David Cameron will often tell you that if you vote UKIP, you'll get Labour. Whaaaaaaaaaaaa...? ( ♫ ♫ ♫ ) We have in Britain, a First Past the Post voting system It seems simple enough whoever gets the most votes wins. Whats wrong with that? I'll tell you whats wrong with that - the spoiler effect. This is the fictional constituency of Little Upper Chipping Stortford on the Mimms. There are just two candidates: one from the Stripy Party, one from the Spotty Party. As you can see, the Spotty Party is more popular. But what happens if you introduce a third candidate from the Very Spotty Party? The Spotty vote is split and the Stripy Party, despite making more people unhappy, wins the election. Thats the spoiler effect, and that's not fair. Thats why people vote tactically they know which parties will do well, and they take this into account. I like the Very Spotty Party the best but they won't win. But the Spotty Party are quite nice, and they've got a good chance so I'll vote for the Spotty Party instead of the Very Spotty Party. I like the Extremly Stripy Party the best, but they have no chance of winning this seat. But I really can't stand the Spotty Party and I hate the thought of a Spotty government. So I'll have to vote for the Stripy Party instead, whom I hate. I usually vote for the Stripy Party to keep to Spotty Party out. But I've just moved here, and as this is a really safe Spotty seat I might as well vote how I really feel which is Flowers! Thats how we've ended up with the two party system. It isn't actually in the rules that two parties need to be bigger than everyone else Or that only two parties get taken seriously by the media but that's just how it happens all by itself. It's just maths. Maths! And as the opinion of the general population changes so too do the policies of the two big parties and, in general, inevitably, in the long term, they perform about as well as each other. Some people like this. They say it gives us strong governments who get things done. I say it gives us strong governments who get things done. But others, say that its not fair. We're only reduced to tactical voting because we can't vote how we really feel. So what are the alternatives? Why don't we switch to one of those? Well, we almost did. In 2011 we had a referendum on whether to switch to the Alternative Vote, or "AV". In this system, instead of voting for just one candidate you rank them 1, 2, 3. This means people can vote for who they ideally want to win first, and then put their safe choice second. It means a fairer result for everyone. But surprise, surprise, surprise both the big parties tried to make AV look really scary which is ironic really, because David Cameron, one of the most vocal opponents of electoral reform, was voted leader of the Conservative Party under a system just like AV. And if they'd used First Past the Post his silver fox rival David, David, David Davis would have won instead. Anyway, their scaremongering worked. 68% of us voted to keep First Past the Post. It means that for the foreseeable future, this is how we'll be voting - tactically. Not necessarily for the party we like best, but for the party with the best chance of winning that we least don't un-hate the most. Can you really blame the big party politicians for doing their best to preserve the status quo? And keep the system thats allowed them to stay in power for hundreds of years? Yes!
Jay Foreman has a great series on politics on YouTube. If you liked this, check it out.