Cleese on PR (full length)

John Cleese in 1987 video talks about proportional representation using examples from British elections - focus on what Americans call Choice Voting (choicevoting.com)

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• John
• Cleese
• proportional
• representation
• pr
• fairvote
• choice
• voting

[Josssssshhhhhhhhhh]

having said that, I agree with everything else in this video, please don't hate

[elco9791]

13 people can't count to 5

[thecomanche1]

PR ! More seats ! Why should we fund any more Goon politicians than we have to ! We have it right lets just deal with the two parties and give the third runner a few token seats. Its Common sense.

[yoctocb]

@marris42 Actually more like 25 years ago

[marris42]

its depressing that this was 30 years ago...

[Faboba]

@cardwitch91 PS - Labour will never support PR; it was surprising they were even willing to include AV in their manifesto (though that was promptly withdrawn during negotiations). The MPs in Labour heartlands (primarily Glasgow and the North East) owe their seats to the FPTP system which, if it didn't exist, would lead to the voters of all other parties ejecting them for being corrupt (as happened, even under FPTP in the Glasgow East by-election). Blair promised AV+ in 97 but was blocked by them

[Faboba]

@cardwitch91 (As you can read in David Laws book) We did push for PR but the Tories wouldn't accept it; they'd rather have governed as a minority and called fresh elections. We assumed given AV was half of PR-STV, the system of PR the LibDems and Electoral Reform Society support, people would vote for it and it was better than nothing (PR-STV is AV in constituencies with multiple members, like Ireland and Scottish councils). We underestimated the audacious mendacity of the NO campaign.

[Faboba]

@cyanmanta Actually it's even worse than that, because the role of money in US politics means a) you can effectively only run for the Senate and above if you have considerable independent wealth, b) you can only run for executive offices if you can raise a large amount of money from big money donors (corporations and special interest groups) and c) by consequence there is a heavy skew to the right-wing and strong resistance to change as anyone elected by the current system knows how to work it.

[cyanmanta]

The kind of two-party system he described in 1987 is essentially the way our US two-party system works today; nobody has any intelligent ideas, nobody is willing to compromise, and no long-term goals can ever be met because all the Republocrats care about is winning in the short term. We actually seem to pride ourselves on having an electoral system that's about 80 years out of date...

[irishgodfatherchris]

@Udany147 I think a Bicameral Parliament is best because it allows for the sharing of power and not just having one house forcing their will on everyone else, but just have an Upper House elected by STV from Multi-Member Electorates.

[Udany147]

@irishgodfatherchris Didn't know about that. Hmm. that could be a really good alternative to the House of Lords. I don't think any "upper house", countries the size of Turkey can do with a unicameral parliament, and I'm sure Britain can too.