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Pail - A Walrus

The forum is dying-once again! Just to crank things up (also I'm curious), what do you think is better-a parliamentary system or a presidential one?

I think a parliamentary system is in general likely to be better than a presidential system - giving one man that much power is a bad idea - but far more important is proportional representation rather than plurality.

My views are the same. But it becomes more difficult to pin responsibility in a parliamentary system. And one wonders who really runs the show. But otherwise, parliamentary form of democracy is better. And when you are talking about proportional representation, do you mean seats have to be reserved for people representing different sections of society?
What are your views on two-party & multi-party system? UK, I gather, has the latter. Gordan Brown is from which party? Do you have a coalition government in power?

Proportional representation means the number of seats is directly proportional to the number of votes for a given party - if the party gets, say, 45% of votes, it gets 45% of seats. The UK and US don't work like that; we use a form of plurality known as first-past-the-post.
For example, in the US, Obama received 52.9% of the popular vote and about 68% of the electoral vote as a result of their bizarre first-past-the-post system - it's entirely possible in the US for a presidential candidate to lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote, and thus become president with less support than their rival.

Ostensibly we have a multi-party system. Realistically, we have a two-party system. While we have a much bigger third party than, say, the US does, they still don't actually stand a chance of winning anything.
Gordon Brown is from the New Labour party. The opposition is the Conservative party, and the third wheel is the Liberal Democrat party. We also have a handful of minor parties, some of which are big enough to be worth considering, namely the Green party (pro-environment) and the UK Independence Party (ultra-nationalist racist loonies).
We don't get coalition governments, primarily because of the first-past-the-post system (which in turn suppresses the power of parties beyond the major two). There's always an outright winner.

Let me get this right. You are saying it is possible for a party to win an election without getting the majority no. of votes. Yes, I have heard of that. If a party gets 55% of the seats in a state, the whole state goes to the party. I think that's what happened in Al Gore's case, right? He got more no. of individual votes, but the big states(which have a large no. of seats) went to Bush, so he won. I assume that's what you mean by popular votes- i.e the individual votes.
But that happens in India too. In fact, it can happen anywhere. See, in India, the whole state doesn't got to the party with the majority of seats. The seats are retained by who ever wins them. But for example, in 2 constituencies, party A wins both seats by getting 51% of the total vote(in each constituency). Party B gets 49% of the votes in both the places. Now party B in another constituency, wins the seat by getting 90% of the votes there. Party A just gets 10% of the votes. So, though Party A wins 2 seats compared to party B's one, party B might have got more no. of individual votes.
A Green party-cool! No party in India even bothers about the environment. It's not even a poll issue. But what are your thoughts on coalition government?

India doesn't use proportional representation either. In countries that do (here's a list), the number of seats received is proportional to the number of votes. You get 55% of the votes, you get 55% of the seats. Strikes me as a much more logical system.

The Greens don't actually get a serious number of votes; they've got good ideals but they're incapable of producing any kind of a coherent policy, or indeed getting the whole party to agree on any of the policies they *do* have.

Coalition government strikes me as by far the most democratic option when you have no majority party.

Yes, I know India doesn't use proportional representation. But I am saying it uses a different one from what the US uses. In US the whole state goes to the party with the max. no of seats, right? In India, the seats are retained but that again doesn't necessarily mean the party with the most no. of seats has the most no. of votes. Proportional representation, without doubt, is the best. But how does it actually work? You get 55% of the votes, you get 55% of the seats. But which of the 55% of the seats?

My point was, in countries using true proportional representation, you don't get a party with fewer popular votes getting more seats.

There are a huge number of complicated ways of doing PR, some of which aren't entirely proportional and some of which are. Wikipedia has a wonderful in-depth article here.

I will check it out later . Now, the internet connection is spasmodic. I had to log in twice in the past five minutes. Should voting be made mandatory? And how is Gordan Brown as a PM(general view)?

Mandatory voting makes about as much sense as the death penalty for attempted suicide. You can't force people to be free..

Brown's managed a seriously impressive level of uselessness.

Sentynel wrote:Brown's managed a seriously impressive level of uselessness.

Hmm

So who in your opinion in your lifetime has been the best British PM?

Prime Ministers while I've been alive:
Margaret Thatcher (for all of three months)
John Major
Tony Blair
Gordon Brown

PMs I can actually remember:
Blair, Brown

And out of that rather, ahem, limited selection, Blair was sure better than Brown is.


The best PM ever was clearly Gladstone.

And Churchill!

Yeah, my parents liked Tony Blair too(but I don't remember much of him except that he served for 10 years & his wife's name is Cherie & the media liked taking a potshot at her. God knows why I remember all this). Margaret Thatcher, from whatever I have read about her (which is pretty limited), didn't seem very bad either. Don't know anything about John Major.
I don't wholeheartedly support the idea of making voting mandatory, but I won't dismiss the concept as a bad idea either. Some countries do have compulsory voting(like Australia). Voting is a person's right & duty, but most think of it as inconsequential & opt to sit at home instead. And then when the government does something stupid(or as in most cases, fails to do anything), they are amongst the first to create a hullabaloo & bemoan the government's action/inaction. Instead of punishing people who abstain from voting, they should be made to pay more taxes(ok, something less drastic).

I don't think Sent was saying he liked Blair, rather that Blair was the best of a bad pair...
Can you blame the media for taking potshots at her?
Thatcher was very awful.
It certainly isn't a person's 'duty' to vote, and it shouldn't be made mandatory. Ever.