Politics Does democracy work?

edao

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Do you think democracy works?

Lets take the UK 2010 elections. info

If we ignore the individual political parties but instead split the vote in a left wing / right wing way.

Right Wing

Conservatives - share of the vote 36.1%


Left Wing/Centre Left
Labour - share of the vote 29%

Lib dems - share of the vote 23%

so forgetting the parties we have:

36% for the right
52% for the left

Currently the government consists of a coilition of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, but the policies being carried out are largely right wing with minor concessions to the Lib Dems.

So we have a majority vote for left wing policies which is undermined by back room deals in which the Conseravtive secure power with a mear 36% of the vote.

That doesn't sound terribly democratic to me?
 
Do you think democracy works?

Lets take the UK 2010 elections. info

If we ignore the individual political parties but instead split the vote in a left wing / right wing way.

Right Wing

Conservatives - share of the vote 36.1%


Left Wing/Centre Left
Labour - share of the vote 29%

Lib dems - share of the vote 23%

so forgetting the parties we have:

36% for the right
52% for the left

Currently the government consists of a coilition of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, but the policies being carried out are largely right wing with minor concessions to the Lib Dems.

So we have a majority vote for left wing policies which is undermined by back room deals in which the Conseravtive secure power with a mear 36% of the vote.

That doesn't sound terribly democratic to me?

Two points:

(1) Lib Dems are not a good example of a left-wing party. They are farther left than the Conservatives, but that doesn't say a lot. They fill the "liberal" niche in the UK above all... in most other European countries, such a niche is filled by a slightly farther-right party, like the German FDP. The Lib Dems used to be even more like that themselves back when they were just the Liberals, and they maintain a sense of that spirit. So, we see the commonalities between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems come out in their coalition, like budget-cutting, because a clear majority of UK voters voted for a budget-cutting party.

(2) First-past-the-post districted representation is miserably bad at properly representing voters. The Dutch system of proportional representation would be significantly more accurate, and would also trend toward a greater number of parties that can form more appropriate coalitions. For example, the Lib Dems could once again split into a more right-wing party (like the Dutch VVD) and a more left-wing party (like the Dutch D66). Right now, the Dutch VVD is the major party in the Netherlands, but D66 aren't even in the coalition with them, because the VVD went for a right-wing coalition. And all is appropriately distributed in the Netherlands.
 

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