post Voting system: Under First Past The Post (FPTP) voting takes place in constituencies that elect a single MP.…
in a constituency. The constituency representatives are generally elected under the first past the post voting system. The party list representatives are elected by a second vote, where the electors vote for a political party, not directly for an individual. The particular individuals selected come from lists drawn up by the political parties before the election, at a national or regional level. First past the post system- General Elections The plurality voting system is a system used to elect members…
announced his resignation as Prime Minister, marking the end of 13 years of Labour government. The 2010 campaign saw the first ever televised debates which was deemed to be a very American political style of campaigning. The Green Party of England and Wales won its first ever seat in the Commons, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland also gained its first elected member. For the first time since 1974 the UK has a hung parliament,…
with the moral or spiritual crisis of their protagonists than they are with the political realities of post‐war Germany.’ Discuss with reference to EITHER Germany Year Zero OR The Murderers Are Among Us OR BOTH. In the midst of the rubble and sordidness that was Germany after World War II, in particularly Berlin in 1945; a new kind of cinema was born, called Rubble Films. Rubble Films are post-World War II films, made between 1946 – 1949, that take the hollow wasteland of Berlin as mise-en-scene…
important factor in our life and the most frequently used term. It is one of the basic lessons of learning English. While taking spoken English classes or to learn writing the English you are taught to write and tell the time in the English at the very first lessons. For non-native speakers it seems difficult to remember, telling the time but with a little practice, you can easily conquer this concept. In this article, we will discuss all the rules of telling or writing time one-by-one using the examples…
Nottingham Bluecoat School and Technology College Post 16 Centre Independent study guide 2011-12 Help make the jump from GCSE to Post-16 study with these suggested study tasks from your teachers. Post-16 Independent study guide “What determines your success at GCSE is how hard you work in your lessons. What determines your success at A Level is how hard you work outside of lessons.” Across the country GCSE results have steadily been rising over the past few years. Some people put this down to young…
is it? The voter has the chance to rank the candidates in order of preference. The voter puts a '1' by their first choice a '2' by their second choice, and so on, until they no longer wish to express any further preferences. Candidates are elected outright if they gain more than half of the first preference votes (absolute majority) If not, the candidate who lost (the one with least first preferences) is eliminated and their votes are redistributed according to the second (or next available) preference…
First of all, the discussion forums are intended to engage you more than anything else, so do not feel stressed about them. We only have eight cases, and historically expectations in the class have been that you post one high quality post per case to earn full points (and make sure not to miss any discussions). Just enjoy the conversation, and try out your strategy formation skills. When the forum opens, the only discussion that you will be able to view is your team’s discussion (so it will be obvious…
