The voting system in the U.K. is not based on the majority of the public voting for one party and it wins, it is based on the majority of seats being won.
If a constituency populated by 5,000 all vote, 3,000 for party A and 2,000 for party B party A win the seat.
If 2 other constituencies populated by 500 each all vote, 200 each for party A and 300 each for party B Party B wins 2 seats.
Doing the maths (math for the yanks * ) party B win 2 seats, party A only 1 seat even though overall 3,400 people voted for party A but only 2,600 for party B! Party B have the 'majority'. Party B win.
* Why do the yanks say math? It is plural i.e. mathematicS!
Mark.
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Prime Minister
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Elections
MarkE and Owdim,
I’m well aware of the voting system in the UK. The same system is used in the famed US Presidential election. It’s called the Electoral College. In this system the winner takes all in single member districts. (FPTP, First Past the Post.) (Districts having different populations as in Britain). Such a system works well except when results are close as in the 2000 Presidential election where GW won the most electoral votes but Al Gore won the popular vote. They/we ought to use a system of proportional representation. But before you get on your high horse, as I just said, your argument only holds credence if the election is close. When the Labour party holds 412 seats and the Conservatives hold only 166 one can be very confident that the party in power represents the democratic choice of the people.
If I were speaking to USARMY, clearly a Bush supporter, and appeal to him using your argument he would say I was a sore loser or “GoreLoserman”. (Al Gore ran in 2000 with Joe Liberman as his prospective vice-president.) Democrats in the US often point out that Bush didn’t really win the election. Now in our discussion, with you fine gents, you use the same argument in an effort to show me that Blair doesn’t represent the peoples choice, except in this case its the Conservative right that’s not in power rather than the Democrat left. My point is: the position you’ve taken is always the position of any loser in such an electoral system. At the end of the day the other side had to contend with the same rules and circumstances as your side did.
As for why Yanks say Math instead of Mathematics, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask one?
EL Prez,
You take a very defensive response to my posting, pointing out from every direction how Labour is weakening it’s grip on power. My use of the election results was to show the political alignment of the average Brit and hence explain the approach of BBC reporting, not to show how Conservatives were trounced, which they were. Your eager defensiveness exposes the frustration you have for your own party. The fact that there were 1,000,000 roaming the streets of London against the war was exactly the point of my argument! The BBC, being state run, reports with a leftward tilt since the majority of people are similarly aligned as I showed through the results of the election! In addition to this, just like all Conservatives you are predisposed to hate the BBC anyway, despite it’s leftward reporting, by fact of it being nationalized, so there is no point arguing BBC with you. I know you don’t like it.
Quote: Come back here and propose your argument in the waiting room of an NHS out-patients department. When your ears have stopped ringing…
No doubt if the Conservatives were in power the ‘ringing’ from the NHS out-patients might well be heard from my seat here in Atlanta since there would be no NHS. There is no NHS in the US. There are though, 75 million people without Health Insurance. I’d rather be in line than be without!! Those who are insured have claims that are constantly being turned down by their health insurance companies for some obsolete technicality, pushing the entire brunt of the bill on patients. The US has the highest prices for medical care and medicine on the planet. This is due to the monopoly on healthcare held by private companies who have no NHS to compete with. So they pick the price that suites them. The highest price suites them. (Watch the Denzel Washington Movie: ‘John Q’) My father’s insurance company paid $9,000 for his CAT scan when we feared he was having a stroke. If he had had no insurance he would have had to pay this himself. You might ask, “Well make sure you have insurance then.” To get insurance you have to work 35 hours a week. If you’re sick, laid off or your company cuts back hours… tough luck. You won’t be insured and neither will your kids. Even if you do have insurance you can ONLY go to certain doctors and certain hospitals. It’s a horrible system and many people go to great lengths to avoid going to hospital out of financial fear as their health continues to deteriorate. If you want me to go on with the NHS issue just tell me. I could go on for ages. Honestly, I’m being sincere when I say the system in Britain may not be brilliant but the private-only alternative is much, much worse. You never know what lurks around the corner Prez, and you’ll have piece of mind knowing you’ll always have access to medical attention whether it’s BUPA or NHS, 24 hours a day, any place in Britain, employed or unemployed.
Quote: Then discuss it with the parents who want their children to enjoy the education you had, and have to pay vast sums for it.
The education in the US is utter crap! Any inkling of intelligence I posses I got in England. University in the US costs a fortune and British standards are far superior. Ask USARMY about SAT’s: a piss easy standardized test taken by eighteen year olds in English and Maths prior to University entrance. British sixteen year old GCSE takers contend with at least seven more subjects at much higher levels. The cost for just ONE year in the average US University is $15,000!!!! The better Ivy League Universities are $40,000 for ONE year!!! 95% of degrees are on 4 year programs. If I wanted an education comparable to Oxbridge I would kiss goodbye to $160,000!!!!!!!!! At that price what sort of people do you think have access to these schools? You guessed it, rich folk, or the top 10% of the 280,000,000, Americans. GW went to Yale University. Tuition at Yale in 2002 was $30,830 for one year!!
Finally, it would be a waste of time getting into political debates since we share a difference in ideology. I won’t change your mind and you certainly won’t change mine. The majority of people in this forum are of a Conservative persuasion, and I didn’t come here to evangelize. This is a military forum and I’m here to talk about the military. No Prez, the US isn’t nice, which is why I’m coming back to Britain to join the Royal Marines and serve the country I love so much. I've traveled the world and there is nowhere I’d rather be.
:laola:
I’m well aware of the voting system in the UK. The same system is used in the famed US Presidential election. It’s called the Electoral College. In this system the winner takes all in single member districts. (FPTP, First Past the Post.) (Districts having different populations as in Britain). Such a system works well except when results are close as in the 2000 Presidential election where GW won the most electoral votes but Al Gore won the popular vote. They/we ought to use a system of proportional representation. But before you get on your high horse, as I just said, your argument only holds credence if the election is close. When the Labour party holds 412 seats and the Conservatives hold only 166 one can be very confident that the party in power represents the democratic choice of the people.
If I were speaking to USARMY, clearly a Bush supporter, and appeal to him using your argument he would say I was a sore loser or “GoreLoserman”. (Al Gore ran in 2000 with Joe Liberman as his prospective vice-president.) Democrats in the US often point out that Bush didn’t really win the election. Now in our discussion, with you fine gents, you use the same argument in an effort to show me that Blair doesn’t represent the peoples choice, except in this case its the Conservative right that’s not in power rather than the Democrat left. My point is: the position you’ve taken is always the position of any loser in such an electoral system. At the end of the day the other side had to contend with the same rules and circumstances as your side did.
As for why Yanks say Math instead of Mathematics, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask one?
EL Prez,
You take a very defensive response to my posting, pointing out from every direction how Labour is weakening it’s grip on power. My use of the election results was to show the political alignment of the average Brit and hence explain the approach of BBC reporting, not to show how Conservatives were trounced, which they were. Your eager defensiveness exposes the frustration you have for your own party. The fact that there were 1,000,000 roaming the streets of London against the war was exactly the point of my argument! The BBC, being state run, reports with a leftward tilt since the majority of people are similarly aligned as I showed through the results of the election! In addition to this, just like all Conservatives you are predisposed to hate the BBC anyway, despite it’s leftward reporting, by fact of it being nationalized, so there is no point arguing BBC with you. I know you don’t like it.
Quote: Come back here and propose your argument in the waiting room of an NHS out-patients department. When your ears have stopped ringing…
No doubt if the Conservatives were in power the ‘ringing’ from the NHS out-patients might well be heard from my seat here in Atlanta since there would be no NHS. There is no NHS in the US. There are though, 75 million people without Health Insurance. I’d rather be in line than be without!! Those who are insured have claims that are constantly being turned down by their health insurance companies for some obsolete technicality, pushing the entire brunt of the bill on patients. The US has the highest prices for medical care and medicine on the planet. This is due to the monopoly on healthcare held by private companies who have no NHS to compete with. So they pick the price that suites them. The highest price suites them. (Watch the Denzel Washington Movie: ‘John Q’) My father’s insurance company paid $9,000 for his CAT scan when we feared he was having a stroke. If he had had no insurance he would have had to pay this himself. You might ask, “Well make sure you have insurance then.” To get insurance you have to work 35 hours a week. If you’re sick, laid off or your company cuts back hours… tough luck. You won’t be insured and neither will your kids. Even if you do have insurance you can ONLY go to certain doctors and certain hospitals. It’s a horrible system and many people go to great lengths to avoid going to hospital out of financial fear as their health continues to deteriorate. If you want me to go on with the NHS issue just tell me. I could go on for ages. Honestly, I’m being sincere when I say the system in Britain may not be brilliant but the private-only alternative is much, much worse. You never know what lurks around the corner Prez, and you’ll have piece of mind knowing you’ll always have access to medical attention whether it’s BUPA or NHS, 24 hours a day, any place in Britain, employed or unemployed.
Quote: Then discuss it with the parents who want their children to enjoy the education you had, and have to pay vast sums for it.
The education in the US is utter crap! Any inkling of intelligence I posses I got in England. University in the US costs a fortune and British standards are far superior. Ask USARMY about SAT’s: a piss easy standardized test taken by eighteen year olds in English and Maths prior to University entrance. British sixteen year old GCSE takers contend with at least seven more subjects at much higher levels. The cost for just ONE year in the average US University is $15,000!!!! The better Ivy League Universities are $40,000 for ONE year!!! 95% of degrees are on 4 year programs. If I wanted an education comparable to Oxbridge I would kiss goodbye to $160,000!!!!!!!!! At that price what sort of people do you think have access to these schools? You guessed it, rich folk, or the top 10% of the 280,000,000, Americans. GW went to Yale University. Tuition at Yale in 2002 was $30,830 for one year!!
Finally, it would be a waste of time getting into political debates since we share a difference in ideology. I won’t change your mind and you certainly won’t change mine. The majority of people in this forum are of a Conservative persuasion, and I didn’t come here to evangelize. This is a military forum and I’m here to talk about the military. No Prez, the US isn’t nice, which is why I’m coming back to Britain to join the Royal Marines and serve the country I love so much. I've traveled the world and there is nowhere I’d rather be.
:laola:
Last edited by Prime Minister on Sun 13 Apr, 2003 11:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Prime Minister
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Rotary Booty
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Fortunately I'm not an insomniac. I need my sleep or I'd write something witty! 
Come on back PM, join the Corp, then stand by for some real piss taking.
PS I'm not a Conservative, but I am conservative. I always respected the standards set by the BBC, but surely you have heard 'our' concerns about dumbing down. That's another topic and it's late, adieu.
Come on back PM, join the Corp, then stand by for some real piss taking.PS I'm not a Conservative, but I am conservative. I always respected the standards set by the BBC, but surely you have heard 'our' concerns about dumbing down. That's another topic and it's late, adieu.
You should talk to somebody who gives a f**k.
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El Presidente
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El Presidente
