On 27/06/16 19:18, pamela wrote:
On 18:55 27 Jun 2016, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 27/06/16 17:57, pamela wrote:

Maybe you didn't pick up on why I said "under the existing
system". I was referring to FPTP.


So was I.

My comment stands. You don't understand the mathematics of FPTP.


There's nothing in the arithmetic of FPTP that a semi-sentient 15
year old couldn't understand. What do you need me to do? Prove
Duverger's?

I need you to understand that 'Ukip cant translate votes into seats'
becomes a false statement when the vote share climbs above 25% or so in
a three way election.

Duvergers's expresses the 'barrier to entry' of new parties. By and
large they either tend to have a local base, or fail.

However, if that barrier to entry is overcome, the speed with which a
three party system will actually tend to a *new* two party system is not
mentioned in that theorem.

You need to go back to basics statistics to understand that.

UKIP stands on the threshold. As a national party they are polling more
than the liberal democrats have ever done in my memory. What has held
them back has been a local stronghold. BUT if they have aspirations to
be a national party, a local stronghold is not what they need.

There is every chance that if Labour continue to shoot themselves in the
foot, UKIP will overtake them in a small landslide to become the main
party of opposition. That's when Duverger's starts to work in their
favour, driving down labour seats to localised core support in e.g.
London, and the 'University' towns.

And we end up with a globalist corporatist tory party, and a libertarian
socialist UKIP party, in the sense of 'caring about little people'
rather than Marxist ideals.

Duverger says UKIP shouldn't exist, and shouldn't be in the least bit
successful. That it is, shows that something is wrong with the current
two parties, and there exists a demographic that isn't represented by
either of them.

If the tory party goes small c conservative, no one is left to represent
the corporate interests, and they have big money. So they wont go that
way. If Labour goes hard marxist left, they leave the real working class
behind, and that means UKIP will replace them as the small c
conservative party with a real (as opposed to faux) social conscience,
but with a pragmatic outlook. IF Labour goes for the real working class,
all the luvvies and the ******ati will desert them as being vulgar
plebby and politically incorrect.

You can have Bob Geldof, or Mrs Duffy, but not both.


Either way, its death for the hard left. They simply don't represent
anything more than a bunch of spoilt over privileged white middle class
******s, to whom its all a grand romantic enthusiasm. And a few dyed in
the wool commies, who are more of a joke than anything else.



--
€œit should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism
(or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans,
about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and
the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a
'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,'
a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for
rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet
things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that
you live neither in Joseph Stalins Communist era, nor in the Orwellian
utopia of 1984.€�

Vaclav Klaus