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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lee: [QB] OK, simple: The country is divided up into about 630 parliamentary constituencies. During elections each of these votes for their Member of Parliament (MP), and whichever candidate from whichever party gets the most votes is the winner. The Government is then formed by the party which has the largest number of MPs. It doesn't have to be an overall majority (more than 50% of the House of Commons) in theory but in practise it's required otherwise the Government would never be able to win Commons votes. Fine so far? Now, some people, the Liberal Democrat party in particular, have said for a long time that this system doesn't accurately represent the will of the people, because, try as the boundary commission might, there are still variances in the number of voters in each constituency. They want the House of Commons to be apportioned according to the percentage of the electoral votes each party received nationwide. This is proportional representation (PR), and no government in power would go for it because a) despite winning on number of seats, every recent goverment in PR terms has received less than 50% of the total votes and so would have no overall majority; b) the Lib Dems' fraction of parliament would rise enormously, making them the likely party to form a coalition government with if the party in power is to be able to govern at all - but at the cost of compromise over policy. Countries like Italy do use PR, and think how many coalition governments they've had. Bragg is suggesting that the House of Lords, to be renamed the Second Chamber, be appointed using PR. OK? [/QB][/QUOTE]
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