Wisdom of The Crowds

Large, diverse groups of independent people make better decisions. An award-winning book The Wisdom of Crowds shows how and why. A friend stated he believed proportional representation a demand of the Lib Dems would be a complete failure if adopted in the UK. I say go further why are we so scared to initiate a shift from "representative democracy" to "direct democracy". The collapse of communism in the 20th century removed an ideological bogeyman that propped up the politics of representative democracy of the 2oth Century. This is the 21st century isn't it time for a change. Democracy is currently in a condition of arrested development. Each person exercises their political right once every few years casting a vote to choose their representative. These power crazed representatives then make all the decisions which in the extreme can lead a country to war. This is not what the ancient Athenians had in mind for democracy.

Voting Systems

At the moment the Westminster system generally uses the First Past the Post voting:

How does it work?
Voters choose their local MP. In each constituency the candidate with the most votes wins, regardless of whether they have the majority (more than 50%) of votes cast.
Pros
FPTP is simple to understand – voters know exactly what they are voting for and it maintains a link between MPs and their local constituency. Supporters say it usually produces a decisive result.
Cons
Critics of FPTP say it can lead to unbalanced national results. Typically in the UK, the Lib Dems won 23% of the votes, but ended up with less than 9% of the seats in Parliament. Many constituencies, MPs are supported by fewer than half of voters. No way of registering a protest vote.

Perhaps its time for a different voting system what do you think?

What Else is on Offer

Single Transferable Vote
How does it work?
The purest form of proportional representation. Several MPs would represent larger constituencies – perhaps consisting of 350,000 voters who would rank their preferred candidates 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. A quota is then set by dividing the total votes cast by the number of MPs to be elected. If a candidate passes that quota they become an MP. Their surplus votes are then passed on to others in order of the preference specified by voters. If this doesn’t provide enough winners then the candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated and their votes redistributed until all the MPs are chosen.
Pros
Far fewer wasted votes. If your first choice has no chance of being elected or has enough votes already, your vote is transferred to your next preference and so on, until all seats are filled. More than one candidate from each party would stand in each enlarged constituency, encouraging competition on local issues. And voters are likely to get at least one MP for the party they support in their area.
Cons
Greater chance of a hung parliament, meaning coalitions and deals at national level become more common and votes would take much longer to count.
Who else uses it?
The Republic of Ireland; Assembly, European and local government elections in Northern Ireland; local elections in Scotland, Malta and the Australian Senate.A

Alternative Vote
How does it work?
Constituencies stay the same but voters rank their candidates 1, 2, 3 etc. If one candidate gets more than 50% of votes they become the MP. If not, the candidate with the fewest first votes is eliminated and their second votes are distributed among other candidates. The process continues until one candidate has more than half the vote.
Pros
All MPs are supported by the majority of their constituents. It keeps existing constituency boundaries and maintains a strong link between MPs and the area they represent. Extremist parties are unlikely to gain a foothold as there is little chance of them picking up second and third preferences. There are fewer wasted votes compared with FPTP
Cons
So-called “donkey voting” can occur, in which voters rank their preferences at random if they don’t know much about each candidate’s policies.
Who else uses it?
Australian House of Representatives, Irish presidential election, Fiji, Student Union elections.

Alternative Vote Plus
How does it work?
Five-hundred MPs are elected using the alternative vote system, as detailed above. But as well as voting for their local MP, voters also choose a second county-level MP. These 150 seats are allocated to parties whose seat total doesn’t accurately reflect their share of the vote. For example, the Lib Dems, with 9% of seats from 23% of the vote would benefit from these “top-up” seats.
Pros
Maintains a local link between MPs and voters, but also provides a more proportional system at national level.
Cons
Ballot papers are more confusing, and there could be confusion with two different classes of MP in the House of Commons.
Who else uses it?
Nowhere yet. It was first proposed by the Jenkins Commission in 1998.

Additional Member System
How does it work?
A hybrid system. Everyone gets two votes – one for the person they want as their local MP and one for their favourite party. Local MPs are chosen on an FPTP basis, and the party votes are used to allocate MPs from a party list to make sure the complexion of Parliament reflects the popular vote.
Pros
AMS offers the best of both worlds – it is simple to understand, provides a local link to MPs and offers a degree of proportional representation.
Cons
Some MPs have no link to local voters – instead they are picked from a list by party bosses. Two different classes of MP, and it can be complicated to get final results.
Who else uses it?
The German Bundestag, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, is split equally between FPTP MPs and top-up members, asis the New Zealand parliament; also the Scottish Parliament, London Assembly and Silvio Berlusconi’s. Italian parliament.

Taking Back Parliament

Take Back Parliament
It is interesting to see this petition in the UK. The interesting thing is it has never been the peoples to take back. A parliamentary system is a system of government in which the executive and legislative branches are intertwined. In such a system, the head of government is both chief executive and chief legislator. What chance do the people have absolutely none!
During the election it was clearly evident that there are a lot of very unhappy people out there.
Look at but a few of the websites/facebook offerings:
Unlock Democracy
VoteforChange
Noneof theAboveParty
NoneoftheAboveMovement
Power 2010
OpenDemocracy
Electoral Reform Society
JuryTeam
DemocracyUK on Facebook
The one I liked best was NewEconomics(NEF) at least it is more than just a protest. There is no objective to all these protests and most if not all will be dismissed as crackpots and lunatics. Is there any hope of making the even the smallest of electoral reforms. If we could achieve just one alteration what a change we would see. One small step for everyone one giant leap for humanity. How about......

“all elected persons should not be unduly influenced in the decisions of state by an affiliated party but their decisions should be guided by personal conscience and or the majority will of the people that elected them. Thomas Jefferson referred to the "wall of separation between church and state," one of the founding principles of the US to ensure that the federation never becomes a religious monopoly but a place where free religious belief was welcomed. Looking at a parallel why can we not have a wall of separation between party affiliation and State. That is to say any person could still affiliate with fellow groups for sympathizing views but as an elected official they should be held to a duty not to slavishly follow a party line. Is that asking too much for a person to be guided by their sense of right and wrong? As an individual we make mistakes but the wisdom of the crowd could help in those sometimes gray areas affecting the common good.”

While Hang-Em may have helped achieve a hung parliament I fear it will be a short reprieve and everyones anger and disappointment will fizzle as we all live through our daily struggles. The system will not be changed and any coalition (remember the Lib/Lab pact) will disintegrate and in 12months another election will take place. Most likely the Tories will gain overall control. My experience working in a NOC council meant that with politicians fighting each other the power switched to the executive body great for the civil service. They become uncontrolled and the politicians will become more and more frustrated. Mrs Thatcher started the heavy politicisation of the UK Civil Service and guess who currently has put their flunkies in control?

Maybe you can just dismiss me as another crackpot but just give it some thought you never know from small acorns mighty oak trees do grow.

UK Election Results

The votes have been cast and just maybe a glimmer of hope with no overall control.
I have worked for an Authority which had NOC it made far more balanced decisions.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks in the UK.
There is no doubt that the business world hates uncertainty and immediately the pound dropped and the markets stuttered. Are the voters in control or are we all just pawns in a game of greed. Here is an amusing little video that made me smile anyway.

UK Elections

It is good to see some other folks who are unhappy with the status quo.
Here is another protest vote site Vote for Change
View this video

If the World was a village of 100 people

This view is an interesting snapshot
Us three on the internet need to do more to make the world a better place.
When you see this you have to feel that you have nothing to complain about except those dam politicians!!!