Well I'm sorry if it looks as if I have a clue on this and that I might write something here that is enlightening but I can't because I don't have one - a clue that is; but when did that stop me from having an opinion?
One thing I do know is that there were so many people turned away from polling stations yesterday who stood in queues for hours and still couldn't get to vote with the simple system that they have now; so how would it be with complicated papers containing Proportional Representation?
At 9:30 pm yesterday, half an hour before the 10:00pm deadline, council workers at a Hackney polling station, were telling people in the queue that they would not get to vote; this was met with cries of 'Over my dead body' and similar comments but it wasn't to be; they were sent away voteless.
What's going to happen about this is anybody's guess but it seems to me that if you see queues all day you would bring in extra staff – one polling station actually ran out of voting papers.
But getting back to Proportional Representation (PR) and how it might work: proportional means relative so it would mean the percentage of votes you get in the country, or in the constituencies, would correspond with the amount of seats you get in the house of commons.
So how many MPs would each constituency have representing them and when they get to Westminster where would you put them?
Would each MP still have an office? Would there be secondary MPs? Senior MPs?
What about The Monster Raving Looney Party? They had candidates in many constituencies; this year they were actually backed by Britain's second biggest bookie; William Hill so they were called The Monster Raving Looney Party; William Hill.
For those not familiar The Monster Raving Looney Party was taken from a Monty Python sketch and just above is the late Screaming Lord Such who founded the party.
How many seats in the house percentage wise would go to them? One percent? That would be 6 MPs. 6 and a half MPs to be more precise wasting everybody's time with their antics.
At the moment I don't know how many votes, percentage wise, the parties in Britain have received. I could be wrong but I think it was something like 36% to the Conservatives, 28% to Labour and 22% to The Liberal Democrats; translating that to the House of Commons who have 649 seats to fill – the other one going to the Speaker of the House – not to be confused with Nancy Pelosi's job, by the way, as the Speaker is just that – he or she controls the house and calls upon members to speak amongst other things.
36% of the seats to the Conservatives = 234
28% of the seats to Labour = 182
22% to the Liberal Democrats = 143
That comes to 559 leaving 91 seats to share amongst the rest; there will be the Ulster Unionists, the Green Party, the Scottish Nationalists and the British National Party sharing the remaining percentage of the 16%.
Would we really like to give a voice to the fascists or the Nazis – or whatever they want to call themselves this year? Would we really want to throw the commons into a state of chassis?
Isn't it bad enough that they are represented in Europe?
As Captain Boyle said in Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock – 'The whole world is in a terrible state of chassis.'
Let's leave it alone and it will get better.
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