An Electoral Idea

After the last UK elections in 2010 loads of people got interested in electoral systems. Of course I was one of them. But I think that in talking about changing the First Past The Post FPTP all of them (at least the ones I’ve read about or heard about) put the onus of change on the voter.

So here’s my idea. And quite possibly it’s all been done before and I’m just another guy who’s stumbled onto someone else’s idea.

The idea is that in a British system that we still vote with FPTP but give the MPs a proportional vote in government or bills.

So each MP then gets a differing voting weight according to how her party has done nationally. Now I guess the Lib Dems aren’t exactly the toast of the country but to represent the fact that a quarter of the country voted for them but they could only get about a tenth of the MPs, each Lib Dem MP should get a weightier vote.

So the UK election of 2010

UK election 2010 No of MPs National vote % Voting power per MP Conservatives 306 36.1 0.77 Labour 258 29 0.73 Liberal 57 23 2.62 SNP 6 1.7 1.84 Green 1 1 6.5 Sinn Fein 5 0.6 0.78 Democratic Unionist 8 0.6 0.49 Plaid Cymru 3 0.6 1.3 SDLP 3 0.4 0.87 Alliance 1 0.1 0.65 Speaker 1 0.1 0.65 Independent 1 0.1 0.65 Total MPs 650     Of course if a party doesn’t get an MP in then they don’t have any say. What I think is the advantage of this system is that then there are very few wasted votes. Real grass root movement parties like the Green party will gain the influence they deserve. Of course if the BNP get an MP in then they might have influence as well. Independents seem to lose some influence but I’m not sure whether their influence in bills and government support really count. Also parties will have to campaign beyond their votebanks and a safe seat is no longer  ‘safe’ in the traditional sense for the party because every vote counts towards the weightage of the MP. Another advantage is that there needn’t be a huge and expensive campaign to educate the electorate in how to vote rather that the 650 in parliament and they officials of parliament need to know and understand this. This is just something I came across in random thinking and I will be surprised if someone else hasn’t thought of this.

Don’t hold on

To your beliefs.

If the Jews had held on to their beliefs then we would never have had Christianity.

Peter changed his beliefs. Apollos had to. Paul took 15 years to work out what his belief was.

The point I think is that if we hold on to an abstract belief we crowd out God who by his Spirit is constantly blowing in new ways. Belief can be an idol that overshadows God himself.

The bible instead seems to ask us to remember. Remember what God has done. Remember what has been taught to you. Remember.

Holding on is too tiring. Let go and remember. And you might actually feel his arms from the past and the future holding your present.